Chitchat

[cross-post from my blog!]

Ok so I can be pretty talkative. When I'm around friends and family I can talk at a million miles an hour and I can rant like there's no tomorrow. But if there is one thing i Loathe, it's chitchat.

To differentiate from what I call chitchat and small talk. Small talk: light trivial conversation in necessary situations. Such as breaking the ice during introductions, filling the void of silence among people who don't know each other and keeping the conversation up. This kind of thing you have to have patience for, ease into conversation and such. By "chitchat", I mean rubbish talking with no particular purpose. Where you take turns say "uhuh... yeah... mmhmm" and aren't really listening anyway. Especially when the things being discussed [if you can call it a discussion] where the words have no meaning or value.
I don't like this conversation on the false pretence that we're best buddies. It's not natural!

But then, I'm always one for disliking people in general. It's funny, I like to think I'm diplomatic. I won't take someone on first impressions alone, even if they are quite bad. I'm prepared to talk, small talk if you like, to get to know someone, if they are prepared to get to know me too. But once I start to gauge a person, I often get peeved off quickly. From how they interact with me and others, I decide whether I want to continue hanging around them or if I'd be happy to never see them again. [And if I don't like someone, my friends will know very soon.]

I like to approach people and other aspects of life with very specific expectations, some of them I've shared with you. Lets meet on the assumption that we have nothing in common and we live on different planets. [I view most people like this!] Before leaving the house let's remind ourselves to beware of stupid people [they're everywhere!] Before making decisions, balance BOTH extremes, would I regret doing it [the consequences to bare] or not doing it [if I die tomorrow.]

One thing I do, whenever I'm out, is try to be aware of other people around me. It's surprising how many people are oblivious to the people lurking around them, my friends in dark noisy clubs. When I'm walking somewhere alone, I notice if there's someone walking behind me, if a car pulls up nearby, try to find a reflective surface to see how far they are away from me. When driving, I think more about the movements of other people and how safely they are driving as well as mine. Don't stay in someone else's blind spot for crying out loud! It seems like basic principle to me: don't assume others will do what you think they will.

I realised I might sound preachy, that's not the intention. It just surprises me that I don't think like others. A few others which always surprise me is when older people [usually at that annoying age of not actually being old 25-35] act painfully condescending. King Lear, thou shoudst not have been old before thou hadst been wise.

Currently on top of the most annoying list:
1. Guy at uni - talks about boring stories [he's already told us] and with no point. Expects us to sit through them. Is vulguar, reminds us how special he thinks he is Obsessed with his b-grade basketball team.
Guy at work - asks me questions about my hobbies and whether I have a boyfriend and tells me how easy I have life these days as a young-un [he's 29]
2. Girls I hung out with at the RSL last night - boring, talked about stuff they understood and their friends [which I don't know]. Spent lots of time texting and lounging when they had nothing to talk about. Couldn't make an effort to get to know me, try as I did, so we all gave up on conversation.
3. Lecturer who never gets to his point - makes paragraph long sentences with "big words" in order to convey a point which he's forgotten by the time he gets half way through. Tries to recover and continue, ends up trying to explain the same point again with different words.
4. People on my msn randoms list - only talk to me when i change profile picture, after "how are you" and "what are you up to these days" run out of things to say except crap-all i can't even be bother to reply to. I'll just pretend I'm away from the computer.

Zee Rant

I HATE WINTER. WINTER MAKES ME SICK. Mum always tries to make me go for a flu injection, I refuse. I got a COLD anyway. Cold = NOT FLU. WHILE ON HOLIDAYS. Worked the rest of the time.

When I make a lot of noise Whinging, it means it's not a big deal. I still have other good things.

When I start emotionally DUMPING my woes on the internet, it's THE BAD SHIT. I've been doing that lately.

The INTERNET is STUPID. PEOPLE are STUPID. Duhh, wakey wakey.
I don't fucking want to be a SOCIAL person. Its won't make me less lonely. I'M AT HOME ON A SATURDAY NIGHT.

I know I haven't been blogging properly. Damn those people who remind me of this! Taking blogging seriousl is BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

I HATE THE WORD "BLOG." IT SOUNDS YUCKY. LIKE I'M GOING TO SPEW IT OUT.

CAPS LOCK is NOT cool. Think of this as "what not to do".

Ah, sibling love

In my family, we normally have two types of arguments take place. One type is the general "Why are all the towels in the bathroom wet and/or in a pile on the floor?" kind of thing. The second, more common (and louder) one is arguments for the sake of arguing. The kind of conversation where you complain about whether you should get the butter out of the fridge as you are opening the door and reaching over to pick it up; continuing after you've actually handed the butter to the other participant and returned it to the fridge once they've finished making their toast. I have been known to have one of those arguments that has lasted a whole grocery shop, including the drive to and from the shops. However, this rant is unfortunately not about that.

My brother, I believe, lives to make the rest of us irritated. Over the 23 years he has been alive it seems that he has gotten quite good at it, too. One could say he has perfected it, as it seems that every day when I wander around the house he has done something to annoy the living shit out of me. Actually, I would hope that my shit isn't living, as that would be quite disturbing. I bet it would get as pissed off as the rest of us if it was alive. Anyway, back to my Brother's unusual skill.

He likes to think of himself as fairly capable in the kitchen, so when Mum decided last night that she needed to take slice to work, he was the first to raise his hand and take over, implying that he would do a much better job. (I beg to differ. When he baked me a birthday cake one year, it overflowed the cake tin and didn't set at all. This year I made my own cake.) At the end of the night, a slice was made and the dishes in the sink "soaking". This was fair enough, as it had caramel involved and had hardened fairly quickly.

The next morning, when I dragged myself out of my bed at nearly 11 o'clock and stumbled into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea so I could wake myself up enough to possibly do something constructive with my time, I happened to look at the sink. The dishes were still there. He was engaged in a deeply important activity which obviously could not be disturbed, so when I went and mentioned that he should probably clean up before going to work he (as usual) sighed, rolled his eyes and grunted non-commitally, focussing on the television as if it would answer all his important questions and leaving me to wander off to go about my business.

Why was I not surprised when half an hour later he shuffled into my room looking sheepish. "Uh, I kind of ran out of time. Would you be able to do the dishes for me, just this once? Thanks, I owe you one!" was his side of the conversation, while I just looked at him in disbelief. When he left and I figured I may as well get it over and done with I found out he had left pans from two days ago when he cooked breakfast, not to mention his plates he used to cut up his chocolate bars on when he ate them. The whole business took about 5 minutes to do, which pissed me off even more, as he could have done it last night instead of watching stupid shows he's already seen.

And yet he says that I'm the lazy one because I stay up late talking to people online? I was able to wash those damn dishes, clean the kitchen, feed the rabbit, get dressed and walk to work early enough to go get change from the bank before my shift started. Not to mention still being able to talk to people online and tidying my room. Oh sure, I can see the logic in that.



Wait a minute; that logic's faulty!

Sickness (mark II)

If you could, utilising a little imagination here and there, cast your mind back to your early school days for me. You are eight years old or thereabouts, and you are happy because it is summer and that means ice creams and holidays and sunshine and going for a wee outside in the garden without your bits falling off from the cold. It is the last day of school and everyone is laughing, shouting, bleating and chirruping like a petting zoo in an earthquake. Everyone, that is, except the Sickly Kid.

You know who the Sickly Kid is. There's one of them in every school everywhere, ever. They're the one with pallid corpse-pale skin, or large bruise-coloured rings around their eyes, caused more by chronic insomnia than any actual impact. They creep close to walls to be safe from the great outdoors, and are allergic to things you take for granted. You know, like fresh air. They are depressing to look at, and the parents in the school car park comment on their obvious neglect and poor eating. All the students avoid them, they are contagious and obviously not fun to be around. They have no friends to play with, and they couldn't play anyway because, you know, playing Catch is no fun when one of the party's eyes are blocked with viscous rheum. They are like a one-man plague - a metaphorical leper, exempt from the rest of the pre-pubescent tribe. It is summer, and you are happy, and everyone in the school is happy, and the Sickly Kid is Sick.

Yes, his eyes are streaming and his nose is gushing and his head is sore and angry. His feet have swollen up, his brain is pouring out of his ears. Or if it is a female Sickly Kid, she's on her period five years too early and her hormones are giving her kidneys grief.

Right.

It is Summer.

Now.

I was the Sickly Kid.

This is why I tell people I prefer winter. Even when it is chilly even inside your combi boiler, and bollock-freezingly cold every other place - even when your testicles, if you have them, have become testicicles - then I am still happier and less ill.

I mean, of course I'm less sickly than I was when I was eight years old or thereabouts. Of course I love the idea of summer. The idea of summer is a very important thing. It gives people who don't like winter at all a kind of hope. The idea of summer is filled with those ice creams and holidays and sunshine postcard moments I mentioned earlier. It doesn't matter that the reality is sweat and summer colds and hayfever and the trip to the seaside being stuffier than being inside the space between a fat man's waist measurement and his belt buckle, and when you finally get to the seaside you are greeted with rocks and mud and seagull-shite, and the inability to find a parking space. Anywhere.

The point is, everyone needs a little hope. My hope is for the winter, which to other people I am sure means shivering inside a house that is probably being warmed only by your own body heat which you are trying in vain to keep inside you, wearing five more woolly jumpers with every consecutive degree (celsius) downward. My winter is an open fire and the ability to breathe without seven new allergy-inducing microparticles diving down my oesophagus. Sometimes everyone is different. Sometimes some Sickly Kids are Sickly for different reasons.

...

Now someone pass me the ice-cream. It is summer, after all.

Sickness

I always tell people that I prefer Winter to Summer, as it means I can warm up by turning a heater on or putting more clothes on, but in summer, even if you take as many clothes off as you can while still being decent, you still can't cool down enough. Well today I was reminded that I hate Winter. I hate it with a passion.

I am sick. This happens every year, so you would think I would be used to it, but I am not. Every damn Winter I get a cold or the 'flu, and instead of it kicking me around for a few weeks and leaving me to go on its merry way to make other people feel like rubbish it decides that my lungs are a nice place. Cosy. Spacious. Good views. Close to the shops. So it settles in for the long haul, which means I get a chest infection and feel like death on two legs for as long as it takes. This means if I try and, I don't know, stay awake for more than two hours then I end up working on the most basic of levels. Monosyllabic words and shuffling walk. Zombies at least get to eat brains; all I get is maybe chicken soup (if I'm lucky). If I'm unlucky, then instead of just a chest infection, I get pneumonia. I got pneumonia for the second time in three years last winter, and my doctor had the audacity to tell me I should have come to see him earlier. If I saw him earlier he would have given me antibiotics (which wouldn't have worked), then I would have to spend more money going and seeing him again when I continued to cough up my lungs, where he would give me stronger antibiotics and the whole cycle continues, leaving me broke and STILL sick. I'm better off taking cold and 'flu tablets and hoping for the best.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make a cup of tea and try and clear my nose enough so I can breath at least seemingly normally. I'll see you in six months when I feel like complaining about the heat.