Weekly Photo Challenge: A Face in the Crowd

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: A Face in the Crowd.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
—Ezra Pound

A Week on Instagram, Where Nothing Happened

I’m worried about myself. I sort of pledged to myself that I wouldn’t be doing any 365 challenge crap ever again but that’s exactly what I appear to be doing. Fortunately, there were no witnesses to my pledge, and dead men tell no lies the cat doesn’t talk. So here’s another week’s worth of a photo a day on my Instagram.

12 Feb: Based on this post, it looks like I’ve been somewhere. But where the fuck? That much to my idea of taking a photo a day lest I forget. Instead, notice the cute yellow circle in the picture, perhaps the remainder of a manhole.

13 Feb: I took a picture of my key collection. I’m not sure what all these are good for, presumably nothing. In fact, I only need a total of three keys. It’s not like I’m a key master.

14 Feb: Scratch that. I totally am a key master. The post of the janitor comes bundled with a manual on what to do in case of fire (I haven’t read it yet—neither do I intend to) and with an array of keys. Make your pick.

15 Feb: My cat hates me. Should I still have any doubts about this, she gave me this cold stare when I was going aww at her. Zip it up, human.

16 Feb: Normal people go to a pub on Fridays, mental people colour mandalas. I recommend you stick to the pub.

17 Feb: The highlight of the day was the flawless perfection which I achieved when bagging my groceries. That’s Tetris OCD-style. I doubt that there are many people who reach this level of professionalism in tetris for grown-ups.

18 Feb: My life couldn’t possibly get better. I got a super cute case for my beloved phone, on which said phone thought it a great idea to start dying on me. Note to self: be aware that no phone lasts more than two years because that’s how the fucking things work these days.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet (Kitty)

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet.

Stating the obvious: my sweet kitty is a sweet kitty.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet (Sixteen)

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet.

Not much of a photo but clever, right? The sweet sixteen.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet (Solitude)

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Sweet.

My interpretation of this week’s clue is even looser than usual (not to be confused with loser, though the latter also incidentally applies). I don’t know what’s sweet about solitude and the picture doesn’t even capture solitude (there were plenty of people around), but I make a rule of not taking pictures of food. Sweet food in particular. Why look at food you can’t eat? What kind of devilish self-torture is that?

My Week in Instagram Pictures

Last week has been uneventful, much as my entire life. Thanks the universe for that. I hate everything but eventfulness especially. I have captured each non-event of each uneventful day in one non-picture.

5 Feb: My cactus colony is dying on me. It’s a minor miracle that I’m managing to keep the cat, a life form superior to plants, alive. 

6 Feb: I went out. To get smokes. It was very exciting because there are new pictures on cigarette packets! This ad for clogged arteries is particularly attractive. The imagery is supposed to discourage me from smoking, but sadly, I enjoy the art, so not happening.

7 Feb: When you think the bloody winter is about to be over and the snow thinks otherwise. 

8 Feb: That’s my balcony chair. Clearly, I never clean it. I converted it into an art installation.

9 Feb: The day when a radiator burst and flooded the building. This was taken when I was pressurising the boiler, unaware that it’s sending all the water down into the cellar, creating an impromptu swimming opportunity.

10 Feb: Freezing as per usual. No amount of thermal wear helps. Please notice, however, that my fleece shirt is colour-coordinated with my knitted socks. And my nails are colour-coordinated with my outdoor thermal pants. Which I wear indoors. 

11 Feb: I did my nails! What an event! And I did them wonderfully. I love the jaundiced yellow, the bloody red and the deathly black. 

The Joys of Being the Janitor

I’ve complained earlier of having been unanimously by one out of one vote appointed the concierge. I’m still hating it, faithful to my principle of hating everything and everyone.

A more appropriate word for concierge is the janitor, which is an all-in-one function, rolling into a single person an administrator, an electrician, a plumber and a cleaner, among other things. No qualifications are required because other people don’t know what they’re doing either anyway.

On a Friday morning, I woke up to the sound of water gurgling more angrily than usual in the radiators. That means one thing. I gotta go down to the boiler room and pressurise the boiler. I duly did. The water stopped splashing and I was pleased with myself, thinking how nicely I fixed it.

An hour later I noticed the radiators stopped heating altogether. Also, there was no hot water. Oops. So back to the cellar I descend to examine. The meter shows the whopping pressure of zero. Hmm. I move a few handles tentatively, waiting for something to magically happen. After another hour I break and call the actual plumber.

He’s pretty displeased because it’s Friday and people don’t expect to work on a Friday, unless they’re freelancers, like me, who work 24/7 and rest only when they’re interned in the psych ward with acute overwork. The plumber came and scolded me for clearly not knowing how to pressurise the boiler properly. Dear plumber, I’m a fucking doctor of literature, of course I don’t know how to treat a boiler, but I did exactly what you showed me to do to it, okay?

An irrelevant image enhancing the horror mood of the post

The plumber started repressurising. It was taking forever and the pressure refused to climb. I guess it was feeling lazy. See above for nobody works on a Friday. The plumber says, That’s weird, it’s like the water is disappearing. I scream internally. I don’t believe in magic disappearances. I say, What do you mean, disappearing, like leaking? The plumber confirms. I’m trying to wrap my mind around it as the plumber sends me out to check all the flats  in the building for radiator leaks.

I don’t get too far. There’s the sound of a waterfall in the cellar next to the boiler room. Properly freaked out, I throw the door open and step in a pool of water as I’m reaching for the light switch. There’s a hole in the ceiling and a thick stream is pouring down from it. I scream literally. The plumber rushes to see if I saw a ghost or what and whistles appreciatively, as he observes the make-shift waterfall. The building has just upgraded to a swimming pool.

What’s above here, the plumber gestures up, clearly delighted to have a little excitement to spice up his dull shift. That would be my flat, I say. Alright, let’s see your flat then, the plumber suggests. My flat is all clear, which is good news, the plumber offers, as he notices my white face. There’s no fucking good news when there’s a fucking hole in the fucking cellar ceiling!! It’s like comforting a dying guy with telling him that at least, when he’s dead, he won’t have to pay health insurance.

What’s next to you, the plumber inquires. An empty bar, I say. We pay a visit there and the plumber is insensitively cheerful to see it flooded. Here you go, he shouts enthusiastically, that’s your leak! I remain quiet and catatonic. The plumber sends me back to my flat to take a Lexaurin and sets off to fetch his mates, so they could have some fun too.

The leak turned out to have been caused by an exploded radiator, which some dumbass didn’t shut down properly and which burst with excitement when the outside temperature dropped too low. I was relieved that I didn’t break the boiler but spent the rest of the day trying to sweep the water from the flooded areas. It was like, uh, sweeping water. Being a janitor is a great job. Not.

Weekly Photo Challenge: (Anti-)Tour Guide

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Tour Guide.

If I liked something about where I live, which I don’t, it would be the sheer ugliness of the place. When I see death and decay, I know I’m home, sort of.

More Instagram Crap

I do crap. Because I can. I mean, because I can’t. Can’t do better, that is. Since you appear not to hate my Instagram-to-WordPress reposts enough, you have condemned yourselves to another week’s worth of instant snaps. One day, one snap. Each snap is crap with an even crappier story to go with it. Here’s proof.

29 Jan: I went on an adventure. To Tesco. I met this lost and lonely hairpin, symbolical of my dead and discarded dreams and hopes, and it was so moving. So moving that I snapped this and moved on. 

30 Jan: There was an actual sunset, which means that there was an actual sun out during the day. Whew. It gave me a fright. I already forgot what sun was and mistook it for fire.

31 Jan: You wouldn’t fucking believe it. I know I didn’t. A month later, I actually unpacked my new yoga mat and started using it. Once I hopped on it, I started to hate myself for having waited so long to break it in. It’s all kinds of awesome. 

1 Feb: Today, nothing happened. Except I ventured in front of the building to take the dust bin out for the dustmen. Dustpeople. Let’s be gender correct. Or dustentities. In case the council employs not-people too. 

Feb 2: I painted my nails. I thought the colours would stand out best in monochrome. Duh. They’re black anyway, with one nail tentatively yellow. I’m a wasp. 

3 Feb: The cat is shedding like her survival depended on it. I can’t even drink coffee these days without swallowing and then coughing up a furball. Cat hair everyfuckingwhere.

4 Feb: I got up. Got dressed. Painted my face. Did my hair. It was so awesome. I mean, it was a bloody bother, but I was surprised to find myself comparatively pretty after like a two-hour prettifying procedure. And I didn’t even go on a date.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beloved; or, My Precious

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Beloved.

The other thing I love, besides my cat. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have a Mac to love your computer. I have a Lenovo called Lena and she’s perfectly lovable as she is. Of course, Windows keep on trying to ruin her, but nothing’s perfectly perfect.