The joys of a life in which I am allowed to have fun

[triskellian]

After work yesterday, I got the bus into town and, among other things, wandered into the pants department at M&S (reminder for Americans: your pants = our trousers; our pants = your underpants/panties/whatever else you call 'em).

kauket, venta, I know we were complaining the other day about the terribleness of their bra range and sizing, but I'm very impressed with their pants at the moment. Gone are the days when all they sold was white and black in a choice of thong, brief or bigpant designs. Now they have pants in all sorts of different colours, fabrics, prints and shapes, including lots designed to work with the now-ubiquitous hipster trousers.

When buying clothes, I still automatically find the racks of black and dismiss any rack with (god forbid!) brightly coloured clothes. Colours and patterns make me nervous (blondeccgirl had to restrain me from returning my beautiful scarlet wedding-dress-fabric to the shelf, and buying instead a nice safe black), and it's hard to indulge in frivolous girlie shopping when everything you buy is plain black, and even white, denim-blue or dark purple count as scary forays into the world of colour. I used to indulge in frivolous girlieness with nail varnish, but the appeal of purple, blue or green nails seems to have faded, and I've been casting about for an indulgence with which to replace it. I think I've found it.

Returning to the car in the Westgate carpark, I was delighted to notice a new vending machine next to the parking payment machines. Not just any vending machine, though. A cheese toastie vending machine. Possibly the best way to understand how very exciting I found this is to ask smiorgan how many times through the rest of the evening I said "Cheese toastie vending machine!" to him in an excited voice. I love cheese toasties. With a passion. This machine had a button for 'cheese and ham' and a button for 'cheese and spring onion', and, most excitingly, a button for 'one of each'! No, I'm not overreacting, you're underreacting ;-) Sadly, we'd already bought sandwiches and sushi for a cinema picnic, so I couldn't justify trying them out.

Even after all the excitement of pants and cheese toasties, the highlight of the evening was our spontaneous trip (prompted by my sudden realisation that I now have enough free time to go to the cinema if I want to) to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yes, the bandwagon is so long gone there aren't even any tracks left, and probably everyone who might have wanted to see it saw it long ago, but it was wonderful.

Someone who was probably verlaine said something ages ago about defying anyone to see it and fail to fall a bit in love with Clementine, and how right he is. She's bright and vital and adorable (and I admired her multi-coloured clothes, as only someone who's scared of anything other than black can), and I even liked Jim Carrey, who I often find utterly unbearable. It was sweet and sad and funny and I want to see it all over again now.

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I like your avatar (or whatever it is you call them hereabouts).

[triskellian]

Thank you - it's a line from a song of which I know neither the title nor the artist (smiorgan knows both, I expect).

(I call them icons around here, and would only ever apply 'avatar' to one that directly represents the user in some way, like this one of mine.)

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

But isn't there some kind of acronym for them as well, like GIP or summat? Graphical Icon Picture??

[triskellian]

GIP is 'gratuitous icon post', ie a post made solely for the purpose of showing off a new icon. There's also GIC (coined by leathellin) for 'gratuitous icon comment'.

[unknownid.livejournal.com]

Cracker, "Teen Angst". :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

A cheese toastie vending machine.

A salutation of the inventor's brilliance is only awaiting confirmation of the quality of the toasties.

I await your further report with baited thingamajig.

[triskellian]

I shall endeavour to investigate further as soon as I can, and claim some sort of scientific experimenty increase of sum of human knowledge excuse for it ;-)

(<Homer voice> Mmmmm... excuses to eat cheese toasties...)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

Ma'am, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

Go sci-ence! Go sci-ence!

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

Cool film: but Clementine would be a dreadful, unloveable, "wacky", PITA of a girlfriend. Breaking into other people's houses and stealing their booze is not an endearing little habit.

[triskellian]

Well, sure. I love loads of fictional characters that I'd be forced to chop up into little bits after half an hour of their actual company ;-)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Cheese toasty vending machines are just the penultimate step on the road to Bella Toast. I have no doubt this was brought about by verlaine as part of our master plan.