Disjointed

Its been a momentous vague period of time since I last wrote something here. For starters there was Halloween, or 'girls dress as sluts', as it's called here. By girls.

I didn't dress as anything, but passed as a shambolic vagrant anyway, and attended some parties with friends where I bathed in the delights of 'flip-cup', kegs, girls dressed sluttily*, budlite (idle and foolish curiosity, kills cats and very nearly me too) and that party-in-freedom stalwart, bad hip-hop for rich kids, straight outta mp3 via driveby laptop. Yo.
In reality I spent most of my time accusing people of being racist if they tried to impersonate my accent. Halloween unsafely negotiated, we reach 'sport'.

Through nefarious and dark magicks beyond the reckonings of my innocent mind, I got roped into playing what they call football here. Even though there was no tackling (and for my part almost no catching either) I still managed to walk away with a sprained finger (swollen to the point that it wouldn't bend, which pretty much defeats the purpose of a finger), a dead arm and legs so weak that it was something of a miracle that I walked away at all. Four days later, I have just about stopped limping like a beneficiary of a visit from the colonauts. I was going to tell a joke about Uranus here, but have thought better of it.

Most excitingly of all, I went to see a roller derby match. Girls in shorts skirts, hot pants, or possibly just their underwear, skate round in a circle in a sort of tactical race, while trying to shove members of the opposing team into the ground, or for superior effect, into the crowd. Don't sit in the front row unless you occasionally want a face full of sweaty woman, or, when one of the referees trips up, man. The women are true athletes, having to engage in fast paced tactical play all the while suffering under the terrible burden of 'names' like Violetator, Ruth Less, Naslasher, Terrinator and Cathy Ter. Maybe not that last one. It is a family friendly sport, plenty of mothers had come along to cheer and lots of children were present in the hope of catching a flying skate in the face. We were profusely told to 'give it up', by some daft cow who should never have been allowed near a microphone: "It's ok to laugh, I'm a bit of a joker". She also was charged with waving a giant stars and stripes during the opening ceremony, and we all tried to show due respect as she struggled not to drop it.

Roller derby has the foul smelling taint of 'girl power', but not the full nauseating stench of the Spice Girls, the rules are simple and there's casual violence and purposefully misapplied eyeshadow. I sure hope it goes professional soon.

On the way back from lunch one day, I fulfilled my weekly 'getting back to nature' requirement, when I was nearly hit in the knees by a low flying hawk with a still fighting squirrel in its beak.

Eppylog

For some reason, possibly because I was now the only person left after the ADD sufferer who worked in a call center had got off at the last stop, the bus driver wanted to talk to me. Continuing her theme from the previous conversation, she asked where I worked. I explained that I worked at the university, in the science department, but didn't feel it was necessary to tell her about any of my socially detrimental medical conditions while I was at it.
"Do you teach the students then?"
"No I just do research."
"Oh, like that guy who murdered that Asian girl and hid her body in a wall?"
Yes, just like that.

*As far as I understand it, this means wearing less than the girl making the accusation.