Friday, November 12
Full Circle
Hurrah, I'm going out to get drunk tonight! And how! This time it's a cocktails party at a friend's place. I've bought some raspberry schnapps, Dooley's (toffee-flavour creamy vodka. It's amazing) and some lemonade. I'm all set.The reason that I mention this now is that I also went out last Friday and got absolutely twatted. Now seems the time to write about it, especially since I'm seeing a few people tonight who I (apparently) drank with last Friday. I still haven't found out all of the details concerning last Friday yet, so hopefully tonight will refresh / complete my memory.
Of course, I will then get drunk tonight and forget it all again. Shit.
As I mentioned in a previous post, myself and Jamie had planned an epic drinking session, starting early and finishing whenever we passed out. You've got to have a plan on this type of occasion, otherwise it all goes wrong. Ahem.
We met on the bus just before 6 in the evening, and headed into the Old Town. Jamie had a friend of his with him, Scott, who I believe goes to the same uni as Jamie back in England and is also somewhere in Germany studying this year. A nice guy.
We stopped off at the student union for a spot of dinner (line the stomachs and all that shite), before walking down to a great little pub called Sepp'l. It's a "historic student pub", which means that us lot have been drinking there for over 100 years. Of course, back in the day I imagine the clientele was a bit more civilised and discussed important matters of the day, rather than just drinking as much as possible as quickly as possible. Meh, I like my generation.
We cracked on with a Mass each. A Mass is a 1-litre glass of beer, and it's fucking huge. The glass itself is really thick and heavy, so it's almost a two-hand job to pick it up at the start. I love Masses, they're a great way to drink. Unfortunately, you do end up pissing like a racehorse all of the time, but such is life with a tiny bladder...
I had 3 of those in Sepp'l, whereas Jamie upgraded to a Steifel ("boot") as a replacement for his second and third. The Steifel is quite literally a big 2-litre glass shaped like a boot. I have a photo on my phone, I'll get that up on the PhotoBlog at some point. It's impressive to look at,
mainly because there is 2 litres of beer in it (just under 4 pints), and it's great because you're drinking out of a boot.
A boot!
A few others came down to join us, but not quite the rapid flow of people that I was expecting. This may be due to the fact that my phone battery died around 8, so nobody could get hold of me. This is in an important little piece of information, remember it. I'd texted loads of people during the day, and most said they'd ring me when they got into town. I woke on Saturday to find loads of messages on my phone, all saying "Just on my way into town, where are you all?" Stupid phone.
We then shifted on to iPunkt, for the first time in a little while, thank fuck. I'd been getting bored of that place, but at the same time it's good to go back, because it's a wicked place to get smashed. There were just the five of us at that stage: Me, Jamie, Scott, Janice (an American friend of ours) and Jillian (as previously mentioned here).
For some unknown reason, we got a jug of Long Island Iced Tea in. They're always a fucking killer, yet I seem to be forever mesmerisingly drawn to their charms. Damn those ultra-strong 4-litre bastards. I only vaguely remember drinking it, but I reckon we downed it sharpish. Well, I guess we downed it sharpish. iPunkt is a little hazy in my memory. Stupid Long Island Iced Tea.
We then strolled down to the bus stop to get one of the night busses back up to Bar Drei. Unfortunately, Jillian was more than a little inebriated by this point, so I volunteered / got volunteered to take her home, which involved a different bus than Jamie's. Dammit.
I'll spare Jillian's blushes here, and won't tell how she fell over numerous times on the 2-minute walk from her bus stop to her room, and how on most of those occasions I ended up on the ground too, since I was completely holding her up. No, I won't mention that.
Nor the 5 minutes I spent messing around with her bunch of keys, trying to get the right one in the door, before she produced another key from her bag. Nor the way she practically fell into bed. Nope, I'm a good friend and will not mention those things.
I was half-cut too, well on my way to being drunk, which led to me unfortunately addressing the note I left her to her friend. Freudian slip? Meh. Again, when I switched my phone on on Saturday, there were a good 3 or 4 messages from her, apologising profusely for something she had no memory of. Glad to be appreciated.
I then hiked through a building site to get to Bar Drei, including climbing through a fence and almost falling down a slope. It was so worth it though. Jamie had managed to get his hands on a table, and I plonked my ass down, after stopping briefly at the bar for two Vodka-Lemonades. I figured that it was busy, so it would be more time-efficient to buy two drinks at a time.
Of course, as The Streets so eloquently put it in 'Too Much Brandy':
Now getting to the bar’s gonna be trouble
So the Marlons’ll have to be doubles
Then you drink doubles
The same speed you drink singles
(The song came on my mp3 player earlier today...)
I thus became ever drunker. I remember chatting to a friend of mine from Italy, Maximiliano, about football on Saturday afternoon, and being a little disappointed when he arrived, since the friends that had told me they were out with him hadn't come with it. Females, you understand, including GTIMPBSIITAGTKABB. No, I still don't know if anything's happening there.
And that's about all I remember. I remember being quite hilariously loud (OK, so I thought it was hilarious, others may recall a different emotion) and talking non-stop, as per usual when I'm drunk, but not much more. I definitely don't remember leaving Bar Drei, or how and when I got home.
All I know is that I woke up slightly before 4 in the afternoon on Saturday, on top of my quilt in my boxers, with my bedroom light still on.
Damn, I must have been drunk. My clothes were all over the room, but they were thankfully all there, as was my coat. I always worry that I'm going to get too drunk to remember to bring everything home, but only once have I forgotten something. That would also be the night I knocked my two front teeth out, so it was a bad night all round.
I'd missed the 3pm start of football with Maximiliano and everyone else, which I was pissed off about, so I decided to go and watch the Arsenal match in the pub as a way of recovering. I tried to get Jamie to come down, but he was still feeling like shit, so I went by myself.
I stopped for a bite to eat on the way, at which point I promised myself that I'd try to go without alcohol until my parents arrived on the 17th of November. That would be a good 10 days of no alcohol, in preparation for my birthday on the 19th. That promises to be fucking heavy.
But yeah, no alcohol at all.
Imagine my dismay when, upon arriving at the Dubliner (again!) and being served by a waitress, my mouth operated wholly independently of my brain and ordered me a Murphy's stout. I didn't even realise I'd done it until she brought it over.
Ahhh, crap. My no alcohol pledge lasted a mere 15 minutes. That's a new record for me. Usually it's somewhere around 24 or 48 hours. 15 fucking minutes?! Fuck's sake.
I did only have one though, and it had the welcome effect of finally clearing the cobwebs away. I think I might have to partake of the hair of the dog a bit more often. Possibly starting tomorrow, when I shall be in the pub by 1pm for another Arsenal game. Considering the fact that I'll be drinking until sometime around 5 tonight, there is a distinct possibility that I will actually be still drunk rather than hungover. Hurrah!
When I was in the pub, I had a good look through the text messages I'd received overnight, since I'd only given them a cursory glance when I got them as I woke up. There was one from GTIMPBSIITAGTKABB at about 11pm, asking where I was, so I sent her one apologising for not replying last night. I asked if she had been in Bar Drei, kind of joking that I was piecing together my memories of the night. Well, not really joking; more actually trying to find out what the fuck happened!
She came back with the following:
Apparently me n helen ate sandwiches wi u in bar 3 but i also have little recollection of the eve... same time same place tonight?
Balls! So they were there last night! And I even had a decent length conversation with them, as well as munching sandwiches together. Incidentally, Bar Drei's sandwiches are fucking brilliant. Just what you need to keep drinking until dawn.
I hate to think how much my mouth could have been spouting shit, especially as I simply have no inkling whatsoever of what was said, or how long we were there for. That's what tonight will hopefully inform me. With any luck, I won't have disgraced or embarrassed myself, but I fear the worst. I know what I'm like when I'm drunk.
And so do you, judging by how many times I've posted here about being drunk. I've been going through my archives today, with the aim of adding a 'Best Of' post-it to my layout soon, and it's simply flabbergasting how often I post about being hungover or drunk. Anyone would think that's all I do.
He says, coming to the end of a 1,800 word post about a night out on the smash, and with another one looming large on the horizon. As in about 2 hours away.
Be prepared for another one of these tomorrow then. I pity my liver.
Thursday, November 11
Funny. But Why?
I don't usually do posts just linking to something, but this is far too funny not to link to. Go to the page on Play.com for 'Peep Show - Series 1' and click on the "View the trailer here" link. If you've got broadband go for the high quality option on the pop-up window.I've no idea what the fuck is going on in the clip, and it's not connected to the show at all, save for having the 2 actors in it. The show itself is very funny, and quite a nice take on the usual form of a sitcom. The trailer, on the other hand, is absolutely insane. I love it!
Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me the DVD of Peep Show for my birthday (19th November) or for Christmas, I'll love them forever.
But not that I'm asking, of course.
Wednesday, November 10
The Week That Was
Time to catch up on last week, methinks. Not bad, considering it's now Wednesday. Stupid Rob.I skipped a lecture (this becomes a recurring theme, keep track of it. I'll be asking questions at the end) on Tuesday morning, for the simple reason that I was fucking knackered. I couldn't sleep on Monday night, due to lazing around in bed until 4 on Sunday at Jillian's, so I was fucked come Tuesday morning. Not literally, of course.
I managed to get to my two afternoon lectures, for what they were worth. Stupid crappy boring lectures, I just can't get enough of them! I did chat to a nice Lithuanian girl I know for a little while, which was cool. She even gave me a chocolate from her weekend in Switzerland. I needed that sugar rush to see me through 2 hours of European Law, I'm certain of it.
As we left, she mentioned about the party-thing that was happening for the international law students that evening. I knew about it, but hadn't got a ticket by then. I could still go and pick one up on the door, but I wasn't sure if I would go or not. I'd been told that a load of friends were going to Amadeus, our usual Tuesday night haunt, so I was half-planning on going there, if anywhere. I took the girl's number and said that maybe I'd go.
Of course I didn't go. I would argue that I was too tired to go, but that would be defeated by the fact that I stayed up until gone 6 in the morning watching the US elections online. Dammit.
I'm not going to get all political here, but suffice it to say that I'm both bitterly disappointed and downright angry that Bush got re-elected. There are thousands of people who have online opinions on the election, so go read them if you haven't already. I happen to quite like DailyKos, but each to your own.
As morning arrived, I was half-contemplating going to my 9am lecture, but a wave of tiredness hit me, forcing me to go to bed. I did however set my alarm to give me time to get to my 11am class, even if it was after only 3 hours sleep, but when it went off I was even more tired. I'm surprised I didn't smash my bastard alarm clock! So that was another 2 lectures missed. 3 from 5 so far with 2 more to go.
I don't remember doing much on Wednesday night, so it must have been a catching up on sleep deal. Not that it helped me come Thursday. I made it to my 9am, which was an achievement in itself that week, but once more I had to sit on the floor because the room was so rammed. Not good for concentration levels.
I also couldn't really hear everything, and my mind kept wandering all over the place, so I took advantage of the break in the middle to grab my stuff and leg it to the bus stop. It was just too boring and the floor was far too solid for my liking. Meh, I'll catch up by reading the textbook.
I went back to my afternoon lecture, but I was thoroughly lost, due to missing Wednesday's lecture in that subject. I hate it when that happens, when the lecturer just builds and builds on one lecture. If you miss something at the start of a semester, for whatever reason, you're fucked for the best part of a week, if not longer.
In the evening, we made our way to our usual haunt of the Dubliner for quiz night, which we actually won! Yay us. I'm assuming that it must have been a quiet night, but whatever, we won! I love pub quizzes, my bank of wholly useless information is perfectly attuned to them.
I think we didn't go anywhere else afterwards, but I did arrange with Jamie to go on an absolute bender on Friday evening. He had classes until 4 (I have the day off), and we were seriously thinking about starting drinking immediately after. In the end, we decided a slightly more sensible plan was to start at 6, which is still pretty early.
Why did we decide to have a massive session? Because we could, I suppose. Not much else to do on a Friday night! And finally, me and Jamie hadn't got twatted together in far too long. We hadn't really got immensely drunk individually for a while either, so a big session was called for.
We decided to meet at a great little pub called Sepp'l at 6, and to basically invite as many people as possible to come down as and when they could. There would kind of be a rotating table of people coming and going, with me and Jamie falling ever deeper into our respective drunken stupors. No doubt Bar Drei would make an appearance at some point too.
That was the plan for Friday, I'll type that up later. My fingers ache.
Snowbusiness
As promised, the photos from today are now up on the PhotoBlog, go have a gander.Bonus points for quite possibly my shortest post ever. Unfortunately I'm just about to write a long one. Sorry!
Happy Happy Happy
I'll write about last week in a few minutes, but right now I'm as happy as a lark, and need to write about it, however briefly.Why? 2 reasons:
1. It snowed last night! I'm such a big kid when it comes to snow, I love the stuff. I didn't know that it was supposed to snow here (I don't have a TV and always forget to check online), so it was very surprising to open my curtains this morning to see a veil of white on everything. It's been ages since I've seen snow like that. I think we had some one day back in February in London, but usually it's just one or two days each year in southern England.
And definitely never in the middle of November! Do I sound excited? I really am. I went up to the castle with my camera to take some photos of the town coated with icing sugar, which I'll get posted on the PhotoBlog today. It looked picturesque, just like a Christmas card, especially the woods on the hills surrrounding the town.
So that got me excited during the day. I've now returned home, got online, and found number:
2. My favourite mp3 downloading site, Allofmp3.com, has just added practically every NOW album from 1992 onwards! Remember back in the day when pop music was half-decent and the NOW albums were fantastic? I do, and I've been after all of the tunes of my childhood for ages.
Well, when I say "after", I mean that I would have liked to get hold of them, but couldn't really be arsed to hunt them down on Kazaa or torrent sites. And now they're in one easily accessible place. Unfortunately, my balance has just hit 0, so I'm going to have to top it up before I can get such classic songs as (random selection from NOW 23 to NOW 35):
- Simple Minds - Alive & Kicking
- East 17 - House of Love
- Snap - Exterminate
- Snow - Informer [What a fucking great tune!]
- The Beloved - Sweet Harmony
- Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La La La Long) [OK, sorry for putting that tune instantly into your head. You'll be humming it all day now. A la la la la long, a la la la la long, a la la la la long long long long long]
- Oui 3 - Break From The Old Routine [I LOVED this song when I was 9!]
- Haddaway - What Is Love
- Apache Indian - Boom Shack-a-lak
- Chakademus & Pliers - Twist & Shout
- Primal Scream - Rocks
- Doop - Doop
- Degrees Of Motion - Shine On
I could easily carry on with this list for ages, I'm that enthralled with these albums and songs! This is the music that got me into music in the first place, and it has developed to the point where nowadays I simply can't do anything without music. I have tunes on from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, and am always looking out for new stuff.
Yes, most of the above list is pop, but even before I knew what genres were I was leaning towards dance music. The pop end of it, definitely, but I then immersed myself in it fully over a few years. I still adore club music, preferably trancey stuff without vocals, but every so often there's a good dance tune which hits the mainstream charts. I can't think of any offhand, but you know what I mean.
I didn't start getting into metal music until I was about 15, when I bought my first Korn album. I loved the video for Freak On A Leash, and thought the song was brilliant too, so I picked up the album in a HMV sale (this was in the days before I discovered Napster, Audiogalaxy and everything that's come on the scene since then).
My first forays into metal were thus in the Nu-Metal genre, but once more I branched out and went deeper into the subgenres of metal. Now I prefer gothic stuff (Lacuna Coil, Tiamat, etc) and the ultra-harsh black / death-metal area (Dimmu Borgir, Cradle Of Filth, Opeth, etc). I still listen to all of my nu-metal albums, but I've gone off the genre a bit, especially since Linkin Park went all pop with their crap albums.
I've no idea where and when I discovered hip hop. It probably started with the odd tune and developed from there, as with the other music I'm into. Incidentally, the new Eminem album is pretty damn good. There's a couple of weak tunes on it, but mostly it's a great collection of songs. My favourites are Mosh (but it's better with the video), Crazy In Love and Toy Soldiers. Oh, and I love the girl's voice on Spend Some Time, if only because it's a little strange.
Recently (i.e. the last 6 months), I've been getting into some wider fields of music. I love Goldfrapp, Peaches, Lolita Storm, Chicks On Speed, Aphex Twin, Scissor Sisters (Comfortably Numb has just come on, loving it!), Lamb and Atari Teenage Riot, have rediscovered Bjork, and have decided that DJ Shadow is a genius. I'm also into Metallica at the moment, having got S&M a few months back and watched the MTV Icon show yesterday.
Oh, and the weirdest group I can think of in my mp3 collection is Rasputina. They're so different from what I usually listen to, but I love them. 3 female cellists, and that's about it in the group. The songs are weird, the lyrics are fucked up, but somehow it meshes together to be great music. Go get some of their tunes, Tourniquet being a personal recommendation.
OK, I need to stop talking about music whilst I still can. I get obsessive about the music I like, and can quite easily write a bucketload about it. As I have done, it seems. Dammit.
Sorry for seeming so chirpy and excited all the way through, I think it comes through in my writing a bit strong. I can't help it though, there's so many great tunes I have and want.
Such as Gloworm - Carry Me Home, which I just found on NOW 28. What a tune!
Tuesday, November 9
Bruised And Bleeding (A Bit)
OK, so I'm skipping forward a week right now, but this has to be done whilst I'm still in pain. It makes it easier to write about feeling sore if I am in fact still sore.And no, it wasn't due to rampant sex. Christ, you and your dirty mind.
My various bumps, bruises, cuts, grazes, aches and pains are in fact due to the fact that I took part in an organised form of sport for the first time in a good 3 years. Of course I play football all the time, but it's always with mates, never for a team. The last time I did anything like that was for Corsham Under 18s back when I lived in Melksham, and even then I was only doing it for fitness, rather than to play in the team itself. I'm realistic when it comes to my (lack of) footballing ability.
My rugby ability, on the other hand, has pleasantly surprised me.
For yes, I played rugby last night. I'd bumped into a friend of mine in town during the afternoon, and he told me about the university team's training session that night. He explained that it was completely for beginners, and that it was a good laugh. I had fuck all else planned, and I figured that it was time I did some physical exercise. I've spent too long destroying my body with alcohol recently, and it needs some repair work.
Although considering the amount of bruises and raw skin all over my legs right now, that might not be truly what happened.
It was fucking cold, but I was determined to get out there and at least get fit, even if I played really badly. I'd not played rugby since I was at school, at least 5 years ago, and even then I was barely average. I was quite small until I was 15/16, so I played scrum-half (number 9) most of the time. I was good at passing and running with the ball, but not so hot on the physical stuff.
Not that I was a wuss, you understand, but because I physically couldn't do it. I was just too small. It's very difficult to take down a 6'3 tall motherfucker if you're only 5'1, believe me.
So that was the position I found myself in as we started the training session: very, very rusty, if not back at the beginning again, which was also the experience level of most people there. We started off by playing a game which was kind of like netball, but with some rugby skills mixed in. You couldn't run with the ball, but you also couldn't tackle the ball-holder. Non-contact, that's the word I'm after.
It was played at a frenetic pace, however, and I was knackered by the end of it. I'm desperately unfit, I really am. Not overweight or anything, just out of shape. Give me a few weeks and I'll be back to a decent level of fitness, so long as my body doesn't collapse in the meantime.
We then did some practicing of running with the ball and hitting an opponent. Not full-on, but with big pads held by the defender. It was just to get people used to the idea of impacting on someone as you run. I have to say that it brought memories flooding back, since we used to do an identical exercise back in my school days.
Memories, of the way we were...
We then did some group exercises with the pads, involving taking a hit and offloading the ball at the same time. Again, memories of how to give a perfect pop pass and how to turn on impact kept coming back. It's amazing how you never forget something like that.
It was then time to get a little muddy. We did a similar exercise to the previous, but this time went to ground as we were 'tackled' by the pad-holder. This is the basis of rucking, which I remember being involved with a hell of a lot back at school. I was generally the guy behind all the big fuckers (forwards is the technical term, I believe) who didn't get into all the pushing and shoving, but rescued the ball and fed it to another player. Great fun!
We then practiced actual tackling in pairs. I got matched up with some random girl, and we cracked on with throwing each other to the ground. Apparently, we weren't supposed to be doing it at full pace, but we didn't really know that. It was OK, because I still vaguely remembered how to tackle, and she definitely did.
I can't convey here just how great a feeling it is to remember something which you thought you'd totally forgotten. There I was, my first time with a rugby ball in my hands for years, and I was remembering the correct tackling technique (go for the thighs, wrap your arms round and put your head by their ass. Then allow their forward motion to make them fall over). Great stuff.
She then asked me if I knew how to do the type of tackle where you stop the runner in their tracks immediately, rather than falling backwards as their legs get wrapped up in your arms. This is the best kind of tackle, and it looks fucking great when you do it right. We call it a 'dump tackle', because that's basically what you do.
As the opponent runs towards you, you stoop a bit lower than usual, then drive forward as you meet. The trick is to rise at the same time, which results in their feet leaving the ground, however slightly. They then have no momentum, and you are able to push them back and then dump them onto their backs. Johnny Wilkinson is the prime proponent of this tackle. I remember him doing a beauty in the Six Nations a few years back against a French half-caste back (N'Tamack?). He literally picked him up and drove him back a couple of yards after N'Tamack came running at him full pelt. Classic.
After we'd practised that for a little while (she was OK at it, but I stil had to do a little jump as I ran towards her, so that she could shove me back a bit), one of the other better players said that that kind of tackle was actually forbidden. I asked if he meant just in the women's game, but he said overall. I beg to differ on that one, unless the German version of rugby is a little different from normal union rules. Oh well, chalk it up to experience.
As an end to the session, we played a match of sorts. There were 4 on each team who'd played some rugby before, but most were newcomers to the sport. The 4 "profis" (their word, not mine. It's roughly "pros") weren't allowed to go the whole width of the pitch, but had to stay in the middle section. That suited me fine, I wasn't up for much running.
I have to say that I had the time of my life. I remembered how to organise yourself in defence, and how to support the ball carrier when attacking. I remembered how to ruck, how to pass the ball over distance, how to get physical, and how to tackle at full pace. I particularly enjoyed taking down this big guy who'd played a bit before every time he got the ball.
I loved how I instinctively remembered to throw my arms around my head when tackled to the floor, even though there was no serious rucking (i.e raking the bodies on the floor with your boot when standing over them) going on. It's that kind of thing that will save you from a nasty wound one day.
I scored a couple of times, and was involved in loads of others. My particular favourite came just after I'd pretty badly knocked my back. I was running with the ball full pelt towards some guy, and just before I got there I turned back to face my own team (again, old habit) with the intention of trying to pass the ball or at least to be facing the right way if tackled to the floor.
The tackle never came, for whatever reason, and I ended up tripping over an outstretched leg, to land square on my back. I remember saying "Scheisse!" (eng: "Shit!") quite loudly, and laying there for 10 seconds or so. It really hurt, because I was still going at full pace when I landed. Your back isn't designed for that kind of impact, so I was a bit shaken up.
I eventually got up, walked gingerly back into the game, but kept rubbing my back for a minute or so. The coach even asked if I was OK. I wasn't feeling OK, but I wasn't going to tell him that, was I? Me big strong man, urg.
Within moments, I was given the ball, and I set off on another run. I was heading towards probably the best player there, fully expecting to be tackled. Somehow I ran straight through him, and then round another player before sprinting for the line to score. It was a great feeling to score something like that by myself. My back still fucking hurt though. There's nothing like adrenaline to make you forget / ignore pain.
At the end of the session, the coach said a few things about some social event the next day (I had lectures, couldn't go), and then asked myself and a friend of mine called Fabian to stay for a minute or two. We were the two new guys that night who'd played a bit of rugby before.
He explained (in English, dammit!) that the university didn't really have a team, and that this training session was just to get people into the sport. He said that if we wanted to play at a more advanced level, we should go to one of the many rugby clubs in Heidelberg.
Rugby isn't huge in Germany, and is even lower than Handball on the national sports scale, but for some reason Heidelberg is just about the epicentre of German rugby. We trained at a big rugby club, which even has a rugby museum, and I've seen a few other places around the town.
Anyway, the coach invited me and Fabian to come along to another training session on Thursday evening, where the skill level was a bit higher. I'm definitely going to go. Again, I'm not hugely fussed if I don't get to play matches, but it'll help both my fitness and German. If they speak German to me, that is.
Who would have thought, me joining a rugby club? I love rugby, don't get me wrong, but I'd not foreseen myself ever playing it again, and definitely not for any kind of team. But you just don't know, do you?
And so to the aftermath. I walked home with Numa, beginning to ache already. I dived into the shower, discovered via the stinging hot water where all of the grazes and cuts were on my legs and knees, and cleaned all the mud off of myself. Mmmmm, mud. It doesn't seem right doing any sport unless you get muddy.
I was aching for the rest of the evening, barely able to stand up without collapsing back down in pain, and I also had a recurrence of the chesty cough I'd shaken off at the weekend. I'm forever doing this: getting a bit of a cold, going out in the depths of winter to play football, and then wondering why my cold lasts for 3 weeks. Stupid Rob.
I couldn't get to sleep last night either, though not because of my aches and pains. Rather, I'd stayed in bed until midday (I have no Monday lectures) and was thus wide awake at midnight. The raw skin on my knees was also chafing on my quilt any time I moved (I'm a terrible fidget), and my knees generally were just aching.
It wasn't much better when I woke up this morning. My back aches, my throat is sore, and my knees (especially the right one) are covered in bruises and cuts. Such is the price we pay for enjoying ourselves, I guess.
Same again this Thursday, methinks. Oh, and it'll also keep me out of the pubs on Thursday night, which means a double-sized swing from unhealthy to healthy. Yay for me.
Even if I will ache like a bastard on Friday morning. Meh.
Monday, November 8
Bad Habits
Yes, I've ended up getting a week behind with my writing once more. At least this gives you something to read on a Monday morning in the office. For that, be thankful. To quote Garfield, I hate Mondays.And so our story begins where it left off last time. Namely Saturday afternoon, and my leaving Jillian's place after staying there on Friday night. I was fucking knackered, seeing as I hadn't had much sleep at all the night before, so I spent the rest of Saturday in my room, surfing the web and watching Simpsons episodes. It's a hard life, I know.
What I should have been doing was sorting out my costume for Sunday's Halloween party back at Jillian's. I had half an idea in my head, that of Alex from Clockwork Orange, but I didn't yet have a bowler hat. If I'd have gone downtown on Saturday afternoon, I could have got myself a half-decent outfit, but I just wasted away the afternoon doing fuck all.
This was downright retarded, because I knew full well that absolutely nothing is open in Heidelberg on a Sunday, least of all anywhere that you could envisage putting together a Halloween costume. Stupid me.
I also had this fact rammed home to me when I was out with a few friends for a drink or two on Saturday evening (oh, and I really do mean just a couple of drinks. This isn't one of those times where it's code for not being able to see at the end of the night). It suddenly hit me how easy it would be to do Kevin Spacey's character from se7en. All I needed was to cover a white t-shirt in ketchup and wrap some gauze around the tips of all of my fingers, accompanied by a little more blood-substitute. Easy!
Except you couldn't even buy gauze on a Sunday. Fucking lazy-assed German shopkeeper types. It would have looked so fucking cool too, as well as keeping together with the whole "be scary on Halloween" concept. Fucking German shopkeepers!
I ended up going to the party in a full football kit, which was a bit of a cop-out. At least I managed to throw some sort of costume together, even if it wasn't the most inventive. I did contemplate throwing myself along some grass on the way over to get a bit muddied up, but the bottle of wine and 6-pack I was carrying convinced me otherwise. I did manage to get a couple of votes for Worst Costume, which pleased me no end.
And so to the drinking. I really, truly didn't drink a whole lot that night, I swear. I had about 6 or 7 bottles of beer, that's it. Jillian wasn't drinking at all, since she said she'd had a weekend's worth on Friday night, and I just wasn't hugely up for getting twatted. No, I wasn't feeling ill, just in a non-drinking mood.
Needless to say, there were many, many others who weren't of the same mindset as me. There was some drunken hilarity, some drunken mouthing off, some drunken bigotry, and almost a drunken fight. Those are always the best, the "almosts". You know the kind, where there is shouting and griping for ages and ages, but a punch never gets thrown.
We had that on Sunday night. The beer pong table broke somehow, but in any case not fatally. It fell over, and a couple of screws popped out. Nothing 10 minutes with a screwdriver couldn't fix. This led one already drunk guy to try to hunt down any perpetrators, the perpetrators' friends, mothers, lawyers and delivery nurses. It all got a bit heated, but no punches were thrown.
The wimps.
It took so long to eventually pan out to nothing that we'd pretty much finished cleaning up by the time they came back inside. They bitched about the now vanquished perpetrators for a while longer before we were able to force them all out.
Once more, I cannot remember if I invited myself to stay the evening, or if I was invited by Jillian. Once more, however, I stayed. And once more, nothing beyond kissing happened. I swear. And if I get any more comments along the lines of "Why didn't you just fuck her!?", I'll be pissed off. I do things my way (badly), you do things yours. I'm happy that it works for you.
Once again, we lounged around in bed until stupid o'clock in the afternoon, which meant that I eventually got home at around 4. Not bad going, considering I was stone cold sober the night before. Usually a 4pm rise from bed signals a very, very heavy session the night before. Like this Saturday told me Friday night was. More on that one soon.
I went to another friend's place on Monday evening to watch a DVD with my usual group of friends. Dodgeball, I believe it was. They'd all left the Halloween party quite early (as per usual, it must be said. They have an aversion to being around the Americans after 11pm), and had gone into town. Hence they had no idea what had happened to me after I left.
They asked what time I'd got home, and I said the immortal line "about 4 this afternoon". Smooth.
The looks on their faces were priceless. As you know, I have the reputation of being the Asexual Worm already, so for me to stay at someone else's place was quite something in their eyes. I had to field all manner of questions, including fending off the suggestion by one of them (J, the drunken American girl who I had to carry home with Jamie a while back, as a matter of fact) that it might have been a guy. Just because I'm not out pulling everything in a skirt that moves, as she does with any guy within arm's reach, it does not make me gay. But she would not fucking drop it. Fuck's sake!
I was deliberately being a bastard and not saying who, because my sense of humour is tickled by seeing them all squirming and getting miffed at not knowing who it is. Yes, I'm a git like that. They asked if it was serious, and I said maybe, seeing as I'd stayed round there on Friday too. This really caught their attention, I can tell you.
I did stress that it was only kissing, nothing else, but they were still intrigued. They even texted Jillian to ask her if she knew who it was, which I found fucking funny. She replied to me, asking how quickly word spreads in this town, so I had to let her know what was going on, and that I was toying with them.
They were still going on about it all of the time that I was on the bus with them, and I left them still uninformed as I got off at my stop. Yes, I'm a bastard and a git. So hate me.
What's going to happen with this girl? I can tell you're itching to know. The truth is I'm not sure myself. I don't know how I feel about her, or if I think it's going to go anywhere. Perhaps I should wait until I've written up this week's events before reaching a conclusion. I don't like pre-empting myself on here if I can help it.
Plus it leaves you all in the dark a little, which greatly amuses me.
Yes, I'm still that bastard.
