Summer thoughts.
At the risk of proving myself a complete and utter hypocrite later, here I have a titbit of opinion, on the merit of me using my free time in summer not taken up by:
a) Video games, i.e, The World Ends With You, which is ridiculously fun and, dare I say it, addictive.
b) Assorted Excursions and Cultural Persuits, i.e, whichever of the many events taking part in my greater locality manage to pique my interest.
c) The Large Pile of Books By My Bedside, i.e, including The Three Musketeers, The Princess Bride, American Gods and Anansi Boys and some random ones from the library which look vaguely promising. Soon to be added to with Atlas Shrugged, I fear.
d)Sleep. You know, since it's important. And I normally don't ger enough.
e) Other things vital for civilised human life, like washing, eating and drinking a good cup of tea when the mood takes you.
Now, to the time left over.
I intend to get back to writing crazy little short stories of my own invention, and thinking about my webcomic, maybe drawing out a few more characters. Screw ploughing all that time into fanfic and fanart. Oh, maybe I'll purge my mind of some of the slightly more amusing/better ideas, but otherwise, I will not be playing around with characters from something another person has done. Unless it's Cynicide, which I fully intend to eventually fill out a character profile for.
Current mentality is- Fandom = Not worth as much of my headspace as original work.
In that spirit, maybe I'll type up that weird two page thing that is living at the back of my A4 writing pad.
It's probably noteable that this corresponds to reading this blog entry and probably clicked into place sometime during thinking about it.
( WHY must my journal writing be interrupted by the desecration of my teapot? And just when I wanted a cup of tea, at that, and had brewed a pot? My train of thought was shot at, bombed and finally derailed. D< Click
So, you'd be thinking, a cup of tea is a perfectly simple thing to brew.
Oh, not today, it isn't. Why, pray tell? Because my Aunt is visiting.
Allow me to elaborate.
I had a pot of cold Earl Grey tea on the couter, out of the way. I was, you know, mildly considering the slight faux pas of just adding some freshly boiled water to it. Then, as I go to do that, I find the teapot is missing from where I left it, or where it usually lurks (the draining board.) After a search of all possible cupboards, there could only be one conclusion. I opened the dishwasher. Yes. There it was, for no conceivable reason save for the fact that my Aunt decided the teapot had to be washed.
You don't have to wash teapots. The only thing one ever puts in a teapot is boiled/boiling water and teabags or tealeaves. There is no need, or any logical cleanliness oriented reason, to wash a teapot in the dishwasher. All that is required is for the contents to be emptied and a bit of boiled water to be sloshed around. In my opinion.
Anyway, back to my former tangent. (And I know, it is a fairly boring tangent at that.) Since dishwashers have those little cleaning chemical things in them, the ones which look vaguely like bricks and have ads which show impossibly shiny glasses, I felt I had to clean my teapot out. Since that would do horrible things to the taste. I boiled the kettle. I rinsed both teapots out, the large one and the small one I use. Then rinsed them out with the boiling water.
Teapots (to my estimation) cleaned as much as they could be after being washed in the dishwasher, I decided to get back to making my pot of tea. Ah! I hear you say, the end of this ridiculously long and pointless tea related rant. No. I'm afraid it isn't.
I boiled the kettle again, with some more water in it. (Otherwise, you know, it would have been a boiled-dry kettle and nothing more than steam everywhere. With me panicking and flailing in the middle of it.)
And brewed myself a pot of tea.
Then went out to the computer to get back to my livejournal entry on impassioned plans for the summer, i.e, getting lots of original work done. Since I was feeling pretty strongly about it.
I heard my Aunt calling from the kitchen, which is just the next room. She was asking if I wanted a cup of tea, moments (laterally!) after I had set my pot of tea to brew for about three minutes.
I walked in, thinking I might pour out the tea and actually drink it.
To find.
Nothing more.
Than my Aunt.
Pouring herself a cup of Barry's Gold Blend from my teapot.
She threw out what was in it (hot tea, mind you, not cold stuff!) and boiled the kettle again. Despite the fact that there was clearly:
a) an empty teapot there
b) HOT FREAKING TEA IN MY ONE
Since I am a human being with a small measure of self control, I didn't throw the Barry's Tea in her face and yell out why I did it, but explained what she had done wrong in a complete fit of panic. Then transferred her tea to another pot and went to the task of boiling the kettle for the third time in half an hour in order to finally get my cup of tea.
After that, I slammed the door out of the house, ran to the very back of the garden, shouted and kicked some trees.
I'm still angry, and doubly so since I lost my train of thought and good mood, and the tea is absolutely insipid.
Since it was like brewing tea out of a new pot, or say, one that had been washed in a dishwasher and sterilised with boiled water. Any slightly loonly tea drinker such as myself may be able to explain to you the superstition that the deposit left in the bottom of the pot from countless pots of tea makes it taste better.
It certainly helps explain why tea in hotels and restaurants tastes kind of off, and why the pot I just made is completely useless. Aside from the perfectly understandable psychological aspects of the whole affair.
Rant rant rant rant, I'm nailing instructions on what not to do with my teapot to the window frame, I fucking swear.
for an overly long and enraged account of WHAT THE FUCK happened with my tea. (Read: A rant. ) And yes, the profanity is warrented. If you care about tea, and your own teapot, in the very least. That was what happened to the impassioned train of thought that I was writing this entry with. This? This is a freaking OUTRAGE. Mostly since I am now left with a trainwreck called "complete lack of motivation" and a vow to write out the household rules regarding teapot use. )
It's the worst when you're quickly and easily putting your thoughts to paper (so is to speak) and something absolutely pathetic interrupts it. Since things should be finished, and going back to writing without feeling it is such an apathetic-making feeling.
There you have it. Two entries mashed into one horrible Frankenstein's monster of a thing.
a) Video games, i.e, The World Ends With You, which is ridiculously fun and, dare I say it, addictive.
b) Assorted Excursions and Cultural Persuits, i.e, whichever of the many events taking part in my greater locality manage to pique my interest.
c) The Large Pile of Books By My Bedside, i.e, including The Three Musketeers, The Princess Bride, American Gods and Anansi Boys and some random ones from the library which look vaguely promising. Soon to be added to with Atlas Shrugged, I fear.
d)Sleep. You know, since it's important. And I normally don't ger enough.
e) Other things vital for civilised human life, like washing, eating and drinking a good cup of tea when the mood takes you.
Now, to the time left over.
I intend to get back to writing crazy little short stories of my own invention, and thinking about my webcomic, maybe drawing out a few more characters. Screw ploughing all that time into fanfic and fanart. Oh, maybe I'll purge my mind of some of the slightly more amusing/better ideas, but otherwise, I will not be playing around with characters from something another person has done. Unless it's Cynicide, which I fully intend to eventually fill out a character profile for.
Current mentality is- Fandom = Not worth as much of my headspace as original work.
In that spirit, maybe I'll type up that weird two page thing that is living at the back of my A4 writing pad.
It's probably noteable that this corresponds to reading this blog entry and probably clicked into place sometime during thinking about it.
( WHY must my journal writing be interrupted by the desecration of my teapot? And just when I wanted a cup of tea, at that, and had brewed a pot? My train of thought was shot at, bombed and finally derailed. D< Click
So, you'd be thinking, a cup of tea is a perfectly simple thing to brew.
Oh, not today, it isn't. Why, pray tell? Because my Aunt is visiting.
Allow me to elaborate.
I had a pot of cold Earl Grey tea on the couter, out of the way. I was, you know, mildly considering the slight faux pas of just adding some freshly boiled water to it. Then, as I go to do that, I find the teapot is missing from where I left it, or where it usually lurks (the draining board.) After a search of all possible cupboards, there could only be one conclusion. I opened the dishwasher. Yes. There it was, for no conceivable reason save for the fact that my Aunt decided the teapot had to be washed.
You don't have to wash teapots. The only thing one ever puts in a teapot is boiled/boiling water and teabags or tealeaves. There is no need, or any logical cleanliness oriented reason, to wash a teapot in the dishwasher. All that is required is for the contents to be emptied and a bit of boiled water to be sloshed around. In my opinion.
Anyway, back to my former tangent. (And I know, it is a fairly boring tangent at that.) Since dishwashers have those little cleaning chemical things in them, the ones which look vaguely like bricks and have ads which show impossibly shiny glasses, I felt I had to clean my teapot out. Since that would do horrible things to the taste. I boiled the kettle. I rinsed both teapots out, the large one and the small one I use. Then rinsed them out with the boiling water.
Teapots (to my estimation) cleaned as much as they could be after being washed in the dishwasher, I decided to get back to making my pot of tea. Ah! I hear you say, the end of this ridiculously long and pointless tea related rant. No. I'm afraid it isn't.
I boiled the kettle again, with some more water in it. (Otherwise, you know, it would have been a boiled-dry kettle and nothing more than steam everywhere. With me panicking and flailing in the middle of it.)
And brewed myself a pot of tea.
Then went out to the computer to get back to my livejournal entry on impassioned plans for the summer, i.e, getting lots of original work done. Since I was feeling pretty strongly about it.
I heard my Aunt calling from the kitchen, which is just the next room. She was asking if I wanted a cup of tea, moments (laterally!) after I had set my pot of tea to brew for about three minutes.
I walked in, thinking I might pour out the tea and actually drink it.
To find.
Nothing more.
Than my Aunt.
Pouring herself a cup of Barry's Gold Blend from my teapot.
She threw out what was in it (hot tea, mind you, not cold stuff!) and boiled the kettle again. Despite the fact that there was clearly:
a) an empty teapot there
b) HOT FREAKING TEA IN MY ONE
Since I am a human being with a small measure of self control, I didn't throw the Barry's Tea in her face and yell out why I did it, but explained what she had done wrong in a complete fit of panic. Then transferred her tea to another pot and went to the task of boiling the kettle for the third time in half an hour in order to finally get my cup of tea.
After that, I slammed the door out of the house, ran to the very back of the garden, shouted and kicked some trees.
I'm still angry, and doubly so since I lost my train of thought and good mood, and the tea is absolutely insipid.
Since it was like brewing tea out of a new pot, or say, one that had been washed in a dishwasher and sterilised with boiled water. Any slightly loonly tea drinker such as myself may be able to explain to you the superstition that the deposit left in the bottom of the pot from countless pots of tea makes it taste better.
It certainly helps explain why tea in hotels and restaurants tastes kind of off, and why the pot I just made is completely useless. Aside from the perfectly understandable psychological aspects of the whole affair.
Rant rant rant rant, I'm nailing instructions on what not to do with my teapot to the window frame, I fucking swear.
for an overly long and enraged account of WHAT THE FUCK happened with my tea. (Read: A rant. ) And yes, the profanity is warrented. If you care about tea, and your own teapot, in the very least. That was what happened to the impassioned train of thought that I was writing this entry with. This? This is a freaking OUTRAGE. Mostly since I am now left with a trainwreck called "complete lack of motivation" and a vow to write out the household rules regarding teapot use. )
It's the worst when you're quickly and easily putting your thoughts to paper (so is to speak) and something absolutely pathetic interrupts it. Since things should be finished, and going back to writing without feeling it is such an apathetic-making feeling.
There you have it. Two entries mashed into one horrible Frankenstein's monster of a thing.