8 March 2010

I’m just going to take a small break from this frightful drafting exercise in order to reflect on the weekend that has just been. Ah, what a wonderful weekend it was in hindsight. I especially note the weather. I love discussing the weather. I love how banal it all is. I remember that I used to make a weather-related announcement when arriving at the office at my last job in order to elicit a discussion on the subject amongst my colleagues. Generally such discussion would continue for a good five minutes. As an experiment, I would also note changes in the weather over the course of the day and similar discussions would ensue. It was a quiet office. It was a polite office. It was just too charming for words.

The weather on the weekend was lovely. There was a terrible chill in the air and an incredibly blue sky. It felt as if tiny little ice particles hung in the air around you, stinging at your extremities. Everything had an almost grey hue to it. Delightful! And more delightful to be walking down Camden Road to do a little shopping in preparation for our little party.

Just past the station, a man who I had never seen before leaned out of his door and called my name. Well, it was Nick’s hairdresser, beckoning me in, shaking my hand and behaving generally the nicest hairdresser known to man (aside from my own hairdresser of course, who is nice in different ways but unfortunately not attracted to women, sigh).

Other highlights of the shopping trip include throwing my toys out of the pram at the electronic store and upsetting one of the sales assistants (she’ll be fine), spending little more than twenty pounds on household items in the second-hand stores and picking up a Liza Minnelli LP and a Cyndi Lauper LP! I’m going to the cabaret! But, I didn’t cry at my party. Perhaps I’ll cry at the next one.

The Sangria was a success. Who would have though that brandy and gin would ever make such a good team? Yes, I’m back off the wagon. Incidentally, you might have seen me puffing away at a fag or two this weekend. It’s been six months since I finished the book – I’ll have to read it again. At least it’s not twenty a day, right?

Right.

In fact, the Sangria was such a success that it really had people rather legless. Is that a success? I guess it is. What’s your measurement.

We are silly old monkeys, plying ourselves with stimulants and saying that it’s a good thing.

At one o’clock, we went to Proud Galleries where Sandro bought me a wine which, when I woke up the next morning was to be found in great splotches all over my body. Such was the insouciance of my dancing.

Once Proud shut down for the night, we had a shisha next door and at four o’clock I was back at home, falling over, knocking my head (the lump is incredible) and trying to clean up. What had gotten into me? Something that’s always there, I presume. Cleanliness.

Sunday was fine! Until I mixed paracetamol with aspirin. Apparently there is nothing wrong with this practice until I do it and then all hell breaks loose. I’m sure it was a near death experience. It reminded me of taking too many mushrooms in Thailand when I had to lock myself in our bungalow and try not to go insane for four hours. Not pleasant.

Well, this was odd! I’d lost all feeling in my body, my left arms started to tingle and writhe and then I lost my breath. Nick had to walk me to Boots for a pharmacist’s opinion. The pharmacist had a laugh in his eyes. So, I didn’t die.

Sometimes people have bad weeks. It comes like a wave. And remember, this week had started with the super-bug. I was heaving up my porridge for hours, whilst trying to move house. Each time the moving man took a box down to the truck, I’d rush into the bathroom and try to expel some more. By Monday it wasn’t coming up, but going down. I didn’t find this out until I had taken my tumble on the pavement and realised that I needed to get home fast before something sinister happened downstairs. I ran like the wind – but not like the aforementioned gazelle. It was more like an angry bear. There was a lot of panicking flailing.

Today is Monday. No doubt you already know. Today, I’ve started a new regime. It consists of running seven days a week at half past six in the morning and eating only raw fruit an vegetables. Sandra had this lovely meaty stewy goodness for lunch which smelt just divine whilst I sat here eating my way through a packet of snow peas. Harrowing.

Tonight, I have the lecture re the International Environment Court. Something that I’m sure won’t proffer any new information than that I learnt in my international law course but it makes me feel like I’m part of something big and then, I reflect further and feel like an ant. A very small one…

Perhaps, on the contrary, if I stay at home tonight and close all the blinds so that I can’t see the great boundless city of estates that I live in and forget that beyond those clouds is a vast and infinite universe I could feel exceedingly large instead.

Thoughts?

I’m at the office. I don’t listen to music at the office but I still have Echo and the Bunnymen in my head from this morning’s bus ride if that’s helpful.

And then I smile wistfully. Of course it’s not helpful. Such is the beauty of the blog.

Things that you might look forward to:

– The appointment with the BT engineer on Wednesday. This is when the blog goes live because we don’t have internet without a phone line. I’m throwing a release party on Wednesday night and I hope to see you there.

– The completion of the screen play which I am co-writing with Nick just as soon as I’ve picked up one of those How To Write guides. Having sat through the whole of the film War last night we decided that they had landed on a winning formula – obviously the same formula that all action movies adhere to – but it was the little things that made the difference. There was a Footloose inspired scene where, although Jason Stratham didn’t dance through an abandoned warehouse, he did go to the firing range and shoot his fury out of his pistol whilst flames and other angry images bounced up superimposed on his visage. It reminds one of that scene in The Simpsons “Lisa needs braces”, “dental plan”. Need I say more. This will be the third ironic hobby of 2010. Feel free to suggest any further ones that might spring to mind.

– The last day at work. This will be followed by a period of intense blogging about some darling activities. Why, there’s the van Doesburg and an assortment of other exhibitions and plenty more grand designs in store. It will, I hope also be a period of serious prose. I need to get this silly book written. It’s boring me. I’m also going to get that oil-painting underway. I’ll post pictures of the results – good, bad and despicably ugly will all be yours to purview.

It’s been swell. The law calls.