Extery IX

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday,
And that was the

end of Solomon Grundy.

George Orwell wrote that.

Because clever people sometimes don't just write about pressing and serious cultural matters. Sometimes they just write shit. Probably on opium. Yeah, opium. You heard.

I drank too much tea

Intense cramming for much belated heap of coursework I need to have done for tomorrow. I've done as much as I can with my current knowledge and am left a burnt out shivering wreck for the evening. Not being a coffee drinker I figured I'd need something equivalent to double the average coffee drinkers dosage of tea to get me by on the work, but unfortunately I was basing this calculation off of Molly...

Did you know if you drink enough tea it closely mimics the effects of amphetamines? Did you also know it will make you feel like utter, utter shit even as it happens? Despite slumping in a pit of self loathing softly flavoured with bergamont I managed to reel off massive amounts of work (undoubtedly mostly second rate, but at least it's done) before running back and forth from the toilet like an incontinent with Alzheimer's and stumbling blearily into things. I'm not even that tired, I could have easily done this without caffeine. I basically murdered my bladder for shits and giggles. I remember when I used to be hardcore - now I chow down on caffeine and bitch about my pissing. Sigh.

Anyway, aside from that not much to report. Catching up on the uni work I fucked last term, I guess, is about it. Had Jess round last weekend, which was nice even if I did spend the whole of two days in bed with her. We're pretty lazy like that :)

Going home to Hastings for this weekend, gonna catch up with the gang including, rarities of rarities, Merlin! :D

Anyway my loves, I must away. Good night to all :)

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A text I got from Codie

Hi.

I love James! Say hey to Jess from me!

Isn't being in love wonderful?

I am in love. I know you are too. :)

YAY!

xxx

Sleeping Patterns? Sorted. Sorta.

Welp, I now sleep before dawn and wake up before afternoon, which is a SOUND improvement :)

I'm never sure what to report these days. These always seemed less like a chance to report my goings on and more a chance to give the internet a chance to ascertain my personality. Fuck knows what I expected the internet to do with it, but it felt nice to kinda talk to yourself and most of the world at the same time :)

Which I guess is what I'm doing now. It has this weird feeling of total privacy and total openness. Anyone could stumble on this anytime and guess half my life, and anytime my friends log in they've got anything I've said lately staring at them. But on the other hand this rarely addresses itself to anyone. Gah. I'm to self-contradictory and muse-y; I just finished an essay. Well anyway, I've been drinking beer and wine casually. Absurdly casually, it was an afterthought to occasionally take a sip. I barely even noticed getting a little tipsy, and I feel that if I had I would have quickly progressed to drunk.

As it is I'm going to leave a beer and two thirds of a bottle of red for some other time and sleep only a little more soundly than usual, which suits me just fine :)

You know, I've been getting back into rather old-me-style music lately - the types that I didn't know but should have two to three years back sorta thang. Frightened Rabbit is one. Also my appreciation of The Postal Service has finally warmed into an all out gentle love, took a long time that one. Along with a few sceptical looks at Jess as she tried to sell me on them... You won in the long run, Jess ;p

What do you think, internet? :)

Yeah, I think it's fairly pretty too :)

Oh, I got a twelve string geetar for Christmas. For those of you not in the know, it's a magic box that makes noise. And twelve strings turn the traditional 'brang' into a 'brreeeaaaiiiiinnnggg', a vast improvement; it has at LEAST five more vowels. And musical notes need to be mostly about vowels in my opinion ;p

You know, I'm mildly tempted to complain again about all my friends being everywhere, but I think I've done that to death so I'll do the nice version:

I'm getting visits. Alex every Thursday, Ishan on the weekends and every other Thursday and Jess (my Jess, not the Jess I was addressing a moment ago, although it'd be nice to see her too) as fucking often as I humanly can :D

Next Thursday in fact Jess (again mine. Actually, fuck it, from now on my Jess will be 'Squirrel' and not-mine-but-still-my-AWESOME-friend Jess will be Messius :) ) is visiting along with many others, but she stays for several days :)

There will be laughs and merriment and wine. Then the others will trail away and leave my Squirrel and I alone.

And there will be more laughs and more merriment and more wine, because that's just how we are.

We may even dance. :)

Goodnight my loves, it's been a pleasure as ever!

Nunight my shizzly fizzly bizzly biatches ;p

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Autumnal Guest

I came home in the autumn to find a guest at my table.

The light warmth of the ambrosia sun was seeping,
In through the window cracks with the pertinence of honey dew.
The perpetual red sunset of the autumnal sky fading but not gone,
In the hours when night falls early but slowly,
As if haunted by an indifferent indecisiveness regarding the time of day,
My erstwhile companion was waiting for me at the table,
Dressed in a pale beige coat with a red plaid shirt beneath,
Wearing gold rimmed glasses with lenses cut of rose quartz he smiled,
And beckoned me in,
And asked me to sit.

Nostalgia asked me if I wanted perhaps a drink,
Reaching into a cotton carrier bag as he did so.
I thought I wanted whisky, but he smiled knowingly and shook his head,
And informed me, correctly, that I wanted a glass of red wine and a shot of vodka,
He poured both drinks, one of each for the pair of us, and reclined easily in his chair.
I started on the wine, which was fine but cheap and strong,
Which I of course related to him pleasantly, bringing a smile to his weathered lips,
And he spoke of my mother, and how she grinned in the kitchen with such glasses as these in hand,
How in the cold of winter the heat of the radiator, the drink and the stews had permeated the house,
How in the summer I sat with her in the garden or the expansive front room,
On the warm red rug would rest the bottle and two friends,
Invariably one of mine and one of hers, I laughed along with Nostalgia as he spoke.

He asked if I wanted music, and I told him I did,
I thought I wanted to hear Mischief Brew, the latest band to take my fancy,
But he informed me, correctly, that I wanted to hear The Shins again, since I knew all the words.
With the wine down to the bottom he refilled my glass from a different bottle,
And set another glass down filled with some deeper red, familiar in scent and shading,
So I took it from him and drunk it again as I listened to him talk once more.

He told me how the deep red and the faint hint of foulness in its taste beautifully contradicted the sweetness of the songs,
And I could not help but agree as he elabourated.
He spoke this time of two headstrong lads, intoxicated on an endless possibility of youth,
He spoke of the reckless glee of testosterone teenagers,
How the fury of confusing adolescence had been channelled into childish excitement,
How they did their best to do away with the rage and sadness that was the curse of their age,
And he spoke of how they succeeded.
He spoke of how one could not handle cider and the other dark rum,
And he spoke of the few ‘incidents’ that steered them from their respective devils.
He spoke of how they lived so wildly, took such impossible risks and received such impossible rewards,
Of how they threw themselves into the wildest moments of wreckhead insanity and emerged unscathed,
Of how they overcame their differences by simply choosing not to have them,
He spoke of platonic love and pure camaraderie.

By this point, my eyes were a little damp and he suggested we change the music and have another drink,
Quick to agree, I told him I wanted to listen to Evil Nine, something with bass to break the beat,
But he informed me, correctly, that I wanted to listen to Ani Difranco instead, because I loved her voice.
I reached for the vodka, but he moved it away, replacing it with yet another glass of wine.
This one was deep in colour, deeper still than the last, and had the smell of distinction about it,
It’s thick, dark quality betraying its owner a connoisseur of some kind,
I sipped it and was moved, after the foul tang of the last it was almost sublime.

I considered conveying to Nostalgia my approval, but he had already begun to speak,
And this time he spoke of a girl, though not in the way you might think.
He spoke of some perfect creature, some indefinable being of immense worth,
He spoke of her walking about the roads down to the beaches,
He spoke in praises of her immense talent with strings and her voice and how the boy had just begun the struggling ascent of learning such things,
He spoke of how they fell headfirst but landed on their feet, running with laughter and grass between their toes.
He spoke of walking beneath the trees and of the constant position each held steadying the other,
He spoke of dependence but also of affection and of how they had found what they needed,
And he spoke at last of the times each defended the other, from predation and foolishness, especially from folly.

Nostalgia noted the ended record and empty glasses, and told me to switch the records whilst he switched the drinks.
I told him I wanted to listen to Kwoon, something new and beautiful to fit the mood,
But he informed me, correctly, that I wanted to listen to Chumbawamba instead.
Unlike the reds of before, this time he poured rose,
The bottle was corked and had a price label on the side, proudly proclaiming it the produce of Londis,
And marking it at the grand price of £2.50 a bottle.

As I put the glass to my lips (and was greeted with the scent of vinegar and chemicals),
He reclined despite the blatant intent of the music to rouse and spoke again.
He spoke of hedonistic boys and girls with a tenner and a deathwish,
Craving cheap wine and cheap thrills, with laughter writ on their faces and youth in their breath,
He spoke of how they fell into some delirious, drunken state of mutual love,
And never left.
He spoke of how they threw up into toilet rims whilst the music pounded the walls and doors,
He spoke of how they collapsed into each other’s arms, smelling of vinegar and love,
Besotted, besozzled and beyond repair, he spoke of how they grappled with Youtube,
Pulling up the next tune, for the heartfelt moment where they serenaded one another with half remembered choruses,
And he spoke of a love so strong between friends that it felt discriminatory to even entertain it.

This fourth glass empty, this third record played I was feeling quite tired, and I told Nostalgia as much.
One more drink, he promised, just the vodka and one more record to be played,
So I told him I wanted Radiohead and for once he agreed,
I went to play In Rainbows, but he stayed my hand and demanded instead Hail to the Thief,
Which as it happened I was rather fond of, so I acquiesced.
With the wine glass unfilled, I was reluctant to now move onto a harder drink,
But he indicated the vodka and I slammed back the shot with no small degree of reluctance,
Feeling the familiar sting and burn of the cheapest way to drink and the cheapest way to go,
There was a tightening in my gut, and a spread of warmth in my being not quite pleasant enough to dispel the feeling of nausea.

As I grimaced, Nostalgia spoke of something else, but this time he spoke of only one thing
A boy sitting amidst his fellows during the earlier sunrise of tumultuous teenage years,
A boy maybe fourteen, eventually fifteen, who sat in the sand and the grass on the cliffs of his hometown,
Slugging vodka from the bottle as he was intoxicated and infatuated with youthful pride,
He spoke of how the boy fell in and out of the grasping equivalent of love,
He spoke of that mad infatuation that grips the mind in a flighty, momentary insanity,
That iron tailed dove that swoops down occasionally in age, but haunts you in youth,
He called it ‘Infatuation’ and a usurper of love, but I found these terms crude.
He spoke of a boy who grew, and found love and purpose eternally only to lose them endlessly,
And he smiled with every word.

By this point, I was about done for the night,
Nostalgia smiled at me as the last record stuttered to a halt,
The ending notes of the album falling in line with his final pertinent point,
And I reluctantly told him to pour another drink whilst I changed the album,
To both of which he said ‘no’, and advised me sit once more.

He had one more story to tell, of some ancient but unforgotten childhood brilliance.
He told of the oldest friends, thirteen years in office with a cross index of each other at hand,
He told of how they moulded and created each other through their years,
He told of endless forests and of stinging nettles yet to feel their wrath,
Of bluebell fields begging to be found and noted,
Of a rock sighing to become a castle,
And a tree to become a god.
He told of such childish things, and of such enduring eternity of memory that I almost wished he had another drink on hand after all,
To steady my nerves after the richness of his narrative.

He asked me to play him a song,
And by this late point I found myself more than willing to indulge him.
I told him I wanted to play Blackbird as he handed me the guitar,
But he informed me, correctly, that I wanted to play Wish You Were Here.
He asked if he could stay the night.

In the morning, I went through to the guest bedroom and was unsurprised to find Nostalgia gone.
The duvet was peeled back but otherwise the bed was made,
Where he had lain there was instead a handful of autumn leaves, a twig and a cooked chestnut,
A yew berry, a toffee apple, a handful of love letters,
Twelve locks of hair and a pair of rose tinted glasses, and I knew for sure that I would miss him