Dont' go outside!

Don't go outside - everyone's going mad, or angry, or both! Today, this evening, stay at home and play in your den. At all costs avoid going out there...

Put on some excellent music. Cook great food for each other. Tell stories and fill each other with a lightness of heart. Do some finger paintings and potato prints, play black jack, watch Life on Mars, don't do the ironing but do eat loads of green and blacks, shut your eyes and imagine the sun shining in all warm on your face and so bright you have to screw your eyes shut.

Out this afternoon on some errands, I was just pulling away at a green traffic light and a bloke student figure skipped out in front of me without looking. A shocked fist on my car horn made him jump, but in his recklessness he shoved his middle finger at me with a truly violent expression then pulled back his other hand as if to demolish my car by chucking his coke can at it with major force. Ouch... but he's the idiot isn't he?

30 seconds later, a coach pulled out on a minibus in front of me, and there was another middle finger communication from someone else, more car horns, and lane squeezing.

5 minutes later, I tripped into the lab to pick up some films, warning Bob-Behind-The-Counter "Don't go outside, they're all losing it!" He responded with a time and date for the end of the world. "Brilliant," I thought, and ran home as fast as I could. I haven't dared turn on the evening news.

Do not–under any circumstance–entertain that thing which seems to be in the air today, the thing that's causing people to be vicious and vile and pinched in the face. I know I sound like a hippy, but for God's sake, love each other, please. February's hard enough.


{Today's soundtrack: The Shins - Wincing the Night Away}