From the monthly archives: January 2008
So here I was sitting in front of the TV looking for inspiration for tonights little masterpeice; hoping that some topic would fall from on high and get me started. My new employer graciously gave me a mac laptop with a wireless network connection, unshackling me from the confines of my little office, and giving me the freedom to sit anywhere, so now I write from my couch, which is about 3 meters away from my office. Sure it's not far, but it's the novelty that really matters. On TV was that NCIS show, which a dutch friend of mine raves about, he reckons it's the best thing since TimTams, so when I saw it on during the channel flip I figured I'd give it one eye worth of watching.
It's pretty amazing how shit it really was. I mean, I'm fairly liberal with my concept of entertainment nowadays when it comes to TV. I watch so little of it as I have a whole bunch of other stuff I do to amuse myself, that when I do actually watch something it's normally just so I can veg out and let my brain go into neutral. It goes without saying that you have suspend belief in reality in TV, but for fucks sake, I didn't just get asked to suspend belief in NCIS, but kick it in the balls, set it on fire and throw it out the window. At one point I started wondering if I was watching some show about a parallel universe where they had computers and the internet, but it was all built by morons instead of geniuses.
I spent most of the time slagging off the show; the characters; the storyline; what they wore; and of course anything at all they did with the internet and computers. The chick I was watching it with at some point turned around and asked if I could please shut the fuck up so she could at least see the end without my ranting in the foreground. The ending was complete shit – of course – and totally unbelievable in the real world. As the credits rolled at the end though, I realised that whole shittiness of the show had actually been enterntainment in itself, and I was totally engaged as a viewer for the whole time I was on the couch.
Maybe this is how entertainment has evolved; TV has come full circle and instead of us wanting well thought out good shows, we really just want stuff that we can slag off and jeer at how bad it is. Thus making us feel like we've seen something worthwhile and engaged our brains at the same time. Perhaps this could be a new carreer, since I am sure I can write TV as bad as anybody out there today.
Padwanna!
Lifes on the up and up; I've quit smoking, made it passed my probation period at the new job and been given a permanent contract, and turned over a new leaf when it comes to doing gear as part of the usual weekend blowout. I'm feeling pretty good, even though I'm not really looking it. One of the problems giving up smoking is that craving to snack constantly. As much as what you used to smoke, and then a bit more. So my once slim stomach has been reshaping itself to resemble a spare tyre from an SUV, but that's okay, it's winter, I spend my days wearing two layers of shirts under a long sleeved jumper. Everybody looks slim this way.
So with everything so good, why is there still this feeling of wanting to pack up and move to some small corner of the world and give all this excitement away? I've spent my whole life running away from a life ordinary and dull as fuck, so what's with the big urge now to head to the nearest deserted beach and spend the rest of my life doing fuck all? I don't know really. I don't have any answers for that. I'm just wondering if it will pass.
Well either way, I still have to get up tomorrow morning and go about my day, so there's no point in daydreaming too much about founding my own hippie community on a Thai beach. Though I reckon that's definitely something worth doing at some point. Only, I think I'd make sure there were no guns or crazed meglomaniac English chicks around to hijack my doped out little group of lost travellers. If it's one thing I learned from that movie, it's that rampaging chicks and guns will fuck up a good thing faster than bad acid will turn your couch into a blue monster that will try to devour you whole.
Trust me! 
Padwanna!
Sundays over, and I'm suddenly struck by this feeling of overwhelming lethargy; partys over, and real life is about to begin again. It feels like a year has gone by so quick when you're at the end of it, but at the same time, when you're looking down the road at the beginning of a year ahead, it does seem like an awfully long horizon.
Maybe I could take another week off and spend some time doing bugger all. Then again, I could probably take this year off and do bugger all as well. I like the comfortable feeling of doing bugger all, and last year there was almost no time for being comfortable, or for doing bugger all. All of a sudden I feel like I've become that guy in that movie Office Space.
I wonder if I'm going to be able to pull it together by tomorrow morning? I guess I'll know in about 10 hours.
Padwanna!
I remember it all; the party, the people, and all the gear on the tables around the flat. No alcohol stupor for me, nor the missing time effect that so many others would face when they woke up on the morning after. It was a hardcore crowd though, make no mistake, not satisified with chit chat and gin and tonics in the living room. No this group wanted to feel the rush of the approaching new year, and have the surge take them across midnight into their field of dreams.
I got into the swing of things, being picked up by the general crowd fever of excitement and thirst for intoxication; I didn't want to be left behind, so I put my own head to the table and went with the flow. A little while later, when the clock struck midnight, I held my sparkler in the air and twirled it at the stars while singing Auld Lang Syne, my heart full of cheer.
I remember looking around the room many times during that night of the party, seeing the faces of the crowd, most of whom I knew, and remembering the history behind them. The last year had been a good one despite how terrible some of the bad days of my breakup had been. I could think back to a lot of fun times with this group who I had come to call my friends; they were a balance to everything else that was painful. I felt happy to see out the old, and in with the new, with them by my side.
It was around 7am on that day of the first when we finally put on our coats and headed outside to the dim grey dark early morning, that is the norm for winter in Europe. There were only 2 people left around the table, now all covered in party litter, like a ships bottom is covered with barnacles. My little group was one of the last to go and by that time our feet ached and our heads were blurred and sluggish. Little matter, it was a whole day to sleep it off, when sleep would come. The important thing was, it was a night to remember, and a long kiss goodbye to that babe of a year, 2007.
Padwanna
