Désolée

Well I've been here before
Sat on the floor in a grey, grey room
Where I stay in all day
I don't eat, but I play with this grey, grey food

Désolée
If someone is praying then I might break out,
Désolée
Even if I scream I can't scream that loud

Cause I'm all alone again

Knock Knock Knock

This morning I just got woken up by a single loud knock on the door. I confusedly opened an eye and wondered if something had fallen over. Another few loud knocks at the door.

"What?"

--silence--

"WHAT?"

"Hiya, it's me. Can I come in?"

"No."

I scowl into my pillow for a moment then storm out of bed, annoyed at being woken from an amazing dream that Im forgetting about by the millisecond. I open the door to find my flatmate standing there, in a tank top and shades, obviously still drunk from the night before, grinning and holding a wad of money.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing waking me up in the morning?"

"..Sorry, I just got in."

"So what? Don't fucking wake me up in the morning."

"Oh. Yeah alright, I just thought I'd -"

I grabbed the wad of money and slammed the door at him, tossed the money onto my dresser and angrily climbed back into bed. I lay in bed with my eyes furiously shut, and listened to him potter around in the kitchen, until after about 10 minutes he left. Slamming the front door behind him. That was at 8am.

I'm a very bad sleeper - it takes me hours to get to sleep, and I only get to sleep eventually because my eyes can no longer hold themselves open and my mind can no longer run over the same incoherent neurotic thoughts, and my body can no longer hold itself up let alone hold up a cigarette. I have to, literally, knacker myself out.

Now that would be fine, if I wasn't such a light sleeper. I wake up at the littlest sound. I'm pretty sure that's after years of living with my mother and having to analyse every sound - "Ah shit, she opened the front door slightly more aggressively than usual. She must have found the letter from school wondering where I am, and where I've been for the last 6 months. Or she's discovered that bottle of what looks like water under my bed, is in fact vodka. And how instead of being the child prodigy that everyone thinks I am, I've decided to take up drinking, and kissing boys. So now she's coming to smash up my room, and tell me how I'll never amount to anything."

So to this day, I wake up the second I hear the front door go, and I analyse every little sound (footsteps, other doors opening, the jingle of keys) until a little corner of my mind is satisfied that there is no need for further alertness, no imminent danger, and lets me go back to dreaming about piloting a pirate spaceship with Joss Whedon.

If, in this alertness time, I haven't opened my eyes or gotten out of bed, I can go straight back to sleep (I've been known to slot straight back into whatever dream I was just woken from). But if I get up out of my bed, the spell is broken. I'm officially awake. And thus if I want to get back to sleep I have to go through the entire rigmarole of trying to pretend I'm a normal person who can put themselves to sleep, when in fact I'm the kind of crazy person who has to trick their mind into falling asleep when it's not looking.

The point of the story (story is the wrong word.. ranting babble. Yes.) The point of this ranting babble is that I was awoken by my drunken prick of a flatmate at 8am this morning, and I haven't been able to get back to sleep. And I'm going to spend the rest of the day annoyed about it.

Prick.

---------

NB: Hmm. I hope that wad of money I took from the Flatmate was rent money. Otherwise I may have just accidentally mugged him.

Because Yes, I Am That Cool.

I have discovered the solution to all of life's problems--

Online bridge.


So life ruthlessly threw everything at me today, and in trying to distract myself from it all I spent the day running around the flat finding anything to clean, or iron, or scrub with bleach (which, it turns out, is pretty much everything in my flat).

I woke to find my bank had charged me 40 quid for some obscure reason, my phone company had threatened to cut me off if I didn't pay my last bill (which, it turns out, I had not done), my library had sent a letter demanding 60 quid for a book I vaguely remember taking out but definitely don't remember hearing anything about til now, and Darcy left this morning to Greenland for two months, and I had to hear it from an answerphone message from his flatmate.

And to top it all off, I discovered the surprise 2-week romantic getaway to Greece I'd planned for me and Darcy this August, is non-refundable (and I can't change passenger details) so either that's the last 500 quid of my overdraft down the drain, or I have to go on my own. Which would be the most depressing holiday ever.

I found this all out before I'd even woken up properly. So I decided over breakfast (Irish coffee and a cigarette) that the best way of dealing with all of this was to bunk off work, and instead spend the day clearing out all my kitchen cupboards. It turns out with the amount of tins I had hidden in the back of my kitchen I could have fed the entire of sub-Saharan Africa (if sub-Saharan Africa ate out-of-date kidney beans).

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day becoming increasingly manic, ironing everything from fresh laundry to old kitchen towels, organising my shoes in order of heel height, then colour, then season usage, then heel height again.. until I collapsed in bed, and had to call Pickled Lily for a help-me-I'm-going-crazy conversation. For the anxiety she recommended Rescue Remedy (which apparently consists of herbs, and brandy). And for the lack of money, she recommended part-time escorting (until she discovered it's pretty much a sex trade). So we ended up agreeing to start an Ebay business (the business mainly involving selling our old junk on Ebay).

And now I'm in bed, having just played 4 hours of online bridge with Charolastra No. 1. It turns out the only thing that could stop me from going insane today was online bridge

Because yes, I am that cool.

Almost..

Damn Smug Know-It-All Door.

Today was a lovely sunny day, and somehow the sun transforms London into the only place in the world I want to be. Usually. It being gorgeously sunny does not help me, in my current mood. It just isn't working, a bit like when you're sad or angry, having Kylie Minogue on the radio in the background - it kind of trivialises your pain. It's almost as if the sun was shining deliberately to separate me from all the other happy people frolicking in the parks, with their shades and shorts and flip-flops and Kylie Minogue-playing ipods. While I'm in my little shop dressed in black jeans and eyeliner, playing Tom Waits and cursing my damn hayfever, and glaring challengingly at the front door, daring it to bring in another stick thin Burberry-clad ladies-who-lunch moron, and see if I care, see if I'll even bother raising my eyes to welcome them. But the door rings it's little bell, and every dingaling sounds like quiet laughter, because the door knows, it's not who's coming through the door that I'm angry at, it's who's not coming. Damn smug know-it-all door, laughing at me.

Okay, I'm sounding pretty bitter and crazy in a Bernard Black kind of way, but honestly I'm not. I'm sad, and lonely. But pissed off is easier, so I'll stick with that for the moment. Although that may be because I'm still not getting any sleep so am getting egdy. Sleep deprivation does not go well with heartbreak (yet somehow, hand in hand.) Anyway, I can feel this entry becoming intensely emo and self-deprecating so I'll sign off. Time to watch some Gilmore Girls on the couch and play my new favourite betting game - What Will Finally Drag Wednesday's Child Up Off Her Arse? My money's on the computer running out of battery. But my cigarette supply is running low, so it could be that. I'll keep you updated. Exciting times.

The Warmth Of A Fairytale

I didn't have work today, so spent the day on the couch watching old episodes of Boy Meets World and eating leftover Chinese, pretending not to be post-breakup mourning. I don't have the energy to explain the Darcy situation so the official line is "I'm a bit run-down at the moment". Not that anyone's asked.

I am feeling pretty run-down at the moment though, I'm not getting any sleep. I've barely had more than a few hours all week. I know, it's so cliche, but I just can't get to sleep without Darcy. But, to my horror, I've discovered a slightly pathetic way to get past that.

Last night, having been tossing and turning for hours, putting the lamp on and off, shifting pillow positioning, turning music volume slightly up..then slightly down, I was so frustrated and tired, that I just hid under the duvet and wept for about an hour, desperately exhausted and emotional. I inwardly wince writing this, but once I'd stopped sobbing, I lay there drained and vulnerable and after a while I started to picture Darcy. Eyes closed, cheeks wet with tears, in the total darkness and silence I pictured him beside me, his leg just alongside mine, his arm round my waist, his chest rising and falling gently, his breath on my neck..

Nestling into his imaginary warmth, like a child being read a fairytale, I fell asleep.



I go to sleep, and imagine that you're there with me

It's Only Been Three Days.

Scrap everything I said yesterday - it was all bullshit.

I miss him so much I feel sick, and it's only been 3 days.

What was I thinking - obviously I'm not fine.

Fuck.

Welcome To An Adult Break-up

So Darcy and I broke up yesterday.

It turns out I was so convincing in my reasoning that maybe we shouldn't be together, that I convinced him. So, I turned up at the flat, having figured out on the weekend that us breaking up is a ridiculous idea as we both love each other and I was just being silly. I was all ready for us to run into each others arms and preparing to laugh about the whole situation in years to come

"Remember when you freaked out about my little trip to New Zealand, and we nearly broke up?" He'll say, cheekily, while I roll my eyes sarcastically in reply.

"Oh yes, he loves to tell this story - so young I was back then, so foolish."

We'll laugh and he'll rub my knee affectionately, and everyone around us will smile and wonder "How could those two have ever thought of not being together, they are absolutely the perfect couple".

Sorry, it turns out the more depressed I am, the easier I fall into flights of fancy and makeshift scenarios complete with dialogue. That may reflect badly on my general mental state, but actually given the circumstances, I'll take flights of fancy over all-encompassing mental anguish and depression.

That's the funny thing though, I'm actually not that depressed about it - I called Pickled Lily earlier to break the news, and I could hear by the tone in her voice once I'd told her, there was a shift from casual phone voice to soft tiptoey oh-mate-im-so-sorry voice in preparation for some blubbering on my part. But I couldn't play my part and do the sniffly heartbroken oh-god-how-could-he voice, which, to be honest, I had kind of assumed would just come naturally.

But the more I talked, telling her about the situation, the more evident it became that I wasn't actually, in any way, upset. I mean obviously I'm upset but.. I just can't feel it. I mean, I know I'm definitely definitely heartbroken. Because, I love him, and he's broken up with me. And not only that, but he's used my own reasoning and logic to break up with me. So not only can I not fight it, but I feel like some sort of stupid masochistic fool who provides the people that she loves with reasons not to be with her then is surprised when it turns out, they don't want to be with her. Wait I've shifted into the 3rd person here, not sure how that happened. But back to the 1st person narrative - I'm definitely heartbroken. I know this. But talking to Pickled Lily, I just didn't feel it. I mean, it's probably some deeply-ingrained defence mechanism that's protecting me from the pain by making me pretend I don't have any, because if I actually felt it I'd go into anaphylactic shock or something (I actually have no idea what anaphylactic shock means, so I don't know where I've picked it up from. Casualty? I don't watch Casualty. Probably ER.)

I likened that feeling, or the lack thereof, to exams - when you know that there's an exam, a big important one that's going to determine the rest of your future, and it's in a couple of days, and you know - you know you're taking that exam. And you haven't done any work (a feeling I know well after my 20 years in private bloody education) so you know that you're panicking. Except you're actually not, you're pretty calm. But you know, somewhere inside you, there's some definite panic. What I'm feeling about Darcy is exactly that feeling. I know, somewhere inside me, I'm heartbroken and freaking out, I just can't feel it at all.

Is that weird? Saying it to Pickled Lily earlier it didn't seem weird, it seemed perfectly normal and I was pretty pleased with myself for coming up with so perfect an analogy. You can't be pleased with grammar and analogies when you're heartbroken, can you? ..No. Exactly.

So back to what actually happened - I called him on Sunday morning, after having taken the few days off without contact that I'd said I needed, and excitedly told him I'd sorted through the issue, and everything was fine, I'd explain over dinner and a celebratory bottle of wine tonight. Because, I had figured it out - we should definitely not break up before he goes to Greenland. Obviously. Because he leaves in just under 2 weeks, and us breaking up now would be pointless - I wouldn't forego the 6 weeks of missing him and worrying whether or not he had fallen down some ice-hole in Greenland, because I'd still love him, the emotions would be exactly the same, except that we wouldn't have the cushion of being together upon his return. Also, it's the perfect way to test whether or not I can handle January - if when he goes to Greenland, I discover it's too much and I'm a wreck with worry, we have the time to talk about it when he's back, and make a decision about breaking up then. And if when he goes to Greenland, I worry for a few days then realise actually why am I worried, he's probably fine - and I get on with my life and don't resent him at all, then hooray - no problem for January! See - so us breaking up before he goes to Greenland = stupid. And I literally couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it before - it's just so obvious. Duh.

So I get to the flat, bottle of red in one hand, his favourite Chinese takeout in the other, just been listening to T-Rex on the bus ride over "we love to boogie, we love to boogie on a Saturday night" and feeling like I'd somehow won - I'd discovered a problem, thought it through, and now I was going to break the lovely news to my patient, wonderful man, that there was in fact, a perfectly logical solution. Beautiful, dependable logic. Good ol' logic gonna sort eeeverything out, so in the meantime let's boogie!

As soon as he opened the door, my face fell. There was a one-second pause between my ta-daa-I'm-here smile and his why-dont-you-come-in smile, and in that second I knew my celebratory delight had been premature and misplaced. Dammit! So he leads me into the sitting room, we open the wine, I awkwardly follow him around the kitchen as if it's a first date and I sit down gingerly at the breakfast bar as if I've not been here a million times before, as if I've not sat at this breakfast table in his boxers and shirt while he makes us a 3am post-coital snack, as if we've not sat here every morning over coffee and cereal talking about the recession while playing footsie under the table, as if I don't know this bloody breakfast table so well that I know there's a fag burn on the underside corner from when he was at work and I was having a sneaky cigarette and I thought I heard a noise so hurriedly stubbed it out, burning my hand in the process, and when it turned out to be the neighbours cat stratching at the door I was so relieved I let it have the milk from my cornflakes.

He pours the wine, sits at the table, and we skirt around the issue for a while.

"So how was your weekend?"

"Oh I spoke to your brother, he was telling me about mad Auntie Jill"

"Oh right.. shes actually thinking of moving abroad.. It is the time to, really."

".. Yeah I suppose ..bloody recession and all that"

And eventually I think fuck this weird atmosphere, he's probably just nervous that I might freak out again like last week, so I'll put his mind to rest. So I tell him how I'm sorry for worrying him, and how I've actually thought it through and figured it all out with my lovely logic, so no need to worry *pause for beaming smile*

But he doesn't appear to be as pleased with the lovely logic as I am, and proceeds to tell me, in quiet kind tones, how actually he thinks I was right the first time. It's probably a good idea we go our separate ways to save either of us years of hurt and/or resentment (me and/or him, respectively) and that he always knew that his expeditions were going to be a problem, and he really doesn't want to hurt me, and actually this is why he originally thought being in a relationship wasn't right for him. Anyway, we discuss this for a while, and the more he talks, the more I see that his logic is flawless. I mean, of course his logic is flawless, it's my argument from a few days ago played back to me verbatim (well, much more eloquently, actually, thus more convincingly). And after half a bottle of wine and some chinese dumplings - I have to agree with him. It is better this way. I love him too much to want to hold him back, or for him to end up feeling so guilty about doing what he loves that he becomes someone else, and resents me for it. He loves me too much to put me through worrying about him all the time, and to ask me to wait around for him isn't fair. And neither of us want us to turn into something we're not, something bad and full of dangerous emotional subtext. So let's just part ways now. At the peak, when we both love and respect each other, but just know - the timing isn't right.

So that's it. I took the train home (admittedly I cried so hard I had to get off - London train etiquette, everyone was shifting a bit awkwardly at the weeping girl in the corner and I couldn't deal with public pretending), went to bed, woke up and made myself some lunch, and waited for the emotional downfall to begin. But nothing. So I watched a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls -still nothing. So I called Pickled Lily, and as aforementioned, came to the conclusion I was fine. And it's weird, I really do feel okay. To the point where I'm even a little suspicious and mildly terrified that maybe it's the calm before the storm.

But actually, this is my first rational, adult, mature breakup. Which perfectly reflects an adult, mature relationship. I guess I'm just used to the drama, used to having broken up with someone, and being flooded with relief and a sense of freedom (and a sense of "if I ever see him again, I'm going to pull my eyes out of their sockets and throw them at the fucker") but with Darcy, I don't hate him. I love him. And our rational, gentle breakup did perfect justice to our relationship. And actually, I've discovered enough self respect over the years to know that if this is really what he wants, then much as I may love him and probably will fucking miss him, I genuinely don't want him to be here if he actually doesn't want to be here. Welcome to an adult relationship --> welcome to an adult breakup.

Old Pain Being Rediscovered.

Darcy is an athlete, and a traveller, and I love the freedom and focus and spirit that gives him. But it's become a problem.

Well, a challenge. He 's going away for a month to traverse ice caps in Greenland, and he's leaving in 2 weeks. He's going to miss my birthday (and his, for that matter). But I've come to terms with that, and fuck it, it's only a month. I'll find something to keep me occupied, like, my life. But he came home the other day and told me he's going away in January as well for a few months to the Tasman Ocean to row across it in what is essentially, a 6-man dingy. Turns out this is immensely fucking dangerous, and nobody's ever done it before. In fact, the first man to even attempt to cross from Tasmania to New Zealand, Andrew McKaulay, was washed overboard. I can't stress this enough - it's bloody dangerous, and no-one's ever crossed the Tasman Ocean (nicknamed 'The Ditch') successfully.

Now, it might have been the fact I'd been ill and in bed all day, or the shock of it, or the fact that he couldn't understand why I wasn't jumping with joy, or just the alarm bells in my head, but when he told me this, I panicked the fuck out, and I'm pretty sure I broke up with him. It's all a bit of a blur, but when he told me he was going I just knew that he was going to die, and that I was going to have to survive it. I know, it's selfish, but literally that's all I could think, I felt like a 1940s wife whos husband had been drafted to go to war (I'm aware of how ridiculous that is, but it's how I felt, ridiculous or not). Except that suddenly I was raging mad at him, because he hadn't been drafted to go anywhere, he'd chosen to throw himself into the jaws of bloody death, and I'd be damned if I was going to sit around and wait for him to kill himself because of some latent boyish desire for adventure. But then he's looking at me with these big brown eyes full of confusion and hurt, and I feel like a complete looney bitch, and I realise that I am in fact being completely ridiculous, and that it's just another expedition of his, and it's a whole year away, and that I love him and we're happy, and actually he's an experienced rower who knows what he's doing. But then he says to me "I'm an experienced rower and I know what I'm doing", and I feel my eyes turn to flame, and I laugh scornfully in his face, informing him that if he's that keen on death I'll wring his scrawny neck myself. Then I burst into tears.

And now I'm at home, completely confused as to how I feel. There is literally no middle ground - either I'm freaking out like some sort of crazed lunatic because evidently loving somebody means you don't want them to get hurt. Or I'm freaking out like some sort of crazed lunatic because he's stepping on old ground, fuck it, he's stamping all over old wounds - I've watched one man I love die, and I'll be damned if I sit around and wait for another. It's just the worst pairing of issues ever - he is just so reckless with his own life because he's so free, he taunts death because he just doesn't have a tangible grasp of its' relevance to him. He doesn't feel it breathing down his neck, and as such he doesn't spend his days wasting time. He does things with his life - he is fucking alive.

And I love him for that. I envy him that. I breathe it in when I'm near him, and hope some of his spirit will awaken life in me.

And it does, it has. Because I'm not the child I used to be, I'm a grown woman, and I've dealt with my own issues these past few years, I've healed myself. I was my own saviour, and I don't need to be saved. I finally, for once in my life, became my own person who does not want to be anyone's saviour, or to be saved. I do, however, want to be inspired. And loved. And to love, and inspire, in turn. And above all, have a fucking laugh along the way!

Which it's been with Darcy, until now. It's a crossroads (sorry for the cliché) in our relationship, and in my heart - because it's such familiar ground, but such new territory. I know part of my reaction is perfectly normal, but part of it comes from some place deep inside that I still don't know whether to fight til the end, or go with what it's taught me.

When Ash, my first love, died I was destroyed. There's no way of describing the pain of losing someone you love without being clichéd or understated, because there's no way of expressing it in phrases or words that haven't been bandied around and hackneyed in the melodrama of everyday life. Hurt, pain, depression, desolution, emptiness, terror. I tried for years to find a word, any words, that did justice to the mind-numbingly complicated impact of losing somebody you love. But to this day I've not managed it, so I'll just leave it at - I was destroyed.

Several years down the line and I'm not any more, thankfully. These days I'm possibly the most light-hearted person you'd meet, with a twinkle in her eye, and a smile to match - I like to think. I've managed to shake the various chips from my shoulder, and put the various heartbreaks and internal dilemmas to bed. Or at least to rest. And it's not been easy, but I'm a firm believer in mind over matter - and if you want to sort your life and your head out, you bloody well can. And you bloody well should.

But this one is different, losing Ash had enough of an impact on my world, and happened when I was young enough for it to form the very fabric of my being, and as such will be with me til (ironically enough) the day I die. Which isn't entirely irrational - the impact of death is not so easily cast aside. I am a girl who has felt the touch of Death, heard the beating of mighty wings, and I know - it stays with you. And somewhere in the depths of my soul there is a continuous prayer that when Death next comes into my life, she's coming for me. At the end. And I will greet her as a familiar friend, and take her hand. As long as she's just come for me.

And I know, I know. I'm being morbid. And that Darcy isn't dead. And what is happening now, with me and him, is nothing to do with what happened with Ash. But thats the thing with emotion - you get to a certain point, and there is no such thing as new pain. It's all just old pain, being rediscovered, re-hashed and reapplied to new situations. It's how you deal with it that changes.

(If you're lucky.)

What is this, the fucking middle ages?

Browsing online tonight I read something that reminded me that there's still a hell of a long way to go in the world of psychiatric medicine - and the world of law, ethics and general understanding of one another (and IQ testing, for that matter) but that's a different point. I've taken, and linked, this article from Media dis&dat, a well researched blog that I frequent, which catalogues worldwide media stories on various disabilities, including mental disabilities.

Texas judge refuses new trial for teen with IQ of 47

From the Chicago Tribune:


PARIS, Texas — For more than six hours April 7, as a parade of witnesses testified about the severity of Aaron Hart's mental retardation and his inability to understand his legal rights, the 18-year-old defendant with an IQ of 47 sat silent and shackled in a chair, alternately fidgeting and making faces.

But in the end, none of it was enough to persuade a judge in this small east Texas town to reconsider the 100-year prison sentence he gave Hart in February after Hart pleaded guilty to molesting a 6-year-old boy.

Ruling in a case that critics of the local justice system say raises questions of fairness for the mentally challenged, Lamar County Judge Eric Clifford denied defense motions seeking either a new trial or a new sentencing hearing for Hart. His former special-education teacher testified that Hart functions below the level of a 1st grader.

Last September, Hart confessed to police that he forced the boy to perform oral sex. The boy's stepmother had discovered them both behind a shed with their pants lowered. Hart's court-appointed attorney entered guilty pleas on his behalf to five related felony counts, a jury recommended multiple sentences and Clifford stacked the prison terms to run consecutively, for a total of 100 years.

But Hart's appellate attorney, David Pearson, argued Tuesday that Hart had received ineffective legal assistance because his trial attorney had failed to present any expert testimony about Hart's mental functioning or his ability to comprehend the charges against him.

"This case cried out for a mental health evaluation, to explain this disability to the judge and jury," Pearson told Clifford. "One of the features of people with this kind of mental retardation is they cannot appreciate degrees of wrongfulness."

District Atty. Gary Young countered that a court-appointed expert had determined that Hart was legally competent and that a jury had determined he was a danger to the community.

"Everyone feels sorry for Mr. Hart," Young told the judge. "The question is, do you leave him on the street or send him to prison?"

Clifford, who last week said he had agonized over the case, took only a few seconds to issue his ruling.

"Irregardless of whether he understood his Miranda rights, the evidence I have seen is overwhelming that he committed the offense," Clifford said. "The court finds that allegations of incompetence of counsel are unfounded."

Hart will remain in jail pending the outcome of an appeal likely to be heard in the fall. Hart's parents say he has been raped repeatedly by other inmates since he was first arrested last September.


Now articles like this make me want to work harder at my job and my psychology degree, as there are so many antiquated views and procedures in modern psychiatry that need rehashing in any small way. Articles like this, and the many others like it that I find far too often, make me find myself thinking 'what is this, the fucking middle ages?' Articles like this make me feel hopeless and a little defeated, as it's a hell of a battle, and I'm just one person, who most likely isn't ever going to change a damn thing, in terms of how things really work in the psychiatric system. But I will continue to read articles like this and be outraged by them, because that is all I can do. For now.

Mentally ill woman found dead after Texas state hospital drops her at bus station
Arrest of 12-yr old autistic boy stuns Tennessee disability advocates
85 percent of mentally ill people in the developing world never get treatment - Abuse in Africa
Nail-bomber with Asperger's Syndrome given life sentence
(note the singular, side-point mention of Reilly having Asperger's)
The United States graded D in NAMI report on mental health care
Proposal for the revision of the DSM-V to be undertaken with 'transparency'

Charolastra No.1 Comes To Town

Charolastra no.1 came to town for a week, so Friday after work I met her and we went to the British Museum. We looked at all the Ancient Greek stuff and ignored everything else - except the kiddy gift shop, where we bought some postcards, a half price Gladiator board game and 3 necklaces that were runes with a symbol meaning "success" (one for each of us, and one for Pickled Lily). We then went back to my flat and spent the rest of the night drinking gin and developing the Gladiator Game into a fighting game by making tactical cards - 'Arterial Bleeding', 'Blow To The Head', 'Appeal To Caesar' (my favourite one, where you're about to die and you plead for Caesar's mercy via a coin toss - Heads and Caesar restores you to health, Tails and he throws you to the lions. I know, Classical Greek in-jokes, we're total fucking geeks.) That was my lovely chilled Friday night with Battle Arena! and Charolastra no.1.

Saturday was a different matter altogether - spent the day on the phone to Darcy trying to figure out his plans for the Summer so I can book him a surprise romantic holiday (I'm such a cliche) but he was hungover and couldn't do anything more productive than beg me to come over and fix him. The evening, I met Charolastra no.1 and Pickled Lily for some early evening beer gardening in Camden so we could catch up and chat as a collective before everyone else got there - me, Charolastra no.1 and Pickled Lily have known each other for years, we went to the same secondary school. Well, much as we went to the same school, we all went to very different schools.

Charolastra no.1 went to a school where she had a great group of friends (us), teachers neither loved nor hated her, academically she floated in the the middle of the current - not racing by at the top but not drowning at the bottom, just happily floating. To confuse my metaphors a bit, life was a breeze. Charolastra no.1 left FHS with fond memories.

Pickled Lily went to a school which wrapped her up in a warm happy blanket for years, then when her father died and her family ran out of money, turned their backs on her. Pickled Lily, being a wonderfully gifted artist, was deemed a wasted talent by some, and a waste of space by others. She left FHS confused and betrayed.

I went to a school which had inexplicably high expectations of me, where I was either particularly favoured or particularly hated by the teachers, and ignored by the students. Everything I was favoured for (my sense of humour, my interest in learning on my own terms, my independent thinking) gradually became everything I was berated for. I left FHS with a chip on my shoulder.

Me and Pickled Lily keep nothing of those days, except Charolastra no.1. Memories of everything else have been pushed so far into our collective subconscious that even Freud wouldn't be able to sift through all the neuroses and complexes to find them.

Anyway, I was trying to write about my ridiculous Saturday night and try to explain why I'm so hugely hungover I haven't gotten out of bed in 7 hours, but seem to have digressed somewhat. And now my head hurts. To cut the long story short, I had a stupid shitty drunken night with Pickled Lily and Charolastra no.1 in Camden that actually was a lot of fun, with some people we used to party with when we were kids, ended up in Marathon (the club in the back of a kebab shop) then a random house party in Maida Vegas with some of The Cats where I did quite a lot of drugs, peaked at about 4 in the morning with the BFG and Robocop before some more of The Cats turned up and we partied in the loos til 9am, when upon our emergence we discovered we'd accidentally outpartied all the little Skins-esque youngsters who were strewn passed-out across the various corridors, so we went back to the BFGs house and watched Only Fools and Horses, fucked on Mandy, til lunchtime when the shades came on (twas a beautiful sunny day in Maida Vegas) and The Cats went for Sunday lunch at the pub and I walked home, entirely wrecked but gloriously happy.

Probably not a note-worthy story, but I went home so unbelievably contented and guilt-free - which admittedly may have been due to the excessive amounts of Mandy, but I choose to believe it was just pure unadulterated joy from living life and being with friends, which doesn't come around for me that often. So in conclusion, yes, definitely note-worthy. Thus duly noted.

NB: Charolastra No.1 is so-called because of a clip from Y Tu Mama Tambien. We saw it when we were youngsters, and became the Charolastras, we even wrote a manifesto - none of which I can remember these days. Except 'La neta es chido pero inalcanzable', which was our motto. And something about astral cowboys.