Am I the only one who thinks this B&S love connection club idea is a bad one? Sinister crushes are evil things, I have determined. They come on unexpected, they come on strong. Soon youre spending several hours per day writing gargantuan emails or chatting into the morning on #sinister, waking up at god-awful hours to account for other time zones. Then one day the whole thing falls apart. Your beloved suddenly finds a real-life love, or you realize the 3,000 miles between you wont be so easily bridged. Or you meet and things fizzle. Or there are so many reasons why it just doesnt work out. And then you look back at all the time youve spent pining away, all the silly fantasies you came up with that involved expensive holidays or moves to foreign lands. Soon you are bitter and cursing and listening to Trembling Blue Stars all the time. Not Good. Sorry. I am feeling old and bitter lately. And I have counseled so many hopeless sinister romantics on #sinister that it makes my heart weep. And I have myself fallen victim to the tired charade as well. So forgive me. Ill just put Something Vague on repeat for a few hours and keep all further thoughts on that matter to myself. I dont know what brought this on. Or why I felt the need to post about it. Perhaps its because Im sitting here, doped up on very strong cold tablets, listening to Dueling Banjos from Deliverance, reading a few days backlog of posts, feeling a bit miserable. I dont know why I should feel this way. Maybe because its Halloween and there will be no trick-or-treaters in this neighborhood. Maybe because I just returned from a five-hour bus ride, ready to collapse into bed, entirely forgetting that the night before I left for Volos, I spilled beer on my sheets and neglected to wash them. Now they are in the washer, but lord knows when they will dry, the clothesline being full of wet clothes and the temperature being mighty damn frigid. Is it already winter for you, too? What the hell happened to autumn? I used to love autumn - swishing through colorful heaps of dead leaves, sipping hot apple cider. Now there is nothing to distinguish the change in season except for shorter days and colder nights. Blech. Bless Ms. Vel, who took me under her wing during the last few days and nursed me back to health. She made me soup and watched films with me, cuddled on a couch. She was cheery and happy while I was miserable and ready to die. Sorry I was such a grouch, lovey. And spooky is a wonder dog, although she was intent on chewing my feet to pieces this time. Crazy. I must have ridden in the only double-decker bus in Greece today. Fantastic! I saw it parked at the bus station and actually got excited about the long journey ahead of me. And I wasnt the only one. All the old people swarmed around, pointing in amazement at the two tables in the center of the bus. After craning their heads to see the tables corresponding seat numbers, they ran back into the station to make sure they got to sit there. Whereas all the youngsters ran up the stairs and huddled near the front. I was just happy to get a whole seat to myself, even if it meant I was stared at by a random 20-something studmuffin of a boy. Right. This will likely be a very short post indeed. Lucky, because I fear I have become known as the girl of the epic posts. So sorry to hog all your inbox space. I cant promise it wont happen again, but not this time at least. Oh yes. So it seems I may have inadvertently become a picnic mummy. Craziness. After discovering that return flights from London to Athens are only 50 quid on EasyJet if booked well in advance, I have begun attempts to lure sinisterenes to Athens for a brief holiday/picnic. Why not? I mean, 50 QUID! Thats less than some train fares within the UK. And Ive tons of floor space. And Im an excellent tour guide to all the sites of Athens (I even have a classics degree. Oh yes.) And half-litre bottles of Amstel are only 20p!!! Yes, thats TWENTY PENCE! I was thinking March. The holidays are too chaotic, and many of you have used up this years vacation, I suspect. Unfortunately, this means Vel dear will have already moved to Glasgow by then so wont be able to join us, which would be a damn shame. She had offered Volos as a picnic spot, since Athens parks are full of scary old men and not too charming. Im not sure how warm itll be by then, especially with this freakish weather lately, but we could still visit a lovely Aegean island or some equivalent exciting destination. And not only will you get to meet me, but Joan of Dark and Zozie as well. I know Sunnyset Rachel is game so far. Any other takers? I somehow managed to lure Ken Chu to make an utterly spontaneous trip into London a few weeks ago, can I entice anyone else into Athens? Think about it. Get back to me. And Ill continue to scheme through the winter. Im beginning to miss the UK a bit. I made a little London playlist on my computer jukebox. It includes Misteeq. Yes, leave it to me to go to the land of indie and discover garage instead. Ah well. I also came back with Spearmint. And after my freakish first few days of productivity, I had a job interview at a language school. It was not going well AT ALL. She asked me simple questions like why I thought Id be a good English teacher, and I could hardly put words together to form a cohesive sentence. Then she sent me into a room with a Business English textbook for five minutes and came back, saying Teach me. Er. WHAT? I fumbled through a lesson about a verb form I wasnt even aware existed and supposedly did very well. Go figure. So she wanted to take me on, for a measly $80 a week. As soon as I got a green card, a social security number and an official embassy translation of my diploma. Right, Ill just get that sorted tomorrow and give you a call, I told her. I dont think she got the sarcasm at all. So Ive decided to stay illegitimate, and am presently searching for tutoring or babysitting jobs. Sad, yes. Essential. Blech. It also means my three-month allowed stay is about to expire so once again I must leave the country so I wont get thrown out of it. A bit backwards, eh? The next destination: Bulgaria, I think. I once swore Id never return there, after a particularly traumatic 14-hour train ride during which I was almost kidnapped and married off to a Romanian. But the allure of a Tex-Mex restaurant owned by the mafia is stronger. And this time Ill take the bus. Ive learned from my mistakes, see. Listen to me, I am old and wise. Do not have sinister crushes!!!! Thats all. Be good. MWAH! ~dahling (off to the corner bakery to buy some 20p Amstel. Yes, they sell beer at the bakery. And at every corner kiosk as well. Come, come.) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+