A Write-Off- Take It As Thou Wilst

   Written at 4:12 AM, on Sunday the goddam 11th.

   I am a ridiculous person, really. I'm lying here thinking nonsense at 4:12 in the morning, knowing I'll have to get up in not-a-lot-of hours. It's the same three or four pointless, mind achingly banal thoughts, and they repeat on me over and OVER and OVER again like bad Indian food or the chorus of If I Were A Rich Man. They do this (in the aforementioned fashion (overandoverandover)) until not only have they lost all intrinsic meaning, but it becomes clear that the word 'over' is obviously some bullshit made up word employed as propaganda by Bolsheviks or the cast of Jersey Shore into making us believe... something, I dunno. Whaddya want from me- I never said I was mentally stable, OK? 
   After three hours of the above bullshit▲, I'm understandably welcoming to any new silliness, so long as it breaks the monotony and doesn't require me to think the word 'over.' {DAMMIT!}
   So this pops into my head:

   "I wonder how many people there are in the world right now, of eligible age and negotiable language, with whom you could fall in love with given favourable circumstances. You'll only ever meet so many men/women/Frenchists (depending on your particular fancy) in your life who are of an age, height, marital status and aesthetic you'd be willing to consider falling in love with. The circumstances under which you meet and get to know them can either put you off completely to the idea of this person as a potential partner, or they can qualify some of the above seemingly deal-breaking factors that might have removed them from competition entirely. Some people only ever fall in love once, some almost perpetually- others may fall in love but a small handful of times in their lives. If the pool was broadened to include absolutely everyone, how many times could we possibly fall in love? And that begs the question: how many times could we fall in love reciprocally?
   "Given the perfect context for a love story, how many people would fall in love with you? How many potential love-ers could find in me in a love-ee?"

   The really ridiculous part is that once my brain had thought this, it was so delirious with insomnia that it expected a genuine answer to fall into it spontaneously. I'm ashamed to say it took more than a few seconds before some sense of reality came back to me and I realised grumpily that that was unlikely to happen.

   It's a more reasonable hour now, and thus far, I'm having a Dr. Horrible kind of a day.

   Allow me to clarify. In the last week or so, I've re-watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog twice. This is a good thing, to be fair, but it does mean the songs have gotten stuck in my limited-space brain more than usual. I'm working on A Man's Gotta Do right now, and while it still kicks all kinds of ass even playing on repeat like an ear-worm, it's been seeping into the rest of my unconscious via sheer over-saturation. The current cycle of Horribleness mania started thusly:
   I sat my dad down about a week ago and talked him into watching it with me, promising that the musical aspect of it was truly awesome and that he would be no more camp coming out of it than going in. I love watching people as they see it for the first time- I always hope my favourite jokes will get a laugh. When they don't, I reserve the right to be defensively pissy.
   Then on Thursday morn', I took it along to show to two of my little acolytes- the twins I give English lessons to twice a week. They're twelve and thoroughly excellent kids, and I decided that their assignment for the week would be based on Dr. Horrible instead of the book we're busy reading. Hey, I'm no purist; if it's well written a kid's going to pick up as much English from a movie short as from a book. It was interesting to see how different jokes seem to strike home with them, and a few that hadn't tickled my dad went over a treat with them. Dr. Horrible getting his head smacked into the bonnet of the Wonderflonium courier van worked gangbusters for them, while daddio had remained unmoved. Neither viewing party were sufficiently amused by the "Bait and Switch" double date joke, although the kids were what I deemed to be appropriately happy with the character of Moist, whose super-power is being moist- a joke I feel to be supremely under-valued.
   Usually I wouldn't think of it as too much of a problem showing something like this to a couple of twelve-year-olds, as the whole thing is very innocent and cute and watching it with them made me realize of a lot of the broader and more physical jokes work really well even when you don't yet have a background in pop-culture in-jokes or the language this kind of humour operates under. They do come from a fairly conservative background though, and for my sins I suffered a brief moment of panic in act 2. I froze up as I realized a certain joke was coming up fast, and I was not prepared.
   I forced myself to remain calm and pretend nothing was amiss- perhaps then it wouldn't be such a big deal. I stole glances to their shining, happy little faces as I mentally braced myself to have ruined their youthful innocence forever. Ah, unknowing little eyes, enjoy your last few seconds of childhood before my ineptitude and bad life choices irrevocably tore down the gossamer veil that shielded you from the kind of evil that was people like me.
   And then-

   Yup.
   They hardly seemed phased by it, which figures really. I'm a melodramatic moron, I suspect you know by now. And besides how terribly over-top my stress in anticipation of it was, when I think about it, it's one of those fairly broad "don't explain the joke" jokes and a large part of its appeal comes from the aforementioned language of this specific kind of humour.
  So their innocence remains intact after all. Whew. Perhaps next week I can take them some Sex and the City or True Blood.
   (By the way, if you've not seen Dr. Horrible yet and are very confused by all of this, I cannot, cannot recommend it enough. Check it out, or call me and we can do Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in three acts with popcorn and ginger beer.)
   The cycle was furthered when I woke up this morning with the most fabulous dream still ringing in my head of having camped out in this theatre where the Whedon clan were brainstorming the next Dr. Horrible movie. I convinced Neil and Felicia to talk Joss into letting me audition, and he dug me six-love, people. I rocked the house. Also- curiously- Joss was very intense about this stew he had made and getting everyone to try it. Relax, Joss, it was good. A wee bit under-salted, but over all pretty edible, man.
   Then when I woke up and stumbled into pop's room to bid him a good morning, I found him watching a movie on Sony starring a bespectacled 12-year-old Neil Patrick Harris and an ageless Whoopi Goldberg. I felt a little Inceptionised. Couldn't find my totem to check either, so I'll admit there was a quick flash of suspicion. (It's a little tiny gun I wear on a necklace called Pablo Escobar- but that's a story for another time.)
   The kids loved the movie though. Unblemished and (dare I say it?) armed with at least a little more English than they'd had when they'd woken up that morning, they were tasked to write a little profile and origins story on their own superhero for next week. They have to show up for their lesson decked in full superhero (or villain) regalia, and to make them feel more comfortable, I said I'd dress up too. You aint never had no English teacher like me, yo.

   In other news, my cousin Carla had me over on Thursday.

   Fabulousness in that picture, no? I've discovered the Retro Cam android app and I've been going slightly bananas.
   Here's the problem with going to Carla's: she has a special talent for inducing binge eating in a biblical scale. She's one of those assholes who can eat just what they want and never gain so much as a wobble, an she takes you down with her. Not hardly had I landed at her place than we flew off to Spar for provisions. There was a small epiphany in the chip aisle when we found biltong flavoured Lays, the likes of which I have not come across in many years and I could no more pass them up than I could pass up, well, the sour cream and chive flavoured Lays. I vaguely remember some chocolate happening also, and I do believe by the end of the night I'd inhaled more of those little mini-nougat things than should be humanly possible.
   In short: this weekend was a definite write-off in diet terms. I refuse to even weigh myself again until at least mid-week, when I've had time to readjust by eating fuck all for three days straight. Even then I fear it might not be possible to counter-balance all of the crap I've eaten in the last two days. Say what you will (and I'm sure you're saying it quite loudly right now, Brenda), but McDonald's is fucking awesome. I know it's really nothing more than food for the stoned or the starved or the American, and I can't count how many times I've been told it tastes of cardboard, but god help me I actually eat that shit because I LIKE IT. I'm not saying every day mind you, I know full well the novelty of their super-secret awesomesauce mayo would wear off sharpish if it was anything more than an occasional indulgence. But much like reality TV, in small (I lie: massive) doses spread out over a decent amount of time, it's still magic.
   (And again Brenda, I don't wanna hear NOTHIN' about no blue fries you got that one time from that one place, you'll only ruin it for me. LALALALA can't hear you.)

   My birthday is only two months away from happening now, so I've started formulating a theme. This is my legacy, you understand, I risk becoming irrelevant if I under-perform in this area. I've got one or two ideas, but they are ever changing as I need to make sure that whatever I do is as opportunistic as possible. I have but one birthday a year, and it's simply the best, most all-encompassing excuse for a blow-out possible. I take great pleasure in forcing my poor friends to dress up in every shade of horrifying costume. But more on that another time.
   Speaking of which, I ended up not going to the Medieval Fayre this year. Mostly this was because not a one of you bitches volunteered to go with me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to prance around in a fur-shrug and home-made ruff all on my own. I'd look a fool. And besides, I do enough of that at various 2 AMs when I can't sleep anyway. Maybe I'll make the birthday party Game of Thrones themed instead, for no reason other than to have an excuse to wear my Medieval Fayre costume somewhere.
   Then again maybe I'll just make a Wednesday of it and go do some quick grocery shopping dressed as a Stark. The staff at my local Spar have grown much too complacent recently anyway.