...but You don't Really Care for Music, do You?

My mind is blown

I finally got around to watching Terrence Malik's latest cinematic offering - "The Tree of Life" last night.

For quite literally 20 minutes I was rendered speechless.

After that I could just about form words but was unable to structure them in a coherent manner.

The world around me had lost all meaning.  I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of ennui.  I was not left feeling peaceful by this film, as it had been suggested I might, quite the contrary in fact.  I was left feeling like a meaningless spec in an unfathomably vast ocean of other meaningless specs - but I was kind of ok with that.  It was really more resignation than peace.

Words are insufficient when attempting to describe this film - I could do it nothing more than a grave disservice.  Suffice to say, I know that I spent two hours of my life last night involved in something truly special.

I will not encourage anyone to watch this film for fear that were they not as overwhelmed by it as I, that I would have somehow cheapened it.  But it would be wonderful to have other people to gape open mouthed with (there is no real way of discussing this film) in wonder.

I will never need to watch another film again. 

I think not only have I ruined cinema for myself, but also my entire take on reality - I'm going to have to go and have a bit of a sit down and think about my life.



Awestruck Pixie Out

Ch ch ch ch ch ch check it out

I have made a new blog - despite yesterday's protestations to the contrary, after some discussion with the ever wonderful Captain Sideburns, it turns out a specialist interest-ish blog is not beyond my grasp...

It is here.

Go look at it.

Pixie Out

Real Men Hunt in Packs

I have been somewhat neglecting my poisonous pondering duties, of this I am acutely aware.  There is however, excellent reason for this... mostly I have been pondering the possibility of a specialist interest blog - in a vain attempt to move away from just being spectacularly self indulgent and hoping to write about something that people who do not actually know me might be interested in reading...

This has caused great inner turmoil for the Pixie. 

It turns out that any passing semblance to a specialist interest that I have is most definitely covered by far more qualified, talented and taller people than I.  My knowledge is simply not expansive enough to write about poetry or music.  I don't watch enough movies anymore to qualify for a film blog.  I considered comics and general geekery, but realised that this is an area the blogsphere is rather inundated with already.  I'm dangerously underqualified to write about mental health or therapy with any real weight behind my glib commentary.  I'm not funny enough to write a comedy blog.  I don't regularly practice any kind of witchery or general hippiness that much anymore, so am a wee bit out of the loop on that one.  I am, it transpires, quite distinctly average... how terribly dreary of me.

So, unfortunately, this means that you will have to continue to be subjected to my self indulgent ramblings every once in a while, combining a number of my distinctly average specialist interests with the dull sound of me whining and intermittently screaming... poor you.

Now then, where was I.....

Ah yes. 

Euro 2012....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Up until fairly recently I had managed to live my entire adult life free of men who like football - ah those were the halcyon days... (they weren't really I'm just saying that for dramatic effect) 

However, it seems I now find myself living with two of them.

During Euro 2012.  (probably - I think that's what it's called)

I can't escape it.  It's everywhere.  It's on all the time.  There is advertising for it everywhere.  Even when it's not actually happening live or on the TV, it is still being talked about.  Drooling, over-entitled knuckledraggers are being fawned over and vilified in equal measure - as if they some how matter. GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH... it just makes me so cross!

AND THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!!!!!!

In other, less nightmarish news:-

We spent the Jubilee weekend with the lovely Mr Ben's parents - which was lovely.  We watched a lot of telly all about how brilliant the Queen is, interspersed with news reports about the telly we'd just watched about how brilliant the Queen is, interspersed with eating and drinking lots and talking about how brilliant the Queen is because we got to be doing all of that on a Monday and a Tuesday, when we should really have been at work - but the Queen is brilliant so we had 2 days off instead... yey Queen!

I also read a squawking article by Jan Moir (by accident - Ben's Mum is a secret Daily Mail reader) - about how women who cry at work are weak and should have their testicles removed or something... I glazed over after the red mist descended and I had to go and have a cup of tea and a calm down and talk a bit more about how brilliant the Queen is.

The ever smashing Miss Laura has asked me to be a bridesmaid in her upcoming nuptials, when she will become Mrs Matt (I've never even been near a concentration camp) Smith... ain't that just grand?!?!?  Once we can get around finding matching dresses that will suit a slender size 8 and a boobilicious size 12, I believe my main task for the event will be to stop the Bride from freaking the fuck out and hosing the attending guests down in a hail of bullets... or at least plying her with the appropriate amount of booze to calm her, but not so much that pole dancing around the elderly relatives seems like a good idea... phew, I feel I may have my work cut out!!!

I also seem to find myself embroiled in charity work again... or rather - the creation of a charity.  I'm not really sure how it happened - I wasn't even drunk.  Initially the whole thing seemed like a jolly good plan and I was terribly flattered to have been asked to be involved in the inception of what seems like a brilliant charity aimed at raising the confidence levels of younguns.... and let's face it, who couldn't have done with a bit more confidence at school?!?!?
So brilliant idea - totally behind it - working with people I know, admire, respect and adore - love it - really good opportunity etc. I've been designing art work for marketing campaigns, coming up with logos and playing around with branding, found an accountant who is willing to be a Trustee and do our accounts - all in the space of about 2 weeks.... when I first told Ben about it, he said 'that sounds terrifying'... and I was all like 'nah.. it'll be fine... we'll be aces'....

Yup... had our first meeting as a group on Sunday ... totally terrified now. 

There is a highly strong possibility that I am way in over my head.... At some point I will be discovered as a fraud and a charlatan once again and booted out of this Utopian society of creative minds and do-gooders... until then however, I shall work my little pixie socks off to make it work.

I'm also passing the inbetween worrying about other stuff times by worrying about the future...stoopid future... stoopid being happy and wanting more of the happy stuff and actually being in a position to achieve it at some point... Gaaah!
My mind may explode.... or I may fall victim to Eduardo Monteaz this very weekend in some kind of Agatha Christie-esque plot.

Either way, at least I won't have to watch any more football!


Quivery Pixie Out
x

You Were Always On My Mind

It's that one day of the year again when pretty much everyone in the western world is made to feel awkward....

This... this right here is exactly what is happening to the lovely Mr Ben and I...


Actually, I'm rather looking forward to my jar of hammers when I get home... less the removing of my hand from my face, however.

I am not in the least a super pro girly valentine kind of a gal, with the squealing and the wailing and the impossibly high expectations of the opposite sex's ability to read minds and have Hollywood ideals of what romance should be, which inevitably all end in crushing disappointment.

Nor am I the bleak cynical hater who waxes lyrical about the commercialisation of romance and how we're all saps for buying into the ridiculous charade. Why do we need one enforced day per year to express our feelings for another soul?

Well we don't.

Or at least, we shouldn't.

As offensive as it may seem and however much it may stick in your craw, perhaps we do. Perhaps we do need greetings card companies and wine makers, florists and chocolatiers and over-priced jewellers to treat us like idiot children and spoon feed us this mush...

Just think about it for a moment.

Do any of us actually take the time to tell the people we care about how much they mean to us? Do we tell them as much as we could? As much as we should?

As much as they need to hear it?

So what if we're reminded to express our feelings once a year by an industry with alterior motives. So what?

We could all do with a little more love in our lives... a little more kindness... a little less psuedo intellectual cynacism. Being intelligent doesn't mean sacrificing joy.

I'm not just talking about your spouse or your partner or your illicit lover, but your fellow man. The girl in the typing pool who always stocks up the biscuits. The man at No. 42 whose pristine automobile you admire every weekend as he's out there washing it. Everyone who you'd miss if they weren't around. Everyone who ever touched you. Everyone who holds a place in your heart, every hand you've reached out for. Everyone who makes the horrid drudge of daily life a little more bearable. Go hug them, smile at them, thank them, whatever - just let them know.

I'm not saying that you should rush out and buy your wife diamonds - but remember to tell her how much you love her, or that you still get a flutter when you watch her walk away... not because Hallmark told you to, but because you mean it... and you want her to know.

Yes, it's sad that this day has come to represent corporate greed and that any gesture or display of affection offered on this day is tinged with the bile of obligation - but if it weren't for this day, when would you next find the time to show someone how much you care?

If you are one of those people who tell those you love that you do so regularly, then good for you... you are one of the few people who can legitimately sit atop their high horse today and shout cynical anti capitalist diatribe at the rest of us as we panic and complain.

But for the rest of the population, go hug someone.

Lord knows we could all do with a little more human contact... just to remind us that the world does not have to be a bleak and unforgiving wasteland void of emotion and joy (even if you are too smart to fall for the commercial trickery).

Go rejoice in some love.

Cupid Pixie Out
xxx

PS. Awesome birthday last weekend - despite many of the group being ice bound - my friends and ever so wonderful boyfriend took the time to tell me that they loved me... by getting me drunk and buying me awesome presents :)

PPS. I had a dream last night about a baby hedgehog trying to have sex with my leg... it was very strange

Cause I'm a Liar, Yeah I'm a Liar!

Well hello there, intrepid adventurer -

I too have been off adventuring - hence the lack of time to write ... I say lack of time, what I really mean is 'crippling Minesweeper addiction.'

I know....

I know....

*shame face*


Anyway - in stuff that's been going on around me despite my little problem (I can totally quit any time I want)... We bought new mice. Barton, Megatron and Dave.

Dave's dead.

Barton is a warrior poet and philosopher king... as you would expect with such a name.

Megatron is a souless, red eyed, evil doer.
He killed Dave.
Ben doesn't believe me - he thinks Dave died because he would habitually urinate in his own food and throw himself off tall things... but I know the truth ... I'm watching you Megatron... I'm watching you... you and your cute wiggly nose...

Also - boy mice are smelly and throw their food all over the place and never make their own bed... much like boy people, as it turns out.

Ben is now not going to Germany in April (yey!)... but probably Canada in October (boo!.. and also yey!.. dammit!)... so I have a little longer to get around the whole 'being a total fruit cake' thing... and I've found myself a counsellor who seems like a decent and not at all afraid of me sort of a chap... which is wonderful. I've had counsellors in the past who have cried at me... this did not go well... apparently plumbing the depths of the Pixie's mind is not for the faint of heart.

My Mother managed to break her spine over the festive period... which was terribly clever of her.

We're convinced it's because she's after a bionic one now... to go with her bionic shoulder and bionic knee... they can rebuild her... better..faster... more capable of walking without falling over... any of these things would suit me fine if it means I don't get any more painicked phone calls from my little brother at 8.30 am on a Saturday after a heavy session the night before and a hangover that is gaining independent movement and rational thought....

I still don't think I've thanked the sideburned one enough for getting out of bed at that ungodly hour, driving to 'Nam, then to Bath, then waiting around in the hospital for hours, then driving back to 'Nam, then cleaning up 'Mommy Vomit' then driving back home, all without batting an eye lid and still managing to crack jokes and make my brother and I feel much better about the whole thing... you legend you...

Thank you for being so good to me... and my crippled and ginger family.

Actual Christmas was lovely - cheating at boardgames, consuming everything edible in sight - you know, the usual. New Year also was a delightfully drunken and well dressed affair - still totally chuffed with the lovely vintage number I managed to pick up in a charity shop the day before... go me!

So now I'm back at work - it's January and as such it's supposed to be awful and overtime-y and no holiday-y ... because I work for an accountant and it's Tax Return time...

(Make sure you get yours in people... lest the Tax Man Cometh).

It's really not all that bad at all (so far) I just have actual work to do for a change - instead of sitting on my arse doing four fifths of fuck all. The worst part is the incessant negativity, food hoover noises and inane jabber I'm subjected to on a daily basis... it makes me want to kill.... violently...and with fire...

Still on the plus side, I'm now BFF's with Henry Rollins and have immediately shot up in the cool ratings of most everyone I know (who knows who he is) by like... 1,000,000,000% ... or something... I'm now THAT cool! Ah. aging hardcore kids are so easy to impress... it's really barely a challenge at all!!!!

Also - it's my birthday soon... you should buy me a present... I'm delightful... this should be rewarded... also ... I like presents! :)

Not allowed to celebrate her birthday properly because it's in sodding January Pixie Out

xxx

Cyborg Sea Dog Tell Me What You Dream Of...

Not being a naturally organised or together person but wishing most of the time to at least pretend to be grown up enough to organise my life to some degree; I rather enjoy lists. Particularly aspirational ones.

It’s not necessarily that they provide a means by which to measure your perception of success with each successive strike off, more that they encourage thought about what is really important, about that which you care the very most.

On that note, some time last year I compiled such a list.

Which I have subsequently (and probably inevitably) misplaced, somewhere between moving house and just not being grown up enough not to have misplaced it.

I do however, remember one item from said list: “Write a piece of poetry that is not unutterably self indulgent, you self absorbed, pretentious, Kerouac wannabe.” Or something to that effect.

I think I have managed it… just.

I also had “Write some good poetry” on said list … I don’t think I’m quite there yet… however some of my fellow wanky poets do seem to rather enjoy my inane douche-baggery… It’s all terribly subjective I suppose… I guess if you look hard enough you can find a strange beauty in most anything.

I was largely inspired by the goings on of the last couple of weeks… nothing particularly earth shattering or life altering has occurred (save our visit to Mauschwitz – which was rather life altering for the teeny rodents involved – in so far as it was life ending. I might have cried. A little bit. Ok, a lot… like a child in fact… Mr Ben was terribly stoic about the whole thing though… how uncharacteristically manly of him?!?!)

The last couple of weeks have seen Captain Sideburns and I watching the entire back catalogue of The Mighty Boosh, which aside from making me a little bit fall in love with Noel Fielding again (this happens intermittently – we currently have a very strained fantasy relationship – it’s almost like he doesn’t care about me at all) has also seen us obsessively singing “Future Sailors” at each other and the subversive irreverence has apparently bored its way into my subconscious.

Our outing to a quaint little venue called the Cube, in which the bar staff seemed to have arbitrarily swapped the contents of their mixer bottles around in some kind of bizarre practical joke, meaning that I was forced to drink vodka & coke (which was masquerading as sparkling water) as there was no lemonade (there was – it was hiding in the tonic bottle as Mr Ben found out when he took his first sip of Gin & tonic), provided the perfect backdrop for the stupendously brilliant Enablers. The snake hipped, silver tongued, middle aged, balding front man of said band and more precisely his doomy, cynical, but ever so beautiful lyrics teamed up with my Boosh brain to make some kind of weird drug induced psychedelic poetry smack down … awesome! (Also I am now the proud owner of number 178 of 200 of his delightfully illustrated collection of lyrics/doomy beat poetry – thank you, electro funk goblin.)

In short – I done wrote a poem again… one that I quite like, actually.

I’m now considering writing another aspirational list.
Point 1 on said list should probably be “find old list.”

In other news, Mr Ben and I spent the prior weekend largely eating cheese and defacing children’s colouring books – with Crayola crayons, no less! It’s not what you think – so far there has yet to be the addition of any raging man cock to a single picture. Instead we have gone for something far more sinister and insidious… our efforts include chaos fawn, doomed sea voyage complete with emerging sea monster, Death Bus 2000: The Final Solution and alien abduction in a sleepy rural village… but no penises… we are however running short on ideas, so stylized tentacle porn may well turn up at some point.

This may be why adults aren’t generally allowed to play with children’s toys.

I have also discovered that the men in my life are rather enamoured with the ridiculous reality bitch fest that is America’s Next Top Model. Don’t get me wrong, I’m rather a fan myself (particularly of makeover week – I enjoy watching nasty girls cry) but I have got nothing on these two “heterosexual” males. Bets were placed this week on how many girls would cry while getting their hair all cut off/dyed/badly weaved etc. – I figured there were enough badasses in this cycle that only 2 of the remaining 11 would cry… I was spot on… but even this proud victory paled into insignificance next to the whooping, hollering and general chatter that emitted from the boys during our Tuesday night TV session…

Benders!

Finally – Mr Ben is going to Germany for 3 months in April. I’m trying really hard to be ok with this… but I’m totally not. I may be a nightmarish basket case for a while as I work out how to combine being supportive and being sad.

Sorry.

News worthy Pixie out.

It's that little souvenir of a rather good year actually

So, since Captain Sideburns has already posted about the house move and the holiday, there seems little point in me doing the same... except to say the following:

• House - good - very good... kinda wish it was ours for keeps...


• Window vinyl design and erection (*tee hee - erection*) - utterly frustrating but ultimately awesome and unique - so much so that our local Avon Lady came by just to tell us how awesome it was ... which was nice


• Futon - lovely... but also the cause of our first "fight" (the word fight is in inverted commas because we're both far too polite to actually fight... though I always said our first one would be about soft furnishings... or carpet... god I hate carpet!)


• Santorini - amazing... beach, cocktails, lovely hotel, fascinating trip up a mountain, battle with the gods - everything you want from a holiday really


• My very favourite photo of the whole trip can be seen here I think it sums up the whole thing rather nicely, myself.

Since returning from galavanting around volcanic Greek islands and fixing up our house all nice, I've been really very tired and a bit out of sorts... especially this week... because I have been obsessing since about 3 o'clock Sunday morning about a ridiculous Excel quiz featuring lyrics from 90s songs. Essentially there are 200 lines from songs and you get 2 points for getting the artist or the title and 5 points if you get them both right. I'm on 650 points so far. Frankly, this is not good enough. I'm sure there is some fancy pants way of embedding the file into this blog so you can share in my insanity but buggered if I can figure out how to do it.

Ben has given me till the end of the week before he takes it away from me... I think he might be slightly worried about my mental health... I think I am too... it's keeping me awake at night... stoopid quiz...stoopid competitive streak...

On the plus side I am rediscovering music I'd completely forgotten about... and some I wish I could forget about...

damn your eyes Celine Dion - your insipid brand of pop warble has soiled my mind's ear for the last time...

Pixie Out