I've not really blogged about it thus far, save few practical updates, but it is 5 days away and the time has really come to do so. Ask me when I'm getting married? For a long time it was 'once I graduate' or 'the summer after next'. After christmas etcetera it became 'this year!' and '27th august'. Recently it became months, then weeks. I know I was supposed to have the rapid fire answer of "ONLY x days" on whatever occasion but I never did, I just knew it was coming, I knew it would come with autumn.
Last Sunday Stuart and I went to Kelvingrove park for the last day of summer. It was warm and humid and you could have been in a swimsuit but I had called the change in the season a week or so prior. One morning I woke up and the sun had become white. I opened the window to air the bedroom and there was a sharpness to breathe, something of freezings coming for far away. A few days ago it was windy and the washing line flapped violently. For the first time since April pegs fell from the peg holder. I ritually cleared the summer garden, took in the last carrots and potatoes and pandered to the parsnips and leeks. Thoughts turned to bulbs. Last night I was waiting for the washing machine to finish lest it burn my kitties alive and I looked out the window. At 10pm it was deeply dark, the ground was wet and the rain should have been gentle but the gusts splattered it abusively. It was autumn already and not just a touch, it is now coming thick and fast.
We are going to Bath for our honeymoon and then onto London. I expect that autumn hasn't quite the grip in the south of England yet that it has here, so we will be in the roof top spa and hopefully the last of summer we will bask in for a day.
So the wedding has come. All I have heard from friends, family, gift-givers, well-wishers and gossipers alike has been just how fast it will come in. It will come in in no time. It'll be the wedding and you won't know where the time has gone. To be sure I do know where the time has gone; it has gone into my degree and the painstaking planning and arranging of every detail of this DIY wedding. It has become like a living thing, constantly needing care and attention so it survives. Friday is its coming out party and then it will be fully grown.
I've done a lot for it. My printer is tired of bleeding ink in monotype corsiva, my hands are tired of glueing, my brain is swarming with guests and my sofa bed it fed up with being a holding bay for boxes of ivory coloured items.
I think it will rain on my wedding day. It feels like it is coming to it. Of late it has been humid or gusty or mildy drizzly; something has to give. It will probably be on Friday - and I have an umbrella.
I'm picking up my dress tomorrow, the dress that I knew was mine as soon as I stepped into it. It's demure you know. I'm looking forward to wearing it though I feel a bit of a fraud in it. I suppose that is normal. I'm just bobben you know.
I've been feeling sick for four days now. I feel nautious when I drink (anything, tea), I feel dizzy when I sit and weak when I stand, my head has been aching on and off. I've been running a lot and I havn't for a few days, I don't want to risk getting ill before the wedding. I've not been eating enough vegetables; I haven't had much money for a while so we have been living off of fish cakes, potato latkes (kosher for passover) and ikea meatballs - all frozen. I'll buy some more vegetables this week, from the greengrocer that opened finally on high street. I note high street as the new cool place soon, the new west end, so you know. Some folk still wouldnt visit though and it's better for that. I really want to run. We will go tomorrow, 6 kilometers only; it will suffice.
Stuart just left the room. After Friday everything is different. It is just him and me. And the cats though. We are a family now and self sufficient. He just brought molly through to join in the study party, what a sweetie. Both of them. I feel like after friday everything changes. It's good though. Here we come to winter and a career and all that stuff we have been working for for five years. It all culminates on Friday.
I'm getting married on Friday 27th August 2010 at 3.30pm and I'm sure I've offended so many people doing this. Oh well.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Silent Companions
You can get a lot of interaction without ever interacting with the other person. I actually think what I'm describing does count as interaction but I am sure others won't; it doesn't fit the conventional description. I looked in the cambridge online dictionary and found this definition for interaction
So I suppose this means that you have to actively take part in the other person's life. This definition seems contrary to a passive or tacit version of interaction. I should now explain myself properly. I feel like you can have meaningful relationships with people you don't even know. You don't know thier name, you have never spoken to them, you may have never encountered them before in your life, and you may never see them again; but you can interact positively.
The most recent and prominent example I have is at the gym. After being at university for five years I finally decided to go to the gym. I don't know why I never did before and I've been running on and off for a year now, and exercizing longer, but I had never been. I went to this gym for the first time in the last two weeks and I've been back a few times. It is so much easier running distance on the treadmill but I have to be careful not to get too used to it as the GSR is on road.
You may be at the gym alone, you may not know anyone else there, but when you are all the there, all doing the same thing, all (or mostly) trying to hit some sort of goal, there is a definiate community vibe. I don't mean like GO TEAM or anything, I mean just the most subtle of understandings. Within this community there are different relationships.
There is the healthy competition. The second time I went there there was one man running opposite me. He had been going before I started and I ran 6 kilometres, 5 at a pace and the 6th going slow to fast alternating minutes. When I first started to slow down on the 6th kilometre he was looking over, glancing at my treadmill, assuming I was stopping, then I ran again and he continued. The timer ran out on the treadmill and I wanted to walk to cool off so I was stopped momentarily before starting again. All through this he was looking over, preparing to stop. Then I started again and he kept going. Once he realised I was on cool down he then stopped too. He wanted to outlast me. I had a sort of respect for him, using me as a barometre for his own performance.
There is also unhealthy competition, most often between the same sexes. I haven't taken part in this interaction but I can see it happen. If a slim woman is in the gym, any other woman of similar body shape is a threat. It may be a few glances or just the tension that gives it away but when you are running it seems that you go into some sort of half awake beta mode and your human traits are lessened and you natural ones heightened. The same goes for two men. This isn't based on a visual so much as on performance. Weight becomes heavier, repititions quicker, pace increased. Last night one man was pounding so hard on the treadmill beside me I thought he would break the whole thing. He was running at 10.5km/hr and kept on jumping off the machine instead of slowing it down.
There are positive forms of interaction too like the silent companionship the title is about. Someone who is doing a similar pace to you or a similar style of running can become a disposable ally. This starts as an inkling that they are running for similar goals to you. As you keep going it becomes clear who isn't on the same wavelength as some people stop, some people walk and some people out perform you. Sometimes someone is so similar its like you are watching yourself. These people tend to be beside you, not opposite. Healthy competition breeds this.
I guess from this description the second definition in the dictionary of interaction is more applicable:
Though people, not things, the definition is accurate. You can see for yourself by going to the gym when no one else is there. Or try to drive your car on empty roads without the people who are driving in a similar way to you. The drivers you respect for actually indiciating or returning to the left become close friends for however many miles you are going to the same place. The drivers who try to race you, who cut you off, who are irratic are your enemies and even in that there is a relationship of enmity, borne out of your difference, that you cling to. When the friends take the exit before you off the motorway you wave goodbye inside. When the enemies do it you are scornful yet dissapointed you couldn't keep the fight up and battle to your home.
Such situations are relationships. They do form companions. These companions will not last, they are non-permanent and once one is gone a new relationship will form as another car merges to the motorway or a new passenger gets on the train. The communities you enter as you go to these places where all are strangers are like delicate ecosystems destined to be destroyed within a matter of hours, minutes or seconds, and such an environment shall never exist quite the same again. This is the fun of it though. And your companions will merge to one eventually.
You can be lonely sitting at home. You can be lonely without conversation and without touch. But I defy anyone who doesn't beleive there to be interaction in such places. Conversation, touch and to some extent body language don't exist, but in these unobtrusive entities lives real companionship - the kind that won't dissapoint.
PEOPLE the activity of talking and doing things with other people, or the way you do this
So I suppose this means that you have to actively take part in the other person's life. This definition seems contrary to a passive or tacit version of interaction. I should now explain myself properly. I feel like you can have meaningful relationships with people you don't even know. You don't know thier name, you have never spoken to them, you may have never encountered them before in your life, and you may never see them again; but you can interact positively.
The most recent and prominent example I have is at the gym. After being at university for five years I finally decided to go to the gym. I don't know why I never did before and I've been running on and off for a year now, and exercizing longer, but I had never been. I went to this gym for the first time in the last two weeks and I've been back a few times. It is so much easier running distance on the treadmill but I have to be careful not to get too used to it as the GSR is on road.
You may be at the gym alone, you may not know anyone else there, but when you are all the there, all doing the same thing, all (or mostly) trying to hit some sort of goal, there is a definiate community vibe. I don't mean like GO TEAM or anything, I mean just the most subtle of understandings. Within this community there are different relationships.
There is the healthy competition. The second time I went there there was one man running opposite me. He had been going before I started and I ran 6 kilometres, 5 at a pace and the 6th going slow to fast alternating minutes. When I first started to slow down on the 6th kilometre he was looking over, glancing at my treadmill, assuming I was stopping, then I ran again and he continued. The timer ran out on the treadmill and I wanted to walk to cool off so I was stopped momentarily before starting again. All through this he was looking over, preparing to stop. Then I started again and he kept going. Once he realised I was on cool down he then stopped too. He wanted to outlast me. I had a sort of respect for him, using me as a barometre for his own performance.
There is also unhealthy competition, most often between the same sexes. I haven't taken part in this interaction but I can see it happen. If a slim woman is in the gym, any other woman of similar body shape is a threat. It may be a few glances or just the tension that gives it away but when you are running it seems that you go into some sort of half awake beta mode and your human traits are lessened and you natural ones heightened. The same goes for two men. This isn't based on a visual so much as on performance. Weight becomes heavier, repititions quicker, pace increased. Last night one man was pounding so hard on the treadmill beside me I thought he would break the whole thing. He was running at 10.5km/hr and kept on jumping off the machine instead of slowing it down.
There are positive forms of interaction too like the silent companionship the title is about. Someone who is doing a similar pace to you or a similar style of running can become a disposable ally. This starts as an inkling that they are running for similar goals to you. As you keep going it becomes clear who isn't on the same wavelength as some people stop, some people walk and some people out perform you. Sometimes someone is so similar its like you are watching yourself. These people tend to be beside you, not opposite. Healthy competition breeds this.
I guess from this description the second definition in the dictionary of interaction is more applicable:
THINGS when two or more things combine and have an effect on each other
Though people, not things, the definition is accurate. You can see for yourself by going to the gym when no one else is there. Or try to drive your car on empty roads without the people who are driving in a similar way to you. The drivers you respect for actually indiciating or returning to the left become close friends for however many miles you are going to the same place. The drivers who try to race you, who cut you off, who are irratic are your enemies and even in that there is a relationship of enmity, borne out of your difference, that you cling to. When the friends take the exit before you off the motorway you wave goodbye inside. When the enemies do it you are scornful yet dissapointed you couldn't keep the fight up and battle to your home.
Such situations are relationships. They do form companions. These companions will not last, they are non-permanent and once one is gone a new relationship will form as another car merges to the motorway or a new passenger gets on the train. The communities you enter as you go to these places where all are strangers are like delicate ecosystems destined to be destroyed within a matter of hours, minutes or seconds, and such an environment shall never exist quite the same again. This is the fun of it though. And your companions will merge to one eventually.
You can be lonely sitting at home. You can be lonely without conversation and without touch. But I defy anyone who doesn't beleive there to be interaction in such places. Conversation, touch and to some extent body language don't exist, but in these unobtrusive entities lives real companionship - the kind that won't dissapoint.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
My friends aren't the same as your friends
I'm getting less and less concerned with who my friends are and how much effort I put into our relationships because, though I am loyal and I try to be a good friend - a great friend even - I am always let down by how much this isn’t reciprocated. I’m not going into gorey details but I’ve been let down and hurt a lot by ‘friends’ in my life. Nothing serious, just a lack of commitment. When I watch the television, or hear other people talking, saying things like “I love my friends, I don’t know what I would do without them” or “my friends are like my family” I don’t understand this. At first I thought, wow I need to find my group of friends who would do anything for each other and be there no matter what. Then I started to realise that this wasn’t going to happen, and I thought, wow I must be some kind of monster who no-one wants to know enough to care that much about. Now I am realising that it is all a lie. These people don’t exist, they are a phantom made up by cutesy script writers and people who want others to know how many people like them and just how much. Well no-one likes me. I think seriously now I have three people I would call friends and to be honest I don’t see it lasting. I’m not trying to sabotage relationships here I am just resigning myself to the fact that if I put in the effort I should to it, it wont be returned; and there is no way I’m giving more than I get anymore. Sorry to sound pompous but no-one like that is worth my kind thoughts.
I know exactly where this stems from. When I was in Primary 6 at school I had a best friend: Jenny. Jenny and I had been inseparable for years, we did everything together, we shared a lot, we played, it was the typical long time best friend scenario and the type of friend you are meant to keep forever. In Primary 6 a new girl, Kim, came to the school and became friends with us. Kim liked horseriding and so did I so we became friends too. For some reason or other one day Kim and I fell out. I know this will sound ridiculous but bear in mind the country bumpkin back drop to my childhood as you read. Kim said to me “you are a bitch, and you know it!” I was shocked and hurt. I expected Jenny to be shocked too, and to back me up; instead she sat on the fence. She didn’t jump to my side, she didn’t ignore Kim, she acted as a go between. Some may think that this is what they would have done, that she was trying to keep the peace and reconcile friends. To those who think this: that is a pile of crap. If someone attacks your friend, who you truly care about, you should have their back. You should support them and them alone. I don’t care about any other circumstance, that’s the way it should be. With my best friend, if anyone did anything to him, said anything to him or touched a hair on his head I would do anything and everything possible to make sure the person that did it knew just exactly what they had done and how wrong it was. It doesn’t matter that my best friend happens to be my fiancé too, I would do that for anyone who put as much effort into being a friend as he did before we got together, and after that. I expect that, outside of family, there is no-one else in the world who would do this for me, and that’s ok. It really is ok. I’ve accepted this.
So from now on I’m not putting the effort in with trying to keep or make friends. With the friends I have left of course I won’t neglect them, I will continue to be a friend, but once bitten twice shy and now I’ve been bitten repeatedly and I really should have learned by now. I’m not going to be the one to always get in touch first. I’m not going to be the only one who texts back, I’m not going to be the person who puts effort into making great plans only to be let down at the last minute. From now on I am a passive friend and if I meet anyone else who really wants to know me it’s going to be their hard work that gets them in alone, save marrying into my family.
This blog has been so depressing recently and probably doesn’t make happy reading so I apologise for this now. I’ll try and make it lighter and less of a sob story next time.
I know exactly where this stems from. When I was in Primary 6 at school I had a best friend: Jenny. Jenny and I had been inseparable for years, we did everything together, we shared a lot, we played, it was the typical long time best friend scenario and the type of friend you are meant to keep forever. In Primary 6 a new girl, Kim, came to the school and became friends with us. Kim liked horseriding and so did I so we became friends too. For some reason or other one day Kim and I fell out. I know this will sound ridiculous but bear in mind the country bumpkin back drop to my childhood as you read. Kim said to me “you are a bitch, and you know it!” I was shocked and hurt. I expected Jenny to be shocked too, and to back me up; instead she sat on the fence. She didn’t jump to my side, she didn’t ignore Kim, she acted as a go between. Some may think that this is what they would have done, that she was trying to keep the peace and reconcile friends. To those who think this: that is a pile of crap. If someone attacks your friend, who you truly care about, you should have their back. You should support them and them alone. I don’t care about any other circumstance, that’s the way it should be. With my best friend, if anyone did anything to him, said anything to him or touched a hair on his head I would do anything and everything possible to make sure the person that did it knew just exactly what they had done and how wrong it was. It doesn’t matter that my best friend happens to be my fiancé too, I would do that for anyone who put as much effort into being a friend as he did before we got together, and after that. I expect that, outside of family, there is no-one else in the world who would do this for me, and that’s ok. It really is ok. I’ve accepted this.
So from now on I’m not putting the effort in with trying to keep or make friends. With the friends I have left of course I won’t neglect them, I will continue to be a friend, but once bitten twice shy and now I’ve been bitten repeatedly and I really should have learned by now. I’m not going to be the one to always get in touch first. I’m not going to be the only one who texts back, I’m not going to be the person who puts effort into making great plans only to be let down at the last minute. From now on I am a passive friend and if I meet anyone else who really wants to know me it’s going to be their hard work that gets them in alone, save marrying into my family.
This blog has been so depressing recently and probably doesn’t make happy reading so I apologise for this now. I’ll try and make it lighter and less of a sob story next time.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Loss
This is going to sound so odd. I don't mean to offend any one who has had a lot of people-loss and I don't mean to make this in anyway parallel to it.
My sunglasses broke. It was my own fault. I killed my new headphones intended to be put in the ear pads of my pilot's hat. I did that too. I keep on destroying things that mean a lot to me.
I've always had a passion for things. When I was young I had a lot of toys, on my mum's side of the family Jamie and I were the only children, only grandchildren, only neices and nephews. I don't mean I had a lot of toys because I was a spoiled child, I mean I ended up having a lot of soft toys in particular. I liked dogs and subsequently horses as a girl and became obsessed in turn and as it goes all presents for birthdays and christmases revolve around this. My original favourite toy was Jerry Mouse (of tom and jerry) I had tom too but I liked Jerry best and I was too young and undemocratic to care for poor tom. After this I got Tracker, a soft toy dog. He was (and is) a golden labrador in sitting position. I remember picking him out for my birthday (I think) at Toys R Us when Mum allowed me to look at the vast racks of soft toys and choose one as a present. I picked Tracker and he was my best toy for a very long time. I remember the harrowing experience of taking him into a shoe shop and leaving him on the seats where you try them on (I must have been about 7 years old). When I realised I was only at the other end of the shop playing with Jamie but I ran back and he was gone. My Mum soon found him in the arms of another child who thought he was a toy provided by the shop.
As I grew up this became of objects not so much just toys. Of late Pingin has been key. Pingin is a bed warmer (with a pouch you heat in the microwave) penguin (Edward Monkton's penguin of death). Stuart bought him for me what will be three christmases ago come December (i think!). I didn't really like penguins particularly but for some reason (probably the fact pingin isn't based on a penguin but a crazy drawing of one) he was so endearing. He has become another entity and part of the house.
I think I have a problem. I can't stand it to lose things, especially favoured items but really anything I lose myself. Indeed I would be sad to have someone else damage or lose something I owned but I would accept it or replace it with no worries. If I lose it or damage it though, I can't forgive myself. I've been in an odd place for the last few days, stressed and run down, highly strung it seems. I bought the pilot hat online and I predict that it will be a new trend but for now it is my hat alone. A Biggles hat. It has these two round pads over the ears (see tumblr for a photo around this date) and a few people who have seen it commented on how great it would be to have headphones in these pads to listen to music through. In concurrence I bought a pair of fairly cheap head phones at Tesco and set to putting them in. I figured I would remove the band that goes over the head and then have two seperate ears to put in the hat with cables coming down. So I got the scissors and cut straight into the plastic of the head phones. It melted through and then snapped. Then I looked closer. The cable for the headphones went into one ear only, climbing under the head band to the other ear. I had ruined them. They were defunct. I killed them. It wasn't frustration at the waste of money, and it wasn't irritation at my lack of caution (though I should have been more careful) it was the fact that these were made as headphones. They were made by someone or something, packaged and sent. Travelled in a lorry, perhaps a ship or plane, to a storage facility then on to Tesco and in the stock room. The worker sees a gap in the stock and goes to fill up. Onto the stand go the headphones; ready to be bought and used. Then I ruin them. And that's the end. All over.
The sunglasses were even harder. I went ot B&Q with mum. we took a trolley and I clipped them onto the front of the trolley. They were from Topman and resembled Rayban Wayfarers. They had these wee ballbearings, two on either leg. As I walked later on with mum to costco i put my hand in my bag for them and it dawned on me sickeningly. We drove back. For sunglasses that only cost £12, and that i could replace easily. I found the trolley back inside and I saw them and my heart rose and I felt safe, they were ok, it wasn't the same as the head phones. I hugged them in close, going back to show mum when I felt it. one of the lenses was gone. glasses with one dark eye and one transparent. It was like holding a corpse. I checked the trolley, the floor, other trolleys. It was useless. What was worst was that someone was walking around B&Q with my poor lense in their trolley.
In the end I replaced the glasses. Still hurts though.
My sunglasses broke. It was my own fault. I killed my new headphones intended to be put in the ear pads of my pilot's hat. I did that too. I keep on destroying things that mean a lot to me.
I've always had a passion for things. When I was young I had a lot of toys, on my mum's side of the family Jamie and I were the only children, only grandchildren, only neices and nephews. I don't mean I had a lot of toys because I was a spoiled child, I mean I ended up having a lot of soft toys in particular. I liked dogs and subsequently horses as a girl and became obsessed in turn and as it goes all presents for birthdays and christmases revolve around this. My original favourite toy was Jerry Mouse (of tom and jerry) I had tom too but I liked Jerry best and I was too young and undemocratic to care for poor tom. After this I got Tracker, a soft toy dog. He was (and is) a golden labrador in sitting position. I remember picking him out for my birthday (I think) at Toys R Us when Mum allowed me to look at the vast racks of soft toys and choose one as a present. I picked Tracker and he was my best toy for a very long time. I remember the harrowing experience of taking him into a shoe shop and leaving him on the seats where you try them on (I must have been about 7 years old). When I realised I was only at the other end of the shop playing with Jamie but I ran back and he was gone. My Mum soon found him in the arms of another child who thought he was a toy provided by the shop.
As I grew up this became of objects not so much just toys. Of late Pingin has been key. Pingin is a bed warmer (with a pouch you heat in the microwave) penguin (Edward Monkton's penguin of death). Stuart bought him for me what will be three christmases ago come December (i think!). I didn't really like penguins particularly but for some reason (probably the fact pingin isn't based on a penguin but a crazy drawing of one) he was so endearing. He has become another entity and part of the house.
I think I have a problem. I can't stand it to lose things, especially favoured items but really anything I lose myself. Indeed I would be sad to have someone else damage or lose something I owned but I would accept it or replace it with no worries. If I lose it or damage it though, I can't forgive myself. I've been in an odd place for the last few days, stressed and run down, highly strung it seems. I bought the pilot hat online and I predict that it will be a new trend but for now it is my hat alone. A Biggles hat. It has these two round pads over the ears (see tumblr for a photo around this date) and a few people who have seen it commented on how great it would be to have headphones in these pads to listen to music through. In concurrence I bought a pair of fairly cheap head phones at Tesco and set to putting them in. I figured I would remove the band that goes over the head and then have two seperate ears to put in the hat with cables coming down. So I got the scissors and cut straight into the plastic of the head phones. It melted through and then snapped. Then I looked closer. The cable for the headphones went into one ear only, climbing under the head band to the other ear. I had ruined them. They were defunct. I killed them. It wasn't frustration at the waste of money, and it wasn't irritation at my lack of caution (though I should have been more careful) it was the fact that these were made as headphones. They were made by someone or something, packaged and sent. Travelled in a lorry, perhaps a ship or plane, to a storage facility then on to Tesco and in the stock room. The worker sees a gap in the stock and goes to fill up. Onto the stand go the headphones; ready to be bought and used. Then I ruin them. And that's the end. All over.
The sunglasses were even harder. I went ot B&Q with mum. we took a trolley and I clipped them onto the front of the trolley. They were from Topman and resembled Rayban Wayfarers. They had these wee ballbearings, two on either leg. As I walked later on with mum to costco i put my hand in my bag for them and it dawned on me sickeningly. We drove back. For sunglasses that only cost £12, and that i could replace easily. I found the trolley back inside and I saw them and my heart rose and I felt safe, they were ok, it wasn't the same as the head phones. I hugged them in close, going back to show mum when I felt it. one of the lenses was gone. glasses with one dark eye and one transparent. It was like holding a corpse. I checked the trolley, the floor, other trolleys. It was useless. What was worst was that someone was walking around B&Q with my poor lense in their trolley.
In the end I replaced the glasses. Still hurts though.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Saturday, 31 July 2010
The post office and I are just never going to get along
I wonder if you remembered, or even noticed, that a year or two back there was a lot of post office closures. The ones that weren't making much money got closed or scaled back. Anyway, one of the fatalities was the Glasgow High Street post office, which for me was situated conveniently just a few doors up. Let me describe this place. It was a small, basic postoffice. It had a few things for sale including all the packaging/envelopes as well as drinks, snacks and wee travel things like nail clippers etc. It had a passport photo booth, a cash machine and the two post office windows. You would queue up in a straight line, waiting for either of the windows to be free and if you saw something in the shop bit you wanted on the way down you just took it up when you went to the window. I usually bought these cola bottle sweets 
made by this company, Lady Bird Confectionary. They were great. Anyway, the main thing that was great about the post office was there were two people who always worked there, two men, always quite nice and quick to serve you. Also it was never crazy busy (I guess why it closed which is a shame). I liked this post office. This post office liked me.
So it was closed. I discovered this driving down the street one day to my dismay. The next time I had to post something (ebay probably) I had to go online and search for the next nearest post office. This post office is the Glassford Street post office in Glasgow and it is a whole world away from my cosy village-esque branch. Firstly this one is nearer the city centre so it is busier. It is very very busy infact and it is a small place and its always packed especially at lunch time. It resides right up the back of a newsagent type shop. A few words on the nature of this shop. This isn't a newsagent like you expect. A comparison here serves to illustrate my point. I went to the post office in the West End where my brother lives, the one on Dumbarton Road. Inside I found helpful staff, short waiting times, advice, an orderly queue & pleasant members of the public. This post office was also part of a newsagent. At the west end post office the main product they have on show as you enter is Yankee Candles. At my post office it is Buckfast and obscene brass(esque) models of gay men "embracing" eachother. They also have a heterosexual one and it is even more repellent. The shop is PACKED to the gunnels with stock, most notable being many, many of those hallmark birthday cards with things like "to my favourite brother's wife's best friend's cousin who is 9 today and named joe" and a long soppy and pointless "poem" on the inside spanning 4 seperate pages, thus making it a pamphlet rather than a card. They also sell Tourist items such as magnets with famous London landmarks on them. In glasgow. yes. The most annoying thing about the whole shop is that, while you are waiting in the packed place to get served you do see some things that you want to buy such as all the postage items (string, manilla envelopes and other EXCITING stationary) but there are notices allll over (on those neon coloured stars, obviously) with "pay at shop, not post office" on them. By this point you have already waited for 10 minutes in the queue and will be damned to go to the shop counter at the other end of the place. I've never bought a single thing from that shop.
So, moving on to the post office itself, well actually before you can even see the post office you have to queue in a ridiculously cramped in and out barrier system. Inevitably you are pushed together with the other "people" who use the post office. I guess the people who used to go to the High street branch started using fedx because the people in this one are definately more "big n' pretty" at the trongate than crabtree and evelyn in princes square. If you have ever taken the time (oh yes, there is one thing that is in abundence at the post office) to look at these underclass type people they are either A) obese and wearing the wrong clothes for it, B) gaunt and junkie-ish to the point that they look like corpses or C) very very old and probably humming/whistling some elvis song. Those from Category A are way too big for the barrier system and take the barriers with them as they advance to the front. The Bs usually smell of pish, or BO or shit or eau de pish or something you do not want near you and you are always next to them in the line. The oldies have NO perception of what personal space is and basically have their chins on your shoulders and often like to comment on the thing you are posting. "ohhh! careful with your parcel hen, dont want to knock someone out he he he he".
Anyway here we are we made it through the barrier system and the people and we are at the counter. This is where the long wait becomes obvious seeing as there is never more than 3 people serving, more often its 2 and 1 is always in the bureau de change bit. You realise this bit, which also is used at the post office, has a seperate queue so you could have spend the 25 mins in the queue of death or actually walked straight up to the bureau counter and been like "ehhh £1 worth of euros? oh you cant? well while im here i have this package to post..." This usually causes fights between those in the long and short queues too which is fun. The people serving are awful though. Apart from the bureau guy they are all women, they are all about 50 and they all hate the world and everything in it starting with parcels, stamps and post office customers. NEXT! Asking for something that isn't "ukfirstclassnoproofofpostageexactchangebye" puts them out big style and then their day is ruined. chances are 20 other people already ruined it before you got there so you are screwed from the get go. I have had some success though, you would think I would get more pissed off and snooty the more I get this response. In fact this is the common response, for example, I was in 2 days ago and there was a woman who had to wait 15 minutes in the queue (don't know why she was so pissed, thats decent for the place). Anyway she was standing there with a huffy look on her mug and shifting from one foot to the other, hand on her hip, sharply exhaling every few seconds. "HUUHH". "HUUUUUUH". "HUUUUUUUUUUUH-HUH!". The reason was becuase some silly goose decided to fill out his road tax at our post office and it was taking all 3 members of staff a long time to work out how this was done. Anyway she was served soon enough and she plonks her package on the scale, waits for 2 seconds then grabs it off. "I'm sorry I need to weigh that" says the woman serving. "HUUUUUUH" she goes and whacks it back on. It is posted and the receipt is given; "heres your receipt thanks see you later, bye". As the woman walks past the queuing people on her way out she says "cheeky bitch" in that schemey way. WHO WAS SHE TALKING TO???!?!?! no-one, her own ego, thats who. drama queens at the post office. she must be a really important person. Yea so now instead of being dramatic or pissy I challenge myself to make the women serving smile. I make myself sick. "Heeeeeeyy! Uk first class plleeeease, will i just pop this wee parcel on the scale? ok, on it goes heehee!! Is that it done? Here i'll pass it through... YOUR WELCOME!!!" *grin manic-like*. I swear, it has started to work, the other day one of them said thanks - SCORE!
So thats the post office. I deal with it passive-aggressivley now and i hate the place with every fibre of my being and if I have to go in again I will probably have a breakdown and start pulling the queue barriers down and smash the bureau glass. But maybe I will just remember the 57p of profit I am making on the item I am ebaying and having to make an extra trip to that god forsaken hell hole for as the buyer didnt pay for another day, and I will be happy, and try to make the post office women crack a slight smile. Fingers crossed.
made by this company, Lady Bird Confectionary. They were great. Anyway, the main thing that was great about the post office was there were two people who always worked there, two men, always quite nice and quick to serve you. Also it was never crazy busy (I guess why it closed which is a shame). I liked this post office. This post office liked me. So it was closed. I discovered this driving down the street one day to my dismay. The next time I had to post something (ebay probably) I had to go online and search for the next nearest post office. This post office is the Glassford Street post office in Glasgow and it is a whole world away from my cosy village-esque branch. Firstly this one is nearer the city centre so it is busier. It is very very busy infact and it is a small place and its always packed especially at lunch time. It resides right up the back of a newsagent type shop. A few words on the nature of this shop. This isn't a newsagent like you expect. A comparison here serves to illustrate my point. I went to the post office in the West End where my brother lives, the one on Dumbarton Road. Inside I found helpful staff, short waiting times, advice, an orderly queue & pleasant members of the public. This post office was also part of a newsagent. At the west end post office the main product they have on show as you enter is Yankee Candles. At my post office it is Buckfast and obscene brass(esque) models of gay men "embracing" eachother. They also have a heterosexual one and it is even more repellent. The shop is PACKED to the gunnels with stock, most notable being many, many of those hallmark birthday cards with things like "to my favourite brother's wife's best friend's cousin who is 9 today and named joe" and a long soppy and pointless "poem" on the inside spanning 4 seperate pages, thus making it a pamphlet rather than a card. They also sell Tourist items such as magnets with famous London landmarks on them. In glasgow. yes. The most annoying thing about the whole shop is that, while you are waiting in the packed place to get served you do see some things that you want to buy such as all the postage items (string, manilla envelopes and other EXCITING stationary) but there are notices allll over (on those neon coloured stars, obviously) with "pay at shop, not post office" on them. By this point you have already waited for 10 minutes in the queue and will be damned to go to the shop counter at the other end of the place. I've never bought a single thing from that shop.
So, moving on to the post office itself, well actually before you can even see the post office you have to queue in a ridiculously cramped in and out barrier system. Inevitably you are pushed together with the other "people" who use the post office. I guess the people who used to go to the High street branch started using fedx because the people in this one are definately more "big n' pretty" at the trongate than crabtree and evelyn in princes square. If you have ever taken the time (oh yes, there is one thing that is in abundence at the post office) to look at these underclass type people they are either A) obese and wearing the wrong clothes for it, B) gaunt and junkie-ish to the point that they look like corpses or C) very very old and probably humming/whistling some elvis song. Those from Category A are way too big for the barrier system and take the barriers with them as they advance to the front. The Bs usually smell of pish, or BO or shit or eau de pish or something you do not want near you and you are always next to them in the line. The oldies have NO perception of what personal space is and basically have their chins on your shoulders and often like to comment on the thing you are posting. "ohhh! careful with your parcel hen, dont want to knock someone out he he he he".
Anyway here we are we made it through the barrier system and the people and we are at the counter. This is where the long wait becomes obvious seeing as there is never more than 3 people serving, more often its 2 and 1 is always in the bureau de change bit. You realise this bit, which also is used at the post office, has a seperate queue so you could have spend the 25 mins in the queue of death or actually walked straight up to the bureau counter and been like "ehhh £1 worth of euros? oh you cant? well while im here i have this package to post..." This usually causes fights between those in the long and short queues too which is fun. The people serving are awful though. Apart from the bureau guy they are all women, they are all about 50 and they all hate the world and everything in it starting with parcels, stamps and post office customers. NEXT! Asking for something that isn't "ukfirstclassnoproofofpostageexactchangebye" puts them out big style and then their day is ruined. chances are 20 other people already ruined it before you got there so you are screwed from the get go. I have had some success though, you would think I would get more pissed off and snooty the more I get this response. In fact this is the common response, for example, I was in 2 days ago and there was a woman who had to wait 15 minutes in the queue (don't know why she was so pissed, thats decent for the place). Anyway she was standing there with a huffy look on her mug and shifting from one foot to the other, hand on her hip, sharply exhaling every few seconds. "HUUHH". "HUUUUUUH". "HUUUUUUUUUUUH-HUH!". The reason was becuase some silly goose decided to fill out his road tax at our post office and it was taking all 3 members of staff a long time to work out how this was done. Anyway she was served soon enough and she plonks her package on the scale, waits for 2 seconds then grabs it off. "I'm sorry I need to weigh that" says the woman serving. "HUUUUUUH" she goes and whacks it back on. It is posted and the receipt is given; "heres your receipt thanks see you later, bye". As the woman walks past the queuing people on her way out she says "cheeky bitch" in that schemey way. WHO WAS SHE TALKING TO???!?!?! no-one, her own ego, thats who. drama queens at the post office. she must be a really important person. Yea so now instead of being dramatic or pissy I challenge myself to make the women serving smile. I make myself sick. "Heeeeeeyy! Uk first class plleeeease, will i just pop this wee parcel on the scale? ok, on it goes heehee!! Is that it done? Here i'll pass it through... YOUR WELCOME!!!" *grin manic-like*. I swear, it has started to work, the other day one of them said thanks - SCORE!
So thats the post office. I deal with it passive-aggressivley now and i hate the place with every fibre of my being and if I have to go in again I will probably have a breakdown and start pulling the queue barriers down and smash the bureau glass. But maybe I will just remember the 57p of profit I am making on the item I am ebaying and having to make an extra trip to that god forsaken hell hole for as the buyer didnt pay for another day, and I will be happy, and try to make the post office women crack a slight smile. Fingers crossed.
Monday, 26 July 2010
Fashion Victims
I feel that, seeing as I have no friends, it is about time I told it like it is vis-a-vis the ridiculous "trends" that some females subscribe to in failed attempts to be fashionable. I am not blaming these girls as, lets face it, most of them don't have the braincells to actually consider why and where they are getting these awful garments. Indeed I choose to blame the shops; I have been in topshop recently and its one big place filled with a few nice things and all these fur lined, feathered, thongy red herrings putting you off the scent of looking like a person. Regardless of fashion and what designers do, topshop is an idiot for thinking the regular people out there know how to manage their products. I shall expand on a few of my most detested items of late.
Firstly, as it is current, the gladiator sandal. What the hell is this thing? It's like a normal sandal has procreated with five others and the result in human terms would have 7 fingers and an extra ear.
I am not against leather, sandals, or multiple straps (in theory) but when people buy items like this the mind boggles. Even the idea behind the whole thing is ridiculous. Gladiator. Yes, I want to look like a GLADIATOR. A slave who has to fight to a bloody death in front of many social betters. And how shall I do this? By mimicing what a movie told me he wore on his feet while partaking in said beatings. GREAT idea guys, hats off.
Now we move on to the second of the three most awful trends I have singled out, UGGS. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE FUZZY LUMPS OF SHIT COLOURED MATERIAL? I mean, really these are like your slippers and your wellies bred and, may I ask, would you actually wear either your slippers or your wellies outside on a day to day basis (save collecting the paper or being on a farm/it very wet?) The most awful thing about them is the colour (poo brown of many varients), no the price (in excess of £100 at least...my australian friend told me they used to cost buttons btw, morons).. oh! or the fact that the knock off ones often seem to look marginally better...actually, no i've got it. its the way people think they are waterproof and charge them through muddy puddles and they end up all brown and wet and the boot slips off the heel so the person looks like they have some sort of debilitating limp.
Either way, anyone who wears these should know they look like they stepped in dog shit and it is now engulfing their legs.
Thirdly and finally, my most hated of ALL. Wearing leggings in place of trousers.
I have no idea who this woman is but she outlines the problem exactly as I wanted her to. Leggings are not trousers/jeans. They are leggings. They are barely more coverage than tights, yet somehow it is now ok to go out wearing leggings and a t shirt? WTF?! Also for some girls leggings have become too demure and now they will wear tights as trousers. These girls seem also to think an awful lot of their own arses. Because, indeed, that is all you notice when said fashion item is worn: arses. You know I can see your arse, and your arse crack, and from the front I can see your crotch, when you go out like that? Why does that not bother them.
And there. We are done. People are idiots. I clearly am brilliant (well, at least I dont wear harem pants). And Topshop is the devil, converting sheep to look like mutton dressed like lamb day after day. Good Morning.
Firstly, as it is current, the gladiator sandal. What the hell is this thing? It's like a normal sandal has procreated with five others and the result in human terms would have 7 fingers and an extra ear.
I am not against leather, sandals, or multiple straps (in theory) but when people buy items like this the mind boggles. Even the idea behind the whole thing is ridiculous. Gladiator. Yes, I want to look like a GLADIATOR. A slave who has to fight to a bloody death in front of many social betters. And how shall I do this? By mimicing what a movie told me he wore on his feet while partaking in said beatings. GREAT idea guys, hats off.Now we move on to the second of the three most awful trends I have singled out, UGGS. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE FUZZY LUMPS OF SHIT COLOURED MATERIAL? I mean, really these are like your slippers and your wellies bred and, may I ask, would you actually wear either your slippers or your wellies outside on a day to day basis (save collecting the paper or being on a farm/it very wet?) The most awful thing about them is the colour (poo brown of many varients), no the price (in excess of £100 at least...my australian friend told me they used to cost buttons btw, morons).. oh! or the fact that the knock off ones often seem to look marginally better...actually, no i've got it. its the way people think they are waterproof and charge them through muddy puddles and they end up all brown and wet and the boot slips off the heel so the person looks like they have some sort of debilitating limp.
Either way, anyone who wears these should know they look like they stepped in dog shit and it is now engulfing their legs.
Thirdly and finally, my most hated of ALL. Wearing leggings in place of trousers.
I have no idea who this woman is but she outlines the problem exactly as I wanted her to. Leggings are not trousers/jeans. They are leggings. They are barely more coverage than tights, yet somehow it is now ok to go out wearing leggings and a t shirt? WTF?! Also for some girls leggings have become too demure and now they will wear tights as trousers. These girls seem also to think an awful lot of their own arses. Because, indeed, that is all you notice when said fashion item is worn: arses. You know I can see your arse, and your arse crack, and from the front I can see your crotch, when you go out like that? Why does that not bother them.
And there. We are done. People are idiots. I clearly am brilliant (well, at least I dont wear harem pants). And Topshop is the devil, converting sheep to look like mutton dressed like lamb day after day. Good Morning.
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