#misspigeon

[mauritlondon]

Little Boy and the sad star

Little Boy was watching Miss Pigeon being soaked by a rogue burst drain, when he saw a light no bigger than a fifty pence coin by the hard chewing gum floor of platform sixteen. "Who are you, little light?" Asked the boy. "Evening, I am nothing, nobody, just a little light who once dreamt I'd be a star". "What happened?" Asked Little Boy. "Well,'becoming a star isn't as easy as the films would make you believe. There's a whole process, and you have to practice three times a week at least." "Sounds like a lot of work!" Huffed little boy, "and what is so good about being a star in the sky?" "What's good about being a star? What isn't!" Exclaimed the little light. Poets write by your light, sailors track you down and lovers lie in fields and paint constellations, inventing myths based on how you look." "Hmmm sounds good I guess", said Little Boy. "And you move, you move!" The light dreamed wide-eyed, gazing at the rain clouds above. "But those hopes are behind me, now I shuffle in puddles, kicking leaves in the breeze, with only drunks and children to keep me company". Little Boy wondered whether he should take this as an insult. He decided not to. "How come you never made it as a star?" "Well, you can work as hard as you can, learn all the things apprentice stars need to learn, but at some point it's just down to good fortune. The cosmos is all about fortune, and I suppose I'm unfortunate". Little Boy leant back in his chair and chewed on these words. "Fortune...I don't think stars are more fortunate than us. I'm sure I've visited much sadder stars than you who spend evenings draped in Orion's Belt or Libra's spine," said Little Boy. Perhaps, perhaps. At that moment a set of train doors closed on platform 16, in such a manner that idle eyes inside the carriage looking out would have mused that the curtains were closing on the first act of a play.

[mauritlondon]

Pigeons and buildings that keep growing...

Little Boy's mother had decided to take him for a walk one Wednesday afternoon. They crossed Battersea Square with its squawk of seagulls and headed towards Battersea Park. It was a cold day, the wet-flannel cold that London specialises in, the kind that wraps around your arms and drips into your bones. Little Boy was happy for the time he spent with his mother- she didn't have too much time for him these days what with everything going on at work, but it was always nice when she and not the au pair took him out to the park. Just inside the park, his mother got an important phone call, the kind that furrowed her brow and make her make other calls, each as important as the next. While his mother was nervously tapping away at her phone and walking in long figure-eights into the park, Little Boy stared out onto the street at the tall multi-storey townhouses which face the park. He made a game of trying to stare as long as possible at the rooftops without blinking, but eventually a small movement would make him blink. The game got harder and harder, until Little Boy realised that it was the rooftops that were moving, making his game impossible to play. Miss Pigeon had taken a perch on the bench next to Little Boy and stopped pecking to highlight the obvious. "The buildings are growing". "What? That's impossible!" Said Little Boy, who was quite used to Miss Pigeon arriving both unannounced and uninvited. "You're growing, aren't you?" Shouted Miss Pigeon to the nearest building. Little Boy thought it was quite a foolish thing to do, and rude, but the building didn't seem to mind. In fact, a few windows on the third floor seemed to move in response. "Yeah, they're definitely growing", a squirrel had stopped to contribute to what was evidently a popular subject in the Park. "I hear them at night, talking amongst themselves. They complain about growing because it's painful, as their walls push out against the other buildings. The smaller buildings start crumbling, room by room, all in the name of growth." "But why is it so important to grow?" Asked Little Boy. "Little Boy, don't you know that we always have to grow? If we are not growing we are standing still. If we are standing still then our neighbours can take our space ahead of us", Miss Pigeon liked to explain things to Little Boy, who still had a lot to learn. "But how can you own the air above your head? Isn't it for everyone? Don't we share it?" "Well, we do until someone builds another floor!" Laughed Miss Pigeon, who had dabbled in property development a while back and could claim some knowledge on the sector. "At some point, though, don't we have to stop? I mean, we can't keep growing for ever?" "Well, it depends on your meaning of growth, Little Boy," The squirrel had stayed on a while longer and clearly had some thoughts on the matter. "London has been growing for centuries, but i can only see our parks shrinking!" "So it is both growing....and shrinking at the same time?" Asked Little Boy, "how confusing!" But his audience had scattered, as his mother returned from her calls and emails, apologising: "I'm so sorry Little Boy, we have to go home. News came in this morning that China only grew eight percent instead of eight point five. I have to recalibrate my investment positions". "Isn't growing a good thing though for China, mum?" "Not when it's only eight percent per annum!" Little Boy was now thoroughly confused. But he quickly smiled as he knew the confusion would only be temporary. "Don't worry, one day you'll be a grown-up and all of this will make perfect sense!" he thought to himself, as mother and son turned back along the river towards home.

[mauritlondon]

Pigeons on aphorisms

Little Boy and Miss Pigeon were once more waterfall watching on platform 16 at Clapham Junction. Amongst the sludge of suits and drum beat of tight-pressed heels a man dressed as a jester was doing cartwheels. He stopped in front of our pair. Good morning! At that moment the harlequin's shirt changed from green yellow to yellow green. Your shirt! Exclaimed little boy. "Ah...he said, that is a remnant of a man I met in Bogota. He told me that to improve is to change, but to be perfect is to change often". Sounds like a paradox to me....said miss pigeon, finally happy to contribute. But you see, i have lost my aphorisms. I was carrying them home when two particularly good ones grew legs and jumped out of my bag. "To lose one aphorism is unlucky,'but to lose two? Sounds careless to me." Sniggered Miss Pigeon. On occasion one could justly accuse her of a certain brand of cynicism. "What's an aphorism?" Asked Little Boy, unable to be contained. "Little Boy," said the jester, "an aphorism is a group of words which find friends and hug tightly" Not quite correct! Corrected miss pigeon, they are words which mean the same thing in any order, such a man, a plan, a canal, panama!" "Oh, I thought they were words which had a special meaning" "All words are special, Little Boy", said the jester, "they just need to be reminded from time to time" "But if all words can be part of aphorisms, why are you looking for any two in particular?" "Well Little Boy, it would seem that all words make aphorisms, but some, are more aphoristic than others" and with that he cartwheeled off into the train, causing inconvenience and much tut-tutting from the throng who had queued quite a while behind the yellow line".

[flock-talk]

I have to know, how in god's name do you keep your carpet so clean?

oddly enough I actually have to clean it again soon!  In general I just vacuum every day and that tends to keep it clean, I also dab any poops off the carpet as soon as they happen and have some towels and sheets on the ground where the birds spend the most time so most of the floor cleaning is just banging off those towels and throwing them in the wash.  Every few months if I find that some poops have dried on or it’s just looking a bit messy I’ll spread baking soda on the floor, maybe drop some vinegar on it and then hand scrub it and vacuum whatever’s left (I typically put the birds in another room when this happens since the reaction produces CO2 at a larger rate than what’s normally in the environment, just to be safe)

[mauritlondon]

On Pigeons and Suicides

The November night sky came early, and as soon as I could I got up from my desk and left the office without a word. I don’t even think I remembered to turn off the computer.

 Walking up Oxford Street in the direction of Oxford Circus my thoughts shadowed as quickly as the nights do at that time of year. My work didn’t want me (even though, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, I know this not to be true), I was single, and didn’t have a friend in the world. Did it matter if I existed? It didn’t seem so. I wanted to get revenge at the people who loved me. Take away the only thing I had to gamble. The nuclear option.

  Yes, I thought to myself. The nuclear option. Just jump in front of a train on the Victoria Line. (which was convenient, as it was on the way home). OK it would be a pain for the other commuters, but at least I didn’t have to worry about the practicalities of slitting one’s own wrists, or falling from a height. As I arrived on the Southbound platform, I had resolved to take my own life. The first train came in. A little too quick. The board announced another train in four minutes. Four minutes, I thought, four minutes to sum up my life. What a waste of time.

  “What are you doing?” I heard a voice below the throng of a Monday in November. I turned around, saw no-one, then looked back towards the dark tunnel, seeking out the light of the oncoming train.

  “Down here!” Came the voice again. I turned around once more, irritated, and saw what can only be described as a pigeon wearing reading glasses, sitting in the lap of a boy in a wheelchair.

  I looked around. This was singularly the weirdest thing I had ever seen in my life. I mean, a pigeon, in reading glasses, with what appeared to be a bow in her feathers. She jumped off the boy and was motioning a wing at me.

  “Well, I…er…. None of your business!” And I gestured to kick the pigeon but thought better of it, for fear of causing a scene. The irony of wanting to avoid a scene before attempting suicide was lost on me, although I did realize that no-one else appeared to notice this pigeon.

  “I would venture a guess that you are thinking dark thoughts, my small-headed friend,” the pigeon continued, with a condescension jabbing me in the ribs, “I don’t think you should even entertain the thought of it.”

  It was true that I wanted my life to end. Well certainly, some part of it. And not formally, but casually. Quite frankly, I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing left to live for.

  “Do you know how annoying you are going to be if you step in front of a train today? The chaos you are going to cause? It’s very selfish”.

  “I’m not selfish.” I said. This pigeon was making me quite defensive.

  “Perhaps not all the time, but right now you are thinking selfish thoughts. Every day a new tube driver comes through my doors, his or her life ruined because some twit has thrown themselves into the path of onrushing traffic. Emmeline Pankhurst, I can understand, William Huskisson, OK, but you, you have no reason to do it”.

  Before I could reply, the Pigeon continued, “Did you know how hard it is for tube drivers to come back to their jobs once they have hit someone?”

  “But it’s not their fault,” I mumbled.

  “No, it’s YOUR fault! And another thing, (I had a sense that Miss Pigeon, as I came to call her, was gaining momentum), what are we going to say to your wife?”

  “I don’t have a wife.” I was on firmer footing here, trying to find some sympathy.

“Yes you do!” (And with a knowing pause for dramatic effect, her point was accentuated with the tube pulling into the platform. With that comment hanging in the air, I lost my pigeon and Little Boy for a moment amongst the yellow Selfridges bags and coats which fill up the platforms at this time of year.)

  As the commuters subsided and the train pulled away from the platform, Miss Pigeon continued.

  “Yes you do! I’ve met her, she’s going about her life, waiting for that moment where you will meet. She’s a lovely girl; what am I going to say to her? And your kids? You humans can be really confounding-I mean what other species chooses to commit suicide? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  I was getting quite angry at this self-righteous pigeon. What did she know about the world that I, who had been to Oxford and achieved an “A” in Nuance, did not?

  “Do you ever go onto OKcupid.com?” Asked the boy in the wheelchair. In chords and with a side parting, his shirt didn’t fit as well as it might. He almost appeared to come from like the early 60s.  Later I would wonder where his parents were, but the strangeness of the whole situation meant that I had lost any notion of such practicalities. He had not spoken previously, and said it with a charming smile only children under 12 possess.

  “And what is that?” I asked in a clear voice.

  “He’s in a wheelchair, he isn’t deaf!” Miss Pigeon said.

  The boy giggled. “It’s a dating website.”

  “What are you doing on dating websites?” I asked.

  “Stop distracting Little Boy,” Miss Pigeon again interjected. She was not a likeable pigeon. And no-one likes pigeons in London.

  “It’s ok Miss Pigeon,” the Little Boy continued. “I’m there for the same reason that you are here, out of curiosity. Anyway, have you visited that site?”

  “No I haven’t,” I continued, wondering whether my next wife had a profile on OKcupid.

  “Well, it did some very interesting research in its time. Did you know that one in three  eighteen year-olds think that their best days are behind them?”

  “That’s ridiculous, you should never think that Little Boy,” I answered, somewhat majestically.

  “And how old are you?” Little Boy asked.

“Well, twenty-seven.”

“And do you think that your best days are behind you?”

“No, I mean yes, I mean…”

  “Because if your best days are ahead of you, why are you looking at this train platform looking sullen?”

  I didn’t say anything. Another, busier train pulled into the platform. A mini-scene erupted as grumpy commuters tried to push on whilst dark haired Spaniards at the entrance to the carriage shuffled first to the left, then to the right, to let them on. 

  As the tube pulled away, the boy continued. “I know you are probably feeling pain, but what you are looking for is an end to that pain, and ending your life won’t end the pain, it will end all feeling.”

  I didn’t like losing arguments, but I was prepared to concede some ground, which I did through the means of an acknowledged silence, temporarily halted by the dull drum-roll of the next train.

  “And let me show you one thing!” the Pigeon said, and before I could fathom what was happening the pigeon jumped in front of the next train. I gasped in horror as she disappeared in a puff of feathers and soot.

  Something in my chest dropped a key. I couldn’t believe that pigeon had died trying to prove a point. A silly point. It seemed ludicrous to use death as any form of communication, given its one-sided nature.

  The pigeon triumphantly emerged, however, very black and visibly stamping on top of the carriages. It was at this point that I realized I had caused quite a scene. People were now looking at me, although they appeared not to notice either the boy or the pigeon.

  “How did that make you feel?” She asked.

  “I must admit my heart jumped a bit,”

  “Yet we hardly know each other. Now imagine the feeling, multiplied by a thousand, for those that love you. I may not know very much about you,” counseled Miss Pigeon, “but I can say that this decision (she gestured towards the trains), can be procrastinated. Go home, do something fun, and tomorrow we will talk some more”. And without waiting for a reply both she and the boy got on the next tube, helped on it appeared by a family from California, and the doors closed with a beep.

  I waited for the next Victoria line train to pull in, watched as the driver sped up then slowed past me, and waited for the tourists to get off before taking a seat inside the carriage.

[abz-j-harding]

This is a totally strange and non-art-related question but dear lord how do you get your hair to have so much amazing oomf and volume, especially on top?! I've got a very similar consistency curl-wise but I'd kill to be able to get it to sit up as fantastically as yours. Is it just naturally like that or is there some trick to it?

yo it’s totally fine!

1. morning hair -don’t listen to people who say shit about it- it’s the best hair there is

2. I let it naturally dry (i even go to bed with it damp sometimes) i only blow dry if i’m short for time

3. a bit of back-comb here and there

4. a bit of hair spray from a yellow cannister

i don’t straighten my hair, and i go to get my hair professionally dyed and cut...i usually go for a heavy layered look with a fringe...to gradient the length so i have a little short spiky-ness on top.

plus i use pins as well...a lot to be honest