Listing to Port

Friday categorization #20

5549 Holidays

-5549.1 Those spent in the sunshine

   –5549.11 Sunshine that is a glorious surprise, such as in Scotland in April

      –-5549.111 In which those from cold countries are seized with a kind of weather delirium at the start of the day, and laid up with sunburn or heat exhaustion at the end

   –5549.12 Sunshine that seemed like a good idea at the time, but is actually a little relentless when it comes down to it

   -5549.13 Haphazard resorts filled with feral cats, sneaking ham at breakfast and pissing on lilos

   -5549.14 Those resorts that are half performance and half holiday, and who would be after a feral cat in souped-up golf buggies the moment it dared set foot on the polished boulevards

   –5549.15 Those in which there are beaches of purple shells, or meadows of rusting guns, or one has to park in a bay full of peacocks, or some other such incidents that one can recall in dull hours

   –5549.16 Those in which one discovers the awful ubiquity of sand

-5549.2 Those spent in the rain

   –5549.21 Rain that is like a lullaby on the roof at night and a gentle, grey and welcome mist in the morning over the distant hills

   –5549.22 Rain at the seaside in the Springtime, as viewed from a forlorn arcade beside a wet pebble beach

  –5549.23 In which one is a grizzled explorer with a thermos of hot chocolate and a soggy map

   –5549.24 In which one writes a love letter to a city and the city closes its eyes, farts and goes to sleep

-5549.3 Those that rely on snow

   –5549.31 Those that do not get snow, and have to make do with marshmallows

-5549.4 Those that happen at home

   –5549.41 Those that were not intended to happen at home, but necessitated by chicken pox or travel disruption or last-minute breakups or the accidental failure to exist of the intended destination

   –5549.42 Those intended for the production of some Great Work

      –-5549.421 That are subject to a creative block so intense that one ends up back at work as a form of procrastination

-5549.5 Those that don’t happen

   –5549.51 Micro-breaks, like micro-sleeps, in which one closes ones eyes and moves a little bit to the side to simulate the experience of travelling a millionth of the way to Bermuda

   –5549.52 Those holidays that are spent in a hotel room, shitting

   –5549.53 Those holidays spent on the phone to the office

7191 Hugs
 -7191.1 Of the snuggly sort
    –7191.11 Hugs before getting out of bed on a sunny morning
       —7191.111 Those where there is no obligation to get out of bed, so you don’t
    –7191.12 Warm hugs in cold places
       —7191.121 Those done with coffee, hot chocolate or tea
       —7191.122 Those involving lots of skin contact
       —7191.123 Those done in tents
    –7191.13 Big, jumbled-up hugs between lots of people
 -7191.2 Of the awkward sort
    –7191.21 Hugs with slightly too much elbow
    –7191.22 Hugs with distant relatives
       —7191.221 Those where neither they nor you are sure that a hug is obligatory but you maybe think the other person thinks it
    –7191.23 Hugs with too many hands
    –7191.24 Hugs with too many tentacles
       —7191.241 Those where you were not initially aware the the huggee had tentacles in the first place
          —-7191.2411 Those hugs that accidentally induct you into the church of Cthulhu
    –7191.25 Hugs where one only becomes aware of body odour or excessive perfume by the time is is too late
 -7191.3 Of the comforting sort
    –7191.31 Hugs after receiving bad news
    –7191.32 Hugs upon coming home
 -7191.4 Of the exciting sort
    –7191.41 The first hug with somebody you really kind of like
    –7191.42 Hugs with lovers you have not seen for some time
    –7191.43 Those that start off as a hug and end up as a climbing frame session where you are the climbing frame
 -7191.5 Of a mystical nature
    –7191.51 Hugs that wake the recipient from a sleep of some number of years
    –7191.52 Hugs that doom the recipient to some number of years servitude to a sinister kelp god
    –7191.53 Hugs used to transmit peculiar secrets
 -7191.6 Hugs of other sorts
    –7191.61 Spontaneous hugs due to particularly notable achievements in punctuation or grammar
    –7191.62 Technological hugs, carried out by means of tactile feedback systems
    –7191.63 Hugs given to trees
       —7191.631 Hugs received back from trees

7010 Sleep
 -7010.1 Restful, restorative and refreshing
    –7010.11 Those that one sinks blissfully into, cradled in soft eiderdown, for eight or more hours, waking into golden morning sunlight to the smell of coffee and the knowledge that an exciting project awaits
       —7010.111 Those that would be like that but for the need to get up and pee
       —7010.112 Those that would be like that if it were not for the cat
          —-7010.1121 Those where the cat is thinking a cattish version of exactly the same thing, with ‘human’ substituted
    –7010.12 Sleep after exhausting physical work
       —7010.121 That sleep which leaps gloriously upon you following a day walking in Scottish hills
    –7010.13 Lazy afternoon naps
 -7010.2 Uneasy or troubled
    –7010.21 Sleep containing more than the standard quota of bad dreams
    –7010.22 The outcome of a battle between coffee and sleep, temporarily won by sleep
    –7010.23 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pea underneath
    –7010.24 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pee underneath
    –7010.25 That sleep that your consciousness is trying to slip into like a clogged-up drain, thick with trapped and flailing thoughts
    –7010.26 Feverish sleep
 -7010.3 Interrupted
    –7010.31 Sleep of unusually short duration
       —7010.311 That sleep that gently slips over you in a warm lecture theatre or meeting room, shortly after eating lunch
    –7010.32 Sleep in the vicinity of a baby
       —7010.321 Sleep repeatedly interrupted by a baby who has just turned one and is decidedly too old for this shit
       —7010.322 On the night before work which requires use of the brain
    –7010.33 Sleep whose sudden curtailment has revealed splendid dreams not yet forgotten
    –7010.34 Sleep before catching an early flight
 -7010.4 Mystical, enchanted or otherwise unusual
    –7010.41 Sleeps of a hundred years
       —7010.411 Those occasioned by a malign fairy
       —7010.412 Those having to do with time dilation
       —7010.413 Those resulting from being mystically knackered
       —7010.414 Sleeps for which all of the above factors are relevant
    –7010.42 Sleeps of a year or so
       —7010.42 Those occasioned by a moderately lazy fairy who just wants a lie in
    –7010.43 Those accessing the same dream, a little further each time

6402 Songs

-6402.1 Those sung by individual people

   –6400.11 Songs sung by individual people whose names and faces are well-known

      –-6400.111 Those that are sung by Rick Astley

   –6400.12 Songs sung by people who are just hanging around

      –-6400.121 Those songs that stay with you in unsearchable, evolving fragments

      –-6400.122 Those that express an emotion more perfectly than speech

      –-6400.123 Songs heard from a passing car

   –6400.13 Songs that are so perfectly a fragment of their time that they evoke an overwhelming nostalgia

   –6400.14 Songs recieved as charming declarations of love that, when examined more closely, turn out to be about stalking

-6402.2 Those sung by many people at once

   -6400.21 Those that knit together stories from harmony

   -6400.22 Those that have moments that are like orgasms or death or something, that stack notes together into gaps in time and all you can remember is that maybe you were floating

   -6400.23 Those that wash you up instead onto a quiet and breathless shore

   -6400.24 Those that are enjoyably prepostorous

-6402.3 Those sung by animals or insects

   –6400.31 Songs by bats, for bats, or that can only be heard by bats

   –6400.32 Songs by elephants and whales

      –-6400.321 Those about the beauty of grey and the virtues of being slow

   –6400.33 Those sung by bees, to you, that you did not listen to, and the bee was a bit pissed off but too polite to make a fuss

-6400.4 Those of a more geological nature

   -6400.41 Those whose words are footfalls and whose epic verses end in earthquakes

-6400.5 Those of a more astrophysical nature

-6400.6 Of unknown or mystical origin

   –6400.61 Those songs that are always at the edge of hearing as you walk the path through the woods, the ones that you could hear so much better if you left the path and ate the fruit and possibly pledged your soul to the goblin king

   -6400.62 Those songs that are always at the edge of hearing in any case, edging out of background noise when you are especially tired like faces in clouds

   -6400.63 Those that are cursed to stay in your head forever

   -6400.64 Those that will never give you up

9988 Forbidden spaces
 -9988.1 Those that are in plain sight
    –9988.11 The middle of busy roads
       —9988.111 Those roads that from time to time are cleared of traffic for some great demonstration, so that one may giddily walk their newly crowded spaces
    –9988.12 That space in the centre of roundabouts
       —9988.121 Those that are desolate and bare, other than a few exhaust-drunk tulips
       —9988.122 Those that are wild and overgrown and could host a tent or a very small population of dinosaurs
    –9988.13 Those that could be reached by climbing, if climbing were allowed
    –9988.14 Those featuring spikes, slippery paint, hostile noises or patrolling guards
 -9988.2 Those that one may find out about
    –9988.21 Tantalizing things visible on satellite maps, jigsawing into the world you know
    –9988.22 Those that one may go to if one wishes, but at some cost to those who believe that no-one should go there
    –9988.23 Those that form part of the infrastructure of the city
 -9988.3 Those that are dangerous
    –9988.31 The cores of nuclear reactors
       —9988.311 Those cores that have melted down in famous accidents, glimpsed occasionally by dying robots
    –9988.32 The summits of mountains, on planets other than this one
    –9988.33 Antarctica in Winter
    –9988.34 Warrens of underwater caves
    –9988.35 Abandoned mines
    –9988.36 The stomachs of huge beasts
 -9988.4 Those that are unknown or unreachable
    –9988.41 Caves that no longer lead to the surface
    –9988.42 Lakes sealed under the ice

1012 Maps
 -1012.1 Maps of real places
    –1012.11 Those that are healthily populated with contour lines
       —1012.111 Those so thick with unclimbable contours they function more as wanderlust porn
    –1012.12 Those that show cities
       —1012.121 Those that show things under cities
          —-1012.1211 Those that show the awful things under cities that should not be, in all their eldritch batrachian glory
          —-1012.1212 Those of subway systems
       —1012.122 Those with trap streets
       —1012.123 Maps of one city which can be used perfectly adequately to naviagte a different city, the result being that the navigator arrives at a tiny, mysterious theatre populated by mice instead of the central station
    –1012.13 Maps used by long-lost explorers
       —1012.131 Maps which were directly responsible for the explorers being long-lost
       —1012.132 Great crinkly maps used as bedsheets by the snoring, farting ghosts of long-lost explorers
    –1012.14 Those that have been used to stop a bullet, and consequently have a singed hole on each fold
    –1012.15 Those made of twigs and leaves, dissolving into chaos at the next rain
    –1012.16 Those written on skin
 -1012.2 Maps of imaginary places
    –1012.21 Containing the post-Tolkien regulated quotas of friendly small towns, cities at war, evil empires, great forests, blasted wastelands and so forth  
    –1012.22 Additionally being surrounded by conveniently impenetrable mountains and the shores of vast oceans, in a rectangular shape of roughly the same dimensions as a paperback book
    –1012.23 A mysteriously blank, safe no-mans-land area additionally existing perfectly half-way across the kingdom in around the place that the page break through the centre of the map falls; this being a place that the troubled inhabitants can gather for a bit of pipe weed untroubled by blasted goblins
    –1012.24 Those having an inn at a crossroads where one may purchase stew and get into a fight
    –1012.25 Maps of imaginary places without stories to accompany them, other than those stories that arise from looking at the map
       —1012.251 Those which do have stories, but are better off without them
 -1012.3 Maps of items, people or concepts
    –1012.31 Maps on items, people or concepts
 -1012.4 Maps of mysteries and unknown things
    –1012.41 Treasure maps
       —1012.411 Having the necessary quota of palm trees, sharks and crosses
    –1012.42 Those that form part of great games
    –1012.43 Those that lead to the buried heart of some great deathless rogue of the fairy kingdom

9077 Systems of Government
 -9077.1 Government by random people
    –9077.11 Those whose parents also did the governing
       —9077.111 Somehow the populace are on board with this
    –9077.12 Those who have been appointed by some mystical authority
    –9077.13 Those who just sort of wandered in and started governing
 -9077.2 Government by whoever is best at shooting people
 -9077.3 Government by people who were actually voted for
    –9077.31 People who were voted for once and have managed to turn this into a perpetual mandate
    –9077.32 People who were voted for under a one party official, ten thousand votes system
    –9077.33 People who were voted for entirely legitimately on the basis of policies aimed at making the next electoral term awesome at the expense of the entire rest of the future
    –9077.34 People who were voted for entirely legitimately on the basis of policies aimed at making life awesome for the small number of people who bothered or were able to vote, at the expense of everyone else
    –9077.35 Governments genuinely interested in optimising welfare
       —9077.351 Engaged in perpetual arguments about the definition of optimising and the components of welfare
 -9077.4 Government by perpetual crisis
    –9077.41 In which democracy will totally be resumed as soon as the crisis is over
    –9077.42 In which democracy is still in place, but who would trust a country in crisis to those other people?
    –9077.43 In which the timing and winner of elections is largely governed by who has been impeached most recently
 -9077.5 Government by those who did a revolution
    –9077.51 In which democracy will totally be resumed after we’ve finished renaming streets, airports and cocktails after the date, heroes and symbols of the revolution
 -9077.6 Government by those who have the most stuff
    –9077.61 Additionally optimised towards making sure that more stuff goes to people who already have a lot of stuff
 -9077.7 Evanescent government by the beautiful and doomed
 -9077.8 Government by cats

7099 Things beneath the surface of the Earth

-7099.1 Caves and their inhabitants

   –7099.11 The sandy-bottomed caves of containable peril and their gentle, bucolic tour guides

   –7099.12 Sea caves that are full of old stories washed smooth and round

   –7099.13 Those caves that have hidden depths

   –7099.14 Caves that draw you in with the siren song of one more crystalline chamber or cathedral arch or echoing shaft or treasure chest or sheaf of crumbling paper, the call of the ancient and unseen, and they never quite deliver but just enough to keep you going back and back and back and back again, and the cave sits at the back of your dreams, working your subconscious like a machine to find new ways to corkscrew round that final obstruction, and it whispers that you will die there and somehow this does not seem so bad

   –7099.15 Pale beings with wormlike fingers, counting up time with their heartbeats until they can come up

   –7099.16 It’s just a cave you guys of course we can sleep here tonight what’s the worst that could happen?

-7099.2 Basements, cellars and holes and their inhabitants.

   –7099.21 Dingy and depressing flats

   –7099.22 The secret basements of billionaires

   –7099.23 Nuclear bunkers

-7099.3 Tunnels for human use

   –7099.31 Subway systems

-7099.3 Tunnels for animal use

   –7099.31 Lairs, dens and suchlike

   –7099.32 Things that look like caves but are actually unusually large gullets

   –7099.33 Things that look like caves but are actually unusually large orifices (non-gullet)

-7099.4 Tunnels for the use of eldritch beasts

   –7099.41 Those that run beneath Washington D.C.

-7099.5 Underground lakes

   –7099.51 Those that glow with a sinister light

   –7099.52 Those into which you have just dropped your camera

-7099.6 Buried items

   –7099.61 Alive

   –7099.62 Dead

   –7099.63 Schrodinger’s zombie and its fascinating friends

   –7099.64 Treasure

   –7099.65 Cheese and butter

-7099.7 Magma and suchlike

   –7099.71 The stuff at the very centre of the Earth

0330 Delightful objects

-0330.1 Those that fit precisely

   –0330.11 Objects that go into holes of the same size

   –0330.12 Objects that stack into neat shapes

-0330.2 Those that are exactly the right colour

   –0330.21 Those that form a rainbow when lined up

   –0330.22 Those that are a particularly good shade of a good colour

-0330.3 Those that are of great usefulness or value

   –0330.31 Things that are both useful and beautiful

   –0330.32 Things that do not delight in themselves, but are of high enough worth that one may sell them and purchase something delightful

   –0330.33 Things that may be used in the making of art

   –0330.34 Those that awaken within you a pleasant memory of the past

-0330.4 Those that cause delight to those you love

   –0330.41 Objects that cause a ripple of delight throughout humanity

-0330.5 Those that balance

   –0330.51 Piles of pebbles on top of each other

   –0330.51 Piles of other things on top of each other

-0330.6 Those that can be made to do a complex mechanical dance

-0330.7 Those that are artful tricks

   –0330.71 Those that trick the eye

   –0330.72 Those that are puzzles in which the mind can wander, caught up, for hours

-0330.8 Those that delight the senses

   –0330.81 Those that smell delightful

   –0330.82 Those that have a pleasing sound

   –0330.83 Those that are pleasant to touch

   –0330.83 Those that taste good

-0330.9 Those that have a satisfying weight

   –0330.91 Well-made tools

4421 Trees
 -4421.1 Seeds, saplings and young trees
    –4421.11 Those that are unfortunately eaten by squirrels
       —4421.111 Those that eventually grow from a mound of squirrel shit
    –4421.12 Those that have fallen from famous and notorious trees, and as a consequence are spread around the world by seekers of curious souvenirs
    –4421.13 Spindly saplings in deep shade
    –4421.14 Those that grow up plastic poles on the side of new roads
    –4421.15 Those that have found their own good place
 -4421.2 Mature trees
    –4421.21 Those that provide shade in a thunderstorm
        —4421.211 Trees that a thousand teenagers have kissed beneath and carved their names on
    –4421.22 Great old oak trees in the middle of cornfields
    –4421.23 Those that are the joyous haunt of birds
    –4421.24 Those grow at jagged angles on cliffs
 -4421.3 Living trees of great antiquity
    –4421.33 Merged together with treehouses of great complexity
    –4421.33 Those that have fallen into the arms of younger trees
    –4421.34 Those containing a startling array of snails
 -4421.4 Dead trees
    –4421.41 Hollow trunks with great beetle-y cavities within
    –4421.42 Fallen logs
    –4421.43 Carved into statues, poles or similar
    –4421.44 Carved into masks
    –4421.45 As planks and boards
       —4421.451 Treehouses
    –4421.46 As paper and cardboard
       —4421.461 The paper in books about trees
 —-4421.4611 The paper in books about books about trees
 -4421.5 Trees only existing in story, myth or legend
    –4421.51 Those that walk at night
    –4421.52 Those that eat people
    –4421.53 Those that steal books
       —4421.531 Those that steal books to mourn their relatives buried therein
       —4421.532 Those that steal books and casually read them
    –4421.54 Those that have fruit of peculiar potency
 -4421.6 Secret or mysterious trees
    –4421.61 Those that have treasure hidden beneath
    –4421.62 Those containing the hearts of ancient witches
 -4421.7 Trees existing partly or wholly outside our plane of existance
    –4421.71 Trees whose only human-perceptible part is the root
 -4421.8 Trees not covered by the previous categories