Booze, bakes and board games.

Well. I have stopped drinking. For a month (8 days as I write this). I haven't posted in a while which is a pity because I've been going kinda nuts and it might have made interesting reading.

Why?

I am not doing it for lent! I am doing it out of a combination of frustration and curiosity. Frustration at how board I am at constantly being wasted and feeling ill. Curiosity because I have no idea how I'm going to feel in a month.

How?

Well I purchased and borrowed many board games, tobbacco and fruit tea. I figured these would be a fun (if a little cliched & geeky) set of distractions. I particularly enjoyed playing a game made by the Oxford dictionary people where you have to guess the meanings or spellings of obsqure words. I played that with Rob, Mat, Han and Ryannon until half past five in the morning. By which point we were so tired and baked that it became an enormous mental task just to work out if the number on the dice was odd or even. This brings me to perhaps the biggest hurdle. Sleeping.

Sleeping has never been a strong point of mine. At least if I'm pissed up I can achieve a comatose state with reletive ease. Day 1 I didn't achieve any form of sleep at all. Day 2 I was increadably tired and slept the normal 8 hours. Day three didn't sleep at all again and was really pissed off. Previously when dealing with insomnia I had had the bright idea of visiting the local pharmacy to procure some sleeping tablets. The highly morally responsible girl at the desk would only give me a herbal remedy. Fair enough. I supposed I should try them first as sedetives have a bit of a rep. However my scepticism (rightly) grew as on closer inspection the label revealled "may cause drowsiness". Only if you're lucky. On day 4 I went to Boots who prooved to have far fewer qualms in giving me real sleeping tablets. Just out of interest these didn't do much either.

Ratrace.

This board game definately needs a mention. It was Lenny's dad's and is from the 1970s. As such the instructions are written in the form "when he rolls the dice...". I took an instant liking to the un-PC nature of this game. The idea is to move up the social ladder scoffing at those below you as you go. The game is similar in appearance to Monopoly and a lot more fun. You can blow money at the racetrack, invest in shares, marry into higher classes and dump your friends at the social club behind. Then you can loose it all to a divorce or the tax "man". Brilliant.

Anyhow apart from this theres nothing much to say. As a consequence of being sober I've found myself doing strange and wonderful things that are actually connected with my degree like reading from textbooks and journals. Unfortunately I can't see you guys being interested in experiments on sea slugs (Aplysia) that provide a genetic and and biochemical basis for the mechanisms of learnig and memory. I'm right aren't I?

I will end on one more potentially useful nugget of information. Any of you looking for a strong herbal tea that actually tastes as good as it smells......

Twinings lemon and ginger. You heard it here first. Now you think i'm a hippy.

Topic turkey poem

I've had quite an uninspiring week but thankfully Paula, Kate and Lemmy have have taken some inspiration from the news.

James, You Came Too Quickly, It Was Over Too Soon. (By Paula, Kate and Lemmy)

Wipe off my mud flaps, clear off the mess
Will I ever get your cum stains off my dress?
Long, dangly and dirty & I don't mean your cock
Have a posh wank, heres a clean sock

Wet your middle finger, play some strokes
Use your anal beads if your one of "them" blokes
9.35 Still choking your turkey
Didn't realise your mum brought you tea at 9.30

Bernard Mathews says sorry but what will you do?
How were you to know you'd give me turkey flu?
Serve up sunday lunch and all the little critters
I've got a whole epidemic going on in my knickers

Nagatha Krusti? Well, I had to peel it off.
5 mile exclusion zone, my pussy got a cough
No gobble gobble, no sucky 10 dollar
Singe of your pubes and watch you holla

A finger in the arse is worth two in the bush
A full paxo stuffing can make a girl blush
Luckily for you we are not that shy
But a stew of your giblets would be an offal suprise

You turkey wobble wotsit going in for the kill
Vago spasmosis cuz it made me feel ill
So its up to the J.R. to prise us apart
At the point of dislodge, I emit a lady fart

Oh James you only care about breast and leg
Take your eye off the bird, concentrate on the keg.

Lazy

I've given this some thought. I originally mentioned what i did yesterday to Axel whilst at work. I have been feeling a little guilty about how I had been wasting my time by being unproductive, unhealthy and generally wasting the worlds resources. After a quick chat with Axel and I could see it from a different perspective; namely that it was quite cool. I did so very little yesterday that I can tell you in great deal about the whole day in one paragraph. And a paragraph is quite small.

In response to the innocuous question "How was your day?".....

Well I exited the old REM sleep and entered the strange realm of conciousness. I stayed in bed. Scratched an itch (not meant as a euphamism) and pondered taking care of personal hygenine. I lay in bed some more. I reached to over to the computer and went to a web site for streaming free films. I watched half of Terry Pratchet's "Hogfather". (As a quick tangent I will state here that the film was fucking awful. I only watched it because it was listed in the "fantasy" genre and I generally like these. I now feel no guilt that I have ripped off anyone who had anything to do with it because it sucked like a Dyson on heat).

Damn I broke my one paragraph promise after a slight rant. Sorry. Anyhow I pondered the prospect of breakfast. My choice of breakfast was the result of millions of years of evolution.... our bodies and taste buds crave fat because in more hostile times it was a precious resource.... anyhow I reached over to the computer again and ordered Dominos pizzasss. There was an offer on that enabled you to purcase 3 customised, delicous culinary discs of pleasure at a reduced price. "Yes". I figured that this was a minimal outlay of effort resulting in the maximal carorific reward. I bet Ray Mears would have approoved; making the best of the natural resources available to me. You can probably tell I feel a little guilty about simultaneously ordering 3 Dominos pizzas for myself because of the length I've gone to justify it.

I was still in last nights teeshirt and boxers so I decided to expend some effort and shower after all. I didn't want the pizza man to view the kind of life i was living by answering the door, half dressed at 2pm, in order to receive 3 pizzas. The pizzas arrived and my external dignity was in tact. I carried them up to my bed. I pressed play, resumed the Hogfather and began eating. This arrangement - eating in bed with a film - had an added benefit of not allowing me to concentrate fully on the afformentioned piece of shit movie. After the film (and my days of low blood pressure/cholesterol) were over I had a snooze. An alarm I thoughtfully set for 5pm woke me up in time for me to walk to work and regale Axel with this tale of slovenly glutton. As Axel looked mildly envious rather than disgusted I realised this was not something to be ashamed of but should be celebrated. I bet if i told him about the day I found myself drinking wine, browsing porn sites in one window, playing internet poker in another window and this at 3pm he would have been borderline disgusted. And I would have been condemned to hell by all major religions.

One kind act

Today i went for a walk because it was snowing. I had a hangover so i really wasn't feeling sociable. I walked into town in kind of a daze, as i'm prone to doing. I found myself on a busyish road near the university museum of natural histrory. Plenty of academic types toing and froing with their minds focused on cures for cancer, rocket science and at that time of day probably lunch too. I started getting a bit grumpy, as i'm prone to doing. As I say I was hung over and by now lots of happy couples sporting pasminas and smug smiles started making eye contact with me. Their eyes were saying: Ha! I'm sober. So is my beautiful rich lady here. Shes reading medicine, don't you know? Last night we discussed quantum theory before sushi and orgasms. You didn't! You just worked in the Star and got pissed didn't you? Ha! Knew it! You sad, pathetic, lonely wanker! I probably read too much meaning into these half arsed glimpses from innocent passers by. But hey! I'm prone to doing that. Anyhow for whatever reason I was actually in quite a bad mood.

What happened next really cheered me up. I guess I looked quite dishevelled. I already explained that it was snowing. I was not dressed appropriately. I was wearing cords and a hoodie. These are materials not renowned for there water repelling properties. I was wearing a scarf. It was black when i set out but by now was speckled with highly contrasting white. You know, the colour of snow. My dazed amblings were interupted by a pedestrian crossing. The very people I had overtly ignored and briskly passed by moments earlier drew level with me.

A woman turned to me. She was well dressed, sucessful looking. Probably not thinking about rocket science but about how she was going to invest in junk bonds right after watching "Working lunch". Capitalist bitch! She turned to me....

"Do you want my umbrella, you must be freezing?" she said.

I inwardly smiled and politely declined; I was quite warm.