It often occurs to me that if we subjected animals to the claustrophobia, cigarette/weed fumes and extreme noise that is a drum’n'bass club night, the RSPCA would be kicking our asses for cruelty quicker than a dreadhead can say booyakasha. Fabric epitomized most of this abuse, bless it. We emerged aching, exhausted, and probably with long-term hearing damage, and Gareth and me exchanged our regular (and regularly broken) “I’m never going clubbing again” vows the next day at three in the afternoon having just managed to get out of bed, and until now sitting cross-legged is an exercise in pain, but hey, that’s all part of being young and reckless innit?
The rest of the weekend was spent with Alec, newly returned (and unsurprisingly wrecked) from his week in Ireland. Crappy Tesco’s dinner. People-watching Cafe 1001 breakfast. Trawls through Rokit and The Laden Showroom. Strong temptation to buy a “Single Robot Looking For Love” T-shirt/panty set, but eventual resistance because it wasn’t worth £18. Excursion to Argos for bookcase, much love for poor Alec who had to carry it back to my flat. Mass. Pig-out at KFC. Omid Djalili: Behind Enemy Lines at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Sounds like a lot, but didn’t feel like enough, on saying good night.
As weeks go this one has been a bit of a badly done barbecue. On the outside there’s dessication (too much wine, tea and Coke, too little liquid with actual hydrating ability) and a host of gnawing problems (organizing my room and various personal administrative errands). On the inside there are underattended induction lectures and unmaximised time, mostly wasted in lazy mornings, shameless freshers’ fayre trawling, and reading of trash (Tony Parsons, this means you); stick a fork in it, and it’ll dribble pink.
Music buying opportunities, though, have as usual been fully exploited, perhaps overly so. It Was Hot We Stayed In The Water (Microphones) and Compassion (Broadway Project) are on the way from Django. Sea Change (Beck) is coming from CD Wow. Benny tells me he’s sorted out DJ Shadow tickets, and I’m on the case for the Sigur Ros ones.
I could write more but I must leave to get ready for yet another jaunt to Fabric, which will do little for my dehydration, debilitating music addiction, or weak prioritizing ability, but will hopefully help with my aerobic fitness if nothing else.
There is a bumper crop of beautiful words at Poetry Daily, which I disobediently visit only weekly, but which is almost always a veritable wellspring of names I’ve never heard of, writing words I wish I could write.
Some recent enjoyments:
Love (Aaron Fagan)
Bermuda (Billy Collins)
Gate C 22 (Ellen Bass)
Star (Danielle Dutton)
September 24, 02 | Uncategorized |
Tags: poetry
The holidaying this year was rather different from last year. Ireland with my parents was pleasantly luxurious even if immensely trying at times. I’d forgotten how nice it is not having to share a room with 25 other backpackers and their assorted smells and nocturnal burblings, and the parental food budget was certainly far more nourishing than mine usually is. The tradeoff for this luxury was having to toe the tourist trail line - service staff treating us with an air of contemptuous sufferance, gimmicky stops like Blarney Castle, and way too much colcannon.
But the tour had its moments. At the Bunratty Castle medieaval banquet thingy (also gimmicky but fairly fun), my mother, in mead-filled merriment, started telling the guy in tights how gorgeous he was; later, when he announced to the “guests” that bands of roving brigands were apparently heading for the castle to rape and pillage, she exclaimed “Oh, goody!” I buried my face in my hands and surreptitiously finished off the rest of the mead.
On a guided tour it is easy to begin to take for granted the fact that there will be a roof over your head at night. In light of this, Spain with Alec was indeed a change, given that the only things we booked in advance were air tickets. In trying to find accomodation we therefore soon became very familiar with certain Spanish phrases, most of them ranging from completo to completo, fuck off. But all hiccups were ultimately muddled through without having to resort to “romantic” nights on the beach or me pretending to be pregnant with the next Christ, so all turned out well in the end, yay us.
It appears that September is the quietest month, at least where this blog is concerned. Last year I spent most of September in Greece and Turkey, this year I’ve been in Ireland and Spain, and in general both Septembers have been exceptionally weak in terms of entry quality and quantity here. It’s not a situation I pride myself on, but what’s done is done, and from now on I should be well able to resume the regular programme of solipsist musings and unnecessarily detailed breakdowns of my time and money management, or lack thereof, that readers of this blog have no doubt become used to.
Phew. I was fairly worried I’d lost whatever legal mind I’d ever had over the summer, but by God this is proof I can still write the long convoluted sentences.
Today has been designated official Shit Moving Day.
The enema will begin from Russ’s attic, potentially include Alec’s bedroom floor, and ultimately end in my new flat.
There are far too many dumb cracks (oops, there goes the first one) I could be making here about loads, piles, boxes, messes, etc. but I’ll hold back. Recently I inadvertently disgusted Alec when, while talking about the latest cast lineup for the Vagina Monologues, I described it as “really scraping the bottom of the barrel.” Perhaps I should try to move myself on to higher forms of wit.
Graduated on Tuesday. Left for Ireland with parents on Wednesday. Fairly insane by today.
They’ve been here since Friday, which is my excuse for this silence. I wish I had time enough to talk of many things: graduation, house-hunting, stupid Americans and gorgeous Ireland to name but a few, but I don’t have time to even begin on any of them, let alone get to questions of cabbages and kings. I’ll try and get something in here when I get back to London on Thursday, but given that I have to sort out extending my student visa and moving my shit into the new flat before I leave for Spain two days later, entries may be fairly sparse here for a bit. I hate priorities.
