... but I stopped. Now I'm a dad, and may blog again...

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

371: Invitation to Love

What's up, Doc? It's been one of those enjoyable weekends of old friends, good drinks, delicious home-cooked food, and classic television. Let me see if I can russell up one of those interesting yarns that people tell. You know the type: oh, I got so drunk I woke up with a pair of underpants on my head, and they weren't even my own, ho ho ho. I woke up covered in sick with lipstick on my arse... and then I got off the bus, ha ha ha. I'm a party animal, life and soul, Mr. Rave. All my stories like that probably took place ten years ago and end up, and then I spent the morning excreting from both ends. I doubt there are many entries in the great ledger of Frank Sinatra's life that go like that. All my stories from more recent years will be along the lines of, and then I got hungry and tired, drank a pint of water and went home before I'd had too much. Unfortunately had too much would usually come after spent too much.

Scampi Fries. Scampi Fries. Scampi Fries, Scampi Fries. Tell me about you and scampi fries; what do they mean to you; how have they changed your life; have you ever smelt them inside an overcrowded car on a hot day? My enduring memories of a great Saturday night are scampi fries; making a very long straw to steal someones drink from across the table; the long straw contraption - almost Heath Robinson like (or Rube Goldberg for our American cousins) – being successful in stealing drinks, and enjoyable to wave around; meeting someone with a beard; getting hugged a few times; wanting to smoke a cigar after buying a nice glass of Courvoisier but being told repeatedly by a shopkeeper they didn't sell single Hamlet, despite being able to see them, and pointing them out; eating a delicious meat samosa; going down Beech Road, Chorlton for the first time, and finding it to be rather lovely; and, whatever the hell else happened.

Right. The title of this post and the first sentence may lead the keen observer to note that I have been watching series one of Twin Peaks recently. The combination of watching that and reading Christopher Hitchens' Hitch 22 – two incredibly well-written works – has both inspired me, and massively damaged my confidence. In a world of Lynch, Hitchens, and their peers and contemporaries, I am massively painfully out of my league. I have to cling to the fact that they probably wrote as much shit as I do, but they had the sense to shut up about it and keep it to themselves; only putting out the best, and developing their skill in private and public over many years. One day it is possible I may become a good writer, but due to this public forum my good work will be far far outnumbered by insecure pointless timewastes like this.

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