I admit that in my literary tastes, I am vaguely stuck in my ways. I should admit right now that I am just not a non-fiction gal, especially when it comes to autobiographies. It’s not that I’m uninterested in other people’s lives. As a matter of fact most of the autobiographies that have been pressed on me over the years have been very good. However, I always find it vaguely depressing to  find myself staring at rows upon rows of them in a bookshop, knowing that 90% were ghost written due to the fact that the subject was lacking in a) the talent to tell their story themselves or b) anything of value to say. What I’m saying is that a 20 year old pop star should not feel that they should be afforded the same respect involved in the “telling of their story” as say, Nelson Mandella.

Blogs are more to my autobiographical taste; small, honest accounts from day to day living. Blogs have somewhat spoiled me for other forms of memoir writing due to the ocean of writing talent out there in cyberspace. I read at least 6 blogs who’s authors are more qualified to be published that those of some of the bland, forgettable literature that’s graced my reading palette recently.

Before I left the States, my mother gifted me her copy of “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” by Rhonda Janzen. I’d seen the write up of the book on the NPR website some time back, but was waiting for the paperback before purchasing. Having often described myself as a “Mennonite by Association”, (even since my slide into agnosticism) I was interested to hear what Janzen had to say about the religious sub-culture that played such a large role in my young adult life.

I have trouble writing coherent book reviews when I have mixed feelings about a piece of work; Partly, I suppose, of my longing not to be needlessly critical of something that, on some levels, I kind of enjoyed,  but at the same time feeling the need to express the wrongness that I felt pervaded the text.

I suppose my largest beef with Janzen’s memoir was that it didn’t really offer up any surprise insight into Mennonite or Anabaptist culture, making the title vaguely misleading. (Certainly, she is not the first to have grown up in a conservative religious culture who made her break from them into the world of “reason” and academia only to return with a personal life in ruins.) After a year in the life of Job during which she suffered complications as a result of a botched hysterectomy, a devastating car accident and the breakdown of her already extremely broken marriage when her un-medicated, unstable, bipolar, bisexual husband leaves her for a man he met on the internet, Janzen promises a heartwarming story of a return to her roots.

Only, this story never seemed to materialize. What followed seemed to be a teasing and often sarky indictment of her conservative roots as well as seemingly good natured (but not quite) portraits of her family.

Janzen’s writing style is compared over and over in reviews to the late Norah Ephron’s, which I didn’t find to be the case. Ephron, although a mistress of satire, was gentle to her subjects, showing a deep undercurrent of abiding affections. Janzen is often biting. To soften some of the often sharp humour with which she brings to light her family’s traditions and foibles, I think I would have like to have seen Janzen more fully acknowledge the debt of care that she owed to her parents and the Mennonite community in general during her healing process, as she spends a lot of the memoir coming across as an ungrateful and bemused observer to the whole situation. My experiences both during college and after with Mennonites left me profoundly grateful for their welcome and hospitality. It is to these experiences I turn again and again when confronted with yet another assault upon my faith in the goodness of other people. I was surprised that Janzen excluded much of this oft remarked upon Mennonite trait in her observations.

Upon moving to Minneapolis soon after college, my roommate, the Reverend Doctor and I quickly became acquainted with the local Mennonite congregation. (Of course, this was only after an obligatory visit by the local Lutherans 3 days after we moved in. It was like, “How did you guys know we were HERE?”) It was only a matter of 2 visits before we were asked by a friendly couple what our plans were for Thanksgiving. (Food poisoning, if we were honest about the chances of either the Reverend Doctor or myself at the time preparing anything that REALLY REALLY had to be heated to a certain temperature.) When we said we weren’t sure, there was no question that we had to spend it with their family. So, on Thanksgiving Day, two post-college young adults who both missed their families back home spent the day with hugely welcoming strangers. Although the name of the family escapes me now, it still serves as a tremendous object lesson into the nature of goodness.

In the same vein, I feel that I owe a great debt of care to the family of The Reverend Doctor, during my time at college for the many meals I consumed under their roof, the assistance that they offered in many matters of my own making and also, especially for a cat that was unceremoniously dumped on them due to the fact that the Reverend Doctor and I were slightly deluded about our chances of finding somewhere to live that we could house said creature. So, to them, my humble apologies and my grateful thanks. Sorry about all of the hair.

My own Mennonite experience differed wildly from Janzen’s. Her constant references to the dourness of the tradition were puzzling, as I never got that impression from either my PA Dutch Mennonite relatives or those that I met at Goshen College. The Mennonites I know are all about a good time. A bountifully laid table. Singing. Playing games with such vigor that bones get broken. Getting naked. (Well, that was probably just Mennonite college students. Or maybe just because it was the midwest and everyone’s gotta make their own fun.) Although I skipped enough of my weekly chapel requirements to necessitate taking an extra class at the end of my college career to make up for it, (during which I wrote a 20 page paper in defense of pornography. So, no chapel PLUS I got to look at porn for a month straight. WIN.) you’d better believe that my butt would always be firmly attached to a pew on days when there was a hymn sing, lead by the college’s rather eminent choir master. Attendance in chapel on those days was at an all time high, often with students standing in the back, sharing 3 to a hymnal. A tradition who’s youth take so much joy in 4 part harmony, acapella singing is anything but dour. One of my favorite musical memories is singing the much beloved Hymn 606 with fellow theatre folk on a hotel balcony in Green Bay, Wisconsin and receiving an appreciative round of applause from the bar and the lobby 7 floors below.

I acknowledge that the conservatism that Janzen harks back to at numerous points in her narrative might be more recognizable to those who grew up in a strong Mennonite tradition, which I did not. Although my mother attended a Brethren Church (another close Anabaptist relation to the Mennonites) I personally spent most of my youth in a large, mostly liberal urban Methodist congregation where I participated heavily in the youth group. Among the board games in the basement where we met there was a Ouija board, who’s presence was never remarked upon as being ironic in the slightest.

It often amazes me that I could once summon it in myself to be offended by the some of the conservatism of the college which I willingly attended. What was it that I expected, exactly? While Janzen had no desire to maintain ties with a faith tradition that she repeatedly bumped her head up against, I WANTED to maintain ties to this community that at one time nourished me in many ways. But I wanted it on MY TERMS. This, of course is the arrogance that can only be maintained by the idealism of youth. I remember attending a wedding at the rather conservative Mennonite church of one of the branches of the Reverend Doctor’s family during which the pastor inexplicably threw in an earnest condemnation of homosexuality. At the time, I remember that my youthful “justice” hackles were well and truly raised, but with more time and experience under my belt, I feel it MORE begs the question “Do you really need to condemn the practice of homosexuality so strongly during a wedding ceremony? Of, you know, two straight people?” (Perhaps just to get across the point that, “No matter how bad the marriage goes, guys, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR GOING TEH GHEY, OKAY?”)

Janzen spends a little time in the dying chapters of the book giving the reader a rather confusing, bare bones account of the Mennonite’s experiences in Russia during the time of Catherine the Great. While this is all well and good, it might have behooved her readers if this chapter had been closer to the beginning and had been more of an “Anabaptists for Dummies” primer which would helped in the understanding of Mennonite origins. It would have suited her writing style perfectly, so left me wondering why she didn’t do it and rather spent more time on telling her readers what Mennonites are NOT rather than what they ARE.

I feel like there are a million more observations I could make regarding “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” and my own experiences with Mennonite culture, but it seems to me that a book review should not have more to say than the book itself, so I shall have to content myself to conclude that it was spiky when it should have been sentimental, bitter when it should have been kind and repetitive when it should have been surprising. The warmth of the tradition that undertakes service in both their communities and the world at large not to prostheletise, but from a deep commitment to social justice and the exhortation of Christ that “whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do also unto me.” is worth more than the one liners that Janzen often confines it to

I’ve having one of those sunrise/sunset moments at present. The Prawn has discovered Sesame Street.

And when I say discovered, what I actually mean is, lives, breathes and eats The Street. There is not a moment of the day when she does not wish to be worshiping at the feet of St. Elmo. (And not the 80’s brat pack feature, although one might say that the unchanging nature of Rob Lowes good looks might have a slightly holy bent to it.) We only have about 7 episodes ranging from newer (probably 2007 or so) to older (late 90’s, judging by the “computer” episode where Telly Monster shows you how to load a floppy disk into a machine that takes up 3/4ths of the desk that it’s sitting on.) so needless to say the Rock Star and I are frantically trying to get our hands on more so that we don’t want to commit suicide.

I embellish. To be truthful, I’m fairly happy to sit down with the Prawn and watch Sesame Street as it still features a lot of the fun, grainy clips that I remember from my childhood. The trippy 12 song, with the latest disco beats and just-about- post LSD era animations of a pinball traveling through national landmarks came up almost immediately. And how great is it to see that at least half of the original cast is STILL PLUGGING AWAY after 32 years? And that all of the muppets finally sound the way they did before Jim Henson went ot the big, googly-eyed felt pile in the sky? (Big kudos to Eric Jacobson and Steve Whitmeyer) While all of this was incredibly exciting to me, the Prawn just wanted to know when Elmo was coming back.

It’s my belief that someone should study the whole Elmo phoenominon. Until last week, the Prawn had never seen Elmo. Never heard of Elmo. But the moment she was introduced, it was love at little, furry, red monster sight. I’m not really sure how to feel about Elmo, especially the “Elmo’s World” segments which are generally pretty inane, but there’s obviously something about him which causes immediate crack brain in children. (I actually think the biggest surprise about Elmo for me was the person who voices him. I was pretty sure it was a woman for a long time, but it turns out it’s an enormous black guy called Kevin Clash who does some directing on the show as well.) So how does he do it? Subliminal messages? Rays from space? Whatever it is, I wish he was sharing, because if I could hold the Prawn’s attention like that, I’d have it made.

But anyway, it’s all a little surreal to be watching a show that I watched as a child with all the same characters 30 years later with my own little girl on my lap.

ONE! ONE HAPPY MEMORY! TWO! TWO HAPPY MEMORIES! THREE! THREE HAPPY MEMORIES. AH AH AH!

Okay, okay, so I’m back for a minute.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days about clutter. This is due to the fact that our flat currently looks like a testing ground for a new and advanced brand of demolition equipment.

It all starts with parents. I grew up in a beautiful home that my parents created from the ground up. It’s a haven of tranquillity and although I remember clutter in certain rooms (i.e. mine) while growing up, the living spaces were almost always free of excessive detritus. (Although, being the offspring of two teachers, half graded piles of schoolwork just blended into the background.)

It is perhaps a little unfair to compare my living environment to my parent’s lovely home- first and foremost due to the fact that our flat would fit into their house three times over. Secondly, they have a great deal more storage space than we do, so it’s not that they don’t OWN a bunch of useless crap, but it’s definitely better hidden. Our useless crap is currently all residing in the lounge like a load of unwanted and slovenly houseguests.

My parents are arriving tomorrow afternoon for a visit on their way back from a whistle stop tour of Italy. The Rock Star and I often use these visits as an excuse for a life purge of sorts. However, this time, we might just have left it a bit late.

I spent an hour or so spelunking in the space that we generously call our attic on Saturday, (The Rock Star, being 6’2”, feels a bit like a giraffe in a coat closet up there, so any marathon attic sessions are undertaken by me.) determined to find things that needed to be expelled from the premises. (So that I could make room for MORE useless crap that needed to be stored) I discovered 4 bags of charity shop clothes that had been slung into the crawl space in frustration on previous visits that were unceremoniously flung back down through the hatch, startling the Prawn. The remnants of our “weird drawer” (don’t try to deny that you’ve got one, because EVERYONE does.) from our days on Galileo were dumped into a trash bag after a quick inspection. An old bathroom cabinet that had come with the flat and had TWICE been shoved into the gods finally came down to go to its final resting place. (The tip.)

Despite feeling as though we had managed to purge rather a lot of stuff, the flat is still left looking like hell on toast and although I’m fairly sure it will be shipshape and Bristol fashion by the time my parents walk though the door, I’m ready for it to be done RIGHT NOW. Both The Rock Star and I and even the Prawn have been left feeling quite unsettled by the clutter. It leaves me wondering about the mental wellbeing of people whose lives are lived amongst clutter on a day to day basis. The people who are featured on shows with titles like, “Holy Shit, You LIVE Here?” I’ve felt unsettled, grumpy and anxious amongst the piles of paper, bedding and things that I didn’t even know we still owned. The Prawn too has been more antsy of late. So how do some people managed to live their lives voluntarily surrounded by clutter, in many cases much WORSE than ours? How do they relax? How do they not want to see the floor? How do they not want even the slightest bit of ORDER? I mean, I’m not anal by any definition, but I know when I find bits of toast and cheese on the floor, it makes me crazy. (Toast and cheese are the two elements most likely to be found in odd places when you have children. Cheerios are a given.) Being surrounded by heaps and piles makes me pretty miserable.

So I am looking forward to tomorrow morning when hopefully all of the heaps and piles will have miraculously dissolved into the ether, leaving my home clutter free.

At least until the Prawn has breakfast.

The Rock Star and I often become engrossed in bad television. The things that get recorded on our Skybox are truly embarrassing. I hate to even admit that several years ago, we became completely addicted to a “reality” program that was about as real as “The Hills” called “Paradise Island” where a bunch of impossibly beautiful people (and one painfully unattractive, but wormy guy) were shoved together in an impossibly beautiful and luxurious villa overlooking the sea and, in time honoured format, were voted each other out one by one. Such was it’s stagedness, the “spontaneous” camerawork looked as if it were being shot by Martin Scorsese. It was a detestable piece of televisual shite, but because we are morons, we couldn’t get enough.

Lately, my thing has been a deep and abiding love for “Miami Ink” chronicling the life and times of the occupants of “Love Hate Tattoos” in South Beach. Such is the stunning realism of this particular show that every customer enters the shop OBVIOUSLY WEARING A RADIO MIKE and, if they are female, WEARING A BIKINI. I’ve actually been to Miami, and surprising as it may be, I didn’t see many half naked women downtown. Also, there seems to remarkably little blood involved in the tattoo process, and for anyone who’s ever been inked, you’ll know that getting a tattoo involves a fair amount of leakage on the tattooee’s part. Furthermore, when a customer examines their new piece of body art at the end of the process, there is a complete absence of redness or swelling of any kind. Again, a fresh tattoo has the same effect on the skin as having a drunken nightclub patron doodle on your flesh with a lit cigarette.

But pshaw to these little details. They do not hamper my enjoyment. And most dangerously of all, they make me want very much to go get another piece of ink.

Sad as it is to say, the world looks very differently upon tattooing in men and women. A bloke with tattoos peaking out above his shirt collar or out from under a short-sleeved t-shirt hardly receives a second glance or a moral judgment from passers by or employers. However, a woman with the same pieces of body art is likely to be looked upon as, at best rough and at worst, low or unintelligent. Were I a man, I’m pretty sure I would be bold with ink; a neck and back piece, maybe a sleeve with bright colors. However, being female, I feel obligated to keep my dalliances into the world of inkery in spots that generally do not see the light of day. The subversive part of me is keen for everyone in the PTA to know damn well who the Prawn’s mother is. “She’s the one with all the tattoos,” they’ll whisper. “YEAH?,” I’ll shout from the other end of the gym, “AND I CAN STILL KICK YOUR ASS AT MAKING RICE KRISPY SQUARES, BITCHES!” But that little annoying practical voice that I have to kick in the face every so often with a Doc Marten to silence still gets through saying, “Are you sure you can look at that for the rest of your life? Cause it’s NOT COMING OFF. Plus, would it kill you to stop picking at your toenails?”

At the moment, it is easy enough to ignore my ink as it’s almost all on my back. The two pieces on either of my feet are small and unobtrusive and generally only visible in the summertime when even broken glass on the pavement cannot compel me to wear shoes. Perhaps the level of subversion present in my soul is not at quite the level I would like it to be.

Meanwhile, I will dream dreams of descending swallows, blood red hearts and colourful, intertwining flower vines.

Britain’s dominant religious institution, the Church of England has proved little match in the present to growing ranks of atheists, agnostics and secular humanists. Having spent my first Sunday EVER in church since coming to Britain, I have to admit that it’s not much of a challenge to see why.

The Rock Star and I attending the christening of our goddaughter yesterday. To be completely fair to the C of E, the church this took place in was actually Methodist, but the soporific effect was much the same. I don’t know about anyone else, but my feeling about religious worship is that it should inspire and empower, making even those in the congregation who are visiting or new feel grateful to be there and warmly welcomed, even if they don’t share in the faith of the worshipers.

We were greeting by a sour-faced old lady who glared at us.

“Are you god parents?” she croaked.

“Yes.”

Two green pieces of paper with prayers and responses were thrust into our hands.

“Make sure to return these at the end of the service. We re-use them.”

“Erm, thanks.”

My guess is that the congregation in question wasn’t wild about christenings; a Sunday when their sanctuary is invaded by a large number of non-members (a large amount of them non-religious) who are there solely to participate in a tradition that a great percentage of them aren’t entirely sure why they’re perpetuating in the first place, only they know that when you have babies, you have them christened.*

It wasn’t until the service was well underway that we became aware that we were sitting in an actual hour long church service rather than just a christening. The clue was when the profusely camp vicar excused a rather large group of children in the corner and launched into his homily. (My choice NOT to empty my bladder prior to the beginning of the service came into sharp focus when the Prawn, perhaps already old enough to have a sense of irony, began kicking me in it mercilessly.)

But neither the utterly uninspiring and unoriginal sermon (most likely entitled “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”) or the truly dreary readings by very self-righteous old women (Corinthians and Ephesians. Lord have mercy) were as depressing to me as the hymns.

One of the requirements of graduation from my college was attendance at chapel. (I was so bad at this, I ended up having to take a class to make up the credit. Luckily, this class was so un-structured, I ended up choosing to write a 20 page essay in defence of pornography. No chapel AND I got to look at porn. Bonus!) However, despite a great deal of events in chapel being fairly thinly attended, the ones that we guaranteed to draw a crowd were hymn sings. Boy, howdy, do Mennonites ever love to sing. And they’re GOOD at it. Four part harmony, raising the roof stuff. The hymnal was stuffed with a combination of good old favourites, newish bits and some ethnic tunes that had recently come into circulation. Despite my waning faith, going to hymn sings always made me happy.

The hymnal we were faced with yesterday not only was lacking actual MUSICAL NOTATION of any sort (if you don’t know the damn song, how are you supposed to sing it without the MUSIC?) but in any kind of quality sacred music WHATSOEVER. All 5 dreary pieces that were chosen were 18th century, non-musical drone-a-thons, one of which had the most awful, dirt licking, grovely lyrics in the vein of:

“You’re so fantabulous/we’re completely rubbish/I’m afraid of my life/so please won’t You hide me until I die?” (I can just imagine God listening to that going, “Oh for fuck’s sake. Grow up.”)

Being at last granted blessed release from the joyless service, it lead me to wonder why those that choose to attend weekly find there to nurture them. Kevin Smith makes a great point about faith in Dogma. One of the characters, a woman working in a Planned Parenthood clinic tells her colleague:

“I dated this guy once. He told me that faith is like a glass of water. When you’re young, the glass is full, and it’s easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of water doesn’t fill the glass anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.”

It was difficult for me to see how anyone could fill their personal glass from so dry a stream.

*Having grown up between traditions, (Anabaptists, who don’t believe in baptism until the person is ready to make a commitment to the church and Methodist, who baptise at birth) I ended up getting baptised round about age 13 after going through a confirmation class which, looking back now, imparted some very troubling views about God, sex and money.

I’m pretty excited that the seasons have finally decided to get their act together.

“What? Huh? Oh right,” said summer earlier this week, “time for my holidays.”

Autumn is by far one of my favourite seasons. A lot of people feel a deep sense of renewal when Spring rolls around, but I’ve always felt it a good deal more keenly when the leaves begin to turn. I suppose, as a child, it was all to do with school- discovering who and what was going to shape your life over the next year and getting blank books full of clean white paper and unsharpened pencils. (Nothing more tempting or full of promise than a blank notebook!) In high school it was all about football games and beginning a new sports season. As I got older, it meant life returning to the Goshen campus, stunning leaves and frosty evenings sitting under blankets down by the millrace with friends and laughing until we were sick.

I suppose the remnants of these experiences stay with me even today and clear, bright cold days fill me with anticipation of something great to come. This year, Autumn will see us moving into a new house.

Today, we transferred the good part of the largest lump sum of money that either of us has ever possessed into the hands of lawyers who, in theory, will use it to pay the deposit on the maisonette and bring us within weeks of finally being able to get INTO our new place. The seller seems quite keen to get the sale agreed as well and equally as eager to try to get as much cash off of us as possible. We weren’t entirely surprised that he decided to charge us for the cooker that currently inhabits the flat, but we were rather more surprised that he asked as much as 100 pounds for it. (We told him £50- take it or leave it.) I suppose one can’t blame a guy for trying, but I can’t help shaking the feeling that if we’d said, “No thanks”, that he probably wouldn’t have been bothered enough to drag the damn thing down the stairs anyhow.

Things are moving forward.

On our return from Manchester, everything that has some sort of green appendages seems to have exploded. Some of the notables:

The Stuff Tree

I touched on our relationship with The Stuff Tree last year. Much to my relief, since The Stuff Tree bloomed this year, I have had a stinking cold and have been unable to distinguish its stuff-like aroma. There are some new people who have moved into the marina over the winter who’s boats are just opposite the stuff tree. I shall enjoy watching their faces as they imbibe it’s fragrance for the first time and go, “Huh. What IS that? It kinda smells like…you know…stuff.”

The Stash

The family cat, Moggins, is blissed out around this time of year. I’m surprised we haven’t found her Ibiza Annual albums squirreled away in garage somewhere. We’re always impressed that the famed Catnip Hedge has a chance to get out of the ground; the minute the first shoots are up, her enforced winter sobriety is broken and she nibbles them franticly, only to have that really early “good stuff” send her chasing imaginary butterflies all over the lawn. An unbreakable cycle of addiction for her, hours of amusement for us.

The Mysterious Blooming Chestnut

I guess a few years ago, an unpleasant variety of tree lurgy went around infecting Chesnut trees here in the UK. One such tree stands in my in-law’s lovely garden. While it often has leaves in the summer, it has been many years since it produced flowers of any kind. (The other Chestnut tree in the lawn seems to have escaped the plague and is blooming hardily. The Rock Star reckons it’s on account of it being planted over the grave of their randiest ever pet, a reproductive yellow Labrador menace called Chippy who once famously tried to shag a cow.)

Two weeks ago, a friend of Moot’s came to visit. We call her The Mystic because she’s just one of those people who seems, for one reason or another, to be able to fix things with some sort of energy. Not only did she come to try to work a little magic for Moot, but we smiled quietly to ourselves when she turned her attentions to the Chestnut tree. HOWEVER… This morning, we discovered 4 blooms on the tree, the first in many years. Logical explanation: The tree was going to bloom anyhow. But it didn’t mean the Rock Star and I didn’t look at eachother funny when I remembered this little bit of psychic tree-hugging.

In weather related news….

Weather Forecast

Cloudy

 Actual Weather

Ha Ha! Caught you buggers today! It’s not only cloudy but it’s RAINING. And SUNNY. You think just because you have satellites that you’re so big and tough! Who’s laughing NOW, weather bitches?

Sigh.

Now that I have a job that requires me, for the first time in my life, to speak to people who are much, much smarter than me on a daily basis rather than Joe Public who can’t tell me the NAME of the book that they’re looking for but that it WAS featured on GMTV and has a red cover, I need to smarten up occasionally. I’m spending next week in Manchester at a large navigation conference, making it necessary to shell out some cash on some new clothes that aren’t made of, well, denim.

Our nearest large outpost of commerce is The Centre in Milton Keynes, alien city. (If we ever colonize another planet, I guarantee you, ALL of the cities are going to look like Milton Keynes.) After an early morning snowboarding session with Trumpet on Monday, (BoyRacer and The Rock Star sat it out due to injury and general fatigue) we trundled on over to The Centre in order to complete my conference wardrobe. (It galls me to spend money on clothes I NEED rather than things I fall in love with on the spot)

When we arrived, we found ourselves in the midst of a really quite astonishing scene. The Centre was playing host to “CollectorMania 3”, a gathering of the great, the good and the terminally washed up of the Sci-Fi world.

These things always make me think back to the brilliant days of Saturday Night Live in the mid to late 80’s (when it was still funny) when they had William Shatner as a guest host. He participated in a rather brilliant sketch satirizing the “convention” phenomenon.

He good naturedly answered progressively more bizarre Star Trek questions like,

“When you opened the safe in episode 31, what was the combination?”

Finally, it gets the better of him and he snaps.

“It was just a TV show, dammit! Something I did as a LARK 20 years ago! You’ve turned it into a colossal waste of time!”

He points to a guy in the crowd, dressed as Spock.

“You! Have you ever kissed a girl?”

The convention goer hangs his head in shame.

I think I must have seen that guy about 200 times over in the first few minutes that we walked into the chaos.

There were two large autograph stations at either end of the hall, populated exclusively by people who’s shows had been cancelled, sometimes over 30 years ago. One could tell the relative kudos of the particular signer by the price of an autograph. While the guy who played Cedric Diggory in the last Harry Potter film could only command 15 pounds per signature, while LeVar Burton, hailing from Star Trek: The Next Generation was taking in 30.

Just as I was beginning to feel insufferably superior to those queuing to give up their hard earned cash in exchange for a 5 x 6 postcard with a scribble on it, I noticed that Ron Glass and Alan Tudyk from Firefly were also there and had a momentary lapse of reason. Luckily, The Rock Star was there to restrain me, although only just; his attention had been grabbed by an almost life sized model of Han Solo encased in carbonite (Moot regularly found little action figures frozen in ice cube trays as BoyRacer and The Rock Star were growing up.) and was slowly gravitating toward it.

Social phenomena are always interesting to me because they beg answers to the unanswerable. Such as…

Do rabid geeks become social outcasts BECAUSE of their love for science fiction or do they love science fiction because they tend to be lacking in social skills?

Does a mistake on the detailing of the handle of a replica “Highlander” sword make it worth having a loud, public argument with the proprietor of a collectibles stall?

How many times during the day can Jonathan Frakes hear “Make it so, Number one,” before shoving a permanent marker up someone’s ass?

Why does loving Star Wars preclude regular washing?

All of these questions and more followed me and Trumpet and we made our way through the maelstrom (she was slightly aflutter about catching a glimpse of teenage crushes, Corey’s Haim and Feldman) and rounded The Centre quickly in search of clothing for a slightly more sedate kind of convention.

I use the F-word on a regular basis. It’s not something I’m proud of.

Swearing is rather like getting addicted to drugs. First, the harmless D-word. Then the S-word. Using the S-word on a regular basis can be a jumping off point for the F-word creeping into your daily vocabulary. Then before you know it, you hear the C-word coming out of your mouth in a moment of extreme rage. I don’t like the C-word in particular, but I have used it on occasion to describe the most heinous of individuals or deeds, but only to The Rock Star. (lest my syntax confuse you, I have never used the C-word to describe The Rock Star.) It’s an ugly word, although Captain Hairy has come up with many more disturbing phrases to describe the body part that the C-word literally represents, making the C-word look more like the D-word.

The F-word is the new S-word. It’s versatile. You hear it on the streets being used as both verb and adjective.

For example: “That guy over there is an F-ing C-word.”

One can argue in this case that F-word is an adjective, describing the SORT of C-word that the gentleman in question is, although due to it’s “ing” ending, it is more likely to be considered a verb, describing something that the gentleman who is a C-word DOES. But then again, my grammar is a bunch of S-word.

So, yesterday evening, when the Rock Star and I returned to our boat to find one of the canal side windows smashed, you can pretty much imagine that I used the F-word.

The Rock Star (who is ALWAYS more level headed and even tempered than me) suggested that there were many explanations for it. My first thoughts turned to the much hated anglers who fish in the marina even though there are big NO FISHING signs everywhere. Fish are smarter than you give them credit for. Anglers tend to throw heavy, lead weights very close to boats in order to get as close as possible to the fish, often causing damage and occasionally broken windows. While I was ready to go hurtling out the door, find the nearest angler and beat him to death with his own box of maggots, the Rock Star suggested that perhaps we were bumped by another boat or perhaps the victim of some stupid kids skipping stones.

At any rate, in the interests of decency, here is my open letter to whomever forced me to spend half an hour cleaning up broken glass with the worst sinus headache I’ve ever had.

To the complete C-Word who shattered our window,

Listen to me, you bastard F-word, your A-word is going to be mine if you ever show your F-word-ing face around our marina. You think, just cause we live on a boat that we can’t start some S-word? Well, you’re in for a big F-word-ing surprise, my friend, because I have a good mind to make you EAT the contents of our F-word-ing vaccum cleaner bag. Let’s see what a little shattered glass does to your stomach lining you mindless F-word!

Hugs and Kisses,

Blogapotamus Rex.

Back before the weight of the world crushed my fragile spirit, I remember that I had a notion to try to become a conscientious consumer. To do my homework. To find out where the things I used came from, how they were made and where the money that I spent on them was going. While walking though the Super-Wal-Mart at 3 in the morning idly picking bits of shiny off the shelves, (hair barrettes, Oreos, big rubber bouncy balls…who cares? It was cheap!) I thought to myself, “Someday, I’ll be able to afford morals.”

10 years later, I still find myself at the trough of consumerism with all of the rest of humanity, greedily snarfing down whatever sort of slurry is fed to me. If I could find it in my heart to feel bad about this, I would. But the truth is, I don’t really think about it, playing blithely into the clammy palms of GlobalCorpInc.Ltd.com, Lords of the Universe, Masters of their Domain and Purveyors of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes & Other Every Day Household Items™.

It is virtually impossible to pick apart the complex web of corporate alliances in order to spend your money in a fashion that ensures that it’s not going to people who destroy rainforests, (McDonalds) use sweatshops (Nike) or rape indigenous Indian populations with broom handles as per company policy. Since I can do little about the fact that the money I spend on Cornflakes and every other breakfast cereal on the damn market goes toward funding Nestle’s campaign to make sure children in the 3rd world remain under-nourished, I have picked one thing that I might have a vague hope of having a little control over; whether or not the cosmetic products I use are tested on animals.

I don’t really want to get into a debate about medical animal testing due to the fact that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but cosmetic animal testing I can pretty much be sure of hating a whole lot. I mean, what new ingredient has been added to mascara or eyeshadow in the last 20 years that makes it necessary for us to STILL be smearing it in the eyes of rabbits kept in metal restraints and made to watch movies montages of extreme violence a-la Clockwork Orange? So, at any rate, that’s my thing.

It was impossible to miss the recent barrage of headlines regarding the sale of Anita and Gordon Roddick’s shares in the Body Shop to French cosmetic juggernaut L’Oreal.(of which Nestle is a major shareholder) “Anita Sells Out” or “Roddick Compromises Principals”  or “Roddick Keeps Pilipino Prostitutes in Basement.” Being a long time fan of The Body Shop (despite some of their corporate mis-deeds, they were about as close as you could get to ethical cosmetic practice.) I was dismayed at this turn of events and have been carefully savouring the last vestiges of my yummy smelling Shea Body Butter, WHICH I LOVE, and gearing up for a trip to a headache-inducing Lush branch tomorrow in Carnaby Street to replenish my depleted cosmetic stocks.

I like Lush’s stuff. It tends to do what it says on the tin, (“Well what do you know? My ass really DOES feel smoother.”) but it often leaves you smelling like you’ve been rolling in silage for an hour or so. Natural ingredients, cold pressed oils and organic juices are all very well, but rather useless if they make you physically repulsed by your own bouquet. But, in the interest of principals, I am prepared to put up with the silage, the physical smell wall that you must pass through in order to enter a store and the emo sales people who are obviously far too hip to serve you.

Lush was no doubt dancing for joy the day The Body Shop deal went through; all they had to do was put WE DON’T BLIND BUNNIES OR TRY TO MAKE A QUICK BUCK OFF THE WORLD’S POOREST PEOPLE UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE WE KNOW in big red letters on their website, which is pretty much exactly what they did.

I often feel guilty about not taking more time out to think about these things, rather than idly picking a box of Cornflakes off the shelf and flinging it into my shopping trolley. But the truth is- I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT, LIKE, FOR EXAMPLE, MY LIFE. As does everyone else.

So my question of the day is this- How do we even BEGIN to be ethical consumers in our crowded lives?