Thursday, October 28, 2010

Chocolate! Fire alarms! Paris!! Spell!!!

Dear Reader,

I am battling bloggers block and the urge to eat chocolate, a combination that has a tendency to drive a person mad. I get ideas when I am about to be claimed by sleep, and by the time I wake up, poof! All fantastic (at least in my semi conscious state, they seem so) post ideas are gone. So as I sit here before my laptop and wonder what to type, I am struck by random, random thoughts. Should I inflict them upon you, or should I sift through them and pick up one that I could elaborate, tweak and beat into submission, into something that vaguely resembles some coherent flow of thought? I wonder, I ponder and I decide: Blitz Krieg!

In Paris (yes, you lot are going to hear about this place so much, you might as well give in), in Paris, I went to a pub with the group I was travelling with. In the dark pub that was lit only by UV lights, everything became very interesting (anyone remember that Friends episode where Ross whitens his teeth for a date?) Our t-shirts, teeth, eyes glowed a ghostly white and the ambience was seductive. A pianist, super cheerful with a glass of whiskey next to him, played out tunes in a surprisingly accent free voice. People around us were steadily getting drunk, while he sang soulful songs. But after every song, there would be just a couple of people clapping, and as I sat there looking at him, I wondered how he did this job. Imagine sitting there, playing for a bunch of people for whom your music was just white noise? My soul would die a bit each night if I were him. Whiskey would help prop up my spirits too though, I suppose...

You know what technology – text messaging, online chatting, facebook - has done to this world? Besides making us into complete idiots who depend on technology for the simplest of things, it has ruined our ability to spell (mum, don’t laugh, I can spell, ok?). I often wonder what would happen if people (and I don’t mean annoying teenagers, I mean fellow 20+ year olds) type ‘you’ instead of ‘u’? or ‘this’ instead of ‘dis’? it is amaaazzzzzziiiinn dat ppl r unabl 2 typ cmplte wrds. I wonder how much effort it takes to type that odd vowel? I assure the followers of this culture, that contrary to popular belief, those ‘a’s, ‘e’s and ‘I’s are important. Really, they are.

I love fire alarms. Everyone I know and lived with for the past one year in halls greeted them with pure, unadulterated loathing, while I would run out of my room with a huge grin. I consider fire alarms to be a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends. Others did not agree though. The general hatred towards the alarms was compounded by the fact that it always went off at odd hours, usually between 1 am and 6 am when some fellow creature of the night was burning food or smoking stealthily (and unsuccessfully) in their rooms. In my case, this meant I was wide awake every time, since I don’t keep to human times. Shelby called me a “bloody prophet” because the alarms uncannily went off often on days when I would mention them. “Ooh Shel, love those pyjamas, I hope the fire alarm goes off so that people see them”/ “Sigh. Last days, and no fire alarms. So sad.” Were followed by the ear splitting “teeooooteeeoooteeeoo” of the alarm. I think my flatmates hated me a bit because of this.

Strange and highly disorganised monologue done. Thank you for reading.

Love,

Me.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Fire alarm: a great chance to spot and stalk... I'm grateful to them :)