Panel beating help?

[xp_daytripper]

I have returned. As has Nico. Safe and sound and not a scratch, which is more than I can say for my poor Broomstick. Anyone at the mansion want to see to it for me?

We also picked up a hitch hiker along the way, sort of. Marie-Ange is back, and she'll be in my spare room for the duration until we work out various Stuff.

Comments

[x-plosive.livejournal.com]

I feel as if I should be making you tea as we speak, but I don't do it often enough to do it well.

[xp_daytripper]

I've got it covered, but if you want to join me, you're welcome.

If you feel like slogging your way out to New York, that is. ;) I'm in my pyjamas and that's not changing until I get hungry.

[x-plosive.livejournal.com]

Times like this, I need a library minion. I'll close up at the crack of COB and be there this evening. I can bring food. I'm sure there's a take-out along the way.

[x-pyromania.livejournal.com]

Always wondered. When you say Broomstick, do you mean something with a battery or an actual broomstick?


Do send Le Fat-Ange my regards.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

John, you are mixing your languages. I believe you want grosse. Try again, no?

[x-highflying.livejournal.com]

Welcome home babe. Dinner once you're recovered?

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

The charming Marie-Ange has returned? This is most excellent news, negated not at all by the fact I have of late neglected the journals and so entirely missed the news of her departure.

Regardless, convey my congratulations to Doug on this belated Valentine's Day boon. I suggest chocolates.

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

Eh? Ah, is she perhaps on a diet? I can see how chocolates would be a bit of a misstep there. Women do get a bit offended when gifted with a confection they cannot eat, regardless of whether their physique requires such caution or not.

Flowers are another favourite, of course, though I suppose at your level jewelry might be more appropriate. Or so I have gathered from those who engage in relationships longer than a week or so.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I shall recap.

Doug and I have broken up.
I left for New Orleans in May.
For personal reasons. Which I am sure everyone will interpret as "I did something horrible and awful." since that is usually how that phrase is interpreted.
Or perhaps they can assume I was in a mental health facility.
I was not in a mental health facility.
New Orleans was very wet and humid and did nothing for my hair.
It was not fulfilling work. It was educational.
I hated it.
Amanda and Nico were kind enough to drive me back to New York.
Also I learned that a rest stop in Knoxville, TN has 36 kinds of meat jerky, including kangaroo. I still have some, would you like it?
Doug and I are still broken up.
I have an office now. I removed the cuckoo clocks and Jubilee is shipping them to Russia for me.
I have an office now.

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

Oh.

Well, this is a bit awkward.




But as it happens, yes, I would in fact appreciate the kangaroo jerky. I am told my enjoyment may spring from the very natural feelings of vengeance habored by myself and my fellow countrymen towards the hoppy little buggers, or perhaps some primal joy in the act of rending meat. The latter of which I am given to suspect you may even now be contemplating.

Would you care for a box of non-Valentine's chocolates in exchange? It is a bit of a regifting, but sound unless you are particularly averse to the dent formed when it struck my head. (No, I was not the giver; as it turned out, the admirer of my date-of-the-evening failed to move quite as quickly as he should have and overreacted a bit.)

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was very awkward when I went to my formerly shared apartment to see if my clothes and things were still there and did not realize Doug might already be back in New York since he was in New Orleans at the same time as Amanda.

It has been an awkward sort of week. I should have possibly anticipated it. It began awkwardly. Zipties are never inawkward.

Conveniently I will be at the mansion tomorrow for an overdue MRI and other scans of the inside of my head so that I do not get angry phone calls from Moira and so I can pass onto you the kangaroo jerky that I only purchased out of curiosity.

They also had emu jerky but I ate that. It was a very long drive.

You have a box of chocolates because you were on a date and a third party tried to give your date (I presume female, as I do not believe you have suddenly turned to men, no?) a box of chocolates while you and her were on the date? And it was throw at your head?

I am confused.

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

It has been an awkward sort of week. I should have possibly anticipated it. It began awkwardly. Zipties are never inawkward.

I contemplated a response to this, but I am a Gentleman.


Regarding the (yes, I have yet to tire of female) date, I gathered she is in the habit of engaging in a decadent luncheon should her Valentine's Day fail to coincide with a relationship. I, being the friendly sort, engaged her in conversation. As so often happens when bored, unattached adults are surrounded by this most saccharine of holidays, we moved to a less offensively heart-infested locale. Which was in itself pleasant enough, but did allow me a front-row seat when her longtime admirer made a surprise call. It seemed he had decided today was The Day. Unfortunately, he failed to inform her.

It put me to mind of a classic sitcom misunderstanding, but with significantly more shouting and commercially packaged projectiles.

It turned out right enough; once all attempts at battery desisted I took him out for a bit of drowning the sorrows. He was quite a pleasant bloke, as it turns out. I helped him pick out the apology bouquet.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

It was unfortunately not that sort of zip-tying.

You had a unscheduled date with a woman you had only just met, her former boyfriend tried to give her chocolates, she refused, it became a throwing match and you ... took him for a pint?

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

Why not? Just because one personally does not engage in grand romantic gestures does not mean one cannot respect the sentiment. This particular individual had until then only loved her from afar, which as an experience I have been told is quite trying. Taking this unfortunate for a drink did much to alleviate the lingering sensation of being the cliched romantic rival in an uninspired date movie.

Besides, I suspect the feeling was reciprocated -- she did turn quite red when she saw who was at the door. Or perhaps that was because said door was being answered by a stranger in a towel. I am never quite certain of the subtleties.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

OH! You were at her apartment! I had entirely misunderstood and thought you were out at a restaurant!

I am... not personally fond of 'loved from afar' but it is possible I am biased. My last encounter with that sort led to that odd encounter where some of my precognitive visions were walking about the mansion.

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

Come now; I am shameless, but even I draw the line at public indecency. Or so I shall claim under oath.

Ah, yes. I do have some memory of that incident. However, insofar as I could tell the lack of relationship was in direct proportion to his lack of initiative. It was only his bad luck he decided to take it a few hours after I.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the office. I think you probably should have smashed a few of the clocks, though.

Welcome home.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

The office was formerly David's, and the clocks belonged to him. I did not think it was appropriate to smash them, he may need them. For all I know they hold his drugs.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

If they have his drugs and you're mailing them then you have a world of problems waiting for you, don't you? The smashed ones could always have gotten banged up in shipping. Pain and suffering tax.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Jubilee is mailing them. I presume she knows how to handle that sort of thing.

I have no particular issue with David or his clocks, they are just not to my personal taste.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

I'm actually inordinately fond of David, but I hated his clocks.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

I may have disliked them more had they been on when I took possession of the office. All their batteries had run out, so there was no cuckooing or ticking.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Oh, so you're exploiting an unfair advantage on me. I see how it is. My last memories of that office involved them tick-tocking away and cuckooing at really inconvenient moments.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

This is why everyone should go on an extended 'working vacation' to New Orleans and return with an unhealthy knowledge of Ibotenic acid. You acquire a new office with no annoying clock noises.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

So you went to New Orleans and did a bunch of shrooms? Is that the moral of the story? Trippin' on shrooms = new cuckoo-less office?

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Ibotenic acid is a neurotoxin. I made a friend in the Medical Examiner's office.

I have never done 'shrooms. I am told I am very cuddly when high, but that was a brownie.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

My very, very cursory web search said it came from mushrooms and was a hallucinogenic. I may have stopped there since it's sort of late and my brain wants me to be asleep already.

I have trouble imagining you as cuddly.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

It is hallucinogenic in humans in "small" doses. In larger ones it can cause seizures.

Ask Amanda. She is the one I cuddled.

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Seizures seem fun, sort of like getting the earthquake experience without moving to California.

I'll be sure to ask her about that.

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

I'll make sure to check them for both illicit and non-illicit drugs before I ship them. They're currently being cocooned in packaging and handled like baby birds. Since I have no desire for David to decide upon vengence for mishandled clocks and come try to clean mine.