Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Been busy, so sorry for the LTNP. Admittedly if you go off and hunt you'll find far too many grossly rambling comments adorning other blogs, because comments are supposedly less inherently bad than a full-on post in terms of procrastination, even if I do end up obsessively checking for replies and updates out of monumental boredom (and what would a monument to the boring look like, or would it just be a normal monument due to their innately boring nature; I mean, how much woo-yaying can one do for an inanimate black metal Victorian one has never heard of?). But then I've also been non-thinking enough (blame lack of sleep, which I'm also blaming for the unabridged appearance of some of the comments) to start working through other people's sidebars (usually working to the rule of reading anything posted higher than me, assuming it's not alphabetical; if I want good stuff I should probably stop 5 links up from me, but well...), which adds interesting glimpses into other lives. And which suddenly churns up scans of arching postcarded images, which I recognise (I've got the book; one of the those get-in-free so spend more in the shop than I should have done things), then try to guess the connection before reading what I strongly suspected.

It's odd how random post can enhance... perception is the wrong word - it's not to do with acuity, more reputation, but that's not right either - enhance the standing of someone. I think it's just a signifier of selfless acts and in my wake-addled brain I'm attaching too much importance to it. Not that there's much weight to it, but it just added to the "oh, so he is a nice guy after all" and the after-all is only borne of over-analysis and a shocking negation of my own actions or inactions.

Perhaps I'm just grinding through a period of reflection - past glories have the emphasis on the past - and so evaluating what I was content to leave ill defined. Admittedly mostly it ends with thinking of someone new that they're just a nice guy (just in the kindest sense). I'm not sure where this is going except towards a melancholic "live moves on; sometimes backwards" and as such it's better I skirt that.

So opting for the new and nice, I met up with Dan at the weekend. Meant to do a full enthusiastic write-up of the pair in matching H&M polo shirts and fun with oddly shaped furry things but other things prevailed. Basically, we met to see Avenue Q, having arranged tickets ages ago (or about the time he lasted posted on London Dan). It's very good if clap-heavy, though sometimes it's natural, oh and don't get front row seats lest you find yourself serenaded with The Internet is for Porn, which I reacted to with a stoic purse-lips-and-bear-it and only slight squirming while cursing the lighting designer who allows the front row to be caught in the stage lights, meaning that not only can the entire theatre see Trekkie Monster and his handler aiming half the song to a point off stage, but they can see who is sitting in that point. The first few rows also drown in dry ice at one stage, although because the people next to me were late, the convection currents meant I could still see if I leant right, even if that meant I lost sight of Dan. They were incidentally very good seats, as not only could we see the lumps of wax in an actor's hair (which disappeared by the third scene) and the slightest shimmer of puppet fur, we could also note the slight fur on the lead actress's cheek. It also meant Dan had little trouble focusing on those members of the cast who were easy on the eye, which of course I would never do (said he who might have slightly been looking below puppet height at one point).

So, tremendous fun and for the most part I managed to forget the how-much of the tickets (miser who takes joy in avoiding costly fun thereby avoiding nearly all fun). It does get quite hard not to sing along or to tap your feet not quite in time. Of course this is about the only place I've mentioned it, as it would take too long to explain it to people from the department, my friends are all far too erudite or materialistically philistine to enjoy anything in a theatre, I suspect my brother would count it as embarrassing him (there was a comment about me coming into his office to collect things for which I've yet to forgive him, and which makes me think he's turning into my parents) and my parents would either disapprove or take to it with gusto in an effort out-worldly so-and-so from Pilates when they meet in Waitrose (my mother does seem to frequently have coffee with people she doesn't particularly like all the while engaging in bragging demonstrative tolerance competitions - all 'my son's gayer than yours', 'well, mine's a drug baron', 'my daughter's foetus has an arms contract with the Burmese military junta' and the ever memorable 'It's the queerest thing you know; my daughter-in-law is black'. It's this endless claiming of martyrdom which gets to me; half of it is nothing to be martyred about, yet they use it as proof of liberalism. By engaging in ostentatious tolerance they publicly judge it to be bad. It's as though they had children purely to play Top Trumps with the child's perceived faults. If only they could just have an ever present "and?" following their every comment).

Anyway, retreating hastily from such thoughts (why do you think the lyric is 'let's spend a night in suburbia'?) and getting back to the not particularly gayer-than-thou Dan and general fun and games, such as talk of stolen and forgotten phones, whereupon I touched my pocket with an air of irritation for my own paranoia, went slightly whiter (I am currently hideously white; I think the last time my legs where this white at the end of summer was after I'd been on holiday in Womb), and raced all of 9 yards back to the theatre (we'd come out, gone to the pub over the road, then crossed back to the neighbouring pub to met Dan's friends hoping the equivalent would happen later to even out the flow of glasses between pubs). Fortunately it was waiting for me at the main desk, having been swiftly found beneath my seat. It wouldn't do to spend a year in London unmugged only to lose it the weekend before moving on.

So back to the conversation, talking to Dan in the I-nearly-bought-that-shirt polo shirt - I didn't, thinking it was too sludgy a colour to look good on anyone; Dan proved me wrong by looking far better in it than his constant too-much-beer comments might make one think. Anyway, that just means there's all the more to tickle when he's trying to finish his pint (not that I... oh, who am I kidding? I'm flirtatiously touchy [not that it was then], teasing and mischievous even if it takes a gallant tequila to show it. The gallant tequila was bought by Dan's American, with less of an accent that the English Avenue Q cast, friend with the awful/cute hair [I missed the debate but apparently I broke the consensus] and was only gallant because if I didn't drink it Dan had to, and Dan'd been drinking far quicker than I had, and true friends will willingly drink another friend's alcohol).

So aborting this before I get to the unintentional insults (I might slightly have used the word "worst" when talking of the present state. Sorry Dan, it wasn't meant to be damning) and picking up on the cute Americans theme, it's odd hearing English looking people speaking New Yorkese, even if it did lapse occasionally. It's even odder hearing the edits made for the London audience said by English people in American accents. If we can cope with kid-in-former-big-US-TV-thing, we can cope with the idea of stupid Polacks* (do they make West Side Story locally relevant too? The battle between The Oggys and The Ois? I want to be in Carmarthenshire, everything's free in Carmarthenshire?). To hear Americans loathe the French sounds odd (ignoring the recent contre-temps).

* Yeah, I'd already Youtubed and Wikipedia'd the show.

Ah, and comes the Kubla-Khan; the following were found clustered at the bottom of the post, sans context, so all guesses gratefully welcomed:
(oh don't worry, he doesn't read this)
Rambleton-in-Coherence.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/londondan/249873099/

I'm guessing the last one was due prompting the horrid realisation the equinox is was tomorrow today yesterday (yep, three days, one post; I've got other stuff on). Woe, woe and thrice snow.

While Dan/Flickring, I'm both jealous of the Google schwag and surprised how bad it looks, and I'm also wondering about the inspiration for his new pink, brown and white striped shirt, which is in no way similar to the geekboy polo shirt I wore to the Q, other than featuring pink, brown and white stripes (it was in the sale and I was under duress, having spent hours not-quite-shopping while trying to convince SG to wear anything remotely flattering; having accused her of cowardice I then couldn't be seen to be at all sartorially reticent. And you can tell I'd given up when I bought it; just look at the sleeves if you see me in it).

Anyway, I can't think of much else to add - I met Dan, saw Avenue Q, really rather liked it, left my phone there, went for a drink, retrieved phone, chatted with Dan, FOFs, FOFOFs, drank more, chatted more, ran away having been bought drinks and not bought any, although departing was from necessity, not from choice, then had the joyous thing of working, moving, working, thinking it's nearly over, then working more, then ever more. Hence no blog posts yet displacement-activiting my arse off with endless blog-update-checking and not-knowing-when-to-shut-up comments (Ryan and Sin seem to have born the brunt of these).

Oh, and unless the signal which makes my radio turn on randomly is also prevalent here as well, the electrics in it are literally a bit haywire, as even after the move it is still coming on whenever it likes.

Think that's it.

Anyhoo,

PS. Bit more on Flickr, with more to come if I have the patience to do a proper view-boosting trickle. Prize for the first person to guess what this is (prize may vary depending on the winner).

PPS. Just remembered. Bad Idea Bears: YAY!