normality

the women of the office: they're all cogs with one knob at the back missing; they see everyone else's flaws, but never their own. 'don't get involved with office politics' i was warned. a university office like this one, one of hundreds across the campus, is a hotbed of anti-popes and assumed authority. today, my workload was reduced by 6 fat files of choice forms when a lass came over and said she could upload them all as csv files. great! i said. how does that avoid someone putting them onto the computer? i thought. i'm sure they'll be back on my desk by the end of the week.

i was told i was normal recently. intended as a compliment. i'm not sure it was the right word the person (claire) was looking for. i feel normal, most of the time, except when i find bits of myself that are missing by skirting around their edges. but it's hard to not realise that there are more common patterns of behaviour than the ones i exert. surely not everyone can hate walking into a supermarket as much as i do? organic veg, imported from kenya? spinach, washed in fucking spring water (shell told me this was because there'd been a controversy over salad washed in chlorine..)? meat grown fat on brazilian soy crop? and is it actually possible to buy unbranded items anymore? bring back the world o' shit blog, i say.

there is an inspirational story attached to this, of an impromptu request for company to a stranger on a bus (not my courage of course, but alun/rufus's to the claire in question). wouldn't it be nice if i could climb out of my shell like that? but, alas, the terror still holds. it never feels appropriate to ask, not that i know how, and i still wouldn't know a pass if it sat me down and asked for my phone number. especially when people act like they're flirting with everyone, all the time.

this trench will never be dug deep enough.

and so:

three geordies (i cannot do the accent):
darra lives with gazza and billa. he comes down the stairs one morning to find gazza alone in the kitchen.
"where's billa?" he says.
"billa's gone the shops" says gazza.
"has billa?"
"no, it's just the way i'm defacing the star of david."