Unashamedly Weird

I am weird and I admit it.
Fortunately I have friends who don’t object to my weirdness.

The weirdest thing I’ve ever done – and my nearest and dearest may wish to contest this, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind – is to attend a party wearing a jester’s hat (red and yellow motley, with bells on) and while there, embark on a fly-killing spree.

Yes, I am the Death of Flies (also Ants, Fleas, and Other Parasitical Insects).

death-164761_1280

I make up for the Caped Gooseberry’s extreme pacifism by wreaking wholesale slaughter on the pestilential creatures whenever they cross my path.
The party in question was held at a house that seems to be regarded by flies as the paradise of paradises: warm, airy, and with lots of high ceilings where people can’t get at you with fly swats.

Over the course of the evening, with the assistance of a rolled-up newspaper, I managed to kill over a hundred flies. And how did my friends react? Being, as they are, such excellent and eccentric-friendly people, they pointed out the flies I had missed (or rather, hadn’t seen yet) – particularly if conveniently resting on someone else – and raised a ragged cheer when I hit the century.

Tendulkar closup

There are two lessons to be drawn from this:
1) why hide your weirdness? if you aren’t the kind of person who likes to make small talk with strangers at a party, do something else to make it a memorable evening.
2) choose your friends carefully. Friends who accept you as you are are worth their weight in gold.

Of Hobbits and Presents

Hobbit holes reflected in water

“Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion [Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday]; but it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year it was somebody’s birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week.”
from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Getting to Know You

Do you have Deborah Kerr (or rather, Marni Nixon) stuck in your head now? Excellent. Let us proceed.

I took it into my head recently to look at my list of followers and see whose Readers are receiving my missives. Discounting myself (thank you for that, WordPress) and the Caped Gooseberry (thank you for that, dear) I have forty followers.  (Welcome!)

But who are you?

Hi, my name is... OUTER SPACE!

Not surprisingly given my usual subject matter, half are writers (or groups of writers) including:
one who dispenses dating advice (for men);
one aphorist;
one person setting out to offend everyone (a bit like Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged);
one whose poems consist of assorted words (either hasn’t quite got the idea or is making some kind of post-modern point, not sure which);
and one who I suspect is blogging as his book’s character but may in reality be in a lot of trouble with the law. How much is 30kg of cocaine worth, anyway? (Hullo PRISM!)

Burning hashish seized in Operation Albatross

There are also two who blog about literature and books, and a press which gives rates for (among other things) ghostwriting and lists of agents/publishers you could approach (handy hint: get the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook from the library instead, it’s free).

Then there’s one set of relatives (hi Ma!) and five Pyramid Schemers (all with the same scheme, shows how good it is!) leaving eleven others.

“Achievement: You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To When You Have Vision, Determination and An Endless Supply of Expendable Labour” via despair.com

The Others include an opera singer; a movie blogger; one who makes top-ten lists; possibly another pyramid-schemer (a more subtle one); a blog with a grand total of three posts (one of which was a reblog of my first post); and one which is completely blank. (Stage fright?) In short, an eclectic group.

So, now that I have, figuratively speaking, broken the ice, feel free to circulate and chat amongst yourselves. Have a drink, have a nibble, try to avoid being sucked into a pyramid scheme.
I don’t mind if you’re the life and soul of the party or part of the philosophical coterie in the kitchen, I’m glad you came.

Guys in the Kitchen

I’d love to hear what brings you here, what you’ve enjoyed, and what you’d like to see more of. And if you have a great opportunity for me to make easy money and live the life of my dreams – sorry, but that would interfere with my delicately balanced regime of artistic suffering.

Your happy host,
Sinistra Inksteynehand250

P.S. I realise I am somewhat behind-hand with the Artist’s Way posts. Great Things are afoot – but I promise I have not forgotten.