Glintlock. Or not.

It is the Dawn of Time. For this presentation, Little Person Living Inside My Head will play the role of Glintlock, the Huge Fairy Living Under A Rock. (Please, Loverlies, bear with me. It's a long bus ride.)

So it is the Dawn of Time, and flaming cauldrons of hot lava are bubbling and gurgling, the toxic air is noxious as it it's expected to be, and the unicellular being (which, happily and lazily, although occasionally with some measure of enthusiasm, has been floating in the pond among other similar beings) is beginning to sprout a little tail. But you can't see it, or its new little tail, because they are super, super small. We're talking microscope small, I swear, it's like trying to see a....argh. Hang on. Someone needs the spotlight again.

Me: Okay, Little Person Living Inside My Head, what now?
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Hi!
Me: Hi. What do you want? I'm telling a story, here.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Sooooo....how are things, buddy?
Me: "Buddy"? Geez, I created you! What recognition!
Little Person Living Inside My Head: What, like you wouldn't call God your "buddy"?
Me: WHAT?
Little Person Living Inside My Head: You know God, don't you?
Me: Um, I know about God. Sure.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Have you spoken to him lately?
Me: Him? No. You?
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Yeah, actually I follow him on Twitter. I totally retweet his tweets. Like, all the time.
Me: Okay. First of all, you sound like a teenager. Second, quit using my iPhone to spy on me and my Twitter activity when I'm not looking. It pisses me off. And third, you are not following the actual God's Twitter feed, you are following some guy who pretends to be God. And he's funny.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Ah! So you admit God exists! You said "the actual God"!
Me: *sigh* ...
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Why are you sighing?
Me: Because you're freaking obnoxious.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: You love my being obnoxious: quit whining! It enables you to write senseless, pointless, absurd dialogues between you and me and kills time while you're on the bus. And you believe in God!
Me: I do not. I don't see why this is any of your business.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Hee hee. I live inside your head: everything about you is my business!

So the tiny, unicellular being we were spying on earlier in this post was merrily zooming in a circle around its cozy pond, humming a light tune and switching directions once in a while, so as to not wear out its tiny hairs/arms/means of propulsion and their tiny follicles.

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Snooze.
Me: Shut up, worm.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Rude!
Me: Obnoxious.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Rich vocabulary!
Me: Shut up.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: ...and plethora of insults! No! Nooooo! I am slain by thy whipping words, oh mighty, mighty creator! Aaaaargh! Pain! Shooting pain through my heart and soul!
Me: Okay. Put your costume on. It's time for the play.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: What play?
Me: The Glintlock thing.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Oh! No. No, I'm not doing that anymore.
Me: What? But we've been rehearsing for weeks! You've made me listen to you in my sleep! You have been waking me up in the middle of the night - while I was on vacation! - to show me your costume and to relieve you of stage fright! You are not doing this to me.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Yeah, no. My agent was supposed to call you about that.
Me: You don't have an agent.
Little Person Living Inside My Head:: Yeah I do!
Me: Oh really? Who is it?
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Glintlock.
Me: No. Glintlock is the character you're supposed to portray in the play.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Well, he lives inside my head now.
Me: Great. Now the tenant in my head has a tenant in its head.

Ipso Facto.

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Hi. I thought I’d barge in here, because I’ve got all the passwords and stuff, being the Little Person Living Inside Mademoiselle’s Head and all, and let you know how things have been lately. You need to know. I’ve been relegated to the role of, um, Bookkeeper or Something, and so that makes me the only entity, aside from Mademoiselle herself, able to tell you what has been going on inside her head lately. So bear with me: I make things interesting. First, you need to know I have been fine, thank you. I value your friendship for asking. I always knew you came here for news about me, not Mademoiselle’s constant rambling.

And now, on to the other things. So, you should be warned, this is not a pretty or a funny story, and Mademoiselle has had it rough. She spent more than one evening getting used to being alone, and the evenings where she was not alone, she was wondering how come she wasn’t able to be alone. She would curl up into a little ball and – 

Mademoiselle: Uh - what the hell are you doing?

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Um. Talking about stuff.

Mademoiselle: What stuff? My stuff?

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Yeah.

Mademoiselle: How dare you?

Little Person Living Inside My Head: I’m entitled. I am standing on the inside, here, and I see that all these nice people are waiting to get the real deal. You have to let me do this. I am your best voice. Trust me. Look – I am not wearing a loincloth, today. I am wearing a toga. A soft, silk blend toga.

Mademoiselle: Which makes you completely trustworthy.

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Yes.

Mademoiselle: No.

Little Person Living Inside My Head: I think this argument is pointless, and that now, your Faithful Throng of Readers will think you are crazy. Voilà. 

Mademoiselle: I do not wish to share this part of my life right now, thank you. My readers (all three of them) will understand. You are no marketing major, so buzz off.

Little Person Living Inside My Head: Fine. I will let you do this in your own time.

Mademoiselle: Thank you.

The Cool Feature & The Great Bookscape, Official Uncensored Second Edition.

Dearest Loverlings of My Heart,

Yes! Victory! I have discovered the Blogger feature which enables me to add up to ten of you to a mailing list of this humble blog. Do not adjust your sets: you have read right. Whenever I publish, ten of you lucky happies will receive an e-mail. I am not sure yet whether you will receive the full contents of the post, or if you get a cool teaser, or if you get an automatically generated message such as:

Dear Blah,
Mademoiselle has just published a new post on Elucubrations (whoop-deee-doo, really), and so, you know, whatever, check it out if you want. If you're not in the mood, we think reruns of either Frasier or The Golden Girls are on. Or you can try bouncing a ball on your nose, although don't make the ball too big, it may hurt a bit. Let us know how it turns out. No, no...not really.
Cheerio and best regards and sincerely and all that,
- The Guys at Blogger.

So, I have no idea. I've put three of you on the list so far (lucky bastards!), let me know how it turns out.

Also, I forgot to tell you this: I am doing something which I've already done, but which I really, really want to do again. Are you reading a book these days? ANY book counts. (Yes, even a do-it-yourself fix-your-car book.) Oh - sorry, the Little Person Living Inside My Head had returned from a very, very long vacation, and is attempting to squeeze herself in here. Gimme a minute. Sorry. Look the other way, if you want. This happens in written form.


ME: Hello, Little Person Living Inside My Head. What's up? Oh - nice loincloth, once again.
Little Person Living Inside My Head: Hi. Thanks. So my fix-your-car book works? I'm trying to blend in and participate. You know, with your Throng of Readers and all.

[Editorial Note: Since writing "Little Person Living Inside My Head" very often is a bit tedious, I will shuffle the letters and give it a name. Hang on. *shuffle, shuffle, shuffle*. Ah - very nice. Little Person Inside My Head will henceforth be known as Limpy. Simple. Efficient. Editorial Note over.]

ME: Nice. You disappear all this time and hop back in here like - I don't know, like you are welcome.
Limpy: I am welcome. I am an extension of you. Plus I'm funny. So, suck it, right?
ME: Right. *sigh* What do you want?
Limpy: I want to be a part of your thing. So my fix-the-car book is okay? You sure?
ME: Yes.


Okay - we're back. Where were we? Yes. Being Readers. I suspect most of you are Readers, even if it's for business. Get your book: I'll wait...seriously. Go. It's on the nightstand/living room table/dryer/backseat/the roof.


Got it? Good. Those of you who have been following since 2006, good for you. Do it again.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences as a comment to this blog.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest. Even if it's up on the roof. Weirdo.

Now - do your Loverly Duty and let me know what it says on page 123. I'll let you know what mine says if you respond. Cheerio, and all that, sincerely.

Get Your Dialogue On.

Again this year, The Man and I are privileged individuals. We get VIP passes for the Festival d’été here in Québec. That’s right. We’re VIPs. We marched onto the terrasse section last Thursday night, really excited to finally see (after 15 years of faithful fanship on my part) Marseilles hip hop gods IAM. Ohhhhhh the Magic. The Poetry. The Yumminess. Followed, at 11:30, by the most wonderful fireworks I’ve ever seen. They were magnificent, huge, loud, colourful. Two hundred fifty thousand people all chanting “oooooh! and “aaah!” at once, to celebrate the city’s four hundredth anniversary.

And the sea of people – ohhh the sea of people – was quite impressive too. All trying to get in or out of the walls in the old city, buzzing about and interspersed with baby strollers, motorbikes, old ladies, drunk teenagers, and a family of tourists from Jersey trying to get through against traffic – human traffic - in their freaking minivan. No, seriously. I almost walked up to the van to knock on the window - which was tightly closed, thank you very much, so as not to get any locals intruding on their air-conditioned bubble of safety in this throng of people. I would have said:

Me: “Man, hi. Listen. You see this? This is thousands of people going this way, like this (gesturing with both arms towards the back of his perfectly waxed and shiny minivan)…”
Frustrated New Jersey Guy: “Yeah, I’m trying to get through, here, and uhh…well it looks like I can’t get through, it looks uhhh…blocked. I can’t get through!”
Me: “…you see, while you, in your apparently justified attempt of making it god only knows where – are going that way, you’re poisoning us with your fumes. You’re not even moving.”
Frustrated New Jersey Guy: “Yeah, uhuh…but I’m trying to get through, here. Because of all these people, I can’t get through.”
Me: “You look surprised that people are not responding to your fuming look. Why do you look mad? You drove into this!”
FNJG: “ Yeah, I think the hotel is that way. Can you help me out, here?”
Me: “Yes. Absolutely. (Big, huge smile) Stop the car, turn off the engine, and wait it out, man. Lock your doors. We’re going this way. Oh - and the streets are closed off, did you know?”

I often do this – usually on the bus on the way to or from work. I imagine how a conversation would have turned out if I approached complete strangers. Sometimes, it takes exciting paths I did not expect, and I end up having this very detailed scenario/dialogue play in my mind. I always end up surprising myself. (Note to self: invent mind recorder. Possibility of replaying favorite parts of imaginary dialogue potentially interesting.)

So, with complete confidence and intelligent lines, I strike.

Completely Confident Me: “Hey - come here. Sit down. Here - have a glass of wine”
Super Hunk: “ Uh…”
Completely Confident Me: “ Come on. It’s St-Émilion.”
Super Hunk: “ Yes? Ok. One glass. Haha.”
Completely Confident Me: “Hop in my paint-jobbed solar-powered Mini Cooper and let me take you to my surprisingly huge mansion on top of the mountain over there, where the palm trees grow and little green people pop out of the bushes on their segways to serve us cold beer on rubber trays.”
Super Hunk: “I’m...not sure I understand what you’re talking about.”
Completely Confident Me: “Yes, yes – look over there! See? See? The mansion? Mine. With green people. Segways. Come.”

And on, and on, until I usually find really interesting (or raunchy) things to say that I wish I could remember, just to try them out on The Man. That's usually the moment when I snap out of it, and I get off the bus, and crank up the volume on my i-pod for the five and a half minute walk to my new office. Yes! New Job rocks! Yay! I'll tell you more about it some other time.

Last Friday night, we saw NOFX at the summer festival. Punk rock is, I must admit, one of the few things I like because it’s completely chaotic. It kind of felt like we were too “clean”, not trashy enough to be part of the thousands of people shaking their fists and howling the lyrics to the 2 to 3 minute songs booming into our chests. Aaaargh...but to feel alive! It's a good Summer so far, Army of Fans, it's a really good Summer.

Recycling Spies.

As a follow up on my last post, for anyone interested, I did not finish all of my knitting projects. I finished one of them. I completely unraveled another (which was halfway done but had a very obvious mistake in it) and started two new ones. Nice going, don’t you think?

Okay, on to the topic at hand. It hit me like a brick last Wednesday: my neighbors, if they are so inclined, know me very well.

For instance, they now know that my teeth enamel needs special care, that we’ve quit smoking (ahem – again), and that our noses are sensitive, so we get the three-ply lotion tissues when we have a cold.

They also know how many kinds and boxes of tampons I go through in a month. Great to know when you meet your neighbor on a brisk evening walk – “Heeey hi, so I notice you’ve gone Super-Plus, eh? How’s that going? Cramps? Any cramps at all? No? Hah.”

They know where I bank, what periodicals I subscribe to and that we are amateurs of red wine and martinis. In fact, they know when we’ve gone on a bender and finished the bottles in the bar. They probably think we’re alcoholics by now.

Is there such a thing as recycling spies or is my lack of nicotine turning me into a paranoid wreck? A purely rhetorical question, obviously, as I already know they’re watching.

Hee hee. Just kidding.