Come on June, you can do it...

Soooo, it's been a while.  It's that time of year again, when the shop gets busier, the tourists get louder, and I lose the will to do much beyond playing around online and/or burying my nose in a book.  Unfortunately, our internet at home has been down for the last couple of weeks, so most of my playing around online has happened at the shop, and I've not really been in the mood to blog at all!  Oh well...  So, what do I have to tell you?

I HAZ A PINTEREST

And I've been VERY busy on there, haha!  I'm still at the Crack Addict stage, so please bear with me...  Why did no one push me over there before?  I have an addictive personality, it was MADE for me!  I'm now planning my dream wedding (even though I'm single), pinning beautiful places to visit (even though I work six days a week), drooling over food porn (even though I don't cook) and going crazy finding ideas for my room when we move house (yeah, that's a valid one).

I think the reason I'm enjoying it so much is that it's like being a child again.  You know, when you were a kid and you used to have a scrapbook with your favourite things in it, and you used to love looking through catalogues and looking at nice clothes, and you had a field day with school projects because you could plan your dream vacation without having to worry about little things like Luggage Allowance and Paying For Stuff?  No?  It can't just have been me! 

Pinterest brings it all back in an EASY way.  It gives you permission to dream big again.  You don't have to be moving house, or creating culinary masterpieces, or going around the world, or getting married - but you can FANTASIZE about what you'd do if you were.  You can get excited about the little details.  You can think beyond your normal boundaries.  You can widen your horizons.  And with the technological upgrade from cork board to online board, you can see OTHER PEOPLE doing these things and BE OBSESSIVE TOGETHER!  I love it!  It's reminding me of all the things I love, all the things I want, all the things I could do and be - it's no wonder I've barely been off it since I joined!

If you'd like to check out what the heck I've been doing with my time recently, you can find me HERE, or click the 'Follow me on Pinterest' button in the sidebar.   :)

I HAZ A FEVER

For interior decorating.  And organisation.  And getting rid of stuff.  We all get it every now and again - the Urge to Purge, to have a Really Good Clear-Out - but right now that Urge is strong.  So I'm going with it, because it doesn't happen nearly often enough!  Between the hoarder programmes I love so much, and Pinterest showing me all the pretty bedrooms and glorious tiny houses, I'm in a real mood to clear some stuff the hell out.  Magazines, books, clothes, as well as digital stuff like music, images and emails - it all needs doing again, so I'm going to see how much I can do before lethargy once again becomes my default setting!

I HAZ A WISDOM TOOTH

Several of them, in fact.  And they're nasty little buggers, and they're making my head hurt and my face feel like I was a chipmunk in a previous life.  That is all.

I HAZ A MOVIE

Okay, now, seriously - how cool is this?  First up, it's very cool that City Lights are still printing Howl by Allen Ginsberg in the same cute little pocket edition as the original.  Then, for added coolness, the Ginsberg estate wanted to do something special, and A Movie Was Made.  It is a biopic-type film about the Howl obscenity trial, starring James Franco as the offbeat poet - and as we all know, James Franco does offbeat poetical biopics VERY, VERY WELL.  I've seen half of it so far (it really needs to be WATCHED, and it was getting late), and it is SPECTACULAR.  A mixture of documentary-style segments, courtroom drama (with Don Draper for the defence, oh yes), biographical flashbacks and these bizarre animated sequences set to the frenetic pace of the poetry itself.  As if that wasn't cool beans enough, CHECK THIS OUT!

Here is the book and the movie, with the slipcase thingy on:

And here is the book and the movie, with the slipcase thingy OFF:

THEY ARE THE SAME!  WHY WOULD YOU PUT A CRAPPY MODERN SLIPCASE OVER THE DVD WHEN IT IS ALL ICONIC AWESOMENESS UNDERNEATH?  Madness...

I HAZ A DEAD DUCK DAY

In a bookshop first, yesterday I had to clean up a dead duck.  It had obviously been hit by a car near the bridge, and had either flown up and hit the wall, sliding down it cartoon-style, or (and this is possibly more likely) someone picked it up and lovingly PLACED it by the wall upside down to get it out the way.  There were feathers everywhere, and a sodding DEAD DUCK.  So I was nominated to head out with a bin bag and carefully pick it up.  Poor thing.  People were watching and I felt like a total criminal, stalking away from the bloody crime scene with a body in a bag.  I felt even more like a criminal (only in a farcical comedy, a bit) when I had to swing the bag round to tie it off, then surruptitiously shove it in a public bin by the river because there's no council service at weekends...  Sometimes this job is just plain WEIRD.  :( 

I HAZ (LIVE) DUCKY PHOTOS

Happily, not all the duckies this weekend were dead ones.  We've also FINALLY spotted a new mother duck with seven healthy ducklets (awwww!) and a new mother moorhen with EIGHT teeny tiny stubby-winged babies.  With all the cold and rain, and the river levels going up and down and destroying nests every five minutes, it's nice to finally see some little ones around here!  It was a bit windy to get moorhen photos, but I did manage a ducky one when the mother wasn't looking!  It's a rubbish photo, but it's the best I could do...

I HAZ A CUNNING PLAN

Despite all of these excuses things, I do have ackshual plans and posts and stuff on the way at some point, I promise.  I've finished Dearly Departed by Lia Habel, and I've nearly finished V for Vendetta as well, so I'll be reviewing those.  After that I'm finishing the intriguing In Cold Blood, and then I'm free of the current batch of reading and I can pick something completely new!  Towards the end of the month I'm taking part in Judith's Literary Giveaway Blog Hop over at Leeswammes, as well as posting a Mixing It Up Challenge check-in to mark our half-way point.  All of which means that I WILL have to get off Pinterest at some point, which is probably a good thing!  :)

What have you been up to recently, either inside or OUTSIDE the blogging world?  Are you a Pinterest fan, and how do you use it?  DID YOU KILL THAT DUCK?!  Confess all in the comments!