Articles in “Strange Conversations”

ME: When did you buy a copy of Writing and Difference?
NICK: Oh, ages ago. I should probably get around to reading it one of these days.
ME: Well, you’re not to tell people in the street that you haven’t read Derrida. I’d die of shame.

ME: I’m worried about my novel.
NICK: Oh, you don’t need another thing in your life to worry about. Anyway, it sounds as though it’s going very smoothly.
ME: That’s what’s worrying me.
NICK: The thing you have to remember is this. First. Draft. You need to turn off your inner editor for this.
ME: No! Do I?
NICK: But you know this!
ME: I know I do. That’s why I was being sarcastic with you.
NICK: But you act as thought you don’t know it! So I have to tell you! So I was right all along! So there!
ME: You suck so much.
NICK: No, I don’t. I’m adorable.

ME: I was wondering . . .
NICK: Yes?
ME: No, never mind.
NICK: No, what is it?
ME: I’ve decided not to ask any more questions.
NICK: Ever?
ME: Well, that would be silly.
NICK: I didn’t think you’d be able to keep that up.
ME: Thank you. No, I’ve just decided not to ask any more questions about why there’s a bag of onions on my death chair.
NICK: Ah. Well, there’s an explanation for that . . .
ME: Let me guess. They started out as milk?
NICK: And time makes fools of us all.
ME: Well, it certainly makes a fool of you with startling regularity.
NICK: Bloody hell!

NICK: Well, I need to get my butt into gear.
ME: Yep.
NICK: My butt does not get naturally into gear.
ME: Nope.
NICK: It has some problems in that regard.
ME: Yep, I know. Perhaps we should have its gear-box replaced?
NICK (wandering off): Maybe.
(Pause)
NICK (from the kitchen): REPLACE YOUR BUTT GEARS!
(Pause)
ME: Well, that went to a weird place.
NICK: Yes. Yes, it did.

Yet another Gmail chat conversation:

ME: Okay. Cool.
NICK: Awesome roarsome.
ME: No.
NICK: No?
ME: No.
NICK: Not a good catchphrase?
ME: No.
NICK: Okay then.

And with that, I have to announce a blogging hiatus. I’m flying interstate tomorrow for a job interview, and then spending a couple of days with my parents. In time-honoured fashion, I have, of course, caught a revolting cold two days out from the interview, so my plan of blogging in advance has been cancelled.

I will be back in time to live-blog this week’s Torchwood episode, but unless something outstandingly unprecedented occurs between now and then, I won’t be blogging in the interim.

Au revoir!

In which Nick becomes confused by the complexities of women’s fashion (in this case, my adorable striped house socks with the crocheted T-strap):

NICK: Oh, look: the little rubber bit has fallen off the bottom of your shoe.
ME: They’re socks.
NICK: Well, you don’t wear anything over them.
ME: That’s not the definition of a sock. They’re house socks.
NICK: I don’t even know what that means.
ME: It’s quite straightforward.
NICK: You mean they’re socks that you wear in the house?
ME: Yep.
NICK: Well, I suppose that’s . . . I mean, they’re . . . Well, they . . . They don’t even look like socks!
ME: They looks exactly like socks.
NICK: They look like shoes that are a bit sludgy!

I think Bonds should adopt that as their new advertising slogan, myself.

And again, with the Bones-related conversations, this time blended with Futurama:

ME: There’s no way an image search would bring up that photograph from their starting image.
NICK: That’s especially impossible!
ME: Yeah.
NICK (doing an unexpected about-face): Nothing is impossible if you can imagine it! . . . and you’re a forensic re-constructionist.

While watching an episode of Bones:

ME: Hey, don’t call the Norwegians “Vikings”!
NICK: Yeah. It pisses them off and they turn up in longboats.

Hmm.

Nick is cooking pasta sauce entirely from fresh ingredients he bought from the farmer’s market in the city this afternoon.

ME (calling from the study): How’s it going, honey?
NICK: I am reaching a crescendo of awesome!

Alas, things rarely stay so sunny for long, as evidenced by this brief monologue some five minutes later:

NICK: Garlic! Garlic! Ah, garlic—all is vanity!

No, I don’t know what it means. And I don’t believe Nick does, either.

Nick trots out about half-past six to pick up some fish and chips for tea.

Half an hour later, we have the following conversation over Gmail chat:

NICK: Hello! I am outside!
ME: Where are your keys?
NICK: Who knows! Halp!
ME: Why did you lock the front door if you didn’t take your keys?
NICK: Food is cooling down!

Thank goodness for iPhones, eh?

Gmail chat has been generating some fabulous conversations lately:

NICK: I don’t know, but it’s too important to ostridge about.
ME: Ostridge?
NICK: You know, head in sand kind of thing.
ME: Ostrich. You daft boy.
NICK: Damn, I bloody checked the spelling and everything.
ME: You can’t have!
NICK: Link.
ME: Here I was, thinking this was some, like, geek thing. Maybe Dennis Ostridge, best known for running with the wrong squad on WoW for six months and never noticing. Hence “Ostridging about.”
NICK: All the bloody dictionaries silently redirect to the correct article now, which makes Google think it’s going to the correct spelling.
ME: And? What about my compelling explanation?
NICK: Well, it’s good, I’ll grant you that. But I was too annoyed with Google for failing me to really notice. Actually, your reasoning is excellent.
ME: I thought so. And who has to check Google to find out how to spell “ostrich”?
NICK: Me, apparently. I couldn’t even get close enough for the Mac’s spell-checker to come up with an alternative.
ME: Hee! You daft boy.

NICK: Look at the picture!
ME: I don’t think that’s street legal.
NICK: It can do the Kessel run in about 2000 parsecs.
ME: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you think up and reject an original joke?
NICK: Hmm. The joke part was the 2000 parsecs.
ME: Remember what we said about how if you have to explain a joke, it’s not technically a joke? Because it’s not funny any more?
NICK: Some subscribe to that theory, yes.
ME: Not you?
NICK: In the context of this conversation? No.

When boyfriends make unreasonable requests (not like that! Why do you have such a filthy mind?) via G-mail chat:

ME: Freaking out! Freaking out now! Freaking out has commenced!
NICK: Why?
ME: Do you even need to ask?
NICK: Why can’t you ever freak out in a ninja or a funkadelic way?

While listening to Cheap Trick’s re-recording of the Transformers theme song for the new movie.

(Yes, you read that correctly. Cheap Trick.)

NICK: Hmm.
ME: What’s up? You don’t like it?
NICK: Well, I don’t know. I think I preferred the other movie one.
ME: The movie where Optimus Prime dies?
NICK: Yeah.
ME: But was that done by Cheap Trick?
NICK: No, but it was another ‘80s’ hair band. Maybe it was Whitesnake?

(For the record, it was Lion), who are, and I quote, “a 1980s heavy metal band best known for their theme song from the 1986 animated movie The Transformers: The Movie.”)

For the curious, the Cheap Trick version is here.

And the Lion one is here.

While glancing through a slide show on the world’s weirdest hotels:

ME: Well, I’m not staying at Giraffe Manor in Kenya.
NICK: Why not?
ME (reading): “The five-room property is arranged so that roaming giraffes can poke their heads into any open window or doorway and lick guests with their sticky, prehensile tongues.”
NICK: Well, that’s just delightful.
ME: I know! I kinda like the idea of the giraffes roaming free, but I don’t want to be licked by sticky, prehensile tongues.
(Pause)
ME: I realise I may be alone in that, but that’s my position and I’m sticking to it.