Events of 2005:Tuesday 21st January 2005I've just come back from Los Angeles, again, and I'm getting back into the swing of things. I hate the swing of things! I was completely shaken up for about two weeks. Couldn't go to sleep for about three days. I started seeing things - I thought there were tarantulas in my bed, and I thought Nadia spent half the night retuning the radio. Which she didn't. I also thought a friend of mine had broken both legs, but when pressed, could not remember which friend. Grr, and so on. Friday 25th March 2005Nadia has a Japanese friend called Taiko. They met in UCLA. Taiko is some kind of genius, because not only did she ace all her exams, but managed to be more or less perfectly competent in the dreadful language that is English in not very much time. However, in common with many Asian people, she has trouble pronouncing the letter 'L'. It often comes out sounding more like an 'R'. I'm mentioning all this, because without the context it could appear that I'm mocking her accent, or generally trying to make her look stupid. However, the following conversation did happen. Some time ago, we were in her house in Santa Monica when she was pregnant with her little girl, discussing what names might be nice.
We received a phone call recently. They called the child Jacqueline. *I should probably point out here that Taiko, apart from being a genius, is also a lovely human being, and would never even consider just telling me to fuck off, like she surely should have. I was getting frustrated, and was probably a bit more aggressive than I should have been. But then, hey, that's me. Saturday 2nd April 2005I pick up the phone in my shop to hear the disturbing news that our broadband connection is refusing the password that has served us so well until just now. Will these thoughts ever make it out of the machine? Did I download one Britney Spears pic too many? Is there such a thing? Then a more focused fear sets in - what if we can never access the internet ever again? What happens if it's all just disappeared overnight? No more instant answers to arcane questions, no more song lyrics on tap, no more terrible photos of apparently real people on grubby dating sites! Friday 22nd July 2005It's bad enough being accident prone, but I have a verbal variety of the same problem. For instance, today I was shaking hands with a customer after a sale, and we were almost connecting when I realised he only had half a hand, so the focus became less on being friendly, and more on maintaining the illusion that this man's hand was OK. This was weird, and questions started to attack my brain - how hard should I press? So hard that it more or less caves in? But if I don't press hard enough it's going to be obvious that I have some sort of prejudice against ill-fingered people. So then I was wondering when I should disconnect. Not too soon - can't look like I'm disgusted. Anyway, it's not my fault. I didn't cut off three of the guy's fingers! But now I was getting defensive about my lack of equanimity in what should really have been a very simple situation. The conversation proceeded in a very superficial way, as most of my mind was still on making sure not to look at the hand, or mention it in any way. To my horror, I found my ensuing conversation liberally studded with references to: being caught with his hand in the cookie jar; you have to hand it to him; green fingers; giving him the finger; finger food; Captain Hook; making money hand over fist; not lifting a finger to help; wearing hand-me-downs; pulling your finger out; handouts; hand-picked; a business changing hands; the hand that rocks the cradle; playing into his hands; and information being at one's fingertips. Monday 31st October 2005Hallowe'en!Earlier in the day, we see preparations being made for some sort of military activity - small children fixing mortars into the ground, laughing amongst themselves about the coming carnage. As the day progresses, my mood becomes more tense. 20:30 - We have managed to survive three main attack waves. All that's left is stragglers and desperadoes. It's the latter we have most reason to be frightened of ... they will do anything for candy, and they are not against over-riding our security protocols or outflanking our auxilliary defence mechanisms. 21:30 - We're taking some serious RPG-fire on the gable end of the house. Cleverly masquerading as party-goers with innocent fireworks, they're laying waste to the green area beside our house. The sky is bright with the sparky colours of death ... the incandescent auras of a world gone mad ... there are colours everywhere, and bright lights banging and whooping and diving and screeching .. the children are gone now .. only teenagers and vandals remain. We are still holed up at Ground Zero. We have requested air support and emergency evac. but I'm not hopeful... 22:57 - I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving. Tuesday 26th December 2005CaliforniaThe flight from Shannon to Boston was so choppy that I lost my voice. Also, my ears stopped working for about four days. I couldn't hear anything, and there was a lot of pain. It was so bad that I couldn't walk in a straight line, and I had my hands on my ears pretty much constantly, in a vain attempt to make the pain go away. Only one out of the five members of her family in that house noticed any difference in my behaviour. Thursday 28th December 2005It's possible that I've come across the two stupidest dogs in the world in my wife's aunt's house. They are called, in a seeming homage to comic literature not reflected in the actual tastes of the family, "Gotham" and "Krypton". So here's the set-up: I throw tennis ball, dog brings it back, repeat to fade. Standard dog behaviour, right? Dog 1 (Gotham): I throw ball - Gotham sprints towards where it landed, runs right over it, and continues straight on. We don't see him for two days. Dog 2 (Krypton): I throw ball - Krypton (a golden retriever!), to his credit, gets the ball, comes back to me ... but then won't give me the bloody thing. He just stands there, tail wagging like mad. So I go to grab it out of his mouth and he moves away.
So I go back into the house. After some time, I see that he's dropped the ball and lost interest, so I go back out, and he sprints at the ball, grabs it, comes over to me, tail wagging like mad, and refuses to give me the ball, that he clearly had no interest in a minute beforehand. What the hell is wrong with these dogs? Friday 29th December 2005My observations on Los Angeles remain the same: it's full of Mexicans and Asians. However, the white people that you do see are all either old or ugly. There are some ugly-ass white people in this town. Thankfully, there are many pretty Mexicans and Asians to take the curse off. Roads are an ubiquitous feature of the Los Angeles landscape. It's a reversal of the usual procedure where roads link towns - in this place, towns are a mere inconvenience on your way to the next road. The roads are routinely six lanes wide, and although jay-walking is illegal, it's a law that requires no enforcement, as it is impossible to break. I tried. The people here drive huge cars needlessly. The "Hummer", a vehicle originally built for the military to use in harsh environments, is visible everywhere. I even saw a "Hummer" limousine, which is moderately grotesque. No one walks anywhere. Even homeless people (presumably car-less too) don't walk ... they just sort of hang around whatever scrounging patch they have carved for themselves. Sometimes you can see aged Mexicans wheeling shopping carts - full of something - along streets far from any supermarket. Sometimes you see young Mexican men rolling along sidewalks on bicycles much too small for them. I have no idea what either of these types are up to. Maybe I should ask one of them some time.
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