Graffiti, Turtles, and Good Advice

Continuing my tales of exploring London... to read the first edition of this, click here.

I left the farmhouse and continued bicycling around the city. I came across an abandoned building with an open door swaying in the breeze. The glass had been smashed out and lay on the stoop in a pile of geometric fragments. 

I went inside to see what I could find. It was a roughly round building with a cone shaped roof. A small rectangular back room extended to the west side, but it was dark and smelled of decay so I dared not to tread too deep. In the tiny room that served as a bathroom, the only remaining feature was an oval mirror. It smiled back at me as I took it off the hook it hung on. The abandoned office sported a collapsing ceiling and a mouldering armchair.
I thought this might be the napping place of a passing-through wanderer, so I left him a cheery greeting.
One eye of the smiling face had dripped, and it seemed to me that it might be crying as well.

In the main room, I could see that someone had read the Dark Tower by Stephen King. This is a series of very long novels and a personal favorite. Written in what appeared to be lipstick, or nail polish was "Oh discordia" and a common tagline found in the book, "Bangoskank was here".

I'm glad I'm not the only one who appreciates those books.











I rummaged around a while longer. I had determined it had been a gardening shop. A sticker that held together some shards of broken glass from the window proclaimed that they had been a member of some Ontario landscaping association. I also found a red hexagonal sticker clinging to it's own glass. It proclaimed, "STOP! Contents marked for quick identification by polica break, enter and theft. Maximum penalty life imprisionment"

I find it humorous that I found this while I was exiting the building, and suddenly felt like I should leave.

Back on the road, I had to swerve suddenly to avoid a carcass of an unfortunate roadkill victim. And then another. And another! I found nine dead painted turtles, there they are standing in a row. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head. (Okay maybe not that big).
They all lay at the edge of the busy roadway in various states of decomposition. Now I will have it stated, that this species of turtle has been designated as a "Specially Protected Reptile" under the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act which offers protection to individuals but not their habitat.

As if to illustrate this, I turned around to see where these poor unfortunate souls had come from, and a large sign proclaimed "PRIME LAND FOR DEVELOPMENT". I didn't know whether to throw up, or cry.
London seems to be a city that is growing up and over a rich natural land. I said once to a friend that my first impression is London is a mutant hybrid of city, suburbia, countryside, and landfill (sorry to say it, but there is a lot of litter).

As if to prove my point,while I climbed a small mountain of grey earth behind a shopping plaza, I found a discarded backpack with it's contents strewn about and caked with dry mud. It looked like the remains some thief had left behind after rummaging out all of the "good stuff". The one item that caught my eye was a small stone square with a leather cord. A piece of white paper listed, what seemed to me as the 10 commandments. However, upon closer inspection, I think they are really just pieces of good advice. What I could make out is:
6.
7. ........................................ on Sundays.
8. You shall respect your peers their suggestions
9. You shall not cheat on your spouse
10. You shall respect the environment that you live

Last but not least, a throwback to my Sweeny Todd reference... I passed by an interesting barber shop. Even If I had a beard to shave, I don't think I would be a patron there.

 

Internet

I'm not very tech-savvy.

Today I seem to have a problem with my internet.

I was just surfing the net today, and maybe I had too many tabs open

 

Watching a video on college humour.....

Creepin Facebook....

 

And trying to download my course notes to study.

Then, IT happened

.

 

Internet Disconnected. Wtf. 

Okay So I do as we usually do, go downstairs and do that magical thing that makes gadgets work again.

So I return to my room and pull out my new gadget, a Kindle ereader.

I then discovered that it could access the internet.

So I did what anyone would do.....

 

Log into Facebook. But of course it wasn't that easy.

 

 

Because I'm signing in at a new location I had to change my password. Somehow Facebook thinks my Kindle is from Phoenix.....

 

AGHHHHHH! Okay. I am DONE with the Kindle. It was taking too long to load anyways. Lets check how the computer is doing. 

 Right. Internet disconnected. Here we go again.

Alright. Enough slacking, lets get those course note downloaded.

 It's lookin' good... 97% downloaded. I look away for a second and....

Delay!

I'll be posting later tonight, or tomorrow! (gasp)

Much drama of moving, so here's a picture of what i feel like right now

Foot Phobia

Gross. Often smelly. 

I don't like feet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're like little hands on the ends of your legs. With short little fingers that wiggle about.

Disgusting mutant....

Feet in socks are okay.

  Maybe because the TV show "Lamb Chops" exposed me to sock puppets as a child.  

I especially don't like when people try to TOUCH my feet. 

However.... I do like shoes. 

Back in the day my mom would take me to the shoe store. The salesman would crouch at my feet, wielding some contraption that looks like a cross between a bear trap and a ruler. 

 

  

This exchange continued for several minutes before the salesman threw his hands up in exasperation, disappeared behind the counter, and returned with several boxes of shoes.

 

This repeated for awhile until finally...

We purchased the shoes, and left the store.

 

And that's how I killed my first shoe salesman. 

On my way to the loony bin...

I have some pretty vivid dreams.


I had an especially frightening one the other night, but I think I need some back story here.

On Wednesday night I went to the bar for a band-night fundraiser. There was

a guy there wearing a black fedora and trenchcoat, and had had cool loopy

-chainey earrings. I decided that I was going to meet him. At some point in the

night I approached him (playing pool by himself) and joined him for a game. 

We talked about Tim Burton. He was really nice actually.

It made me kind of sad that no one else had talked to him the whole night, and Lisa gave me a weird look afterwards and said, "Who was THAT?". 

I said he was someone interesting that I had wanted to meet. 

 "He looks interesting all right," was her judgement-laden response. 

So in my dream I repeated that night, but instead of catching a bus home I walked to my old elementary school. In a dark classroom the former bullies of my life were gathered; they were all talking about the fedora guy and laughing at him. I finally stood up and told them all to shut their f*&$ing mouths. I ended up crying and telling them how bullies like them ruined my life and I stormed out dramatically and paced the hallways of the abandoned school

The halls were longer than I remembered, and the walls got progressively dirtier and dirtier. The paper crafts on the walls became crisper and faded as I walked. On my left hand side were corridors every 30feet or so, extending about 30 feet in and ending in a set of white double doors that were closed. (these had shiny brass handles, but each successive corridor looked shabbier). 

I came to one of these corridors and I could see the one double door was open. I went down this corridor. Upon closer inspection the door was broken down and splintered. I walked into the room...

And it was magnificent. White Victorian furniture with golden brushed paint, two huge arching staircases and a beautiful chandelier; all clean and crisp and wonderful. It smelled faintly of lilacs, and the floor was rich hardwood with a thick red and gold carpet in the centre. In the centre of this round carpet was a white table with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

I would see multiple doors leading from this room and there was a living room, a kitchen, and a glorious bathroom.

I started to run across the wide room to the furthest door; the bathroom. I could see a white tub with gold claw feet....

And then my foot fell through the floorboard. It fell in deep, and I looked down to see the floor was softened with water damage, and dark splinters of wood were deep in my flesh. I turned to look around the room and suddenly the furniture was sodden and worn, the table was covered by a dustcloth, and the chandelier was coated with cobwebs.

I turned sharply to look behind me, and there was a man standing there. Dark hair slicked over like a 50's gangster. He had a tiny pointed mustache.

I yelled, "IT WAS YOU! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

I tore my foot out of the hole in the floor, stomped over to him (he smiled coyly this whole time). My fingers ran through my hair until I found the fracture in my skull, and my I plunged my fingers deep into the hole there, pulling out a dully gleaming piece of metal and held it in my forefingers to show him. It dripped with my blood.

Upon closer examination it was a piece of the man's dental work, and I could see the missing teeth it had once replaced. His coy smile wasn't really a smile after all, it was that the flesh of his cheek had been ripped from his face, exposing his white teeth. 

He stepped towards me, wrapped his arm around my waist, and everything was clean and crisp again. He was unblemished and handsome. He led me up one of the curved staircases to a bedroom that had obviously once belonged to a young lady.

He led me to the closet and showed me beautiful yet old fashioned clothes. Large skirts, light petticoats, fabulous hats with feathers. He told me the girl that these belonged to never had any money, but she always had someone looking after her to insure she never looked the part of a beggar.

He made me pick something out; it was a hunter green dress and he took me downstairs and out the back door. There was a lucious green lawn with white fountains and statues. We walked down a gravel path lined with white stones to the water's edge.He helped me onto a fancy boat and told me we're going to meet the president so I needed to look my best.

We then sped off across the perfectly flat lake, and when we neared a huge white boat. I looked down at my dress. 

It was completely in tatters, moth eaten and threadbare. The worst part was 

the white section that ran down the front was entirely soaked with blood. I screamed at him to stop but he was laughing manically and speeding up towards the much larger boat. I edged onto the side of the speedboat and jumped off, hitting the water like a concrete floor, knocking my breath away.

My dress (and multiple layers of fabric beneath) instantly soaked through, adding intense weight to my entire body, and the shredded fabric wrapped itself around my legs, binding them. I screamed silently and sunk deeper and deeper into the blue.