bargain !! by Simon Aulman

Very piano-y thing, sometimes rather beautiful, other times well you can imagine.

Mercifully I have little to say - the only thing I did all day was go to the Sea City Museum cafe and sit with a group of people, some are friends, some I really do dislike very much, and I'm not shy about showing it - I am surprisingly popular, which disappoints me, it is amazing how much rudeness people put up with and keep a smile on their face, I wish I'd known this long ago, when younger, when it mattered more.

My dislike of one particular woman is totally visceral, irrational, I simply cannot help it, right from the very first time I met her, about 3 years ago, my skin crawled and I knew she was a total phoney. Being a phoney isn't a crime, I think we're all phonies to some extent, I know I am, I usually just agree with whoever I'm with and just hope that they'll hurry up and shut up. But this particular woman, her phoneyness is just too much, she has a huge great fat smug smile, I can't bear it.

One of my very best friends, not part of that group of people, is a psychotherapist and she is on a course studying a new way of overcoming phobias, and to do the course she needs to practise on three guinea-pigs, and not for the first time among my slew of psychotherapist (ex)friends over the years, I am a guinea-pig and will be having my first "consultation" next week. I had to think of a particular phobia - a real one - that I wanted to overcome.

Alas I am very boring and very conventional and the only big phobia I have is big hairy spiders - and even with them I'm sure my phobia isn't as deep as many other people's. If pushed, I could actually pick up one of those big hairy spiders - and it's not like I have anything personal against them, it's just that I don't like the fact that they rush about on the floor and distract me - you know, you see them dash across the carpet and disappear under a sofa, and then I am constantly aware that he's under there, I can't concentrate on the book I'm reading, I'm just waiting for him to dash out and make a run for the fridge or wherever.

And as for those spindly spiders with tiny bodies and very long legs that like living in the corners up by the ceiling, I actually like those very much and never disturb them with a duster or anything. But I just feel that spider-phobia is too predictable and too boring. So the phobia I shall be bringing along next week is this phobia I seem to have against phoney people. Sorry to come over all Holden Caulfield, it's just that I am only comfy with people who I believe to be really THERE, people who are unironic and who are ingenuous.

I think this is why I don't have Alexa. Perhaps AI will give future Alexas a soul, and my Alexa won't be sarcastic or say things she doesn't mean, she won't just tell me things she thinks I want to hear, I hope she'll tell me nothing, I hope she won't work, no I only want real people, people who are rude to me, they are the only ones I trust, my own rudeness feels wasted on other people and next year I've vowed to be incredibly rude to everyone and I've got a horrible feeling it'll just make me seem endearing, oh god, and that woman will have an even bigger faker smile on her face

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recorded over the past few days, yes a couple of things are shorter versions of recent longer things, photo on the kitchen table today