Thoughts From Places: Home

I got home this afternoon, not for the first time, while having a fit of hay fever because I'd forgotten to take any allergy medicine, and I have to walk to my house from work. I've slowly been coming to the realization recently that I've been doing the thing which we like to commonly refer to as 'growing up', and I like to see my horrifically violent allergies as a reminder that, even though I buy nice plates to organize my jewellery, I'm still a forgetful little shit with little to no responsibility. 

My new (incredibly trashy) necklace had arrived in the post, and I immediately wasted a lot of my time put it on the cats and taking photographs, because it annoys them. It's slowly dawned on me over the years that I express affection by being as annoying as possible, and I think that I act  this way as a trick to see if people stick around; if they love me back. Either that, or I'm trying to compensate for being really short. In a second compensation for being short, I went upstairs and played Sims for a while, because I dislike any computer games where I'm not effectively God. It says a lot about my personality that I feel the need to control others to the extent where I drug a new born baby because I'm annoyed that they were born a vampire, and not a witch. As a side note - that happened on the Sims. I didn't drug an actual baby. At least not today. 

I felt guilty for wasting a perfectly lovely day by sitting inside on my computer, so I took my book and went to sit in the sun and read for a while. The cats came to join me, and this made me think how all creatures on some level yearn for companionship, something that I discovered myself when I was smacked with a heartbreaking feeling of isolation yesterday, when I'd been alone for far too long. Also it made me think about how cats are really needy and kind of annoying when you're trying to read and they want to be fed. 

Finally, Mum came home. She's booked me a driving lesson for next month, which is both terrifying and exciting. I decided I need to buy a new key chain, since mine is way too long and way too gay for something as serious as driving.

This blog post has been lovingly ripped off from the Vlogbrothers on YouTube. You should probably go watch them now before I feel even more guilty.

It also was mostly just an excuse to use the macro setting on my camera, because sometimes I like to pretend that I have a good camera, and then my dumbass photographer brother turns up.

A Brief Intermission: At Home With The Family

It's just gone nine o'clock. Mum and I are in the kitchen, the Step Daddy is in the living room, trying not to have anything to do with us. We're both tired, and giggly. The oldest of the cats is in her basket. The smallest is picking over the remains of a fish pie. The other two are violently staring at the one that got to the pie first, and are silently plotting ways to send him to a speedy demise, without damaging the fish. 
Mum is sat next to the fire, with a text book about the history of art on her lap, which she's doing a very poor job of reading. I'm sat on the floor with the cats, in a small blanket pyramid while eating some jelly. The cats edge closer to the pie. 
"Bob. Bob." Mum waves at the cats. "Bob. Look, Bob." She waves her pencil up and down, in the manner of one trying to make it look like it's made out of rubber. She drops it, and it hits a cat on the head. He doesn't notice - there's pie to be had. I laugh, snort, inhale jelly, and the sneeze it onto a cat. Mum bursts out laughing, and tries to grimace. "Gross. Now shut up, I'm trying to be grown up." 
We both laugh for ten minutes straight. 


Neither of us notice the cats clubbing the smaller one over the head, and loading the pie into a transit van, before driving away. 

Contemplating The Idea Of Home

At the beginning of the last episode of Wonders Of Life, Brian Cox said something rather... well, wonderful. He said;

"Home is such an evocative word, it will mean something to you. The place you went to school, they place you live, the place your kids had their first Christmas."

And it got me thinking. Home means a lot to me, and it always has. Home is where I am safe, ready and prepared. My home is like my base, it's clean, and settled. It's the place where I want to return to after a long day, or a night out. Time away from home makes me appreciate it all the more. 

So, I asked myself, what do I class as home? I have at least two actual buildings which I could class as home - where I live. I love school, but I wouldn't say it was the place where I was safe, ready and prepared. And obviously it's not going to be where my kids had their first Christmas. I don't have any. That's just Brian Cox rubbing it my face that I'm not part of his target demographic. 

After a lot of long, intense thinking (it was literally about three minutes), I came up with only one solution. 

Home is where your knickers are.