In my more idle moments, such as those occupying the many hours spent on public transport, I often daydream and speculate - some of which ends up here on this very blog when it happens to be something I deem intriguing - and one of my occasional random thoughts is: what am I going to call my kids? I have, over the years, decided on my daughter’s name roughly 17 times, in my more idle moments, taking names from friends, celebrities, chance-met strangers, or even making them up in a hope of getting them to fit into whatever dreams of future partners i may have. But it was with some surprise that I noted myself thinking along these lines merely minutes in to a decently violent movie, in the middle of some decently violent opening scenes, that “Amelia”, a name shouted moments before, would be an altogether sweet and beautiful name by which to address my daughter. In front of me, a man turning from human to werewolf was loudly and rather messily decapitated. ...

With some people, you give and give, and it never really shows. The return on investment, as it were, just isn’t there, and you end up feeling just a little abused. With other people, though, you give a little, and you get it back and whole lot more in return, unasked for. Those people make it worth the effort, and you hope that the concept of karma works for them, because if it doesn’t work for them, then who else will it work for? ...

… something on the net catches your eye; something someone out there has written. Someone you may know, or someone you may not. You stop, and you read it over again, just to check that your eyes didn’t just make it up. You return to it the next day to make sure it wasn’t just a day dream. You see a comment link, but even if you do put some text in that box, you don’t hit send, you don’t “post comment”. You want to savour it and cherish it and want to reach out to that person and say “I know what you are thinking; I know what you mean; it’s like you read my mind.” but you can’t put it in words sufficient to express the depth of that poignant emotion, and you sit back, and the day is changed, maybe even the week. ...

It’s a funny thing sometimes - when something you want to happen doesn’t happen, you get disappointed. But then, serrendipitously, it happens without preamble, and you have two paths to choose. You can choose to enjoy it, to revel in the fact that it’s finally happening, or you can choose to turn the bitter side up and regret that it didn’t happen when you wanted it to happen before. Ever since we moved into this house, I’ve thought of “Come summer, I’ll have friends over and we’ll have a BBQ and jump in the pool and chit chat and just enjoy,” but never once did it happen until today. Despite all my efforts in three and a half years, I couldn’t get the motivation rolling among my friends, many and varied. And only now, a week and a half out from my leaving this house, I get what I wanted, however petty or strange it may sound. ...

Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have unchanging facial expressions. Spookey. (via)