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Weird day

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:07 / 01.04.04

That was a strange day.

It suddenly occurred to me this morning that April 1st is my parents' wedding anniversary (my dad having died when I was a kid).

So I thought it'd be nice to phone my mum and say hi. Which, I really think, she appreciated (seeing as how I often forget her birthday and Mothers' Day and all that malarkey). Lovely conversation with my mum.

Then I went to alcohol counselling... this (not wishing to demean it- it does really seem to be doing good things) consisted of an hour in an uncomfortable chair talking about my dad.

Yes, I feel better for it (and before anyone gets the wrong idea here, my dad fucking rocked)... but it was weird.

The poor fucker in the comic shop I went into afterwards had to deal with "talkative customer syndrome"... I just needed some normal pointless human contact other than just pouring my guts out to a kindly old lady about a guy who's been dead for twenty years.

And yes, I DID feel like I needed a few beers after. And I had them.

Not sure why I'm posting this... just the need for "normal" human contact again, I guess.

I'm not miserable... I'm not asking for (or indeed needing) sympathy...

I'm just saying "hi" in a very convoluted manner. Cos I need to.

Ninjas make great pets

13:15 / 01.04.04

Hi.

*plants gentle kiss on forehead*

Tryphena Absent

13:17 / 01.04.04

Hi Stoatie. It sounds... damn heavy and kind of manic. I've done absolutely nothing today... again.

gotham island fae

13:22 / 01.04.04

As a one-time comic shop clerk, I can imagine your 'talkative customer syndrome' to be much preferable to the average 'I have no life of my own so you have to provide me with a receptacle for my inanity' customers that I was accustomed to.

Course, maybe over there comic-book patrons are the epitomy of class and social grace...

13:23 / 01.04.04

Hi to you, Stoats - know what you mean, i often get that desire for human contact thing. I'm a real "people botherer", talking to people in shops and train stations who don't necessarily want it...
Hope all's well anyway - you generally seem an insuppressibly happy and chatty drinker, as I think am I, thankfully. I've just been hill climbing with my mum for the afternoon, which I do once in a while, as part of my Iain Banks novel-esque life

Tryphena Absent

13:24 / 01.04.04

I never feel I have the knowledge to talk to people in comic shops. I fancy they might shun me.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:27 / 01.04.04

I used to work in a comic shop meself, so I have an inordinate amount of sympathy with those who do... I used to hate the chatty customers, and would really like not to have been one. Having said that, the guy seemed like he needed conversation as well, so I don't feel too bad...

13:29 / 01.04.04

Hey man. If you're up for it, you can come up here and talk my local comic shop guy into submission. It'd be nice for him to be on the receiving end for once.

13:35 / 01.04.04

God, I had this one comics shop employee who used to talk my freakin' ears off. He'd follow me around the store, yaking, asking me why I wasn't buying this or that, telling me about his sexual exploits, trying to get me to go into the back room so I could watch the amateur Girl Gone Wild style video tapes he would make when travelling to Florida each spring.

And then just when I thought I was finished with the transaction and was half way out the door, he'd beg me to go pick him up some lunch somewhere cause he wasn't allowed to close the store...

heh... of course, nostalgiac old bastard that I am, typing that just now made me kind of miss him...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:37 / 01.04.04

you generally seem an insuppressibly happy and chatty drinker

I try to be. I can, however, be a nasty cunt sometimes. Which is why I'm trying to sort it out- I couldn't give a fuck about my personal health, to be honest, but I hate pissing off/hurting people I care about.

I'm glad you haven't experienced me doing that, though.

13:43 / 01.04.04

I remember the days of frequenting a comic shop that was always lacking in customers when I went there. I used to be concerned that the comic shop people had guns which they would use if I ever took the comics out of the plastic wrappers.

13:45 / 01.04.04

Stoatie, I've never been into a comic shop but all this talk of them is making me feel like I'm missing out on something!

One time I went to the pub to chat to someone and ended up being lectured to for about 2 hours about this guy's exploits in Algeria as part of the French Foreign Legion. I went home very very scared!

Meme buggerer... I want an Iain Banks novel-esque life dammit.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:47 / 01.04.04

I used to be concerned that the comic shop people had guns which they would use if I ever took the comics out of the plastic wrappers.

Dunno about any other comic shops...

But we DID.

21:15 / 01.04.04

Try giving random people you know phone calls, worked for me when I was stuck in the arse end of the north. Your phone bill will grow and eventually destroy Tokyo but it's worth it . Kept me sane and in contact with a whole load of people who I rarely ever see as they're scattered all over the country.

And hell it's nice to have a gossip at times as well

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:32 / 01.04.04

hi you. just saying hi.

I get weird on my parents' anniv. (mum died 15 years ago. also on the anniv. of her death). sometimes sad, sometimes happy. always a bit weird.

so hello. chatting/human contact goooood.

00:24 / 02.04.04

For the longest time, I would never notice my dad's birthday or the anniversary of his death until days afterward. It always bothered me. Presumably I subconsciously needed not to notice, or something. Stupid subconscious =P

07:03 / 02.04.04

Stoatie, did shooting people help at all? If so, it might be a tactic that you might want to consider again to help you get through rough times. (Although, you shouldn't really shoot people, so maybe you could buy some hot cross buns, since "bun" rhymes with "gun", and give those to people instead. Hot cross buns will solve everything.)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:34 / 02.04.04

Ah, there's nothing quite like the glow of a laser targeting scope centred perfectly on a Green Lantern t-shirt to make you forget your troubles...

On a more serious note, thanks everyone. I'm laughing again, and I don't feel weird anymore.

Goodness Gracious Meme

08:52 / 02.04.04

For the longest time, I would never notice my dad's birthday or the anniversary of his death until days afterward. It always bothered me. Presumably I subconsciously needed not to notice, or something. Stupid subconscious =P

Yeah, snap, for most of my teens, this was totally the case. Always felt guilty/icky about it. Suddenly changed early 20s, again, presumably subconc. deciding I could cope with knowing.

My mum died in late September, so previous to it 'clicking' I always just felt weird and shitty at the beginning of every academic year. Woo-bloody-hah

Goodness Gracious Meme

08:52 / 02.04.04

Oh and stoats: good stuff.

Ninja-shaped PIE, sir?

lonely as a cloud...

08:56 / 02.04.04

/me would like a ninja in a pie.
I like your u/n, bengali.
"Life is hard enough when you belong here..."

09:13 / 02.04.04

Stoatie, I've never been into a comic shop

Jub: I've moved to have your Barbelith account closed. Next thing, you'll been telling us you've never read Grant Morrison!!

*mutters* ...who do these people think they are?

Stoatie - best wishes mate. I've been there mate, though it was only a few years ago for me so I didn't have that one riding me throughout my adolescence, thank fuck. I actually think the response the counsellors have given you is a great one. I had a lot of nightmares about my dad after he died, not about our personal relationship, more about the process of watching him dying. I think it really upset me on the inside/subonscious. Visualsing him, talking to him, saying all those things I felt I'd never said - even the bad stuff - and then saying goodbye, has helped to process this, though it's still ongoing. I personally think addressing these issues is really important in everyone's life, no matter how they reflect on your other problems.

I find things like this ... not distressing, just powerfully moving and poignant. Makes me thing of the gravity of being alive and it's short duration. Not sure if this makes sense so I'll shut up now.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

02:15 / 03.04.04

I work on Fridays in a comic shop, and I like it when people talk...and I LOVE it when people get all excited about the comics they like, even if I hate them. Why? It's a fun kind of infection when people are really having fun with a medium I like.

We usually have poker or wrasslin on TV when I work, so we get a lot of geek boy conversations about pokers, comics, wrasslin or whatever.

13:24 / 03.04.04

Do. Not. Mention. The. Green Lantern T.

Hi, Stoat. Awright?

VonKobra,Scuttling&Slithering

13:36 / 03.04.04

I really sympathise with your drinking thing...

I've been clean 6 weeks now.

Oh

didn't I mention that besides the ORDERZ I shall be giving as KOMMANDER that from time to time I may get all Emo and chew the edges of the Forum nervously?

Woops.

More power to ya, brudder.