the Government's new 'Dig up the Road plan for congesting traffic Scheme'

[freckles_and_doubt]

It must be summer. The city is slowly filling up with tourists, heat, smells and roadworks, not necessarily in that order. I may have to spend the next two months lying on the cold stone floor of my bathroom in a doomed attempt to get away from it all, writing book updates on the adjacent computer by a combination of telekinesis and foot contortions while the cats bring me cooling draughts alternating with actual Earl Grey tea for the necessary motive power.

In other summertime news, we are having a bad outbreak of Mad Neighbour, who has resumed her tendency to shout "Filthy pigs!" over the garden wall whenever we have the effrontery to actually (gasp!) socialise in our very own back courtyard. I'm spending happy free moments between mass assaults on Italo Calvino in composing a brief, dignified and very very rude letter to her, pointing out that she has absolutely no grounds for complaint and we wouldn't listen to her even if she was capable of couching said complaints in an adult, reasonable fashion, which she isn't. Still considering whether to add a rider to the effect that she is a laughing-stock and byword to our immediate social circle and a select portion of Teh Internet. Also, the Friendly Psychologist thinks said Mad Neighbour is simply a sad person with no actual social life of her own whose attacks are motivated by jealousy, although I probably shouldn't add that to the letter in the interests of World Peace. Actually, it just occurred to me: next time we braai out there we should orchestrate co-ordinated bursts of singing in retaliation. I'm thinking "Always Look On the Bright Side Of Life", scored for librsa, thumping and military spoons.

Memo to self: must stop reading four Goon Show scrips immediately before going to bed. Apart from infiltrating my subject lines¹ and generally degenerating my language to the level of thing, it's giving me extremely trippy and rather scurrilous dreams².

Now off for elephant soup and squodged spuds (or, possibly, a less heating sort of lunch) with the highly esteemed and pressed khoi_boi, partially for purposes of uninhibited Miyazaki-swopping. Somewhere in the last two years, amid the whimpering of my credit card, I've actually built up a DVD collection worthy of borrowage. Go figure.

¹The above from "The Red Capsule", a direct rip-off of "Quartermass and the Pit", of early cult BBC sf television fame. (2005 remake [of Quartermass, not the Goon Show] co-starring the same David Tennant who is shortly appearing as a Timelord in a big blue box on a screen near you if you happen to be in Britain or friendly with me, proud possessor of³ the first two serieseseses. The man clearly does sf somewhat wholesalely. Approval.)
² Involving bizarre erotic encounters at high speed on the back of a moving vehicle on a highway at night, all of above being transmitted live online for the delectation of a whole flock of interested light-flecks. Cameo appearances by certain individuals not unknown to these pages, although wild horses etc.
³ Well, Amazon promised they dispatched Season 2 yesterday, although my Amazing Mother, TM, will only haul the loot hence in mid-December. Anyone know where I can buy her a Bag of Holding for Christmas...?^4
4 Nested Footnotes R Us. If anyone's actually read down this far, is the smaller font too (a) academic, (b) pretentious, or (c) difficult to read? Thought so, she says gloomily.

Comments

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

(a) and (c)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

No sooner said than spling!

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Others may disagree... Hold out hope.

I have a book chapter in front of me entitled Reflective abstraction in humanities education: thematic images and personal schemas (by Lewin) which you might (??) find interesting. You too can be a Piagetian! It started off readable and rapidly became unreadable, but don't let me put you off. It talks about texts and student interpretations and horizons of concern (?) and Romanticism and other humanities-speak.

Also, I discover that Dubinsky and Lewin's (1986) casual use of the word "aliment" is all Lewin's fault.

[herne-kzn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm afraid I do not concur. I think the smaller text distiguished footnote from not rather nicely. but then I am both a) and b) with a passionate, and possibly unhealthy love for footnotes.

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Presume you're referring to the Doctor's Christmas Special this festive season, with Catherine Tate in a guest role, and sans Ms B. Piper? :-)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, and the entire season to follow, which I am awaiting with more than the usual degree of fangirly anticipation. Shall have to hit strawberryfrog for the usual illicit download deal... I think by this stage I owe the man a bottle of champagne, or something.

pr0n dreams

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

I usually tell people when they've starred in an erotic dream. I love to see the brief panicked look on the person's face as performance anxiety about their exploits in my dream sets in. Hee hee.

Re: pr0n dreams

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Evil-minded woman! Nope, I prefer not to reveal the exact details of my subconscious leanings. Other than to extremely carefully-selected female friends, in private. Often while drunk.

Re: pr0n dreams

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

heh. mental image:
... whereupon you tipsily confess to the female friend that she has featured in your more erotic dreams for years now, and it's time you came out and admitted it.

Re: pr0n dreams

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Well, odd you should mention it...

Actually, no. I am sufficiently secure in my heterosexuality that erotic dreams about any of my female friends would cause no angst at all: I'd cheerfully admit it, probably with details, amid giggling, knowing full well that actually my subconscious was talking about something else entirely. Whereas erotic dreams about actual male friends have an off-chance of actually being about sex. About which I am reticent to the point of being British.

Re: pr0n dreams

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

I've been admiring this userpic of yours for a while now. Where'd it come from?

Re: pr0n dreams

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I made it ;>. There's a site where you can make your own South Park user icon. Here (http://www.vexatori.de/zib/sp-studio.swf), she says, Googling frantically, having neglected to keep a bookmark.

I feel that my efforts nicely combine a Goth vibe with a suitable glower, an umbrella under which to huddle from the showers of vicissitudes, and the eternally vital cup of tea. I feel represented.

Re: pr0n dreams

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. It wasn't as immediately recognisable as South Park as khoi_boi's was. I actually went to that site last night, trawling the web for an avatar creation site that would allow me to create a nun avatar, but to no avail. I made this rather fetching little thing, though. Like it?

Re: pr0n dreams

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Fetching! which site did you use to create it?

Re: pr0n dreams

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

http://elouai.com/portrait-maker/avatar.php
based on, er... a Lollipop Doll

further on the footnotes

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

I notice that, reading this entry at home, on my laptop, the font size is perfect. It's at work that's the problem, requiring me to look all geriatric, and wrinkle up my face while peering myopically at the screen. I just shouldn't go to work...

Re: further on the footnotes

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Um, sorry, no, that's because I changed it back to the normal size in immediate response to your comment, having gloomily suspected it was too small. Whatever herne_kzn might say :>. Pervy footnote-fancier that he is.

You'll have to find another reason to bunk work, I'm afraid.

Your Nice Husband just noticed that I'd had my hair cut. You train him well. Approval :>.

Re: further on the footnotes

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Ah. Dang.

Nope, no training, that's just him naturally. *smug*
And he can do computery stuff.