#marlin's log

[marlinspirkhall]

Hey so on Sunday we found out that our next door neighbour has had repeated gas and carbon monoxide leaks for the last 6-7 years.

And I just found this post in my drafts from February. My subconscious knew.

[marlinspirkhall]

Made a very important purchase today

Note for Americans, 'plaster'= bandaid

I cannot overstate how much delight this gives me

Serves the dual purpose of yassifying my wallet & ensuring I am prepared for anything

[marlinspirkhall]

A fun side-effect of picking up people’s accents in conversations with them is that it really gives me something to over-think about later.

“Oh God. They’ll think I’m mocking them.”

“... They pronounced glass as “glarse; they deserve to be mocked.”

[marlinspirkhall]

My body has never been able to consistently decide which pms symptoms it’s having or how hard it’s going to have them.

Today, I am learning what “mood swings” are, and I dislike them.

[marlinspirkhall]

Marlin’s Log: Stardate 1820.3

Day two of quarantine, and I continue to be the only non-infected person on the starship. As such, I took a shuttle to the nearest supply centre in order to restock, in the increasingly likely event that I take ill in the near future. I was saddened to realise that accounts of supermarkets running out of toilet paper were not exaggerated. There were also a lot of other empty shelves.

[marlinspirkhall]

I mentioned my dream diaries a while ago so, while I’m resisting the urge to yell about Lin Manuel Miranda for little reason, does anyone want to hear The Hamilton Dream I had in 2019? OF course you do, here it is:

 THE SCOTTISH PLAY STRIKES AGAIN

-Dream Diary Entry 21/2/19

 I was sitting at a small venue's performance of Hamilton. I was secretly recording the whole thing from my pocket, and was worried that someone would find out. I was also worried that Lin Manuel Miranda would confront me, but I couldn't work out why yet. I had a horrible, sinking feeling that I had called him 'boring' on Twitter.

As I sat there, not fully engaged with the performance, Lin donned a pair of boxing gloves, and then tried to tear off his blue cape. He couldn't grasp it because of the gloves, but nevertheless, he challenged me to a duel.

 "You want me to box?" I asked, already standing up.

 "No," he said. He picked up a sword, then dropped it, because of the boxing gloves. He went to pick it up again, and it went skittering across the stage. I raised an eyebrow at him.

 "You should remove the gloves," I said.

 "THESE AREN'T GLOVES," he shrieked, and I glanced at his hands again. He had giant red lobster claws.

 "Please don't tell anyone. That's why it took me eight years to write Hamilton- I kept smashing the keyboard."

 I barely held back my laughter. "I can't promise anything. This is too juicy not to get out."

 He got angry, and snapped his claws in my face. SNAP! I was back in the auditorium.

I had front row seats, but the room was unusually empty; only about 15 people were there.

The stage was sunken, surrounded by Amphitheater seating- wide, stone steps. There was a slight chill in the room, but my fur coat kept me warm. The room was surrounded by giant braziers, but they were just for show and emitted very little heat. I tried to sit still, but the scratchy tici-tick-tickle of the dead animal around my neck made me want to claw my skin off.

This rendition of Hamilton was terrible. It was a "period-appropriate" retelling of the story, so everyone in the cast was white (and the audience; there were only about 12 people) and the costumes were made of real fur. We had found only one venue willing to accept the "avant-garde" performance, but the town that the theatre was located in had outlawed white rap in 2010, in an attempt to keep Eminem out of town. So, instead of rap battles, the characters simply unfurled comically long scrolls with the lyrics on, and started doing a really slow, off-beat poetry rendition. The orchestra accompaniment (and by orchestra, I mean One Man, Playing Electric Piano) continued to play at normal tempo underneath, so everyone kept skipping the end of their verses in order to start singing the chorus. The lyrics made no longer made any sense. One woman in the audience started sobbing before they were even halfway through.

I sunk a little lower in my chair. My face stung with shame. Thoughts came flooding back to me. This had all been my terrible idea. I clutched my pearl necklace anxiously.

 King George sang "you'll be back" two octaves too high & very off-key, and then tripped over his robes. As he was finding his footing, the midsection of the stage began to rotate, and the hem of his robe got caught in the mechanism. There was an awful, screeching sound as the hem began to get shredded, and King George stood there, horrified.

"MY MINK!", he yelped, as Eliza Hamilton came running onstage. She kicked him in the crotch and yelled "OOPS, MR SPHINX, I GUESS IT'S THE MINK JINX".

 A security guard gave her a warning glance, and she made sure to continue the rest of her rescue in a flat, careful monotone with no rhythm.

 "Oh no. George. You're on fire," she said, unhelpfully.

(The stage rotation mechanism had sparked, and set the hem of George's robes alight. He began running about the stage, spreading a trail of flames behind him. The other cast members began climbing the amphitheatre steps in panic.)

 "My my, this is an unexpected development," said a voice behind me.

I turned to look. A man sat diagonally across two seats. For a split second, I was worried it was LMM, finally come to slay me for revealing his true crustacean nature, but it was not.

 The man was dressed in all green, and held a ripe apple in his hand. I stared at him. A bow and arrow sat on the seat next to him.

 "... Robin [Hood]?" I asked. He gave me a wink, and put his feet up on the back of the chair in front. I wrinkled my nose.

 "You tell me," he said. He sounded like an Elvis impersonator. I squinted at him. He was wearing a dangerous amount of hairgel, and vaguely resembled John Travolta. A chunk of gel slid off his hair, and dripped onto his leather jacket. The green tights had been swapped for pink ones, and he had dark blue legwarmers and pastel blue ballet slippers.

 I gasped. "Cut down on that hair gel, Trav. You'll make the stage slippery."

 "I already have, my dear Horatio," Travolta smiled. On top of his leather jacket, a ruff materialised. For a moment, his gel-coated hair transformed into a bald patch. He gave me a knowing wink, and tossed the apple in the air. He caught it, and it instantly changed into a comically tiny stage prop; a skull.

 "Hmm, that's no good," he said, and tilted his head thoughtfully. "I shall have to get a new one." He gave me a contemplative look for a moment, and then shook his head.

 "Excuse me," he said, vaulting past me. I wasn't sure what he meant until he launched himself, screaming, at the flaming King George. Shakespeare/Travolta was immune to the flames, and ran through them with ease. He grabbed the hem of George's cloak.

 There was a tutting to my left. I turned to see Lin Manuel Miranda. He folded his arms, and his lobster claws glowed orange in the flame light.

 "Sweetie, that's what happens when you pitch a show in Vancouver," he said.

 "Why? Did it happen to you?" I asked, as Shakesvolta transformed into the grim reaper (He made a quiet pun to himself as he sharpened the top of his scythe: "A-scythe from this, I only shake spears").

 "No, but I did say 'Macbeth' on the opening night of the Moana prequel," Miranda sighed. King George yelped, and started running in circles.

 "But there isn't a Moana prequel," I frowned.

 A dark shadow passed before his eyes. "Exactly."

 "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I knew I should have stayed in business school!" George sobbed, as he tore off the smoldering remains of his cape. The fire had already spread to his wig. The grim reaper calmly contemplated his scythe, and gave me a grin. Admittedly, he always looked like he was grinning, because of the skull, but I like to think it was a friendly gesture.

 "Heed not the rabble..." A confused Samuel Seaberry began singing. There was nothing but flames and screams to accompany him, for the piano player had taken refuge behind his seat, holding up the keyboard as a shield.

  "Look away, darling; this is the messy part," the grim reaper shrugged, and charged at Samuel Seaberry.

Squelch.

Suddenly, all the sounds ceased. I woke up.

[marlinspirkhall]

Marlin's log, stardate 1720.3

In the face of the Starfleet-ordered quarantine, the crew's usual duties on the bridge have been suspended. As such, I find myself at a loss of what to do with my time. One of the Ensigns in engineering suggested that, if I was bored, I could always join them downstairs. When I enquired as to whether the engineering section was exempt from quarantine; the Chief Engineer replied "It will take more than a little Almarian fever to shut us down." Then, he coughed over the intercom.

After sleeping for thirteen consecutive hours (which the CMO reliably informs me is a "minor coma" and "you can't do that Marlin; according to my tricorder, you were medically dead"), I decided to rewatch old TV shows. I have since come to the conclusion that Red Dwarf was a contemporary tragicomedy.

While the show was incorrect about many elements of interstellar travel, I enjoyed the metanarrative on the failures of the British education system in the 1980's; a school system which would sadly continue until the late 22nd century. It seems, even when the planet Earth is wracked by plague, nuclear war or other ill-omen, humanity always insists that the school system should soldier on.

[marlinspirkhall]

Whilst tidying my room yesterday, I found two torn pages from a notebook which I wrote in 2015. It was a parody of Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass which I wrote for my friend’s sixteen birthday, and it goes like this:

Those Birthdays (About That Bass Parody)

Chorus: Because you know that I'm all about those days 'bout those days- those birthdays I'm all about those days 'bout those days- those birthdays All about your birth, 'bout your birth birth birth days (yeah)

You know, it's pretty clear You ain't no age two I got you birthday presents Like I'm supposed to do I got that env'lope with a birthday card too, With all the right tape in al the right places

You see those hallmark cards Working that photoshop Ain't made with love and care Come on, that has to stop 'Cos I handmade mine with PVA glue With all of those rhymes that I wrote for you

[Chorus]

Because my mama, she told me "It's not all about the price" That they prefer it if you get them something personalised So I opened my brain and I tried to ger something nice And then I wrote out this song for a 'lil birthday surprise

[Chorus]