When bored...

Make a rainbow out of stamps

Re-arranging my books

Books by blueness

A rainbow

Black books by height

One afternoon, when bored, I decided to re-arrange some of my books, here are the results

A leaning tower of books (they fell over first time)

18/5/12 Georgina’s Café, Petergate: Lunchtime

Note: We were sat in the window of this cafe, which made me feel a bit like a cake on display, only less edible

Six individuals each dressed all in black just passed by like a parade of rubbish ninjas.

Slightly “aggressive” leaflet hand-outer just shoved a leaflet in the faces of some people who were clearly trying to avoid him. He just looks a bit lost now, must be gutted because the place next door is handing out free food. Leaflet man doesn’t look like he suits this restaurant, like he’s nicked all their leaflets and now he’s handing them out to try and get rid of the evidence. Hopeless thief though; who would give away the stuff they’ve nicked right outside the place they’ve nicked them from, it’s like selling TVs off the back of a lorry in front of a Currys. Based on this I assume he’s a bonafide distributor of the restaurant’s leaflets.

Mini rush on outside, but poor Mr. leaflet is largely rejected. Creative Italian cuisine? Does it draw pictures while you eat? Singing spaghetti? Guy just completely blanked Mr. L.

Quite enjoying watching people looking at the menus, they approach like they’re not just what they’re looking at; Don’t get too close! They might think we’re interested. Police man with a proper policeman hat on, but it makes his head look really small.

A bloke just waved at me, brilliant. I can half see a guy in the 1^st story window across the road, seems to working intently but I can’t tell what on. He seems to have a napkin tucked under his chin.

16/5/12 Driving Home about half 3

Note: This post isn't in brilliant prose because I was writing in the car, and getting a coherent sentence on paper while being shaken about is rather difficult and I am too lazy to edit it.

The road from the car park is unpleasantly bumpy. Mum’s decided to drive through town, risky, car in front is half in the bike lane, probably a douche, he turned left. A mixture of suited gents and casually dressed men around. Two ambulances just hurtled past. The view under Bootham bar is nice; it makes a brilliant aperture. Lendal bridge is busy with pedestrians as usual. The station: an excellent place to sit around at rush hour and watch the chaos stemming from the poor road layout and high level of traffic. Sat behind bus at the traffic lights, says “push to open” on the back, sounds like an instruction, I’m compelled to do it but that would involve leaving the car. Man put his hand up as we passed, didn’t realise another bus was following us. Guy sat smoking in a hilux is dwarfed by his vehicle. Race day today (guy with sign advertising cycling being pull along by his bike), lots of cars on Knavesmire, now the trees are in the way. Landrover went past with what looked like a death ray attached to the roof. Car with personalised registration plates, always assume they are egotistical and aware of their superior registration status. Big thing with orange lights ahead, always intriguing – can I work out what it is for? It’s a crane. 

16/5/12 Tesco’s Café: lunchtime

Just eaten a filling bit of Shepherd’s pie in the café and am now sitting back to observe. Mum is arguing with her phone; parent + smartphone, who thought that was a good idea?

Unsurprisingly the café is about a fifth full of people eating lunch. The only ones I can see from here are an older couple, but they’re just leaving. However, in their place there are now two teenage girls, who approached the table cautiously… A police officer with a clipboard has just walked down the store with a bloke in a suit, which could be potentially interesting, but they’ve passed out of my line of sight so I shall never know. Anyway, the teenagers, I assume they’re college students, don’t seem very lively or cheery. One’s on her phone and picking at fruit salad, a lunch break to remember.

Just spotted a guy downstairs who spent ages looking closely at the plants while I was eating; I thought he might be something of an amateur horticulturalist, but why would he buy plants at the supermarket if he was? He didn’t even pick any up, he left with 4 cans, some bagels and a few other boring things precariously held in his arms. I guess he didn’t intend to buy that much.

There’s a guy just walked in with sunglasses on, didn’t think the light were that bright; he’s most likely come from outside and forgotten. The girl picking at the fruit has a rather false face, I think it’s the eyebrows, they’re too bold. A woman downstairs has a baby carrier, complete with baby, in her trolley. If I did that I’d stick it on the conveyor at the checkout then complain when they wouldn’t let me buy it.

An employee just walked past with a Bluetooth device in his ear, presumably for vital messages: “we’re running out of cornflakes, prepare for carnage!”

Watching Mum: 15/16-5-12

So people watching begins… I have procured a note book and found a subject to watch. Granted that subject is my mother, who, in the 22years we have been acquainted I have come to know pretty well, so I am cheating a bit, but once an idea strikes me I can’t help but act on it. I sincerely hope I never have a sudden desire to go diving, because acting quickly on that one would result in me being found lying in my bathtub with a serious head injury. Anyway I digress. At present my mother is ironing; nothing unusual or spectacular about that, she does this regularly, and has even admitted enjoying it.

Right now she is pressing my grandparent’s towels and telling me a story about dad’s burgers and the washing (it was getting wet, but dad’s burgers were perfectly melted, the horror!). My grandparents’ washing has a distinct smell about it; I assume it’s something to do with the fabric conditioner.

She has now moved on, from ironing, she hasn’t died and transcended to the spirit world. She has gone to make herself a cream scone, inspired by me. So I shall stalk her to the kitchen. The scone is jammed, and she’s now wrestling the cream on top, something she managed better than I did. On her return from the fridge she actually remembered to turn off the light in the back room, I’m amazed, and we’re off to the front room. She’s drawn the curtains and knocked over a pile of books in her quest to close the chink in the curtains; heaven forbid anyone should manage to see through and observe us at ease!

She’s gotten out her laptop which is notoriously slow and while she understands it well enough to use it, the gaps in the knowledge are enough to provide amusement, and frustration. While said laptop is being slow she has complained that her glasses are dirty and told the laptop to hurry up and show a video of a woman running herself over with her own car. Her previous behaviour leads me to believe she will be doing her tesco order and falling asleep in her chair, but I may be wrong. I am, possibly she’s undecided. She slouches with her laptop on her lap (how appropriate) but juts her head forward; this, and her habit of falling asleep in the chair, contributes to the neck pain she almost always complains about just before bed.

She’s running away, well walking away to clean her glasses. She finished her cup of whatever bizarre tea she’s drinking this evening, nettle and something else green perhaps? Or it may be just hot water, which rates only slightly above fizzy water on the disgusting beverage scale. Now she has returned she’s telling me the tale of my grandparents’ chattering while she continues to wait for her laptop to load. She is now despairing because the laptop has locked up, which also happens regularly. And now it has died completely, so she’s restarting it. Then she spontaneously asked about syncopation, inspired by some story Grandma told her earlier. I thought she was about to retell a story from earlier, but she went along a different line; she was discussing musicality with a neighbour and thinks she’s too old to pick up an instrument; in the sense of learn, she’s clearly not so old and frail that picking up a flute would cause her to collapse.

It is rather unfortunate that I have been struck with this creativity in the middle of the night. If it had been day time I might have been able to comment on the many colourful characters who inhabit this village; like the couple who go for a walk every morning, the depressed looking woman with a pram (I assume there’s a child in it, if not that may explain her constantly negative facial expression), the woman with a double decker pram (not as cool as it sounds), the man over the road mowing his lawn to death, or the guy with the dog that’s built like a fluffy tank. Such thrills!

People-watching does not come naturally to me. I find people quite boring to observe, they just do ordinary people stuff, which I do, and it’s dull enough doing it, let alone watching it being done. Animal-watching is infinitely more interesting. I don’t do animal stuff, if I did I might have fewer friends and spend more time in institutions, unless I pretended I was doing performance art, which, because it is deep and meaningful, is not mad. 

Watching Stuff: An introduction

I've decided to start "watching stuff". It's a bit like people watching, but not just people, because they are a bit boring.