Mad Dogs and Englishmen

So, I've been sacked from my work (again), and am spending my now-free time writing Past Tense, because if all my jobs end this way, I'd better be an author so no one can sack me. Not happy, this Skull Bearer is.

My ex-boss is also an arsehole, calling me halfway through a holiday in Amsterdam to sack me, thus wrecking my holiday and eating all the credit on my phone. And gaining me a lot of ugly looking seeing as if I was halfway through a tour of Anne Frank's house at the time. And the worst part is that I need to call her and beg for my job back (however unlikely that is).

So yes, suddenly scrawling down a holocaust story sounds much more attractive. Erik & Charles' problems are an excellent distraction from my own.

The holiday was fun otherwise, as in, the first half was, and ikn the second any time when I was drunk or stoned was good too. Amsterdam is pretty cool, very sexually open. And yes, the Red Light district really is full of half-naked women pressing their tits against the windows. I also know for sure now that I am not a lesbian, because that rather disgusted me. Not in the 'they shouldn't be doing that' way, but in the 'Eww, I really didn't want to see that.'

Anyway, enough. I hate my boss.

Dear journey home: Could you have been any more bitchy? Late plane, late luggage, lost in the airport, the works. Got home at 4am.

Dear Barcelona: Don't mind if I don't come back. You're a nasty, dirty city and I don't like your architecture. You had far too many tourists and your drains don't work.

Dear Gaudi architecture: Where were you?

Dear Monserrat: You own my soul, I want to live on you. I'm scared of heights but nowhere does it better than you. I am most definately coming back.

Dear Chetwynd: You're shorter than me. O_o. It was weird to see you in real life, but you and your friends are absolutely great people and I envy your bookshops. See you in London next month and thank you for recommending the Kingpriest Trilogy, it's great. And on that note:

Dear Fistandantilus: I am no longer even remotely sorry for what I'm going to do to you. You deserve to be arse-raped by rabid demons (oh sorry wickedlich, that already happened, didn't it?). You are a fucking evil bastard and I thank the gods for the day Weis and Hickmen thought you up.
Raistlin's still cooler though. ;)

Dear Terragona: You were nice and the hotel was great. I'll remember you next time I want a beach holiday. The Roman ruins would have been very interesting if the signs hadn't be written in Spanish.

Dear overnight train: Never again.

Dear Granada: I like you, you're nicer than Barcelona, but your Alhambra gives me a headache. You have nice food though.

Dear Olga: Please, have pity on your poor travel companion. I can't stomach caffine and thus can't keep going for as long as you can. Eight hours of sleep is eight hours of not wasted time. Otherwise, thank you for organising so much.

Dear spanish mountains: Please move to London. We need more mountains.

Dear notebooks: Thank you for having so many pages. I didn't expect I'd write quite so much.

Dear Plot Bunnies: Thank you for sorting yourselves out. It's very nice to be able to write both X-men fic and Dragonlance without having a full-scale war on my hands. Also thank you for sorting the Charles/Erik fic into some sort of cohesion and giving me so many ideas for Dragonlance. It's much appreciated.

Dear Dragonlance: Your Kingpriest Trilogy rocks, but I took one look at the third War of Souls book and headdesked so hard I hurt myself. The chamber of the Live Ones and the Portal to the Abyss are not in the same place. I can't even begin to describe what I thought of that one.

Dear X-men: Thank you for thinking up such a cool fanfic, but please, keep it out of my dreams. Nightmares are not fun.

Dear Spanish shops: Thank you eternally for having so much cheap medieval weaponry. I spent £40 and bought a knife, a katana, and a battleaxe. I am immensly happy and the weapons are gorgeous, although they were hell to take on a plane.

And finally:

Dear Spain: Thank you for having us, it's been fun and we will definately be back.

Now, to convert several pages of scribblings into a working Ivory and Ebony chapter.

...to include:

Do Not visit the Imperial War Museum while having a psychic day. You'll start picking up all the bad vibes around the renovated bombs and start to feel sick and dizzy. Also, visiting the Holocaust section is probably a bad idea too.

(seriously, I couldn't go near one of the exibits, I nearly fell over)

The whole list, which comprises of some several thousand tid-bits of information, remains one of the least heeded bits of advice in Skull Bearer's brain, thus she has nobody to blame but herself if she had to sit down on the floor halfway through her visit.

(It was a cool trip though, the museum's great and I learnt a lot. Sadly, the above lesson will not be one of those)

Incidentally, I am working on those lists.

So, apparently work has ended up being even more bizarre than I could have even imagined. It's exhausting, I have to stand there 10-6, with only a short break for lunch. My arms and hands hurt, and I have cramps in my chest from waving the bubble-sword around. Plus, my hands are so chapped I don't even know where to start, hand cream this isn't.

Other than that, it's actually one of the best jobs I've had for a long time.

I've got a nice tan from staying outside all the time, and it's a nice change from data collecting, where everyone hates you and you feel pretty bad for lying to all those people. Itstead, I stand on the pavement and blow bubbles for the general enjoyment of everyone. If they want to by our stuff, were there, if they don't, well, bubbles never hurt anyone.

Plus, there's the location. In case you don't know, Camden Lock is the home of the freaks, the outcasts and everything alternate. I fit in nicely. So far I've met a gothic lady with a ferret, several bands of hyperactive pirates, a some old friends turned otakus, an old teacher of mine, a nazi cyclist, tourist of every shape, size and culture (I spoke more French today than English), a seven year old goth kid, punks with hairstyles that defy both trend and gravity, policemen who come by on their beat to buy out toys for their kids, mad guys who leap out in front of cars and pretend to have been run over, senile Jesus-guys who march past with their placards comdemming us to hell, and basically enough colourful characters that I'm going to have to go back and edit this when I remember more.

Incidentally, the hyperactive pirates hyjacked our stall and held us up with out own bubble guns. I blew bubbles at them until they surrendered. The nazi cyclist got hit by one of my bubbles (that's fifty points) and threatened to get the police on us, but he was the one exception. Everyone else so far has been nice.

So, I am not only a bubble demonstrator, but also a traffic hazard. I should put up a warning sign. I am also apparently a tourist attraction, seeing as a load of people took pictures of me and my bubbles.

One thing with this job is that you have a lot of spare time. Luckily I can listen to my music while demonstrating, so it's not bad, still, you do start thinking odd things- odder than usual, I mean.
For example, I've already mentioned that there's this old preacher that rambles up and down the street shouting, now this guy is -to his own mind- a latter day prophet. Yet no-one wants to listen to him preach, prefering instead to ignore him and watch me blowing bubbles. Which suggest the question, what if there were bubble demonstrators at the time of Jesus Christ? Would everyone have ignored him in favour of watching the pretty bubbles?

I ran into so many old friends today, first I met Jenny, who I used to hand out with at school- despite the fact that she's six years younger than me- and her brother. We hung around debating completely random topics and generally having fun. Then I met Ms Murphey, an counciller at my old school, and finally I ran into Rowan, who I haven't seen for months.
My jaw hit the floor.
Roawn was one of the afor mentioned Otakus, and was dressed in a frilly maid's outfit. Now this is nothing new to Camden, where you see people dressed as pirates, vampires, Matrix-wannabes, punk rockers, wizards, whores and a quite number of nameless things. Unfortunately Rowan is fairly short, rather plump, and with a complete mane of frizzy hair, so she looked quite ridiculous.

(PS- If Rowan is reading this, firstly, congrats on getting a LJ! Secondly, I'm sorry about that, but it did look completely daft, and you were better off wearing your Rammstein outfit. But then I'm not an anime fan, so I'll never understand)

Plus, I got paid £70 for just one day's work (that's over a hundred euros, and $130). This totally kicks arse since it's cash in hand.

So, I'm being paid a ridiculous amount in order to blow bubbles, chat to random people, and get very tired indeed. Fair trade.