I came back from my holiday intending to send e-mails to say hi to all the lovely people I met while I was away. It’s been almost a week, and I haven’t even sent one. Guilt, guilt. I’ll try and get around to sending them tonight. Honest.
Author: Alasdair
Automobiles Do Nothing
Something I noticed on holiday: the difference between trains and planes. Yes, very funny. Haha. No – the difference in my thought processes when travelling on them.
See, I like being in transit. I’m not so fond of travelling (which is why I hadn’t been outside the UK in over half a decade until two weeks ago), but I like being in transit. Being between one place is for want of a better phrase, a magical experience for me. On the train, my brain runs nineteen to the dozen, and I find myself writing down ideas as fast as they occur to me. I’ve been known to spend 5 hours and more frantically scribbling down concepts, ideas, fragments and general thoughts. On a plane, on the other hand, my brain shuts down. I have to force myself to keep busy – reading, firming up old notes (try as I might, I can’t do anything new on a plane, only scratch at the edges of old ideas, and not always very successfully) but for the most part, I’m faintly zoned out.
God knows why this should be the case.
Social
Clearly, the gods hate me. I re-join a mailing list that work has kept me away from for the last couple of months, because work seemed to have slacked off a bit. Then my workload goes and doubles, and I’m left running away from the list in order to stay on top of the job. About twenty minutes after I re-subscribed. That’s a special kind of embarrassing.
First Draft
“He’s a stupid bastard sometimes. I mean, he gets confused about what’s really important. Sometimes I think he knows me, other times I think we might as well be on different planets.
Look at him now, sitting there moping over some imagined failing on his part, like a great useless lump. Why can’t he see that whatever it is, it doesn’t fucking matter? I don’t want him to be perfect. Just happy. I mean, it’s kind of sweet and all, and it shows he cares, but for fuck’s sake!
Well bollocks to this. I want some fun. We’re going to the pub, if I have to drag him there.”
Strung Out
God, I’m shattered. A week in New Orleans, and one day of this con, and I’m more or less dead. This isn’t good. Three days of con to go, not enough money, not enough sleep, and plenty of bile ahead of me – god knows I could write a column right now and it would be solid hate. Now I’m off to watch a bunch of strangers eat food I don’t like. Wish me luck.
Preparation
God, I hate getting ready to go on holiday. Last minute panics, wondering if I’ve forgotten anything, and general frantic effort. Still this time on Thursday, I’ll be somewhere over the USA.
Absent
Going on holiday soon. Hurrah!
Finder
Jumping on the bandwagon very late, as usual. Finder by Carla Speed McNeil. Read it. It’s one of those books that’s like nothing else out there. If it has a flaw, it’s that it’s very slow and meandering. If I hadn’t had a very large chunk to read in one sitting, I’d probably not have been as impressed, but thankfully there are two trades available that collect the first story (see what I mean about slow?), and I have no hesitation in recommending them, knowing that they will reward both your money and your time.
Savagery
Ross: “Alasdair doing anything other than spitting bile always sounds slightly false.”
Visual
This one I just want to talk about because it made me happy.
Topic #3: I’m cute.
Apparently. After all the other strangeness last night, amid the drunken revelry and general good craic, two strange women dragged me outside, in order to tell me that I was cute, and looked like a fun sort of person. Subtle, no? I’m not used to this sort of thing happening to me, I have to say.
Understand: I don’t like the way I look. “Cute” is about the last word I would use to describe myself. My little brother got all the “cute” genes in the family – I got the ones that make my brain run at along strange lines and at peculiar speeds, which seems like a pretty fair trade to me.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a good judge of how I look. And besides, what does it matter to me how I look? I’m not then one that has to look at me. The only impact it might have on me is my confidence. And if I’m not going to give a damn, what have a got to be self-concious about? Yeah, I don’t get folk lusting over me like happens to some of my friends. (Line of the night last night award goes to Joseph, who, when I asked him why he’d show Antony his sketchings and not me, replied “Because he’s cute, and you’re not.”) I don’t give a damn. Apparently, there are people out there that like the way I look. Maybe there aren’t many of them, and maybe they’re not the people I’d like them to be, but I’ll take my compliments where I can get them.
So, for today at least, I’m cute.