Cough Mixture, Library Love, Unfortunate Wording, Coming To America
Wednesday: waking up hacking in the morning, late scrambling and gulping of cough mixture (note to self: don’t mention this to mum, she’ll think it’s anthrax), eyes glazing over in public international law seminar, thinking it was just the seminar, leaving the building and walking home with eyes that just wouldn’t unglaze, deciding, stupored, that I really should sleep this off before playing the organ for Benediction and screwing up, waking up two hours later and realizing that Benediction wasn’t till today, general amusement that I’d somehow managed to get stoned on cough mixture.
In the library, English section first as usual (another Seamus Heaney collection, selected poems of Paul Auster, The Old Man And The Sea), then the law library with its rickety desks and wheezing seats, squinting along jurisprudence shelves where all the books are old and matt-covered and endearingly musty, raised eyebrows at Austin, unexpectedly charmed at Bentham (he refers to Blackstone only as “the Author” as he rips the piss out of him).
Hot dog supper in the bar at home, awkward intermittent nibbling while listening to a pro-life counsellor talk about her work in the movement, eyes popping momentarily when my chaplain asked a question about the usefulness of advertising her network in Catholic periodicals which involved the unfortunate phrasing “What comes out the other end?”, face hurriedly straightened because no one else seemed to notice it, berating self for sick mind.
Slouching around in the bar after that, Van Morrison on the speakers, Tay (previously mentioned as mad composer dude, now probably deserving of name) inexplicably launching into Greatest Love Of All, me wondering why but still perfectly willing to join him in belting out “They can’t take away MAH DIG-NI-TEEEEE!” (and here Matt observes that we manage that quite well on our own), me asking if anyone’s seen Coming To America, Tay going wild with “Yeah, man! Yeah, man!”s, Emma coming in to find both of us shrieking “Y’all give it up for mah band Sexual Chocolate!” and instantly making the connection, then all three of us repeating lines from the film at each other, laughing insanely, and I got an acute case of the hiccups.