(no subject)

I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that I did, indeed, get my giraffe. He's currently sitting on my bedroom floor.

I've wanted a stuffed giraffe for ages. I trace the desire back to reading an "old bear" book, which had a giraffe in called Jolly Tall, but I'm pretty sure that I always thought they were cool. I have memories of one of those "oh, the poor deserted bear, let's find a lonely child OTP!" Christmas books, and that had an illustration of a giraffe toy.

Have you ever seen a giraffe? In real life, I mean, because television doesn't even begin to cover it. They're just... out of this world. And I'm not using that as a meaningless WOW phrase, I meant it almost literally. They're so very far outside of every day experience, because they are on such a completely different scale. They make me think of dinosaurs, bizarre as that might sound. Elephants are huge, but they're huge in a very solid way. They look real. Giraffes... they're so delicate looking.

So last night, on my way to the shop on a late night mission, I saw a giraffe staring at me dolefully from the window of a charity shop. He was clean and in perfect condition, and... so *damn* cute. I'm twenty one years old. I'm not supposed to do cute any more. I was entirely helpless against black button eyes.

So yeah. I now own a giraffe called Chris. I also own Don Quixote, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and something called Reading in the Dark, because I'm entirely unable to pass up a bargainous book.

This icon? My in denial/childhood icon. It makes me happy.

(no subject)

For copinggoggles:

Part Two

( Bird simply could not get comfortable. )

*

This is going to be a lot longer than I'd thought. Ah well. Sorry about that, Sophie.

(no subject)

Would you do something for me? If you have time, of course. Call it a writing exercise.

I want you to look at the room you're in. When was the last time you looked at it? When was the last time you didn't automatically just think bedroom/study/computer room, and leave it at that? Look around you. Think.

If you have time, I'd love a description of it, in as little or as much detail as you like. How does it make you feel? Why that particular picture, over the computer? I'm insatiably curious. If you don't want to write though, that's fine, but take a look. See what you've forgotten to see.

This room is pretty big. It seems like, if they sealed it up, I could last for a week on the oxygen... and yet, when it's full of people and clattering keyboards it seems like there's barely enough air, like breathing is a challenge. It's strange how perspective can change a place so much.

It's almost a square, but the corner along the wall from me is curved, exposed pipes and slightly uneven bricks making it more interesting. That corner is warm, somewhere to rest your feet, a pipe seeping heat through the souls of your shoes, but the computer there doesn't work at the moment. That's why I'm over in this corner, with an unplugged orange wire and so many plug sockets, cracked paint and the reassurance of hard drives between me and the next person. I say it's 'cos of the porn but in truth I just don't like people watching what I'm doing. It makes me nervous. In the third corner, directly behind me, windows and blinds that are never quite open, never quite shut, twisted up for a view of grey bricks, and the fourth corner has the door.

I'd like to be on a computer by the window, but it's occupied more often than not, and it tends to be the first corner to fill up in the morning. That I have such a long term computer room strategy illustrates, perhaps, how often I'm in here. Too often. Still, it's a home of a sort.

It's starting to go grey outside, and that's how you know that it's daylight. Even on the sunniest days, the bricks will still be grey, but a certain quality to the light lets you know the weather; slightly bluish, today. I imagine low grey clouds, the need for electric lights, rain later. I can't tell, because out of the window is grey bricks, a net to stop pigeons getting confused by windows and nooks and crannies, a green-tinged cherub. Besides, it's behind me.

The walls are magnolia, an institution colour if ever there was one, matching the hard drives and plug sockets. My blue and yellow notepad, brought in so I can get an address so I can send things to someone important, keeps catching the corner of my eye, a bright incongruence. The chairs are grey, as is the carpet, and the desk... if you look terribly carefully, there's pink and grey and white and brown and fawn, but from here it just looks one dull colour. Rather like a room of faces you've never met. Like the computer room, when it's full, and it becomes hard to breathe.

(no subject)

Someone I speak to on YM, a patron of Milliways, confessed to not having read Good Omens. I remember being apalled, but I can't remember who it was.

CONFESS!

Please?