Happy Birthday to you;
Squashed tomatoes and stew;
Bread and butter in the gutter;
Happy Birthday to me.

Driving down Lamar this afternoon we passed a veterinarian clinic. The sign outside said:
The Holidays Are Near, Bring Your Pet Here

Erik saw nothing particularly offensive about this, suggesting it was simply a rhyme to attract attention to the vet?s business.

I however, saw beyond the obvious. The man is clearly a pet killer.

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(Or if you’re British, though I know you’re not, 201205)

Meeting your ex-therapist in Waterloo Records, browsing the new releases. Meeting your ex-anything is awkward enough, hell meeting your current therapist would be bad ‘ -hi, so..er, see you next week?

What a wonderful commercial I could make:

Convincing your British self to see a therapist? – Years
Paying for two years of weekly therapy? – Thousands
Discovering that you now feel worse about yourself than you ever imagined possible? – Comedy gold

I don’t know what he was looking for. Twenty Ways to Fuck Over Your Client perhaps. I was looking for the McGarrigle Christmas Hour, which I couldn’t find, sorry Erik, I’m sure you would have loved it. Anyway, I didn’t see him until he nudged me. I don’t like nudgers. Nor am I partial to a therapy session in the middle of Waterloo Records, although Austin is Weird, so why the hell not.

I curbed my initial instinct, which was to shout you’re a wanker and run, though this being Austin nobody would have really noticed and I’d probably be up for mayor next year. Instead I stood rather awkwardly under the M-I section and avoided any eye contact and tried to keep my answers to one syllable or less.

Frankly I hate him. Actually I have weird mixed feelings for him which are far too complicated to go into here, in fact it would probably require couples therapy for you and I to deal with it and I’m not sure you’d want to fork out for that, given that this is only a blog and we don’t even have that much of a relationship. Suffice to say, he’s a wanker in therapist’s clothing. Not that there’s a set uniform for therapists. Cordrouys and hush puppies seem to be a good choice for him though.

So there we were, chatting freely:
Him: ‘how are you?’
Me: ‘fine, how about you?’
Him: ‘great, so how are things?’
Me: ‘good, how about you?’

It was as if the months had just melted away. There’s only so many times that you can stare along the row of CDs beginning with the letter M but I think I may have set a new record. Way to read body language Rick.

And then it was over.

‘well good to see you, Maggie’
‘yeah, you too’

He passed me again when I was standing in line paying for the CDs that Waterloo Records actually did have in stock (Charlie Brown Christmas) but at that point I was too busy studying the cover artwork to see him.

Happy whatever Rick.

Yesterday we decorated our christmas tree. I was actually prepared to have no tree this year, given that Christmas is only a week away and I hadn?t really committed.
Him: ?We should put the tree up when I get back from Maryland?
Me: ?Ok?

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Following on from my earlier example of childhood creativity and general writing excellence, My Imaginary Dad, I’m able to offer a further two, recently discovered pieces from the same period. These are from my 5th form writing book, which means I’m about ten and a half years old.

I believe they offer a valuable insight into my dramatic, some might say traumatic childhood and the sense of humour which prevailed in these dark times.

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‘Rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your hair!
Sorry fair Prince, this is as far as it goes’

Most of the time I like my hair. Sometimes when I shower and don’t bother to put any styling stuff in, it just lays dormant on my head and I despise it. But when it’s all spiky and sprayed into an electric shock-like state it’s good.

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Is your car a reflection of your personality? I think perhaps yes. I drive a Subaru Forester. I?m not a Forester, though I was once impressed by the mighty redwoods of California. Nor am I really a Subaru, though I don?t know what that means. It could be the plural of submarine, but that’s more likely to be suburi or more accurately submuri as submarine has the ‘m’ which subaru does not. Anyway, that?s not really the point. It?s more the state of the car that?s relevant here. My car, like me, needs a wash so it will be less repellant to Erik. It’s slightly grimy on the outside, littered with receipts and sweet wrappers on the inside and the side mirrors to my soul are spotty with a film of dust.

I just got confirmation of my play date. That’s the date I’ll be performing my play, not the day I’ll be out playing with other soon-to-be 40 year olds. Though that would be a nice idea as it can get hard to meet new people and adult play dates could catch on. Just so long as they didn’t go weird and involve men in giant nappies and women in matron’s uniforms. I’m not into that kind of thing and if you are, then just keep your twisted playdates to yourselves.

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We were in the Grand Canyon this week. In, rather than at, because we didn?t just get off our coach, have a wee, take a photo and whistle through our teeth at the grandeur of it all, before getting back on. Actually we weren?t on a coach at all, we were in a Chrysler Sebring which has about the same acceleration pick-up as a coach. Well almost.

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It?s such a cliche to say the British are bad tippers. But only in the sense of it being true. When I first came to the US in 1997, our TrekAmerica guide emphasized the importance of tipping. For altruistic reasons of course. He told us that ?tips? stood for ?to insure proper service?. I decided not to point out that the acronym should in fact be ?teps?, to ensure proper use of the English language.

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