Monday, August 20, 2012

Reaching New Lows

It has been a long time between posts. For those of you for whom new entries on this blog represent highlights in your otherwise dull work days, or in any way contribute to your general happiness, I am sorry. And not just for the gap in posts - this blog actually making your day is a bit sad. There are two reasons for not updating sooner. First of all, I don't have very much internet access, which makes spontaneous "impulse updates" impossible. But many of the entries on this blog are not acts of impulse, but rather deeply thought and considered entries that I have intellectually sweated over for days. And I haven't written any of those entries because I've been really busy.

"Busy?" you ask, "How can someone who contributes as little to the world as John be busy?"

In all honesty, I am asking myself the same question. Obviously, I spend a lot of time skiing, even more time sleeping, and a quite unnerving amount of time eating. Aside from that there's baking (which is a diabolical way of eating bread without having to pay for it) and repairing my skis (which is required on an all-too-frequent basis). There are also lots of people staying in White Star Chalet at the moment, and they keep going to be early, which means I don't get as much time to sit around and agonise over this blog as I did in the past. In any case, I have recently reached an intersection of busyness and slovenliness where I need to write "Take a shower" on my lists of things to do.

This baffling condition of being busy combined with the fatigue of continued skiing and the peculiar mix of isolation and crowdedness that comes from living in White Star Chalet has produced a kind of alienation from regular society and its norms. I have become obsessed with wiping down the benches in the hut's kitchen, but am perfectly happy to wear the same ski socks for a week. I am personally offended when people wear their shoes inside, but I don't mind eating bacon that has pretty clearly gone off. I regularly check the shower to see if it needs cleaning, but I don't actually use it. The other day I spent almost two hours wandering around the hut in various states of sartorial disarray muttering and hooting to myself like a crazy hobo before I realised there was a another person lying in bed about two metres away THE WHOLE TIME. The only consolation I can give myself is that I still had the decency to be embarrassed.


Like most descents into madness this has been a gradual process where the subtle daily changes go unnoticed. Just like the steady creep of gambling addiction, in which an addict may only realise there is a problem when they have gambled away their entire pension cheque, it can take a moment of revelation and horror to realise just how low you have sunk. For me, that moment came last Saturday, when I allowed a six year old to take credit for one of my farts.

Obviously, this blog is much too high-brow to indulge in fart humour, but for the sake of historical accuracy and personal integrity, I shall recount the story. White Star combines its living, sleeping and cooking areas into a single room, and while standing roughly in the centre of this room I - in a moment of inattention - let out an especially vile and malodorous silent fart. But in the short interval between the emission of the fart and its detection by my companions, a six year old gleefully cheered "I just farted". This at first brought great mirth to all in the room, but as the true scope of the problem was revealed, and the residents of the hut increasingly found themselves pressed outwards by the stench, people began to marvel that such powerful flatulence could be produced by a child so small. Meanwhile I, flooded with both relief and shame, said nothing.

So this is my public apology to Winnie, who probably did fart, but was not responsible for the true horror experienced in that room last Saturday evening. Winnie, I am sorry. However, my promise to keep your teddy bear if it ever falls onto my bunk again still stands.

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