When we left our hero...
Hey All,
If I remember correctly, I had just arrived at STJ and was dancing in an exuberant manner on a near empty dancefloor.
Just for fun I was wearing my two-tone brogues, which I haven't worn out in quite a while, partially because I wasn't sure that I would be able to wear them in Leytonstone without getting chased down the street by blood-thirsty chavs.
In any case, I wasn't used to dancing without serious ankle support, and at some point I near twisted my ankle and went down. The ankle was actually fine (rather than sprain it again my muscle memory made the executive decision that falling on my arse in front of everone was better than another six weeks of hobbling about), but as I landed the palm of my hand was cut by a stud on the cuff of my denim jacket.
And before you all ask, the reason I was wearing a denim jacket in an industrial club was that the club was cold, since there weren't enough people there to warm up the space.
The hand was a little bruised, it didn't bleed too much, I washed it under the sink and got a gauze pad to put on it from the bar (they were out of bandaids, I blame the Kung-Fu Dancing Hardcore kids). I sat out of couple of songs to let the bleeding stop, the rejoined the dancefloor, even if I did engage in what Brad Pitt calls Pocket Acting (ie keeping your injured hand in your jacket pocket and pulling focus with the other one - watch Se7en to see if you can spot it).
Slowly the club filled out to about half full, an almost repectable number. And I kept dancing.
Later on my friend Sean would comment 'You were really going for it early on.' Which made me smile, since I'm the kind of person that sometimes lets perfectionism discourage me (if that makes sense), whereas sometimes you get respect for just going for it.
Other highlights included a mashup of Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani and Headhunter by Front 242 (which bizarrely worked really well), and a entertaining conversation with Alex B's girlfriend Na'ama.
After the club I wasn't formally invited back to the Slab, but I figured that if I looked hard enough a way back would present itself. That way back came in the form of a South Afrikan girl named Louise, who was the sister of Lorenz, one of those that live at the Slab. Louise had been left behind by her brother because she hadn't retrieved her coat fast enough and was freaking out. First because she didn't know where to go, then she couldn't find her phone. My friend Sean was sweet-talking a German Girl nearby and was slighly flabbergasted that someone would take his sister to a club and then leave them behind afterwards. As such he called Lorenz, and when that didn't work, he called one of Lorenz's friends, who gave Lorenz a serve.
Louise eventually found her phone (strangely enough, after it had been ringing for over a minute), talked to her brother in Afrikaans and we all jumped in a cab back to the Slab. Let it be noted that while I initially found Louise attractive, her completely bipolar nature and her abilility to behave as a destructive force of nature put her firmly in the 'Avoid Like the Plague' file.
Anyone who's reading this and knows my past relationship history is probably thinking 'If she is crazy enough to discourage Jason from taking an interest, this must really have been a nutbar.' And yes, they would be right.
Anyways, I spent most of Sunday chilling in the living room at the slab, listening to music of someone's PC, reading a copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable etc. At some point Louise expressed surprise that I didn't have a girlfriend. When I asked why, she told me that I seemed to be a person with my life together, and she would expect me to. While she claimed that relationships for her never worked out because her boyfriends complained that she was too distant.
I bit my tongue, deciding it unwise to say 'I think you'll find your boyfriends broke up with you because you're completely insane. Not eccentric, not highly strung, not high-spirited and not prone to occaisional melancholy, I think you're rubber-room material. Moon-torn. Manic-Depressive. Pants-on-the-head, strapped-to-the-bed, Arkham Asylum insane.'
Sean had earlier mentioned that Lorenz wasn't the most even-tempered type either. Nothing I saw on Sunday contradiced that. Louise eventually left with someone else, and I was quietly glad she wasn't going to spill any more drinks on me or moan about how she needs to find a husband in the next three months or the government will deport her back to South Afrika.
Somewhere between Morning and Afternoon I took a short nap. Chris and one or two others turned up soon after. Discussions of video games, music, Chris DJ-ing for five hours straight and other topics ensued. As night was falling the inevitable drunken political debate began, which was rather entertaining, followed by stories of our grandparents war experiences.
About 8 PM I left the house to catch the bus to the tube, and the tube to Leytonstone. Nenad and his Austrian Berliner friend Clarissa were amused to see me arrive home after nine.
At about 7 AM yesterday I woke up fully dressed with the light on in my room.
Having had such an incredible weekend, I figured that the only thing I could do to make it better would be to have an incredibly productive week, so I jumped in the shower and planned my next move.
First I spent an hour or so going through all the flyers in my jacket and coat pockets and picking out the events that I wanted to go to. I chatted to Clarissa while doing this, answering her questions about where the tube station was etc. Clarissa, in addition to being a seasoned traveller, is also an artist and is thinking about going back to art school. She left to go into London to look at something or other.
After I updated my diary I watched the news on one of the TV stations before gathering up some documents and heading to the Leytonstone Job Centre with a view to signing on. As I might have mentioned before, the money is secondary to the resources to help me find an interesting job.
At the Job Centre I picked up a small magazine with a list of vacancies. It was nearly a week old, but I did find it amusing that it advertised several courses to teach someone how to be a locksmith, focussing on lock picking skills. Hmm. Just the thing to teach the unemployed. The logic of London's local government escapes me sometimes.
I eventually plucked up the cojones to ask the people at the front desk what I had to do to sign on, whereupon they gave me a phone number to call, and pointed me to a set of complementary phones.
Press A. Answer qustions. Pick up forms on the way out. Neato.
Since my route home took me past the local NHS Primary care facility, I figured it was high time I signed on to my local GP as well. Same deal: talk to receptionist, she gave me some forms and an appointment for 1330 today (Tuesday).
Emboldened, I tried to sort out how to send a money order to a friend's magazine in Brisbane so that they could send me a copy, but the Post Office girl was unhelpful. I decided to try another post office when I had the chance.
On the way back up the Leytonstone High Road I bought some wooden broomsticks, a cheap hacksaw and some black mini-tapes. The broomsticks were to brace the ever-bending supports on the clothes horse, the hacksaw to cut the broomsticks and the tapes from my dictaphone recorder, since I only really have the one tape.
I dropped my loot at the flat then took the tube to Stratford, where I returned Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb and went looking for The Mad Ship (part two in the trilogy). I couldn't, so I used the PCs to put in a request and borrowed out a book by Iain M Banks instead. I still haven't started reading it yet, but I'll be interested to see if it is any good.
Back to Leytonstone. Net Cafe => Blog => get turfed out at 9pm => go home and watch Life on Mars season Finale.
Unfortunately Nenad and Clarissa were talking loudly about Clarissa's adventures in Central and South America (includin falling through a Glacier onto an an ice-bridge in a crevasse in Bolivia), so it made it really hard to immerse myself into the show, but I still managed to follow most of it.
My Mother called from Australia just after that, amusingly while Nenad was explaining to Clarissa the phenomenon of the Page Three Girl in English Tabloids. It was great to hear from Mum.
My mother also mentioned that My is having trouble printing out my blog because of the light type on a dark background (which, let's face it, is pretty bad design on my part in any case). So I said that I would email instructions for a solution, which I'm going to do now.
If anyone else is having this problem (or they just can't read the type on the page) try this:
1. Select the text using the mouse.
2. Copy the text using the Control-C function (apple C on a Mac)
3. Open a new document in Word, or Freehand or your favourite word processing programme.
4. Use the Paste Function (Control-V or Apple-V) to copy the text to the document.
5. Print or read as you would.
6. Rejoice!
I watched Prison Break with Nenad and Clarissa, then some of the News and some of The Mighty Boosh, before heading up to my room to read magazines.
That's Monday over.
Today:
Went to the NHS Medical centre to meet the Nurse. Notably occurences: it turns out that I have low-blood pressure. Which is weird, because I always figured that we Logans were hypertension personified. The Nurse saw that I had dry lips and extrapolated out that I might not be drinking enough water, and therefore my blood volume might be affected. She also told me to eat more vegetables.
Urine Sample? Piece of Piss (sorry, you know I couldn't pass up the opportunity).
Finished by three.
Next up: check out the Leytonstone Library, which is currently covered in Scaffolding inside and out. It makes the library look like a bookish Einsturzende Neubauten video clip.
Chris and I had engaged on a lengthy discussion of Michael Moorcock on Sunday, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of Moorcock books in the Fantasy Section. Which was right next to the Romance Section. Weird.
Tube to Stratford to put £50 into my soon-to-be direct debited by British Telecom HSBC account. It took much less time than usual. Hit the stalls to buy some bannanas, grapes and apples. Stopped at WH Smith to buy doodle paper. Discovered a copy of Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard for 99p and decided to pick it up. Chatted to Alex the Cashier with the Runes tattooed to her wrist. Tube to Leytonstone.
Dropped the fruit at Leytonstone and sawed one broomstick into three pieces, hampered a little by the total lack of ergonomic design on the hacksaw. Used wire to bind the broomstick pieces in place. Nice. One side down, other side to go.
And finally down to the street level to finish writing this blog.
In the next two days I have to fill out the forms I got from the Job Centre. I'm also going to be writing and reading some more.
I've been considering the importance of the over-arching meta-narrative in my fiction (and possibly non-fiction) lately, not the least because of all the fascinating themes I've been finding in Robin Hobb's work. Further consideration was prompted by Chris when he complained to Sean and I that while he isn't offended by violence and gore in and of itself, Wolf Creek seems to be violence, cruelty, gore and general nastiness without any real point.
This came out of a discussion between Chris, Sean and I regarding the Grand Theft Auto games.
Thanks to Nenad putting up Clarissa for four days, I might now have a place to crash in Berlin if I fly over there. Neato.
Random thoughts: I've been experimenting with a goattee these past few days, but I think it just makes me look scruffy. I'm also overdue for a haircut.
But for now, I'm going home.
Over and out.
J
If I remember correctly, I had just arrived at STJ and was dancing in an exuberant manner on a near empty dancefloor.
Just for fun I was wearing my two-tone brogues, which I haven't worn out in quite a while, partially because I wasn't sure that I would be able to wear them in Leytonstone without getting chased down the street by blood-thirsty chavs.
In any case, I wasn't used to dancing without serious ankle support, and at some point I near twisted my ankle and went down. The ankle was actually fine (rather than sprain it again my muscle memory made the executive decision that falling on my arse in front of everone was better than another six weeks of hobbling about), but as I landed the palm of my hand was cut by a stud on the cuff of my denim jacket.
And before you all ask, the reason I was wearing a denim jacket in an industrial club was that the club was cold, since there weren't enough people there to warm up the space.
The hand was a little bruised, it didn't bleed too much, I washed it under the sink and got a gauze pad to put on it from the bar (they were out of bandaids, I blame the Kung-Fu Dancing Hardcore kids). I sat out of couple of songs to let the bleeding stop, the rejoined the dancefloor, even if I did engage in what Brad Pitt calls Pocket Acting (ie keeping your injured hand in your jacket pocket and pulling focus with the other one - watch Se7en to see if you can spot it).
Slowly the club filled out to about half full, an almost repectable number. And I kept dancing.
Later on my friend Sean would comment 'You were really going for it early on.' Which made me smile, since I'm the kind of person that sometimes lets perfectionism discourage me (if that makes sense), whereas sometimes you get respect for just going for it.
Other highlights included a mashup of Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani and Headhunter by Front 242 (which bizarrely worked really well), and a entertaining conversation with Alex B's girlfriend Na'ama.
After the club I wasn't formally invited back to the Slab, but I figured that if I looked hard enough a way back would present itself. That way back came in the form of a South Afrikan girl named Louise, who was the sister of Lorenz, one of those that live at the Slab. Louise had been left behind by her brother because she hadn't retrieved her coat fast enough and was freaking out. First because she didn't know where to go, then she couldn't find her phone. My friend Sean was sweet-talking a German Girl nearby and was slighly flabbergasted that someone would take his sister to a club and then leave them behind afterwards. As such he called Lorenz, and when that didn't work, he called one of Lorenz's friends, who gave Lorenz a serve.
Louise eventually found her phone (strangely enough, after it had been ringing for over a minute), talked to her brother in Afrikaans and we all jumped in a cab back to the Slab. Let it be noted that while I initially found Louise attractive, her completely bipolar nature and her abilility to behave as a destructive force of nature put her firmly in the 'Avoid Like the Plague' file.
Anyone who's reading this and knows my past relationship history is probably thinking 'If she is crazy enough to discourage Jason from taking an interest, this must really have been a nutbar.' And yes, they would be right.
Anyways, I spent most of Sunday chilling in the living room at the slab, listening to music of someone's PC, reading a copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable etc. At some point Louise expressed surprise that I didn't have a girlfriend. When I asked why, she told me that I seemed to be a person with my life together, and she would expect me to. While she claimed that relationships for her never worked out because her boyfriends complained that she was too distant.
I bit my tongue, deciding it unwise to say 'I think you'll find your boyfriends broke up with you because you're completely insane. Not eccentric, not highly strung, not high-spirited and not prone to occaisional melancholy, I think you're rubber-room material. Moon-torn. Manic-Depressive. Pants-on-the-head, strapped-to-the-bed, Arkham Asylum insane.'
Sean had earlier mentioned that Lorenz wasn't the most even-tempered type either. Nothing I saw on Sunday contradiced that. Louise eventually left with someone else, and I was quietly glad she wasn't going to spill any more drinks on me or moan about how she needs to find a husband in the next three months or the government will deport her back to South Afrika.
Somewhere between Morning and Afternoon I took a short nap. Chris and one or two others turned up soon after. Discussions of video games, music, Chris DJ-ing for five hours straight and other topics ensued. As night was falling the inevitable drunken political debate began, which was rather entertaining, followed by stories of our grandparents war experiences.
About 8 PM I left the house to catch the bus to the tube, and the tube to Leytonstone. Nenad and his Austrian Berliner friend Clarissa were amused to see me arrive home after nine.
At about 7 AM yesterday I woke up fully dressed with the light on in my room.
Having had such an incredible weekend, I figured that the only thing I could do to make it better would be to have an incredibly productive week, so I jumped in the shower and planned my next move.
First I spent an hour or so going through all the flyers in my jacket and coat pockets and picking out the events that I wanted to go to. I chatted to Clarissa while doing this, answering her questions about where the tube station was etc. Clarissa, in addition to being a seasoned traveller, is also an artist and is thinking about going back to art school. She left to go into London to look at something or other.
After I updated my diary I watched the news on one of the TV stations before gathering up some documents and heading to the Leytonstone Job Centre with a view to signing on. As I might have mentioned before, the money is secondary to the resources to help me find an interesting job.
At the Job Centre I picked up a small magazine with a list of vacancies. It was nearly a week old, but I did find it amusing that it advertised several courses to teach someone how to be a locksmith, focussing on lock picking skills. Hmm. Just the thing to teach the unemployed. The logic of London's local government escapes me sometimes.
I eventually plucked up the cojones to ask the people at the front desk what I had to do to sign on, whereupon they gave me a phone number to call, and pointed me to a set of complementary phones.
Press A. Answer qustions. Pick up forms on the way out. Neato.
Since my route home took me past the local NHS Primary care facility, I figured it was high time I signed on to my local GP as well. Same deal: talk to receptionist, she gave me some forms and an appointment for 1330 today (Tuesday).
Emboldened, I tried to sort out how to send a money order to a friend's magazine in Brisbane so that they could send me a copy, but the Post Office girl was unhelpful. I decided to try another post office when I had the chance.
On the way back up the Leytonstone High Road I bought some wooden broomsticks, a cheap hacksaw and some black mini-tapes. The broomsticks were to brace the ever-bending supports on the clothes horse, the hacksaw to cut the broomsticks and the tapes from my dictaphone recorder, since I only really have the one tape.
I dropped my loot at the flat then took the tube to Stratford, where I returned Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb and went looking for The Mad Ship (part two in the trilogy). I couldn't, so I used the PCs to put in a request and borrowed out a book by Iain M Banks instead. I still haven't started reading it yet, but I'll be interested to see if it is any good.
Back to Leytonstone. Net Cafe => Blog => get turfed out at 9pm => go home and watch Life on Mars season Finale.
Unfortunately Nenad and Clarissa were talking loudly about Clarissa's adventures in Central and South America (includin falling through a Glacier onto an an ice-bridge in a crevasse in Bolivia), so it made it really hard to immerse myself into the show, but I still managed to follow most of it.
My Mother called from Australia just after that, amusingly while Nenad was explaining to Clarissa the phenomenon of the Page Three Girl in English Tabloids. It was great to hear from Mum.
My mother also mentioned that My is having trouble printing out my blog because of the light type on a dark background (which, let's face it, is pretty bad design on my part in any case). So I said that I would email instructions for a solution, which I'm going to do now.
If anyone else is having this problem (or they just can't read the type on the page) try this:
1. Select the text using the mouse.
2. Copy the text using the Control-C function (apple C on a Mac)
3. Open a new document in Word, or Freehand or your favourite word processing programme.
4. Use the Paste Function (Control-V or Apple-V) to copy the text to the document.
5. Print or read as you would.
6. Rejoice!
I watched Prison Break with Nenad and Clarissa, then some of the News and some of The Mighty Boosh, before heading up to my room to read magazines.
That's Monday over.
Today:
Went to the NHS Medical centre to meet the Nurse. Notably occurences: it turns out that I have low-blood pressure. Which is weird, because I always figured that we Logans were hypertension personified. The Nurse saw that I had dry lips and extrapolated out that I might not be drinking enough water, and therefore my blood volume might be affected. She also told me to eat more vegetables.
Urine Sample? Piece of Piss (sorry, you know I couldn't pass up the opportunity).
Finished by three.
Next up: check out the Leytonstone Library, which is currently covered in Scaffolding inside and out. It makes the library look like a bookish Einsturzende Neubauten video clip.
Chris and I had engaged on a lengthy discussion of Michael Moorcock on Sunday, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of Moorcock books in the Fantasy Section. Which was right next to the Romance Section. Weird.
Tube to Stratford to put £50 into my soon-to-be direct debited by British Telecom HSBC account. It took much less time than usual. Hit the stalls to buy some bannanas, grapes and apples. Stopped at WH Smith to buy doodle paper. Discovered a copy of Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard for 99p and decided to pick it up. Chatted to Alex the Cashier with the Runes tattooed to her wrist. Tube to Leytonstone.
Dropped the fruit at Leytonstone and sawed one broomstick into three pieces, hampered a little by the total lack of ergonomic design on the hacksaw. Used wire to bind the broomstick pieces in place. Nice. One side down, other side to go.
And finally down to the street level to finish writing this blog.
In the next two days I have to fill out the forms I got from the Job Centre. I'm also going to be writing and reading some more.
I've been considering the importance of the over-arching meta-narrative in my fiction (and possibly non-fiction) lately, not the least because of all the fascinating themes I've been finding in Robin Hobb's work. Further consideration was prompted by Chris when he complained to Sean and I that while he isn't offended by violence and gore in and of itself, Wolf Creek seems to be violence, cruelty, gore and general nastiness without any real point.
This came out of a discussion between Chris, Sean and I regarding the Grand Theft Auto games.
Thanks to Nenad putting up Clarissa for four days, I might now have a place to crash in Berlin if I fly over there. Neato.
Random thoughts: I've been experimenting with a goattee these past few days, but I think it just makes me look scruffy. I'm also overdue for a haircut.
But for now, I'm going home.
Over and out.
J
posted by the.exile at 6:46 pm
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