My name's Dave. I'm working on it.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Bollocks and Band-Aids

Before entropy sets in completely, let's get a bit of an update here.
I'm still churning out the same whiny shit in my notebooks, but I'll spare you that rubbish here. I set in to work today, thinking the whole thing through, and reckon I've made some progress on how to cut down on the wanking and just get on with my work a bit easier.
The job is good, yet I am managing to constantly fuck my hands up. Between peeling roasted pimentos, blanching kale and doing load after load of dishes, I find myself with withered, exfoliated hands on a daily basis, and a variety of cuts and pokes as well. I type this now with five band-aids covering various fingers. Either I'll grow thicker skin or learn to be more careful. I worry at the fact that many of these little holes I find in my skin appear inexplicably. I don't know how I got them; it's as if someone were sticking pins in a voodoo doll.
I am fascinated, when I come home to clean these wounds by pouring hydrogen peroxide over them, just how much of my hands light up white as the chemicals react to the bacteria. My skin bubbles and stings. Then the handsoap, the rinsing, the wrapping of transparent band-aids. The rest will attend to itself.
I don't know if anyone else has this, er, tendency, but lately I've felt inclined to adopt an English accent whenever I speak, and sometimes even incorporate English slang into my language as well. I admit that I've always been something of an Anglophile, but I think I'm going through some kind of phase as well these days. Maybe it's all the British television I've been watching. Spaced, for instance. Good lord, where have I been? I've just been loaned all four dvds of Black Adder as well, which I've never seen. Apparently I'm in for a treat. I'm enjoying The Smoking Room quite a bit. Not to mention this hilarious bit from Extras wherein Daniel Radcliffe finally escapes his Harry Potter trappings.
So it has seeped into my language a bit. I find myself wanting to greet everyone with an 'alright?' instead of a 'hi how are you?'
It makes more sense. Brief, to the point, and no answer is expected. Not to mention the fact that hi, how are you is, at least for me, a hollow exchange that I feel more or less obligated to spit out but hate all the same. I imagine other people are just as tired of it as I am. But I also imagine that I'd get many an odd look if I went round saying 'alright.'
Getting back to my point. If you were a fly on the wall while I happened to be talking myself through something serious (it's helpful, what do you want) you'd probably find me slipping into a bit of an accent. Even if I were alone. I feel like a bit of a wanker for doing so, but I also don't really like my own voice and feel ridiculous when I hear myself saying anything. So getting a bit in character is useful. And if it works, well, fair play to me. Alright?
That about covers things for now. I'll try to debut some proper fiction before too much longer, if I can successfully get past my ridiculous hangups and such. I'm writing this and that, and I've begun a new webcomic just for kicks. But I need more. I'm still holding back. Still looking for some magic key, some golden ticket.
It hardly needs mentioning that summer has finally turned its toes up, and fall has come at last. So in honor of that, here's some tunes for you.

Hawksley Workman - Autumn's Here
Elf Power - The Spider and the Fly
Tim Buckley - Hallucinations/Troubadour (live)
Shearwater - The Kind
Yo La Tengo - I Feel Like Going Home
Low - In the Drugs

And Bob's your uncle.

6 comments:

  1. Blackadder is great. It must be weird for people who think of Hugh Laurie as an angry American doctor. I will always think of him as Prince Regent... or Wooster, or the guy in A Bit Of Fry And Laurie.

    I hope they have the Christmas special Blackadder on there; best Xmas evere.

    I was in London for a while; maybe a bit of it stays in my lingo, but it's mostly just from watching tons of Brit stuff.

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  2. one day i'll run into you biffling about on your own, talking to yourself, with the accent of course. but it will just seem normal.

    i do that to keep myself entertained when i'm bored. or after watching foreign movies ... i can't help it sometimes.

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  3. i havent noticed an english accent yet...

    what???

    stop watching and start writing!!!!

    alright??

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  4. I did tell you about my ex-boyfriend's brother who did this, right? He did it all the time, and when people asked him about it, he said in all seriousness, "Why, whatever do you mean?" He's either a little wacky, or a comic genius. I've never quite been able to decide.

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  5. Hey, if you ever need a ride to the BBQs, let me know. They are gonna be on Fridays now... I dunno if that's a schedule conflict for ya or not, but figured you might like a lift sometimes.

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  6. im sorry i was cold and cruel.
    i do tend to get a bit snappy at times.
    please forgive me.

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