Blehh

I don't even know what to tell you. I've been feeling on/off in rapid succession a LOT lately, it's like... I'll go for a run (my anti-angst) and feel fine for an hour, and the next, dissolve into complete and total bleh. BLEH. It just kind of falls out of your mouth when you say it. It's not even a legitimate feeling. Normally when I get like this I usually attach it to useless whining feelings about "I don't have a life, BOOOOO." But I have been doing some PRETTY FINE SHIZZLE as of late. (That's shit for those of you who just don't. speak. gangster.)

I saw Jo Koy, this AMAZINGLY HILARIOUS comedian last Friday in Toronto and laughed my ASS off. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I was lucky enough to see the Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys at the ACC in Toronto just this passing Wednesday. Then, thanks to working my ASS off (literally) this week, I shredded off a grand total of 3lbs in one week. Three. Pounds. That my friends, is what we in the biz call KILLING IT UNTIL IT DIES. Needless to say, pleased about that. And uh, Community is back. HELLO, AMAZING?

Now, theoretically, with all this awesome shit in the PAST, I COULD be bummed out because suddenly the future calendar is looking empty. Suddenly, it's St. Patrick's Day and I'm not out getting mega smashed with the masses. (Gee, I'm SO sorry I'll miss the opportunity to watch someone barf green.... Seriously though, I wouldn't mind one or two green beers on a patio right about now. Takers?)

The thing is, I can't even complain about not having stuff to do in the future. The weather has been AMAZING here. March break usually swallows us up with snow but right now it's like spring or summer. I've been running outside every day I can, getting out in the sun, basking in the glow of this sneak preview of summer. Apparently, according to my little Mac widget, it's gonna continue to be amazing too.

Monday, our local cinema is playing the Labyrinth on the big screen, and Wednesday, I have my big coffee seminar debut. (Holyshit.) Plus, I'm still waiting for news back from Concordia, which I think might be the core of my laundry pile of stress. I have a bad feeling. Maybe I'm just trying to have a bad feeling so if I don't get in I can say 'I knew it anyway' and if I do, then I can do the biggest happy dance followed by the biggest monetary and life altering panic attack that I am capable of. (Somebody bring a video camera. It could be youtube worthy.)

Either way. Life has been busy and my weird moods have kept me from blogging and that's how it's going to be, probably, for the next little while. But I'll try and update when I can. So those of you holding your breath and hanging on my every word can relax.

Clothes N' Junk:

Zero Cool

I'm trying to not use the word awesome, because awesome is an abused and often misused word...that I use:

alarming, astonishing, awe-inspiring, awful, beautiful, breathtaking, daunting, dreadful, exalted, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frantic, frightening, grand, hairy*, horrible, horrifying, imposing, impressive, intimidating, magnificent, majestic, mean, mind-blowing*, moving, nervous, overwhelming, real gone, shocking, something else, striking, stunning, stupefying, terrible, terrifying, wonderful, wondrous, zero cool

Would anyone be upset if I started using "zero cool"? I'm thinking, it's pretty freakin' rad.

The Running Song of the Week is: Montreal Calling by Mobile


The pre-chorus's punchy beat is REALLY good for setting a faster pace and shredding it right the hell up when the chorus finally comes into it's own.

Mixed Bag

When your best friend on the face of the earth proposes a 10 day trip to Paris/Spain, including the wedding of her cousin, you should probably say yes. Before four years of being broke in school in a new city, locked into tuition and work and money. Before graduation, a job, a family. You should probably say yes.

You want to walk the streets in Paris and feel the history swell in your chest. You want to sit in perfect silence in a café to hear the language all around you. A cultural ambiance. You want the nightlife, to dance with the locals into the early hours of the morning. French Discotheque. Spanish Guitar. You want to fall in love with something different. Off the wall. You want the life experience more than you want the money. You want to chase your heart's desire's over all over the straight and narrow path paved by the brain's stern logical voice.

You want a long dress. Sangria and sunglasses. Je voudrai parler Francais. Photographs. Memories. You want your biography to read that at the tender age of 22, you ran wild with Spaniards and it changed you.

I hate money.
---
When did I stop being happy go lucky and start being melodramatic? I'm gonna figure it out and fix it, damnit.
---
TEXTS I WAS GOING TO SEND TODAY BUT I COULDN'T BECAUSE I HIT MY TEXT LIMIT AND CANNOT SEND MORE WITHOUT BEING CHARGED:

"I think I hate peplums."

"Verona + cinnamon dolce = MY NEW LIFE FORCE."

"Oh the sweet memories! Did you give it a wave?"

"BABE DID YOU VISIT WHILE I WAS ON MY LUNCH?!"

"Uhhhh Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning I think? Let me double check."

"I keep thinking about that magazine thing. It could be SO SICK."

"We Don't Want Our Friends To Be Happy."

"We Don't Want Our Friends To Be Happy" by William Henderson

I like to think I'm a good person, but the good means that I am the bare minimum of a decent human being... And the person means that of course, I'm going to be flawed.

I sincerely like when my friends are happy, but I admit that I have the potential to be upset when I'm not the catalyst for their happiness. I love them, and when someone or something else, a satisfying job, a lover, self improvement, gives them something that I can't... It's easy for me to get jealous of whatever is filling in the blank for them. (Yes. I am 10 years old with envy issues. Oops. I should have included that in my blogger bio.)

When we're needed, we're pleased. Who needs us more than a friend in pain?

On the other end of the scale, I could also agree with Henderson's argument. Not that I want my friends to fail. I just want our lives to synchronize watches so that everyone has ups at the same time. So that nobody gets left behind while the rest get to have their cake and eat it too. I don't want someone (myself included) to be miserable and bitter while everyone else gallivants off on pink unicorns.

Joyful equality! Is that too much to ask?

Veganarian

My l'il sister Kacy is trying out a funny balance of Vegan + Vegetarian as part of a New Years health kick. I don't entirely understand her motives but I admire her courage. (She's downstairs cooking us dinner right now. This is the girl who texts me excitedly when she properly makes rice for dinner at school.) As long as she doesn't become one of those preachy douchey Vegans, I'm down with her choice. She says that a lot of her choices are related to the hormones and processing in meat products, so I told her she will have to kiss EVERYTHING A MCDONALDS GOODBYE. Which I suppose is the point of the whole exercise.

Kacy tends to hibernate for 12+ hours every day when she can, and she's hoping it might afford her a little more energy, which is a decent try, anyway.

I can't judge her because I ate vegetarian for about a year in my teens, more as an identity thing over a moral/nutritional thing. I also cooked veggie stylez a lot at school because it was inexpensive. (And I'll probably do it again!) Either way. That's what's happening right now.
I got so excited that she was making dinner for us. She's wearing the glasses because she A) wants to look cool B) onions make her cry C) all of the above.

It's funny to watch the people in my family move independently of one another. Off to work/the gym and cooking each other dinner.
I'm in the midst of trying to decrypt the application process to University in a different city. My older sister just got a new job related to her desired field. (CONGRATS JILLIGAN!) I guess this is what it feels like to be part of a family as it grows, changes and evolves.

Whether Kace is in a phase or not, for some reason it's fostered some pride to me that she's trying something new and different under the banner of self improvement. I advised ma that she should be happy her kids are expanding their horizons and trying new things of their own volition. Mama, being classic mom, doesn't GET IT.

Which is yet another entry on the list of things that my parents don't understand about their children. Maybe just for now, or maybe not ever. I've been wondering lately over the fact that my parents STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND ME. Something I thought I let go of more or less when I graduated from college, became an adult (more or less), that kind of thing. We are all growing, moving, changing. Independent colonies broken off from the original mother(andfather) land.

I guess the difference between teenhood and now is that now I can appreciate WHY we fail to connect on some subjects: music, tattoos, politics, clothes, careers, and so on and so forth. This is in contrast to just fuming about what I assumed was ignorance but was really just differences in time and upbringing and culture and other things. What can you do? Just wait until you're on your own, I suppose.

P.S. If anyone has any suggestions for workout songs or healthy recipes they'd recommend, I'm in the market!

QUICKMAS

Just a quick post. I'm writing this because I can't sleep even though it's Christmas day now (technically) and if I sleep morning will come faster! (Deep breath here.) So this is just going to be a wee tiny post. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(If you don't celebrate Christmas, please take away from those two words all the well wishes and perpetual love you want this time of year! And if you don't want my well wishes and perpetual love, get the hell off my blog.)

I want to talk about my family's Christmas traditions BUT I took pictures which will at least make the content more palatable at a later date, so we can wait for those. In the meantime: OUTFITS.


The best part is, I think everything except the boots, jacket and hat were thrifted for this outfit.
Hat: Zellers (LOL)
Jacket: Fairweather
Boots: Aldo
I wore this to go to a karaoke evening with my friend Justin last Sunday. I had to wait for a little snow fall to wear the hat without looking like a crazy person, but it was WORTH IT.
I sang Somebody To Love by Queen, which I BOMBED hard from nerves. Then I sang Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, which worked out better. Sometimes when I sing my voice has an old time country June Carter lilt to it, so that one was a little easier.

I dunno if it's fashionable or stylish even, but I like it. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.

Here's what I put at the VERY VERY TOP OF MY LIST THIS YEAR:

The First Break-Up

I know, in fact, I've written posts about how bad I am at letting things go. About how I carry a lot of anger and pain around with me, only to have it brought up by random memory prompts and reminders in every day life. One of the best ways I'm able to HELP myself get over stuff is by writing about it. I've never been amazing with words or expressing how I feel out loud. A pen or a keyboard gives me a voice I don't have the strength or skill to put out there otherwise. Maybe that's why I'm interested in poetry slams and readings. They give words the power out loud, the kind I've always idolized.

SO I am going to warn you here: THIS POST (while not containing the word dildo other than the prior use of the word) IS FRAUGHT WITH 20-SOMETHING ANGST. It's all about the break-up with the guy I was seeing-kindof-seeing-was-basically-seeing. Maybe it's passive aggressive or stupid to put this here, but the thoughts have been tumbling over and over in my brainspace and getting them out might save me some grief or some psychotherapy sessions later so...without further ado:

WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST BREAK UP.

Nobody gave me the warning not to include good music in your first relationship. No one said to me that the next time David Bowie filled the negative space in my car with his wavering, sonic spaceman vocals, that I wouldn't think about Major Tom. I'd be thinking about you and I, driving down the street late night, marveling of the sound on the cassette... the one we bought in that awesome music store you showed me. That was the day we played pianos and sat in the sun and held hands and watched people dance in the park. Nobody told me I might have to think about breaking up with Mr. Bowie if it meant wincing every time I heard Golden Years. Or Tom Waits. Billie Joel. The Black Keys. Nobody warned me about that part.

I certainly wasn't ready for the lies you told me. I'm sure they weren't lies at the time, and I'll give you that. But clearly now it's easy to see I wasn't the only one, or the dream girl, or even your friend for life. People change, I get that....but I still wonder if you stopped returning my texts of your own volition, or if it was her call? You explained to her who I was, what we had, where I stood, in the background and... Here we are, incommunicado. Maybe it's pathetic, maybe I can't stand the idea that you just gave up on me of your own free will...because for me I don't think it will ever be that easy.

I mean, here I am, writing this blog to you to try and make space in my head for someone else. Him, who keeps my hands warm in the icy rain and him who is just tall enough my head tucks right into where his neck meets his shoulder.
I'm trying really hard to be mad at you, but I can't. I thought I was angry, the other day, but it was just a hit of adrenaline combined with a really good song and speeding in my car. I know the truth is that one of us would have cut the other off eventually. You just found her first...and I'm not sure I could have had the guts to do that to you. But thank you, for being my first break up. For pulling the trigger. For being gentle and giving me forewarning. For texting me instead of waiting until I drove to see you, so you didn't have to watch my expression crumple like a discarded love note when you broke the news. Most people think it's a shitty way to do things. I think it was a mercy.

So if you want to be friends, yeah I'm here.

I think what's hard is that this whole break up thing has brought some ugly pieces of me from the woodwork. The pieces that are TRYING to be angry with you . The pieces that want to make you jealous, any time I have to stare at a thumbnail of your new profile picture on Facebook where she's all curled up in your arms. (Maybe that's called having a uterus and some estrogen. I have no idea.) The fact that I can't seem to get. you. out. of. my.head when I'm so far from any thought of yours that I might be a stranger. If we passed on the street I'd look over my shoulder to watch you walk away, all while turning a bright, red crimson. The kind that used to neon my cheeks when you told me I was beautiful.

Ugly pieces like wanting to give up. Wanting to find someone, anyone, in an attempt at revenge. Yeah, juvenile, but I'm 21 years old, I was... a little enamoured with you. If we had been closer I would have wanted to see you every day. This was a heartbreak of geography. Of convenience. And when you're me, and love conquers all is suddenly love's about to fall to a different, easy option, you have to check yourself. Realize the reality. Come back from those midnight car make outs, those walks in the park, those breakfasts, the playful talk about the kids back home... And realize everything happens for a reason. People come into our lives in different roles and maybe the roles change and we outgrow them, or they outgrow us or we're cast in different parts. Obviously, it's going to take awhile for me to accept that.

So forgive me for being petty and airing some dirty laundry.
I'm going to listen to that Bowie tape and forget the connotation and the implication and even the little bit of devastation. I'm moving on and moving up.

All the best,
Me

The Daily News...and tits.

The Bear has been on the prowl lately. I think, combined with PMS raises it and my buried anxieties about the run are bringing it to the front. It's on the 16th, so we are officially two days away. And, not to sound like someone making New Years resolutions, but after the run, I'm hoping to get back into a better health routine in terms of going to the gym and watching what I eat. I've been TERRIBLE lately... like reality TV terrible and I think it's effecting my mood and my confidence, for starters.

The Bear scares away my optimism and I crawl back into bed at 4 in the afternoon because I don't want to go downstairs and eat everything in the kitchen out of some nameless anxiety and feelings of being emotionally and physically hideous. Some bitterness. I don't know...it's not a good state of mind. I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just saying, that's how out of whack I get around this time. Jill and Rebekah both separately suggested going on the pill to help regulate some of my hormones, which I think might be a good idea. Except that you need to get your doctor to give you a PAP, and in my peaky, pre-PMS whiny sensitive state, the worst idea ever seems to be an old guy looking at my lady parts, analyzing them while he thinks about the bad golf game he had on the weekend.

It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened to me.
(For those of you who aren't educated, that's the journal I had before this one. Warning: The post talks about my tits and the awkward doctor appointment where they were first revealed to the world. Yes, I said tits.)

Either way. To lift our spirits and get some stuff done, Bek and I went Halloween shopping today. I got white pants, suspenders, shoes, a wig and a moustache. My Freddie ensemble is basically complete. (Weird story: While we were at the second costume store, we saw costume moustaches made out of 100 percent REAL HUMAN HAIR. WTF IS THAT.) I'm looking forward to Halloween more and more and more. I've never even been a big fan of it...(I was traumatized by a booby trapped house as a child, true story) but this year I'm actually SO excited. My love of Freddie combined with my love of gay bars will explode into black and orange glittery love. Seriously. Bek got a lot of the stuff for her costume. GO TEAM US!

After shopping we went out for dinner and spoke about the sort of near but also slightly distant future. We spoke about Chuck Palahniuk's soon to be released book Damned, and of our prospective lives if we moved to Montreal. Nous avons parlé de l'étudie le Francais. University and work. My prospective writing portfolio. Ogling the Montreal men. Apartment warming parties. I don't know. It was enough to bring a little warmth back into my bones and lift my spirits. That's what friends are for!

Plans? Costume? Tits? TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT.

Thanksgibbin's

Every year on Thanksgiving, my family has dinner together. We invite our neighbors who only have family out of town, our friends who live alone, my sisters brought their boyfriends. Every year we have a big meal and after we finish, before the evening is through, we sit around the table, and go in a circle, and say what we're thankful for.

I want to continue this tradition if/when I get to have a family of my own. I think I would love to have people so close by to me, an open group of friends where the line blurs into family, and a moment of clarity and honesty and gratitude. Some people think about it before, some of us go on the spot.

This year, I was thankful for the life I lead and the problems I have.
I'm looking into post secondary so that I can work with a non-profit organization. Through this lense I've seen a lot of bad things. People less fortunate than I am. I know that compared to what SOME people go through, my problems are nothing.
So I am thankful that my obstacles, mental, physical, romantic, artistic, whatever...I'm glad I can overcome them. Everytime I overcome a problem, I grow a little. And when I grow enough, I'll be able to reach out to others and help them with their problems. See the bigger picture.

What are you thankful for this year?

I've been sick, with a little cold, a little nausea, a little fever.

I've been feeling pretty antsy lately too. Like there's something wild under my skin and I'm not sure how to take care of it this time.

I've been lost, looking at my options for the future and wavering on my path. Whatever path that is. Even with a list of like...15 schools Canada-wide...that's still a 15 different lives to choose from.

I think people don't hug each other enough.

EDIT: RANDOM UPDATE.

I was feeling like adding more so I decided to throw in a couple of outfit pictures featuring my lovely orange jacket. Again. Sue me. I was feeling a little like ass kicking today, so not featured in these pictures are my ass kicking black combat boots. I like wearing t-shirts, but there's a fine line between a boring t-shirt and jeans and a nicely put together ENSEMBLE. Yeah, that's a hoity toity word.

One of these days I'm going to find a better space to take outfit photos in, because I realize right now that my blog has more torsos than a serial killer's garden.

Jacket: H&M
Meanie-bo-beanie...or as we say here, toque: H&M
Sick Boy T-Shirt: Birthday present!
Jeans: Forever 21
Combat Boots (MIA): Spring

I would also like to say that I can't take an outfit picture without doing something weird. I.e. Looking like I'm A) Seeing forever B) Doing a great impression of a dramatic movie poster in the photo on the right.

Espresso Powered

Hey kids!

The good news is that contrary to what the lack of postings might suggest, I am NOT DEAD! (WOO!) The bad news is that I have been working a LOT (6 days this week!) and have not had the time or the energy to post anything. So, I decided to write a blog on my laptop while on my 30 minute lunch break at work. This breakneck speed is unforgiving so please let any typos, grammar, flying monkeys or espresso stains slide by unnoticed.

Everything in life has been going swimmingly since I lost my mind on that fine Sunday and ended up with my therapist. She made me realize that I need to make some big changes in my life. I've looked at everything from looking for internships at magazines to volunteering overseas to studying abroad somewhere cool, but I haven't quite decided which I want more. Any and all of these choices would obviously have a huge impact on my life, and I have dreams and hopes that are attached to all of them.

Thursday I'll be popping into my school to get some career counselling and hopefully find one answer or another to my dilemma. Also, meeting with my friend Justin for lunch, who invited me to the poetry slam a week? Two weeks ago?

Either way...poetry slam was CRAZY AWESOME, you have no idea. (Unless you've been to a slam before. Oh. My. Lawd.) It opened up my mind to how words could be used as weapons, as fists, as affection and hate and social expression. Don't ask me WHY I didn't think of poetry that way before, I just...never had experienced it that way. Bek and I got lost on the way there as her blackberry (which had the map and directions on it) died and so we ended up on another crazy adventure that ended in something totally new and beautiful and exciting. It was honestly one of the best nights in recent memory and I can't wait to go to another one! Which I most definitely will.

In other news, I am 90% sure that I am going to be FREDDIE MERCURY for Halloween this year. (As a follow up to my last minute decision to go as David Bowie last year.) The complete obsession with Freddie, and Queen and the general amazingness of them together continues on. I saw Lion King in 3D and while I don't give a damn about 3D, I have to confirm, yes, Lion King is STILL as good as you thought it was when you were younger. Actually, maybe even better. That's rare, isn't it?

4AM Rambles

I like staying up late because it affords me the time to sit with my own thoughts, without distractions and write, think, make plans. When I'm up late I can dream about the finish line, the films and stories I'm not yet writing. I can think about the acoustic guitar I want to learn to play, and the people I miss with more clarity than in the chaos of daytime. I can really get down to the marrow in the bones of what I want, or need. Things that seem unclear suddenly emerge like they're really obvious.

What I need to do with my future. What I want from life. What I feel about who, and why. Sometimes the hard thing is admitting to these revelations, because they're not what everyone else wants or needs to hear. Sometimes, they're not even what I want to hear, especially if they mean putting myself before pre-made plans or notions. Things that might mess with other people.

The pressure to appease the other people in my life is manifest in a diagnosed social phobia/anxiety disorder that I try not to let define me. Every now and again though, it allows me to open up, especially to other people. I found out two of my co-workers also suffer from anxiety today and it immediately put my heart out to them in a way I don't think I would have connected with them otherwise.
It seems like almost everyone I know has suffered through, or is suffering through some kind of anxiety of the times. At dinner I asked my parents if this was the case 30 years ago. Were people just more quiet about their problems because mental illness was taboo? Or is the internet age breeding directionless heart broken kids with carpal tunnel and happy pills to keep them upright during the day?

Staying up late also affords me the brilliant ability to ramble for paragraphs, a constant stream of thought sort of thing. I don't think I should write much longer, it's 4AM. We'll be back to your regular programming soon... I'd just post this because I'd hate for all these thoughts to go to waste somewhere.

Sitcom

I am a character in a sitcom. I'm am convinced of this because:

A) I get into situations you would find in a sitcom.
B) I react like a TV character, this meaning... Not rationally. (Also, a lot of the time I see the people around me as characters in their own lives. I'm like Abed from Community, and the way he analyzes everyone like they're on a TV show. Whether this is healthy or not really remains to be seen.)

For example: Today at work, we were finishing up our money counts so we could all go home for the night. I dropped a nickel on the ground counting out my till and it was like the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie's dad has to change the tire on the car.
"Ohhhhh fffffffuuuuuuuu-dddgggee..." I said.
"Were you just going to swear? Were you going to say fuck?" My manager asked.

Then she went on to say that I'm so NICE and sweet and innocent. So much so that when I swear she finds it surprising. (This is where everyone I know in real life bursts out laughing. I have a bit of a profanity problem...especially when I'm driving. The word 'sluts' comes into play a LITTLE too often.) In fact, my manager called me the Preacher's Daughter. Not the naughty misbehaving kind-- the GOOD kind. I was shocked, and to be honest, appalled. I guess that's the kind of image I project at work, being happy all the time. I always try to be as nice to people as possible... So don't ask me WHY I found this label surprising or offensive. It was one of those irrational things sitcom characters do. I immediately wanted to begin swearing like a sailor, just to make a point. Just to prove that old line from Fight Club: you are not your job. You are not who you ARE at your job.

I spent my drive home imagining ways to prove that I'm NOT a goodie two-shoes, in hypothetical ways. They started out hilariously small, such as not charging people for bags, or wearing bright coloured converse. Then they started getting more extreme: caught shoplifting. Speeding tickets. Losing it in an aisle and trashing items off the shelves. I'm actually thinking about writing a mini pilot episode, just to stretch my writing legs. I'll call it: THE LIFE OF RILEY! (Which was already a sitcom in the 1950s, but shush.)
This isn't the first time I've thought this way: that I'm a character in a TV show. In fact I'm pretty sure I've ranted to my friend Josh about this fact a couple of times. Josh specifically, for some reason.

Like the time I thought a guy at my internship was asking me out for coffee, when really, he was asking me to GET him a coffee.

Or the time I went to see 127 Hours with a friend-- not the kind of friend I was comfortable crying around-- and had to keep myself from all out BAWLING at the end of the movie. Awkward central.

OR the time when I-- oh geez. You get the point here. Life is comical. It's only a matter of time before I start hallucinating a laugh track, I get my own theme song and some wacky neighbors move in next door to fuel the fire.

Single Serving Jack

I've been neglecting this, mostly because I haven't been doing anything interesting and I don't want to post for the sake of hearing myself talk. Today after seven weeks of routine, my brain has inevitably crashed and I needed to write something that wasn't a script review before I got any further into my happy little square of insanity.

The exciting news is that I'll be off to California next week, to explore a new corner of the world and get my blood flowing again. My mom is excited to babysit Costello for the week, and I'm excited to get away from my desk. I'll be blogging about it when I can. (Of course my camera and my laptop are coming with me!)

It's occurred to me however, that this much needed break from reality is going to be temporary. The reason anything makes me insane is because I feel like I do the same thing over and over and over again. It won't be long before I'm walking around hitting myself like the narrator from Fight Club.

_{I'm starting to see the resemblance.(source)}

So I guess in short, when I get back, I'm going to try and post more. A LOT more.

And if you read all that, for all your trouble, here's a video of Colin Firth swearing gratuitously. My favourite thing of the week thus far: