January 23, 2009

Suggestions, please

I am having the very odd productive afternoon. Mine is not to question, merely to observe.

It could be just procrastinating on a story I have to write (well, re-write ... well, no actually the re-write is so substantial that I'll stick with my original choice, I need to write it), but I've gotten a good jump on this week's online IBET course (oh yes, I'm taking a work-sponsored 10-week online course along with this term's MA module, along with the work thing, along with trying to get back in shape at the gym, along with fighting a relapse of that cold/man-flu/URI/TB scare I had over the holidays).

Anyway, I've been tidying up in preparation for this evening's writing and reading (90 pages of fiction a day from now until 02/02 then it's back to about a novel a week) and and came across an unused 2008-2009 Moleskin Pocket Weekly Notebook (which I'm not sure when, where, or why I bought).

Surely that must be useful for something clever, creative and ... wait for it ... noteworthy.

Suggestions?

January 13, 2009

In Which I Join the Transit Police

I was heading to the gym this afternoon (two days in a row, must be the end of days), minding my own business, reading the interminably rambling Kalooki Nights (new term, new reading list).

A pair of young Primark shoppers got on at Marble Arch. One plopped down next to me and the other sat across from her. The girl next to me emptied her small brown Primark bag and placed the contents into her rucksack. She folded up the bag and offered it to her spot-chinned companion, who had a large shopping bag on the floor between her feet. Girl-in-need-of-Stridex shook her head, not wanting to carry the extra paper. So my seat mate reached over her head and placed the folded bag on the back of the seat, shrugging her shoulders.

I turned my head towards her and said very loudly, "No."

"Why?"

"Because this is a train, not your personal rubbish can. Either put the bag in your backpack or carry it out of the station with you and toss it in a bin." She placed it on her lap.

I went back to my book and got off a couple stops later, resisting the impulse to stare down the shopper (Primark? What does one expect?) and wag my finger at her.

And so begins 2009, the year of the grumpy old man.

January 8, 2009

Happy Damn New Year

I'm back in London, a little jet lagged and on Week Trois of feeling less than 100 percent. Admitted defeat earlier in the week and went on antibiotics. Last tablet of Z-Pak gets taken today. Goo is still being produced, but at least it's not green anymore.

And really, that's all the blog I've got right now.