We’re midway into my ten ways to break the ice with strangers when you’re travelling – and now it’s time to play the fool.
The Big List Of Fevered Mutterings (2009-2010)
It’s been nearly a year since I accidentally deleted my blog and had to start all over again.
Here’s everything that’s happened at Fevered Mutterings (v4.0) since that glorious day of rampant stupidity for which I am rightly proud. A year’s worth: most of it original, some stolen from my archives; some of it carefully considered, some written wildly from the hip; and some of it incomprehensible, even to me.
If you decide to read on…well, best of luck.
Olympus
I’m leant against the car, gasping, giggling, sucker-punched by the cold. Around me, the landscape is motionless and brittle. The tops of trees have exploded as the wind tried to bend them. Overhead, dirty clouds boil past like timelapse photography. The rock-strewn ground is so hard you expect it to ring. Take the trees and ice-rimed telephone lines away, and you’re left with the surface of Mars.
I’m on the same latitude as Algeria and Morocco, and the temperature is 15 below freezing.
Cities: Exciting But Guilty
I’m over here this evening, flying the flag for cities and wondering where they’ll take us.
I’ve have only one major issue with cities: they inspired these excruciatingly awful lyrics. Guilty as hell. “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of?” Say again?
(No, actually don’t say again. Thanks).
Shhh! (A Writer’s Guide To Destroying The World)
Modern writers have a problem, and it’s called The World. It’s noisy and distracting.
The solution is simple…destroy it.
More on that in a minute.
Breaking The Ice With Strangers: Hook
The road is a lonely place.
Everyone’s a stranger. You long to connect with someone, anyone, but the odds are stacked against you. You’re in too much of a hurry to engage in social bonding rituals like feasting and hanging out. There’s the natural coolness in the air. And hey, you’re not your normal self right now – flung outside your comfort zone, living on your nerves and at the mercy of thoughts and whims born of sleep deprivation, addled body chemistry and sensory overload. Capping all that – you’re the outsider, with everything to prove.
The common reaction (if you’re like me) is to give up. To hide yourself away. Stiff upper lip, a sledgehammer air of authority you don’t feel and the kind of fixed expression you normally only see on Terminators and the acutely constipated. Lonely traveller, coming through.
But there are ways to improve your chances – and some of those vulnerabilities weighing heavy on your confidence are just the tools you need to make new friends.
Here’s how I reckon it works.
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