"DON'TS"

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I might also stop writing like that.

I like to keep my options open.

The trouble with writing about nothing is that you're limited. Content is absent, so form becomes your only escape route. But there are fewer forms than there are ideas and incidents, so I'm sure I must be repeating myself. For all I know, I've used the old vertical intro technique before.
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I forget what I've written about immediately after publishing a post, so all 680 of my blog entries are identical. They are all exactly the same as this, except the number of posts is different. Also, I reckon I posted a video of a snake or a fight or something once, and I'm not going to do that here.

Oh!

Oh!

Here are some things!

I remembered some things. The things are photos that I took on my phone. "One day, I'll write a hilarious blog post about these!" I thought. Today might be that day. The Day of Last Resort.

This is the banner outside our local Co-Op.

I like the Co-Op. Or at least, I admire it. I like the idea of a co-op in general. It pleases me politically. Of course, the shops are awful. But their hearts are in the right place, even if none of their produce is.

(They're not that awful. I just wanted to do that joke.)
 
I like to think that they're too sophisticated to use such odd punctuation. I'm sure I'm missing something. Yes, that's it - it's my fault. But what do they mean?

The Midcounties Co-operative 

"DOES" IT AGAIN!

I can see that the "IT" is making the top... 25... best... something... companies to work for. In 2012. Great. Congratulations.

But what's with the "DOES"?

I don't think you need those quotation marks. Unless there's some legal definition of "does" that I'm not aware of. But even if there was, surely you'd extend them to "DOES IT" AGAIN. Or is that too suggestive?

The "IT" is not in question, it seems. The "AGAIN" certainly isn't. But the "DOES" is a grey area.

Was there some kind of deer confusion? Is the "DOES" a quote from an official report? Have the Co-Op's scrupulous morals led to them undercutting their own arrogance?

I don't know.

Maybe it's a pun, or a reference to something else. It might stand for the Department Of Excellence (in) Shopping, who might be involved in compiling the list. Or maybe "DOES" isn't a real word. I've been writing it so often, it has begun to look like a disgusting figment. Vowels don't work that way, do they? DO THEY? DOES" THEY?

I could probably find answers to my questions somewhere, but I'm too lazy to do any research. Not too lazy to speculate, though. Always write, never learn. That's what I always say just now and will forget shortly.

So... that was something.

Not the nothing I was expecting.

But wait - there's more!

This is a record sleeve from on a shelf.

MUSIC YOU HAVE 

LOVED

Not necessarily music you love now. Just music you have loved at some point.

When I was three years old, I probably loved some music. Probably some stupid lullaby about pigs. I don't love it now. But it's on that record.

I think it's probably aimed at the elderly. That's why it's written in the past tense. People are unable to produce any new love past a certain age. Most people's love glands are totally dry by around 60.

So you can't have MUSIC YOU LOVE. You don't love anything. But you still remember what it was like.

It's like when you lose your eyesight, but still remember what it was like to look through mugshots. Or teletext. It's nostalgic.

I'd like to listen to that record whilst leafing through a photo album called PEOPLE YOU HAVE KNOWN or a book called PREJUDICES YOU HAVE CULTIVATED.

***

That discussion didn't really "take off" as much as I thought it would. I thought it would be bursting through the atmosphere, its course set on some distant galaxy. In reality, it did a single puny jump and landed in a bowl of stringy soup.

I need a holiday from my own head. It's cramped in here. Maybe I can find a Being John Malkovich-style portal into the head of someone with a more thoughts and fewer concerns about their lack of thoughts.

Maybe I'm inside your head right now. Why else would you be reading this?

Scratch your nose.