on sunny afternoons and the proliferation of the word 'random'

cheez it, it's the fuzz
ok so i decided to go out for lunch today. it's vancouver - it's sunny. i think there's a law about finding a cafe to sit at pretending to read while peering at passers-by through your extra dark dkny sunglasses. or is that just in my world. so i did that, anyway, 'cause goshfukkit* i've got enough trouble without getting in deep with the law. i go to this cafe on main street all the time - liberty - and order the same thing, all the time - sundried tomato hummus panini with a small black bean soup and a coffee - and sat and read my book and watched the passersby. except this time i wasn't so much watching as i was really reading, 'cause i'm indulging in a Charles deLint book. it's a book i've actually already finished, but cDl writes about this town called newford, and the people who live there. and, secretly, i want to live there. i want to be sucked into the book and live in newford and hang out with the characters 'cause i'm pretty sure that it's my perfect world.

(except now, as i'm reading the book, i'm realizing that there is a character/situation that is cribbed so directly from nick hornby's high fidelity that it kind of bothers me. but i'm willing to overlook this, just as i will forgive guy ritchie for making 'swept away' as long as he never lets mags be in another one of his movies.)

ANYhoo... (and this is me making lassooing motions to signify the fact that i am coming back 'round to my original thought) as i was sitting there on main street in vancouver reading about newford it occurred to me that the reason i migrate to areas like main street is 'cause i'm looking for newford, or the closest approximation of it to be found here. and i don't think i'm going to find it in vancouver - people here tend to isolate themselves from the strangers they pass everyday. you can tell 'cause everyone is sitting all by themselves at tables built for two, peering at passersby from behind too-dark dkny sunglasses, rather than plonking themselves down in the empty chair at the nearest table built for two which is occupied already by someone on their own. (i don't recommend sitting down at a table occupied by a couple - jealousy and other mayhem on occasion ensues.) so i'm not going to find newford, but i am going to eat yummy panini and drink good coffee and get some vitamin d. and i think i'm ok with that, as long as cDl keeps writing books.

random
so the second thing that was bouncing around in my brain is the current use of the word random as an adjective to signify anything unexpected or out of the ordinary. it's surely a good word (though without the style and panache of 'goshfukkit'), but i'm a little concerned by the misuse/overuse (i'm thinking back to the 'ironic' debacle of the early alanis days and shuddering here. hold me.). i think that it's time to move on from the expression. but that's also just me - and i'm not the word police, though i am on the payroll as an informer. so watch it - i'm watching you.

i also suggest the retirement of all tshirts and other references that pertain to napoleon dynamite, including vote for pedro tshirts. no i haven't seen it yet. yes, i acknowledge that you have more indie movie cred than i do. no i'm not too dismayed by this. burn the shirt and get over yourself, indie movie snob. yes i said movie rather than film. sue me.

now that was random.


*please note the use of my new favourite swear word. it was invented by maktaaq.