not quite triskaidekaphobia, and some other things
As of today, I have been going out with Helen for exactly six months and one day; as of yesterday, we were going out for six months. Exactly six months and one day ago was Friday the 13th of October.
On that Friday the 13th, something very good happened, which made and makes me very happy.
On this Friday the 13th, Helen was on her way back from a maths t00bage in Leeds, and I went out in the evening to my aunt's house because a cousin of mine is here from Israel with his girlfriend, and there was a large family t00b in their honour. Amechai has a black goattee beard and long black hair and a grin, and when I went to the wedding party in the summer (which was almost the last time I saw him) he tried to get me drunk with tequila slammers. He talks in straight lines, doesn't do anything that isn't casual clothing, and really rather likes my jacket.
His girlfriend is tiny and lovely and has a wonderful sense of humour and a wonderful smile. She did a philosophy degree at university: this allows me to refer to them as 'my pirate cousin and his philosopher girlfriend' from this point on. They are that cool.
Not only did I get to see them (and have a lovely meal, and see my cousins, etc, and experience Benjy look at the bowl of 'wild rice' and say "So that's where my hamster went") but afterwards I got dropped off in town rather than at home because my parents are suprisingly unerstanding and cool sometimes, and interrupted the Girls' Night for a very brief but lovely few minutes with around an hour to go, which was also really rather wonderful.
Hence my belief that actually Friday the 13ths are really rather nice.
---
Today is wanderlight's birthday, or at least it is as I'm typing these words (although bearing in mind my tendancy to get side-tracked it may be tomorrow by the time this is finished). She is absolutely wonderful (or should that be wonderfull?) and rather fantastic and all sorts of other benevolent adjectives, and everybody should send her lots and lots of e-hugs and cyber-books and extra time in which she can read them all, or in fact a TARDIS containing an eschatological library and a giant teddy-bear.
Actually, I'm sure the term I'm looking for is not 'eschatological library', unless the etymology is 'the library at the end of the world that contains the sum of all human knowledge and also all of its literature', because otherwise it would simply be a library about the apocalypse, although that would be kind of cool too...
A TARDIS containing the British Library and a giant teddy-bear, then. Or possibly an Ewok.
Anyway. wanderlight? You rock.
---
I spent a lovely day today at Helen's with James and Lucia and Helen (obviously) and met Helen's Cool Aunt for the first time, which was fun, because she is Cool. meine_kleine will know the one.
---
At Seder night, I had a conversation with my cousin Benj about Schroedinger's Cat. I often have conversations about Schroedinger's Cat to pass the time, although they are never usually particularly serious ones; this time, Benj attempted to explain it to me properly, or at least more properly than it had previously been explained to me. As he did so, I objected vociferously because it didn't make any sense, and attacked him with a whole cascade of thought-experiments and examples in a doomed display of reducto ad absurdam. What was even more fascinating than the argument was the meta-argument, because my cousin Benjamin is a scientist and I am a philosopher.
Of course, neither of those things are actually true. We're both still at school. But he is doing Chemistry, Biology, Geography and Music (and Maths) for A-level, and has been offered a place at Cambridge to read biochemistry, whilst I'm taking English, Philosophy, History and Maths and am hoping to study English. Philosphy is the closest subject that I have to a science (I once saw it described beautifully as 'a science without portfolio') and so in this kind of debate it is that which I fall upon to educate my arguments. When he started explaining the idea of 'observation', or of 'measurement' I started asking questions about what it was that saw the cat expire - what if it was a person? a dog? an eyeball hooked up to a mechanical heart? a camera? surely it's just being compared to something else around it, so unless it's in a total and infinite vaccuum it doesn't make a difference at all? - that at first completely threw him because they were coming from such a different starting point.
---
A while ago I mentioned that my mother brought home the shiny. I have neglected to mention that on the last day of term I too brought home some shiny, which was all the more exciting for being entirely unexpected. As I mentioned in that post, we had a massive handicapped tournament, which I just about managed to win through absenteeism. In Mr Richards' little wrap-up session, I was given a new squash ball for winning and Rory was given a second-hand squash ball for being the most improved player.
This is why I was really rather suprised when, during the massive end-of-term assembly at which all of the awards were given out Mr Corns said "Most Improved Squash Player: anthon1".
Of course, if he had actually said that I probably would have been even more flabbergasted than I actually was, because the idea of everybody at my school reading my blog and recognising my username would be very disconcerting. Nevertheless, I was suprised enough to require a prod and a whispered "That's you" before I skipped down from the gallery and up to the stage to collect my shiny, grinning like a loon and ever so slightly dazed. It also amused me immensely at the time that I was going up on the school stage to collect my prize whilst wearing jeans and a leather jacket and a school-illegal t-shirt (even on a mufti day); and it also amused me that about three seconds previously I had commented to stripyglove that the ceremony was heinously boring and that they should just do all of them at the same time to speed it up.
Whilst talking about the end of term, I should also mention the House Rock competition simply because it involved the most appalling rendition of The Fratellis Chelsea Dagger that the world has ever heard. Mere words cannot describe the pure bathetic horror of those sounds: the drums had no rhythm, the guitars were out of time, and the singing did not deserve to bear that name. It was pure comedy.
---
Another thing that I have forgotten to mention is that not only did I dance at purplefringe's purple party but at one point all_my_words danced with me. The every-day laws of nature, it seems, were upturned for that particular period of time.
Not that I'm complaining, mind.
---
I spent Easter Monday hanging around with Alexei. This was arranged by text, which is short-hand for my receiving a text that said:
'Sir Anthony, we must meet. When are you free to ride out against the undead hordes?'
or somesuch, and me replying to say that I was free tomorrow, if that was convenient. We bimbled around town for a while, before ending up in Waterstones, where we remained for several hours because we are that cool, and had immense fun playing with Dawkins and examining the bonsai potato kit and the undercover listening device and the zen balls and the make your own Stonehenge kit and hypothesising over literary conspiracy theory top-trumps. I also renderred him speechless by pointing out to him a book called V ~ Agent Provocateur ~ An Erotic Novella and we developed an exciting and self-contradictory theology during our journey from downstairs to the science-fiction and fantasy section. Eventually a lady came and told us that they were closing in five minutes, and we both bought books - mine was Un Lun Dun, which I spotted at the last minute and just had to buy, for reasons ennumerated elsewhere at which point we then went to Blockbusters and subtly rearranged their stock and bought some popcorn before retiring to Alexei's house to watch The Ghost in the Shell. It was wonderful, although I have to say that the whole thermoptic comoflague inconsistency bugged me a little bit. Those of you who have seen the film will know exactly what I mean; aesthetic sensibilities my foot.
---
I have decided, on reflection, that the book that I am using to supplement my philosophy revision (which is actually our secondary textbook which we never use, which is not suprising considering that we never use the other one either) is rather good, even though the author's habit of ending every important paragraph with an excalimation mark is a little bit jarring!
---
I told you I'd get distracted.
On that Friday the 13th, something very good happened, which made and makes me very happy.
On this Friday the 13th, Helen was on her way back from a maths t00bage in Leeds, and I went out in the evening to my aunt's house because a cousin of mine is here from Israel with his girlfriend, and there was a large family t00b in their honour. Amechai has a black goattee beard and long black hair and a grin, and when I went to the wedding party in the summer (which was almost the last time I saw him) he tried to get me drunk with tequila slammers. He talks in straight lines, doesn't do anything that isn't casual clothing, and really rather likes my jacket.
His girlfriend is tiny and lovely and has a wonderful sense of humour and a wonderful smile. She did a philosophy degree at university: this allows me to refer to them as 'my pirate cousin and his philosopher girlfriend' from this point on. They are that cool.
Not only did I get to see them (and have a lovely meal, and see my cousins, etc, and experience Benjy look at the bowl of 'wild rice' and say "So that's where my hamster went") but afterwards I got dropped off in town rather than at home because my parents are suprisingly unerstanding and cool sometimes, and interrupted the Girls' Night for a very brief but lovely few minutes with around an hour to go, which was also really rather wonderful.
Hence my belief that actually Friday the 13ths are really rather nice.
---
Today is wanderlight's birthday, or at least it is as I'm typing these words (although bearing in mind my tendancy to get side-tracked it may be tomorrow by the time this is finished). She is absolutely wonderful (or should that be wonderfull?) and rather fantastic and all sorts of other benevolent adjectives, and everybody should send her lots and lots of e-hugs and cyber-books and extra time in which she can read them all, or in fact a TARDIS containing an eschatological library and a giant teddy-bear.
Actually, I'm sure the term I'm looking for is not 'eschatological library', unless the etymology is 'the library at the end of the world that contains the sum of all human knowledge and also all of its literature', because otherwise it would simply be a library about the apocalypse, although that would be kind of cool too...
A TARDIS containing the British Library and a giant teddy-bear, then. Or possibly an Ewok.
Anyway. wanderlight? You rock.
---
I spent a lovely day today at Helen's with James and Lucia and Helen (obviously) and met Helen's Cool Aunt for the first time, which was fun, because she is Cool. meine_kleine will know the one.
---
At Seder night, I had a conversation with my cousin Benj about Schroedinger's Cat. I often have conversations about Schroedinger's Cat to pass the time, although they are never usually particularly serious ones; this time, Benj attempted to explain it to me properly, or at least more properly than it had previously been explained to me. As he did so, I objected vociferously because it didn't make any sense, and attacked him with a whole cascade of thought-experiments and examples in a doomed display of reducto ad absurdam. What was even more fascinating than the argument was the meta-argument, because my cousin Benjamin is a scientist and I am a philosopher.
Of course, neither of those things are actually true. We're both still at school. But he is doing Chemistry, Biology, Geography and Music (and Maths) for A-level, and has been offered a place at Cambridge to read biochemistry, whilst I'm taking English, Philosophy, History and Maths and am hoping to study English. Philosphy is the closest subject that I have to a science (I once saw it described beautifully as 'a science without portfolio') and so in this kind of debate it is that which I fall upon to educate my arguments. When he started explaining the idea of 'observation', or of 'measurement' I started asking questions about what it was that saw the cat expire - what if it was a person? a dog? an eyeball hooked up to a mechanical heart? a camera? surely it's just being compared to something else around it, so unless it's in a total and infinite vaccuum it doesn't make a difference at all? - that at first completely threw him because they were coming from such a different starting point.
---
A while ago I mentioned that my mother brought home the shiny. I have neglected to mention that on the last day of term I too brought home some shiny, which was all the more exciting for being entirely unexpected. As I mentioned in that post, we had a massive handicapped tournament, which I just about managed to win through absenteeism. In Mr Richards' little wrap-up session, I was given a new squash ball for winning and Rory was given a second-hand squash ball for being the most improved player.
This is why I was really rather suprised when, during the massive end-of-term assembly at which all of the awards were given out Mr Corns said "Most Improved Squash Player: anthon1".
Of course, if he had actually said that I probably would have been even more flabbergasted than I actually was, because the idea of everybody at my school reading my blog and recognising my username would be very disconcerting. Nevertheless, I was suprised enough to require a prod and a whispered "That's you" before I skipped down from the gallery and up to the stage to collect my shiny, grinning like a loon and ever so slightly dazed. It also amused me immensely at the time that I was going up on the school stage to collect my prize whilst wearing jeans and a leather jacket and a school-illegal t-shirt (even on a mufti day); and it also amused me that about three seconds previously I had commented to stripyglove that the ceremony was heinously boring and that they should just do all of them at the same time to speed it up.
Whilst talking about the end of term, I should also mention the House Rock competition simply because it involved the most appalling rendition of The Fratellis Chelsea Dagger that the world has ever heard. Mere words cannot describe the pure bathetic horror of those sounds: the drums had no rhythm, the guitars were out of time, and the singing did not deserve to bear that name. It was pure comedy.
---
Another thing that I have forgotten to mention is that not only did I dance at purplefringe's purple party but at one point all_my_words danced with me. The every-day laws of nature, it seems, were upturned for that particular period of time.
Not that I'm complaining, mind.
---
I spent Easter Monday hanging around with Alexei. This was arranged by text, which is short-hand for my receiving a text that said:
'Sir Anthony, we must meet. When are you free to ride out against the undead hordes?'
or somesuch, and me replying to say that I was free tomorrow, if that was convenient. We bimbled around town for a while, before ending up in Waterstones, where we remained for several hours because we are that cool, and had immense fun playing with Dawkins and examining the bonsai potato kit and the undercover listening device and the zen balls and the make your own Stonehenge kit and hypothesising over literary conspiracy theory top-trumps. I also renderred him speechless by pointing out to him a book called V ~ Agent Provocateur ~ An Erotic Novella and we developed an exciting and self-contradictory theology during our journey from downstairs to the science-fiction and fantasy section. Eventually a lady came and told us that they were closing in five minutes, and we both bought books - mine was Un Lun Dun, which I spotted at the last minute and just had to buy, for reasons ennumerated elsewhere at which point we then went to Blockbusters and subtly rearranged their stock and bought some popcorn before retiring to Alexei's house to watch The Ghost in the Shell. It was wonderful, although I have to say that the whole thermoptic comoflague inconsistency bugged me a little bit. Those of you who have seen the film will know exactly what I mean; aesthetic sensibilities my foot.
---
I have decided, on reflection, that the book that I am using to supplement my philosophy revision (which is actually our secondary textbook which we never use, which is not suprising considering that we never use the other one either) is rather good, even though the author's habit of ending every important paragraph with an excalimation mark is a little bit jarring!
---
I told you I'd get distracted.