Way Of All Flesh

I have been back in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks, and had still yet to break ground on a new year of erratic posting to this blog. I was keeping a short list of reflections and ruminations for the inaugural missive of what we're calling the '08, but many of them now escape me, and, being as averse to true organisation as I inevitably always prove, I imagine this will become something closer to a stream of consciousness (that forgiving euphemism for 'incoherent rambling').

One thing that occurred to me as I soared once more o'er the Atlantic in one of Mr. Branson's aluminium love-children (replete with all its blue LEDs), is that I spent an inordinate amount of what was the '07 on or waiting for airplanes. My general fatigue and revulsion, brought on both by this final odyssey and the accompanying revelation, was tempered only somewhat by the discovery that we had been blessed by the company of Dolph Lundgren on our humble flight (a discovery made in the immigration queue - our seats were far too cheap to catch a glimpse of Drago whilst in the air). Since June 2007 I had flown to England, thence to Venice, back to England, back to LA, then from San Diego to Columbus, Columbus back to LA, LA to Baltimore and back (via DFW), LA to Connecticut (by way of New York and Providence), and then once more to England for Christmas. In light of this record, I believe I can perhaps be forgiven for being sick of airports (and even the magical Flyaway bus), and am somewhat heartened that I have just over two months before I must confront the maelstrom of modern travel once more.

Whilst in England for Christmas, I had the good fortune to receive (amongst other kind gifts) Terry Pratchett's latest opus, Making Money. Much as Cory Doctorow had led me to believe, this was another example of Pratchett at the top of his game, and I was reminded again why, when pushed, I find myself compelled to nominate him as my favourite author. I love the way he plays with the English language, exploiting and befuddling the meaning of words and syntax at every turn, and that though a frighteningly intelligent man, he's never above going for the obvious pun when it's worth a chuckle. On a related note, I finally saw both Volver and Strictly Ballroom, much to my ultimate enjoyment and enrichment as a human being. If someone had told me about the extent to which Time After Time featured in the latter, I'm sure I would have been sold long before...

Returning home after a long break as we did presents its own perilous adventures. In this case, the contents of particular tupperwares left to pursue their own devices in the desolate confines of the refrigerator. My greatest fears went unrealised when I finally mustered the courage to address the remains of Giada de Laurentiis' vegetable bolognese, and was greeted with nothing more noxious to the human senses than very cold rigatoni and mushrooms. By contrast, the disposal of a container of what I was told used to be soup, suspiciously benign by all accounts, proved a far more chilling encounter. In that brief second after I tore off the lid, and even as I consigned the gelatinous blasphemy to the final embrace of the In-Sink-Erator®, I swear that something looked at me.

I also went to Vegas a couple of weekends ago. There are pictures.