I return, wifeless...

[x_cable]

Don't worry, I just temporarily misplaced her in Scotland. It turned out, when we got back to Muir, that there were various things at the Center that needed her attention, so she decided to stay behind for a few days. I moped and pouted and threatened to stay, too, but Moira pointed out the significant number of finals that could do with my personal attention. Hah. She knows me too well! So I got on the plane, once we'd made a proper sort of newlywed public spectacle of ourselves.

Italy was wonderful. We had a very, very good time time. Spent the last few days traveling around seeing the sights - together, I mean, as we've both seen most of Italy's sights on our own before. I have pictures. And gifts! Expect me to be wandering around passing out the latter today.

I think I'm a little jet-lagged, though.

Comments

[x_cable]

x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:06 pm (UTC)
Dude. Ten days in and you're already being dumped in favor of long hours at the office? :)
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x_kitten
2005-05-24 01:11 pm (UTC)
Jamie! That's just mean!

Welcome back, sir.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:17 pm (UTC)
What, I can't kid? Aww. Besides, look, he's getting revenge, he's giving me an evil clown.
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x_kitten
2005-05-24 01:23 pm (UTC)
Eeek! Evil clown!
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:26 pm (UTC)
I could lock him in the desk cupboard?

Heh, might keep my cookie stash safe from Artie and Miles, too.
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x_kitten
2005-05-24 01:36 pm (UTC)
Clown TRAUMA! Eight year old birthday parties and, dear God, the white face and the PAINTED ON SMILES!!!
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:47 pm (UTC)
Don't worry, I won't let the evil clown get you.
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x_kitten
2005-05-24 01:47 pm (UTC)
'preciate that.
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x_cable
2005-05-24 01:17 pm (UTC)
Good to be back, Kitty. Have a slightly less scary gift for you, too.
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x_kitten
2005-05-24 01:20 pm (UTC)
Thank God; I have clown trauma.
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x_cable
2005-05-24 01:15 pm (UTC)
Just for rubbing my nose in that, you don't get your gift until later. Of course, your gift is a really freaking scary-looking Murano glass clown - I cannot express how disturbing it really is; Moira picked it - so that might be a good thing. You can get some preemptive therapy for the nightmares it's going to give you just because you're sleeping in the same room as it.

I may be exaggerating. A little.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:17 pm (UTC)
I think I'll call it Pennywise. :)
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x_cable
2005-05-24 01:20 pm (UTC)
The night we were in Murano I kept telling Moira I couldn't sleep because I was standing on guard against the clown. I think she concluded I'd gotten a little too much sun that day.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 01:28 pm (UTC)
Well, as long as it doesn't float, we ought to be okay.

. . . Of course, we all float down here. We all float.
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 02:44 pm (UTC)
You know, that book gave me nightmares for days. Stephen King is one weird little monkey. Of course 'Langoliers' is still my favourite.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 02:53 pm (UTC)
Oh, me too. After I read the book for the first time I almost flooded the bathroom because I wouldn't take a shower without making sure the drain was absolutely completely plugged. And then I saw the TV movie. Tim Curry makes one freaky clown.

"The Langoliers" was pretty good, but I wish it hadn't been in the same compilation as "The Library Policeman," which redlined my ewwometer.
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:01 pm (UTC)
Oh God, 'The Library Policeman'. I remember that one. I swear, I've never, ever had a library book late after I read that one.

And that was Tim Curry? Wow. He so does not look like him in that movie.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:06 pm (UTC)
Well, clown makeup and prosthetic jagged yellow fangs will do that. ;) Close your eyes and listen to his voice next time.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:01 pm (UTC)
Is this one of those American Cultural things that I have managed to miss out on?

Are clowns somehow scary here?

I will admit that mimes frighten me - and watching the pickpockets in Paris harrass the mimes never ceases to amuse me, but clowns also?
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:04 pm (UTC)
Well, depends on the clown. Some of them can just be kinda pathetic. But then you get the ones like the clown toy in 'Poltergist' or the clown in 'It' by Stephen King and they are all *kinds* of scary.

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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:08 pm (UTC)
This is going to be cause for another "Expose Marie-Ange to more Ameican movies she will regret seeing" night. I can tell. Doug is making the "You must suffer too." face.

... Blast. I had thought I was done with those.



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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:09 pm (UTC)
It's for your own good, you know. :)
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(no subject) — x_tarot — Expand

x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:10 pm (UTC)
*eg* Poltergist is fun. Especially when you get into the Urban legends bit about it. Because a lot of the cast died and people were going on about how it was because of the movies.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:13 pm (UTC)
Is that the movie with the girl in the television, or the movie with the girl who is possesed by the devil?
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:16 pm (UTC)
This is the 'girl in the television' movie. *ponders* I don't think I remember the 'girl who is possesed by the devil' movie though.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:20 pm (UTC)
Jubilee, I swear, if you don't kick yourself for this I am gonna kick you.

The Exorcist? Linda Blair projectile-vomiting pea soup? Come on. :)
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:22 pm (UTC)
Oh! I cannot believe I didn't get that. Does this mean I have to give back my Pop Culture club badge?
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x_sanfuaiyaa
2005-05-24 05:36 pm (UTC)
Even I got that one. You're slipping, Jubilee.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:20 pm (UTC)
I am not sure either. Doug tells me that "he has a thing about scary movies." in a tone of voice that suggests that the thing is that he avoids them, and he is being no help at all.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:05 pm (UTC)
Well, Pennywise the clown, that's the one Jubes and I are talking about, is a character in a Stephen King novel who's actually sort of an alien spider who lures children down into the sewers, turns into creatures from their nightmares, and kills them. So he's a scary clown.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:09 pm (UTC)
An alien spider.

That should probably sound more implausible than it does, but I suppose that if aliens were to exist, that spiders are as likely as anything else.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:12 pm (UTC)
The part where it turns out the evil murdering clown is actually an evil murdering alien spider is actually the weakest part of the book (and has truly laughable special effects in the movie.) I mean, evil murdering nightmare clown monster in the sewers who makes blood vomit up through the drains and does freaky things with paper boats? That's scary. Going that one step further and making it an alien spider, that's sharkjumping territory.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:14 pm (UTC)
And this is by the same author who wrote the book about the rapid dog, and about the possesed car?

Has anyone suggested that this man needs therapy, badly? That perhaps he has some sort of complex about making perfectly innocent things into evil murderers?
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:17 pm (UTC)
I think he gets therapy in the form of "laughing all the way to the bank with his wheelbarrowfuls of money." Dude's had almost nothing but chartbusting best-sellers since he wrote Carrie.

In 1974.

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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:20 pm (UTC)
You know, I always wondered what he'd do when presented with a real telekenetic.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:22 pm (UTC)
Avoid mentioning buckets of pig's blood? :)
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:25 pm (UTC)
*snickers*

Oh! Do you know if he did a cameo in any of those movies? I know he did one in 'The Stand' movie and a couple of others.
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x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:22 pm (UTC)
If any of us wrote those sorts of stories over and over, we would be seeing Doctor Samson twice a week. You realize this, yes?
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:14 pm (UTC)
What was the whole thing with the God turtle as well? Supposedly the old dude had helped the kids the first time but then it puked itself to death on a galaxy or two or something when they were adults and so couldn't help them anymore.

The whole ending of that book was a little weird.

By the way, one armed little boys walking around in sewers. Scariest thing ever.
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 03:19 pm (UTC)
But the bit with the bike, at the very end? That was cool.
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x_jubilee
2005-05-24 03:21 pm (UTC)
That was very cool.
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x_wytchbrat
2005-05-24 09:31 pm (UTC)
God turtle? Sure he wasn't ripping off Pratchett?
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x_crowdofone
2005-05-24 09:39 pm (UTC)
Doubt it. "It" was published in '86, "Small Gods" wasn't until '92.
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x_wytchbrat
2005-05-24 10:23 pm (UTC)
I was thinking more the turtle the the Discworld sits on. A'tuin, or whatever its name is...
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(no subject) — x_crowdofone — Expand

x_jubilee
2005-05-25 10:47 am (UTC)
I wondered about that, you know. King seems to have this serious preoccupation with levels. Us shorttimers down here and not knowing too much, then one level up you get the long timers and then all the way up at the top it's the Immortals. Depending on which level of the building you're on, is how much you know about what's really going on. And there's no elevators between floors...although there are the back stairs.
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x_wytchbrat
2005-05-25 10:58 am (UTC)
You know, that looked like English. But I didn't get a word of it. *wry* Is this King of yours some sort of philosophy writer or something? I always thought he wrote horror...
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x_jubilee
2005-05-25 11:02 am (UTC)
He does write horror, but he gets in the odd bit of interesting thought now and then. You might like 'Insomnia'. It's one of his more recent books.

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x_wytchbrat
2005-05-25 11:22 am (UTC)
*snickers* Got enough of that on my own. ;)
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I have never been to a circus.
x_empath
2005-05-24 03:15 pm (UTC)
But I have seen clowns!

And since I've manifested all the joy in their antics is gone. There's nothing quite so disillusioning as watching a clown try to be funny when you can feel how much he hates his audience. Which is a shame, because I used to think clowns were delightful.

Sort of sucks all the fun right out of it, don't you think?

Manuel

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Re: I have never been to a circus.
x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:17 pm (UTC)
Perhaps you should find the clowns who take delight in their jobs, and then you would find them doubly delightful? I am sure there are some who love what they do, yes?
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Undoubtedly
x_empath
2005-05-24 03:21 pm (UTC)
They just never seen to be performing when I'm there.

Manuel

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Re: Undoubtedly
x_tarot
2005-05-24 03:23 pm (UTC)
Perhaps you are unconsciously attuned to the more unpleasant sort of emotions and need to look for the happier ones?
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That...
x_empath
2005-05-24 03:25 pm (UTC)
Is a thought that frightens me more than you can know.

I don't think I much care for the prospect of going through life unable to see the happiness that's there in front of me.

I think I'm going to make an appointment with Charles. I HAVE to know!

Manuel

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x_cypher
2005-05-24 01:41 pm (UTC)
Whee! Prezzies! Wants! :)

Oh, and glad to see you got back okay. :)
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x_rahne
2005-05-24 03:41 pm (UTC)
Welcome back. :)
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x_wytchbrat
2005-05-24 08:28 pm (UTC)
*grins* You already caught up with me and Meg, but we'll be up to havea look at those photos in a bit. Just need to get all the pollen out of someone's fur since she decided rolling in the grass was a fun thing to do.

Actually, rolling in the grass is fun. Can't believe I've never done it before. Well, with clothes on, any way. Less itching this way.