LouiSeStrange

Part Three of my Brokeback Mountain fanfiction is, um, up and you can read it here.

You know you want to.

Current mood: content

 

Brokeback sure got me good.  I have started writing Brokeback Mountain fanfiction.  If you feel so inclined, you may read it here.  It's good as a writing excercise - I haven't written anything in aaaages, so this will get my creative juices, er, flowing again.  Or something.  If you read it and comment on LJ, be nice.  If you can't be nice, at least try to be witty.

That's been keeping me busy over the past week, along with work, of course, which has been even more nightmarish than usual due to the fact that the manager of my branch has been on holiday for five weeks and the assistant manager has gone off sick with stress, leaving me as the most senior member of staff to run the place.  And I've only been there for five months.  And all at the end/beginning of the tax year too! My, but the world of banking is both tedious and treacherous *sigh* 

Other than that, we did go to see Henry Rollins in Edinburgh, and his show was severely disappointing, either because a) we're just a bit too old for his crazy worldview or b) he's turned a bit crap. You decide.

We also saw a Neil Gaiman play, The Wolves in the Walls, which was really aimed at kids, but still ok, especially as we met the man himself there.  How cool.

Life has been eventful - we also saw Placebo, who were ok - I haven't seen them live since 1999 - but lacked a certain je ne sai qua. C'est la vie!

We were back to theatre last night for a production of Edward Scissorhands, which wasn't all that we'd hoped for. The advertising around the production is a little vague, in that it doesn't tell you that it is Edward Scissorhands conveyed entirely through the medium of dance.  Fairly entertaining at points, but I like words (in the form of dialogue or lyrics; whatever) too much to really 'get' this kind of thing.  It also lacked a lot of it's beautiful gothic fairytale quality for many reasons, one of which is that Edwards black leathery bodywear was replaced by a brown lycra number.  And the guy playing Edward looked like Tony from Hollyoaks.

In other news - found out my youngest Aunt (who's 38) is pregnant with her first child, so that's...interesting.  The youngest member of my family is 17, so a child around will be strange and quite possibly disturbing. 

That's all for now, toodle-pip.

Current mood: gloomy

 

I've been overcome, these past few days, by what feels like a bucketload of ennui and general malancholia. I don't know why, but I feel like a big black cloud is floating ominously around my head.  It's been a while since I've felt like this and it's come seemingly from nowhere and at a particularly inoppertune moment. Things are going well - I found out on Monday that that my interview last week was successful and I thus have a shiny new job to start next month (I know, another one) and this weekend we're going to Edinburgh to see Henry Rollins and staying overnight in a lovely hotel, stopping off at out very favourite restaurant in the world while we're there (The Witchery). Things are good. I have gigs and plays and a new job to look forward to. I have a lovely boyfriend and an excitible dog. I have no right at all to feel like this, but *sigh* I do.  Maybe it's the thought of spending a week in Bletchley in May to train for my upcoming job that's doing it. No offence to anyone who may be reading in the Bletchley area, or anything. Maybe it's the time of year - the anniversary of my Gran's death just passed and it was also this time last year that I haphazardly quit my job and lead us into a period of uncertainty and copious debt that we're only now clawing our way out of.  I do feel better tonight though - the cloud's beginning to lift, leaving more of a hazy mist of melancholia behind, which I can deal with. Tonight helped - a cosy night in, I caught up with some BBM fanfic and we watched The Good Girl, which was fan-bloody-tastic.  Mike White is the man. We also watched Land of The Dead this week, which I thought was a load of old balls.  I love the horror genre, cheesey as it can be, but I just don't get zombies.  What's to be scared of?  They walk at 0.5mph and...oh, don't get me started.

I'll end this post in a style befitting the tone; here's a nice gloomy picture I took last weekend, which can be viewed with others on Flickr, if you're so inclined.

 

 

Currently reading: A Confederacy of Dunces By John Kennedy Toole Release date: By 29 February, 2000

Forget BlogSpirit (if you haven't already) - there's a new site in town and it's name be Flickr. Click on any of the selection below to witness even more beatificious phographicness.

 

Oh, the job interview I had today was horrendous, btw *sigh*

Current mood: drunk

 

Check the ones you fear....(feel free to copy and repost this as a comment to share your answers...):

Are you afraid of.....

[ ] the dark
[ ] staying single
[ ] getting married
[X] being a parent
[X] giving birth
[X] being myself in front of others
[ ] open spaces
[ ] closed spaces
[ ] heights
[ ] cats
[ ] dogs
[ ] birds
[x]spiders and/or other insects
[ ] driving or being in cars
[ ] flying
[ ] being put to sleep (anesthesia)
[X] flowers or other plants
[ ] being touched
[ ] fire
[ ] water
[ ] the ocean
[ ] pools
[x] failure
[ ] success
[ ] germs
[ ] thunder/lightning
[ ] frogs/toads
[ ] mice/rats
[X] jumping from high places
[ ] snow
[ ] rain
[ ] wind
[ ] cemeteries
[ ] clowns
[ ] large crowds
[ ] demons or evil
[ ] crossing bridges
[X] death
[ ] Hell (don't believe in it)
[ ] Heaven (ditto)
[ ] being robbed
[X] being sexually assulted (surely if forced to choose no one would opt for sexual assault over being robbed? Unless they were particularly kinky)
[ ] men
[ ] women
[ ] having great responsibility
[ ] doctors, including dentists
[ ] tornadoes
[ ] hurricanes
[ ] being punished
[ ] diseases, including cancer and STD's
[ ] snakes
[ ] sharks
[ ] dinosaurs
[ ] Friday the 13th
[x] poverty
[ ] ghosts
[ ] Halloween
[x] school (long time ago though it was)
[ ] trains or railroads
[x] fear
[ ] being alone
[ ] losing my friends
[x] being blind
[x] being deaf
[x] growing up
[x] being murdered in my sleep

 

Currently listening: Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt By We Are Scientists Release date: By 30 June, 2005

We saw the fantastic 'Jerry Springer - The Opera' on Friday night.  For those of you not in the know, it's a comedy musical/opera based on - you guessed it - the infamously over the top talk show hosted by the one and only Jerry Springer.  The plot, drastically over-simplified, is made up of the usual guests/themes for the first half - I'm seeing a Chick with a Dick; I'm an Adult Baby etc., then, when Jerry is shot during an onstage scuffle he's plunged into hell to host a show in which he must play mediator in an age old row between the Devil and Jesus.  Hence the uproar from the Christian right - which we had the dubious pleasure of witnessing first hand on the way in to the theatre. 

In my previous post I mentioned the Christian Viocers protesting, that is, the right wing Christian group so completely devoid of any sense of humour or perspective that they sent death threats to the shows writer (my favourite comedian, Stewart Lee), it's cast and the TV chiefs who elected to broadcast the show on BBC2 a couple of years ago. Because, of course, they see the shows contents are blasphemous. I expected a few disgruntled oldies to be there, scowling at us heathens. I did not expect, on a cold, rainy Friday night to see a crowd of 50+ (that's 50+ in both numbers and in years) with banners emblazoned with crucifixes, asking "Wasn't Once Enough?" with a speaker system and microphones, bemoaning that filth like this persecutes a minority group in Britain today - that’s right, they're talking about that tiny, long-suffering minority group - the Christians - whilst pushing at people entering the theatre and shoving their religious propaganda leaflets at us - preaching hate, all the while singing hymns, pronouncing that "God is love, God is Peace, God is Forgiveness" and the like. And I thought they had no grasp of irony!

Needless to say, this kind of preachy hatemongering infuriates me – I can understand why Jerry Springer – The Opera might offend people and it’s their right to be offended, but it’s also their right not to pay money to see the show and to tell like-minded friends that they should avoid it at all costs.  Why they feel the need – and believe they have just cause - to stand in the rain prosthletizing, though, is beyond me.  You never see an atheist standing in the street handing out leaflets about the virtues of non-religion, do you? Grr.  Anyway, it made for an amusing, if philosophically aggravating, start to the evening. The show was fantastically funny and the performers all sang and acted brilliantly – anyone who can sing things like “Talk to the hand, three-nippled cousin-fucker” in a tuneful, psuedo-operatic stylee is ok in my book.  I’d recommend the show to anyone with a sense of humour and a high tolerance for fowl language.  Yep, that’s probably you!

Our trip to the cinema this weekend was cancelled due to huge amounts of unexpected snow – I thought we’d escaped it this winter, but there it was, about 4” deep and it lasted all of a day.  I didn’t even get to build a snowman or take a day off work or anything. I did throw some snowballs at the dog, however, which was fun.  Instead of the cinema, we watched a low budget indie film called Primer – yet another time travel movie (one of my favourite movie themes of late) – which was excellently done.  I’d highly recommend it.  I also made some nice soup and read some decent fan fiction, but that’s neither here nor there, really.   

Other happenings…I have an interview for a promotion to a better branch job on Friday at 3pm.  Wish me luck. Again. *rolls eyes at self*

Blog posts are like buses, aren't they?  'Er, no, Louise, they really aren't at all', I hear you say.  Well, it seems you are mistaken dear reader, because like buses, you wait for me to post for four months and then two posts come along in rather close succession.  Or something.

Anyway, a quick post to rant about a couple of things - firstly, people who use the word 'literally' in the wrong context.  In the past week I have heard the following phrases used, without the slightest hint of irony:

'She was literally caught red handed', 'His head literally exploded' & 'His eyes literally popped out of his head'.

See a flaw there anyone? I really hope you do.  The first of those examples was literally used by a Radio 1 'newsreader'.  Oh, if only I were smart enought to be a successful radio journalist. My little head might literally burst with the excitement of it.

Onto rant number two: incredibly rude people in cinemas.  I know this isn't exactly unusual - hands up if you love rude people!! - but, really, is there any need to bring 3 young kids and a teenager into a film that started about half an hour ago, only to let them sit scattered in various seats around the cinema and wander back and forth to exchange sweets/germs/god knows what else at the expense of us decent folks who just want to watch the fucking film in peace? Especially when you leave with two of the kids in tow before the end, shouting across the cinema to the other two 'Are you coming or not?'.  I also don't think there's any need to pick the seat beside ME to sit in when the cinema is still nearly empty, only to noisily touch up your girlfriend during the film.  But, that's just me, I'm a little antisocial and a little old fashioned that way.  I believe children and mating couples should be seen and not heard.  And preferably not seen, either.

The seed was sown for that particular rant after yesterdays cinematic double bill of Mirrormask and Syriana - the former had the annoying kids, the latter had the groping couple.  Mirrormask was, frankly, awful.  I quite like Neil Gaiman and expected a dark fantasy kinda film, but got a poorly acted kids TV-esque drama.  It was ok, but only if you judged it by kids TV drama standards, it didn't work in the cinema - the acting was bad, the characters irritating and the music was bloody awful. Boo!  Syriana was next and, thankfully, was a more adult film - now, by adult I don't mean pornographic - it gave credit to it's audience by not spelling everything out and was in almost all aspects a good film, but it had a story to tell and a point to make, so none of the characters were overly engaging and it's really not the kind of film you'd buy on DVD and watch again and again.  Unless you were a little odd, maybe.  As you can tell, moviemania 2006 continues - tonight saw the rewatching of Class, an early 80's dramy with Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe. Entertaining in all the usual 80's teen movie ways, with a 'Graduate'-type theme and a bit of a rubbish ending.

 

 

What else....oh yes, I recovered from my mystery illness after attempting to go back to work on Tuesday and being sent home again as unfit to deal with the public.  I still have a constant headache though *sigh*  I also stumbled across this video of Brokeback Mountain's best bits, if you haven't seen the film yet.  Go on, you know you want to.

That's all for now, really.  With thoughtful, coherent posts like this, aren't you glad I'm back?

Has it really been 4 months since I posted? Yes, it has.  I've been busy with the new job, using my little brain to soak up lots of banking knowledge and for the best part of 9 weeks was communting to Glasgow, which made for long working days and no time for blogging.  In fact, I'm really only blogging now because I'm off work sick *cough* and, frankly, have nothing better to do.

The job is...ok.  I graduated from my training academy with - wait for it - distinction, which is quite good (more than I managed at Uni) but there's a whole situation with my branch etc which I wont go into here but makes for much stressing and general annoyance.  I may be jumping ship quite soon, as I've been kind of invited to apply for a more senior position at a better branch, but we'll see. Banking is not my dream job, but I have a dog to feed and the enormity of my debt makes me realise that quitting is not an option. Depressing as it sounds, it's starting to look like a 'career'.  God, I need a lottery win.

Other than work, 2006 has been the year of the movie so far.  With having a Cineworld Unlimited card and an Amazon rentals subscription, it's seems only natural that that's how it should be.  Needless to say, I am very fond of a certain Gay Cowboy movie (and of course I'm disappointed in todays Oscar results) and have seen it twice in the cinema, as well as reading the original short story and lots of BbM slashy fanfiction.  Actually, it seems that's the reason I've had no time to blog. Ahem. As well as that, there's been many a Kevin Smith movie (the good, the not so good and the absolutely terrible - hello, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back!), lots of Park Chan-Wook and Korean & Japanese films in general - in fact, just lots of foreign films lately - Hidden, Irreversible, Devils Backbone, Run Lola Run, Downfall - along with a general mix of others like Jarhead (surprisingly good), Capote (surprisingly average), Eraserhead (as weird as expected), Final Destination 3 (disappointing), 40yr Old Virgin (again, surprisingly good), Donnie Darko (much better than remembered) and Last Days (more pretentious and tedious that I could have imagined), among others, but you get the idea. Films, films, films.

Other than work and films, I've been to Berlin, which was was excellent; had my first filling, which was expensive as I can't find an NHS dentist; got a new phone, which is cool; read some books, which were alternately good, bad and average; been to X Factor live, with my mum; er...and that about sums it up for me.  Jerry Springer: The Opera is this weekend, and crossing the picketline of Christian Voicers to get in should be fun, and then there's some comedy (Glasgow comedy festival stuff) and theatre (a Neil Gaiman play and Edward Scissorhands musical) and gigs (Morrissey, The Editors, Placebo) coming up, all of which should be pretty good.  I may just come back and tell you about them here in another 4 months or so.

                    

 

Current mood: worried

 

I start my new job on Monday, the bank one, and apart from the ongoing financial issues (i.e. we have no money, but will be fine as soon as I start getting paid a decent wage again from my new job), all is well.

 

We saw Stewart Lee again last week, whose show was even better than when we last saw it in Edinburgh.  We also got the Stewart Lee – Stand Up Comedian DVD, which was recorded at the Stand in Glasgow in March this year, and we were there!  We are visible on DVD a few times (adding to my previous claim to televisual fame of being visible in the crowd in TWO Manics live videos), so buy it and see if you can spot us.

 

Other than that we’ve seen Saw II (awesomely nasty & entertaining) and Thumbsucker (fantastic), the latter in a really busy cinema on a Friday night, which was a very bad idea indeed.  Drunken, loud teenagers. Annoying rude people.  People with no concept of personal space or rudimentary knowledge of decent social conduct or any clue about the film they’d just paid money to see. You get the idea. Never again. We’ll stick to mid-week showings from now on.

 

I’ve also been working on another little video (like the Manics one I did), which is finally going well and will be finished soon. As well as this, I made a fab compilation CD for a music exchange thing for The Cult forum, which I thought I’d share with you, in case you want to make your own version.  It’s called Madness & Melancholia, which signifies the theme of the CD – and sums up my life of late - silly songs, or songs with strange lyrics and, obviously, melancholic tracks, as follows:

 

Fuck Yeah! – Team America

Dance Commander – Electric 6

Why’s Everybody Always Picking On Me? – Bloodhound Gang

Wattsville Blues – Manic Street Preachers

Narc – Interpol

Mojo Pin – Jeff Buckley

Beautiful Son – Hole

Dance Me In – Sons & Daughter

Stupid & Shallow – The Futureheads

Soma – Smashing Pumpkins

Brick Shithouse – Placebo

Win Your Love – The Duke Spirit

Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Judge Yr’Self – Manic Street Preachers

Gutless – Hole

We Float – PJ Harvey

*Bonus Track*

Freedom Of The Heart (Oodily, Oodily) – Gwendolyn & The Goodtime Gang

Enjoy!

 

That’s all from me for now – you have all my new job news to look forward to next week…

It's gone and happened.  I have been oficially offered not one, but two jobs of pretty much equal goodness.  The bank one - Personal Banking Advisor - and the private healthcare company one - Sales Support Executive. 

I've agreed to start at the bank on Monday 14th Nov, and have told the other lot that I can't start for a month - devious little job minx I am - this means that I have a job to fall back on if a) the bank change their mind because I'm a credit risk or b) I hate the job.

Good times.  Difficult choices.  Aaaargh!