Was out on the Town Lake trail this morning, ambling along with Storm while Erik went for a run. We spotted him heading back towards us and crossed to the other side of the path. Some fat old bloke was ahead of Erik, half-running, half airing out his belly. Storm stopped to give a blade of grass an intense sniffing and fat bloke saw us but didn’t slow down. He pushed passed us and as he went by wheezed ‘walkers should be on the left’.
I could have ignored him and happily greeted Erik. I could have come up with some witty riposte, perhaps alluding to the amount of space his gut was taking up on the path. Instead, I shouted:
‘oh shut up’
and for good measure, added:
‘you miserable git’
I didn’t actually turn around to shout this, so I can’t be sure that he heard. But I half expected to feel his lardy fist punch the back of my head. At which point I would have set my brave and fearless dog and/or husband onto him. He could have been sniffed and licked into submission or bombarded with endless Sponge Bob references.
I’m really not impressed with myself – ‘oh shut up’ was my common response to my brother Miles when we were kids (from age 4 up to when I left home) when he was verbally outwitting me. But what really strikes me is that I felt the need to add ‘you miserable git’. ‘Git’ was probably fair, but I don’t really think I’m in a position to accuse someone else of being miserable.
The weather is beautiful at the moment. Cooler temperatures, sunny, blue skies. So it was only right that Erik and I should go to the cinema. We went to see ‘Michael Clayton’ which was more interesting than the title suggests. I’ve written before about the delights of seeing a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse, namely that you can eat unhealthy fried food in the dark (thus removing any sense of guilt or fat) and can get other people chucked out if they talk or rustle a lot. The first 10 minutes of the movie were horribly confusing and I actually considered asking Erik if he knew what was going on.
I think that cinema’s should start modelling themselves on Tivo so you can rewind if you don’t get something or go for a wee without missing the plot or wetting yourself in the scurry to get back. I was consoling myself that at least the fries were good when the movie began to make some sense. It’s definitely worth seeing, even if you have to go to a crappy megaplex super deluxe theatre.
I’m now sitting in Seattle’s Best coffee shop, scene of many previous blogs, and there’s a girl wearing a Queen t-shirt. I noticed it the moment I came in but didn’t recognise the shirt and I’m pretty familiar with official Queen merchandise of the past 30 years. Queen was spelt out across her chest and there seemed to be small headshots of the band members within some of the letters. It was hard to see which nipple Roger Taylor had his face on .. ha ha. Anyway, the girl only looked about 20, had probably never heard of an LP and had a load of study books sprawled over the table. I wanted to ask her if she was a Queen fan but then that would have seemed odd because it wasn’t the kind of shirt you’d wear if you weren’t. And in the course of writing my new show for Fronterafest I’ve realised just how much of a Queen snob I am and would then have been compelled to ask her if she’d ever seen them live, to which she would say no, and then I’d have to tell her how many times I’d seen them and that woud put her off her studying and she’d possibly fail her exams and I’d feel a bit responsible even though I wasn’t really. Maybe I’ll have to put one of those Shot In The Dark ads in the newspaper
Seattle’s Best Coffee
You: young, wearing a Queen t-shirt and studying
Me: much older than I think, lifelong Queen fan, staring at your chest
Wanna see my LP collection?
(not Lesbo Porn)
(unless you want it to be)