Your buried shoe box grief

Riker wants to stay up and watch the Late Late cunting Toy Show. Here's how I feel about that particular televisual feast. Can I say no? Sure I can. The reasons are reasonable and manifold:

I can tape it. We have the fucking technology. I'll be taping it for Data either way. I don't see how either of us are going to be able to stay awake that late. I'm too old. She's too young. It's not like it's McCain's concession speech or anything. I'm not going to be rewarded by the shedding of joyous tears of fatigued schadenfreude. And unless some misdirected Pakistani Brit terrorist starts lobbing grenades about, there will be no live witnessing of history. If I want to cringe with embarrassment and boredom I can just sit up reading my old bleugh entries like I do most Friday nights. Really, I should just fucking tape it and send her sulking to bed. She'll get over it.

I'm staying up, amn't I? Le fucking sigh, folks, part fucking a bizillion.


UPDATE: Read my live bleughing of this occurence here. You'll need to scroll down and work up.

It's too cold to be out walking in the streets

Twelve years it was on Wednesday. We both forgot. Again.

'I knew November 26th was something,' said Common Law.

Good for her. I had no such niggling brain itches. It wasn't until this morning when I found myself gazing at an unopened box of cotton buds that the relevancy of this two days past date occurred to me. Why cotton buds? Once, in fucking Cork of all places, and before we hooked up, we both needed cotton buds. She doesn't remember this. She utilises her memory box for tastier tidbits.

Twelve years? Twelve years. Jesus. That seems way longer than ten years, or even eleven years. And much. much longer than six weeks or so. Twelve years is a long time. For sure, it's not as long as thirteen years, and not nearly as long as 4.55 billion years. But it's still a pretty long time.

The gemstone for a twelve year anniversary is jade. Yes, I did know that off the top of my head. Of course, we're not married so I don't suppose that this has any bearing on our lives. Which is a good thing as the word 'jade' no longer brings to Gimme's mind a pretty lump of rock, but rather an ugly lump of pig-faced moronic racism.

But despite there being no piece of paper floating about in the equation, I still firmly believe that we deserve presents. Her for putting up with me. Me for putting up with her putting up with me.

Presents please.

The pleasure, the privilege is mine

The figurative car crash nature of my offerings continues unabated. Long may this figuratively last. I drove for about five minutes through the gloomy roads of Ranelagh last night having forgotten to engage my headlights. And just as the blame for my sister's recent clock falling on her head mishap may be laid untidily at my door due to my purchasing of said clock over ten years ago, so it was entirely her fault that I made this idiotic omission. I had stopped by her gaff to pick something up, you see. And when I pulled out I forgot about the lights. See? Her fault.

People kept flashing their lights at me. I happily toodled on down the road, thinking to myself: 'It's honk if you think I'm sexy, sillies!'

All I know is that to me you look like you're lots of fun

I've had two weeks off the 7am spin, with the convenient Common Law as an unusually coherent excuse. Back to it tomorrow, though, and because her outdoors is working evenings now, I can't even spend the night five minutes from the gym, at the bumpy-headed Ellie's flat.

I called my dormant exercise bleugh, that one for which I wrote four entries, 'The fuck am I doing this for?'. And never is that question more pertinent than when I throw my leg over the spin saddle at 6.50 and attempt to coax some warmth into my cold, dead legs.

I know what I tell the punters to prise them into the gym at that insane hour. 'Empty stomach, no carbs stored, more time in fat burning zone, sets you up for the day.' I say this jollily and without any inflection that suggests 'Are you fucking insane? Get up an hour early to listen to me shouting at you over M.I.A.? Seriously, dude, if you're happy to get up at 6.15 or so, then you're not going to bed late enough.' Nothing in my tone betrays this, the truest of my bright and breezy beliefs.

I quite like my job, such as it is. I get paid to keep reasonably fit, allowing me to eat and drink lots and lots of unmitigated crap without turning into fat five-chinned porker like the rest of the fucking country. And I get to be the centre of attention. And as far as attention goes, that's exactly where I like to be. But at the same time, this up at 5.45, this hurting by 7.05, this is making me consider yet another fake career.

I was all set up for begging, what with my straggly reborn beard, my wide range of frayed tracksuits, and my lifelessly aggressive eyes but the cunts went and changed the fucking law. You're not allowed to be intimidating any more, apparently. What a fucking gip. All I had apart from the beard, the tracksuit and the eyes was a penchant for sitting on concrete, intimidatingly. Cunts, I say again.

I guess I'll just get up at the putrid, genitally warted crack of fucking dawn instead.

Our love is rice and beans and horse's lard

Every morning, the same three questions, delivered speedily in a single breath:

'What's for dinner tonight? Who's minding me tonight? Is it Friday today?'

'It is not Friday, Data, it is Tuesday.'

'Daaaaady!'

'It's Tuesday, Data, there's nothing I can do about it.'

'Not Data!'

'What?'

'Not Data! Super Princess Leia!'

'Oh. Sorry. I forgot.'

'Is it Friday?'

'No.'

'Is it Friday on the other day?'

'Yes, on the other day. Not today. Not tomorrow.'

'What's for dinner?'

'Chicken.'

'Macaroni cheese and peas?'

'No. Chicken. And carrots. You like carrots.'

'I hate carrots.'

'You like carrots. Turkish carrots.'

'In ice cream?'

'In natural yoghurt, but yeah ok, we can call it ice cream.'

'I like ice cream.'

'Yes'.

'Who's minding me tonight?'

I swear to fuck you'd think I shunted her from relative to babysitter to relative every night of the fucking week.

'I am.'

'Aaaaawwwww!'

'Yes, well, I'm still minding you.'

'Aaaaawwwww!'

'Data? I mean, Super Princess Leia?'

'Huh?'

'Who's minding me tonight?'

'Nothing.'

'You mean nobody?'

'Yes.'

'Aren't you going to mind me?'

Data sighs, like she's seriously fucking tired of explaining this to me. As indeed she is.

'You're a daddy, Daddy.'

'Oh, yeah.'

'Daddy?'

'Yes?'

'Is it Friday today?'

I keep recycling the same old thoughts

Despite my aggressive outrage, my obvious arrogance, my calculated cuntishness, there are moments when I find myself looking deep within my sordid soul only to discover that yes, this one time, I am not making this shit up.

I often feel aggrieved. Slightly slighted. Put upon, perhaps. Clearly condescended to. And mostly it's my imagination hard at work, nose to the grindstone, desperate in its need to seek out an offence that will justify my anger with this stupid fucking planet and this clownish fucking life. And when my imagination lights upon this offence, then I can rant and rave and rage and rail and find, however briefly, relief.

On occasions like this, however, when I know myself to have been genuinely and purposefully wounded, right there in my dangly feelings, I cannot summon up my beast of bluster. I just sit here stunned, longing for the time when I didn't give a fuck what people did with their pathetically dramatic lives.

Emaweni webaba

There I was, hanging out by the bike sheds, innocently playing Virtual Pool on my new godPhone, when what should I overhear but news of the potential degradation of the dilithium crystals on this here Enterprise.

Maybe you haven't read everything that I've written. Poor fucking you. Here's the scoop: we live beside our Germanic landspeople. They own both houses and rent to us. Once we went to their gaff for dinner. The best that can be said about that evening is that it was a short walk home.

So to my overhearing, my dropping of these eaves. It was Lady Land who spoke, to some guy I don't know as he quit their house and said his goodbyes.

'I see that house is still up for sale.'

I know the one he means, four doors down, on the market since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Lady keeps it simple.

'Yes, it is.'

And then Lady gets heavy, oh so very heavy.

'We're going to have to sell this one.'

You fucking what?

'Next door?'

'Yes, inaudible mortgage inaudible.'

I don't know what the fuck she meant by inaudible, but I do know that they plan to sell our house and unless that elderly spin chick who fancies me decides to express her love with a €600,000 bag of cash instead of a sparse diet of admiring glances then they will not be selling it to us. Which is an awful pity.

It's a great road, this road we live on. We're on the deep corner of an L-shaped cul de sac. It's safe and quiet. Plenty of kids with whom The Bridge Crew can consort. I like it as much as I've liked anywhere that I've had to stay put in for more than five minutes. My roaming chilhood left me restless and unfocussed, but this place I could see myself sticking with for a while.

It's not that massive a problem. A quick check on Daft reveals that plenty of people around and about are looking for a nice family to not murder chickens in their attics, and rents, thank recession, are way down. But the moving, even a short distance, is something I just do not want to contemplate. I'm going to stop contemplating it now.

Of course, this may not happen for a long time. No one's buying, right? The place down the road is evidence of that. But we're due to sign a new lease in the coming weeks and I suspect that there'll be some procrastination on that one from our loveable Prussian masters. Either way, I'm really looking forward to being that guy who attempts to freak out potential buyers with tales of eerie noises and putrid stenches. I can supply the latter myself.

Say you don't need no diamond ring

Can't talk. Playing with iPhone. Lightsabering iPhone. Cowbelling iPhone. iBowling iPhone. Glorious, glorious iPhone.

The book on how long it takes me to break it is now open.

I know you got yourself a skinny ol' man

Santa. What an annoying asshole. I hate all the deceit that he engenders with his demands for letters and attention and visits to his grotty shopping centre grottos. Riker will be ten in February and I have no clue as to where she stands on this massive, annoying lie.

I learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens, but the Santa truth came to me at seven. I was first down, way before my three year old sister and it seemed right to me that I should have the pick of the potential presents. There wasn't a whole lot of shit in Ellie's stocking that I wanted for my own, but a pretty green frog purse instantly caught my eye. Sometimes I wonder at my alleged sexuality. I moved the purse from her sock to mine. My bustedness thirty minutes later combined with my having caught a glimpse of hastily shut wardrobe doors led me to the inevitable conclusion that this was all a load of shit and that my parents were once again, lying to me.

Ans so to the much older and wiser Riker. She related the story this morning of her friend who had already written to Santa, without the knowledge of her parents, and asked for a mobile phone. Because her parents said she couldn't have one. This was a water-testing tale, I could tell. I remained non-commital, threw out a couple of 'Oh's and gently suggested that Santa was as privy to the wishes and wants of parents as to those of the kiddies.

Riker is getting a bike for Christmas. To go with the new outrageously expensive swimming lessons. Soon I'll have her running around the block too, determined as I am that this be her fate. You should watch that shit. Fatmammycat had it up a while back but the hilarity of the wobbly walk bit never fails to bring howls of laughter to my jaded throat.

So how's the bike thing going to work? Clearly we, her long-suffering parents, are the ones forking out the cash. But the trouble that it will take to pretend to hide this unalterable fact just so that we can make her feel better about making us feel better seems both too pointed and too pointless. And yet, I expect, until she utters the magic, long yearned for words 'Santa's not real, is he?' then that is exactly how it's going to go down.

Good thing I drummed all that Jesus shit out of her early doors.

Well, I guess you must have known it would someday

Another close call, another lucky break. I have the odd feeling that I am not sitting here writing and fretting, but am in fact draped crushed and broken over the mangled carcass of Purple Danger. An Occurrence at Leeson Park Corner, if you like. I don't have the super powers but am still happy to keep living this dream of typing and lunch-making right until the moment that the truth of my timely demise is revealed.

Or maybe I just got lucky. Again. I could have been going faster. Purple's brakes could have been even crappier and less responsive than they actually are. He could have pulled out that little bit later. Lucky, lucky, and thrice lucky, that's me.

But it has to run out, right? Or run free at least, untethered from my safety and emotional well-being. It has to happen. Law of fucking averages, innit?

And so, I suspect, a terrible doom awaits. An archaic terrible doom. You know what I mean by that, right? I don't have to explain this shit. You're not stupid. Nor ignorant. I should avoid projecting my own stupidity and ignorance onto other people. It pisses them off something rotten.

But what do I fucking care? Here, ignoramuses, is what I mean: Terrible, in the 'formidably great' sense. Doom, in the 'fate, not necessarily negative' sense. A terrible doom awaits, I say again. All these near misses, these bust-ups with the animate and inanimate, they're leading down the road to something big, and when it comes I just hope that I'll be fourth, fifth, sixth time lucky.

There was pressure on me too, you know

I, too, had the opportunity to put questions to Olympic boxer Kenny Egan last week. His charming mother Maura was also in attendance, though she declined to be interviewed herself.

Gimme: Do you like Bob Dylan?

Kenny: No.

Gimme: So you don't know his song 'Who killed Davy Moore?'

Kenny: No.

Gimme: It's about this boxer who dies in the ring.

Kenny: Oh.

Gimme: So I thought you might know it.

Kenny: I don't.

Gimme: It's great.

Kenny: Is it?

Gimme: Oh, yeah. It's on the first bootleg album. And I just found a cool live version on youTube.

Kenny: Deadly. Do you have any other questions?

Gimme: Um...

Kenny: You don't?

Gimme: No, no, I do.

Kenny: Well?

Gimme: I forget.

Kenny: Right.

Gimme: But you should listen to that song, it's great.

Kenny: Okay.

Gimme: I'll burn you a copy.

Kenny: Thanks.

Gimme: You want to come over on Friday? We can listen to it together.

Kenny: No thanks.

Gimme: I like your biceps.

Kenny: What?

Gimme: I mean your face is a bit of a mess, but I guess that's from getting hit all the time, right?

Kenny: Are you fucking with me?

Gimme: No. Not at all. I really do like your biceps.

Kenny: I think that's it now for the interview.

Gimme: Oh. Okay, right. Sure you're not free Friday night?

Kenny: I'm sure.

Gimme: Okay.

Kenny: Okay.

Gimme: So I'll see you Friday, then?

Kenny: Ma! We're going.

Gimme: Okay. Thanks for your time.

Kenny: You're welcome.

Gimme: Friday, then? I'll drop my address over to your house.

Kenny: Don't you come anywhere near my fuckin' gaff.

Gimme: Ah. Right so. Bye so.

Kenny: See ya.

Gimme: See ya Friday!

A real gentleman, that Kenny. I'll let you know how Friday goes.

I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked

My backspace button has ceased to function. And the one on the laptop isn't working either. So it's highlight, delete from here on in, in life as in rushed shopping lists and ill-advised bleugh commentary.

It's only a mercy that I make so very few mistakes.

Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy

The SUV pulls up beside me at the lights. I glance at the driver, interested to see what form Satan has chosen to take on this balmy evening. His face I cannot recall, due to its now permanent association with deep embarrassment and sickening relief. But I remember his wild gesticulations, his 'roll down your shitty purple framed window' exhortations.

The drive up until now has been uneventful. I spend most of it fretting over my performance in the spin class that I have just completed. For the last fifteen minutes I had been barely able to turn the pedals. As I speed over the speed bumps on Palmerston Road, I tick off the excuses in my head.

Bump.

Didn't eat enough today.

You ate your body weight in pasta, you twit.

Bump.

Five spin in 48 hours at the start of the week.

You've done that before, tosser.

Bump.

Yesteray's crash, delayed shock.

What kind of pussy do you take yourself for?

Bump.

Bump, bump, bump.

John Wesley Harding is blasting magically from Riker's discman through an FM transmitter as I fly down Morehampton Road. Previously I used the laptop for driving music but the battery is fucked. Onto the list a new battery goes, along with teaching clothes without pinhole burns and a fucking haircut. I have it with me anyway, the laptop, as it has become essential for spin, with all its music, its inspirational Tour clips and its big shiny stopwatch display.

I am forced to stop suddenly at yet another fucking red light. Should have cycled. Yeah, that would have helped. I feel the imminent total physical collapse in my bones.

It is at the next lights that the paths of myself and Mr Faceless SUV finally cross. I buzz down the window, and as it descends, the man in question is already pointing above my head, towards Purple's roof. The window is down. He speaks to me in a shocked, barely audible voice as he continues to weakly indicate to the space above my tiny, tiny brain.

Can you guess? Can you? Can you? What's on the roof, folks? What has been perched happily atop Purple for the last three miles, through hill and dale, over bumps and potholes?

Yeah, I thought you'd get it. It is, indeed. Oh yes, it is. It's my fucking laptop.

So many emotions. So little time. Still dominating, even now, is the joy I feel at having have provided my readers, my children and most of all, Common Law, with yet another reason to hold me in contempt.

Those non-existent Gods smile upon me, but they do so with a terrible disdain.

The winds should come and catch you

Jesus lost his virginity yesterday. Jesus Killer, my fabulous fixed gear friend, that is. And I am referring to his crash virginity rather than my having given him a good up the seat post seeing to. Fucking Fairview folks. Again.

This spilling of Jesus, this spilling of me, bore quite the resemblance to my own, non-figurative cherry-popping, in that it took place on wet ground and was unremarkable in just about every conceivable way. A quick turn into the park, wet leaves, fucking down we go. I'm still sore. Left shoulder. Right knee. Heel of my left hand. Ouchy, ouchy, ouchy. Jesus remains relatively unscathed.

The irony of my being helped up by a bus driver was not lost on me, nor should it be lost on you. These fuckers seem to spend most of their working day attempting to make orphans of my children and yet it would seem that if you take them from behind their oversized wheels they become quite the gentle men and women.

'Wet leaves, was it?' It was, Mr Bus Driver Man, it was.

But I want to talk briefly about the moment. On this occasion, it was but a brief moment, though once it lasted longer. When, during my second ever ride upon Hardcore Motherfucker, I slammed on the brakes and flew through the air with greatest of ease, landing on outstretched arms, and shattering my right elbow, I must have been in the air for a good three seconds. Yesterday, it was just the blink of eye, the flash between feeling the wheels go and the grounding itself. But in both cases there was the moment, that seems somehow to last forever. The moment when control is lost and the burdens of this cursed life become no longer mine. Instinct is doing the fall breaking, the arm outstretching, the face protecting and the mind is left to wander free in a kind of nirvana. I don't even think with hopeful relief that maybe this time I'll die or even just get a couple of weeks in hospital. I think of nothing, which is oh so very rare. I can see totally see the attraction of jumping, if only I didn't have to make the decision to jump.

I disagree with you Hubert. For me, my fictional French friend, l'important, c'est pas l'atterissage, c'est la chute.

And so far so fucking good.

I'm all of those soft words I once owned

My desperation to be liked is bringing me down. It should have to take its place in the queue along with all the other down-bringing shite, but no, it's barging its way to the front, kicking rejection, self-pity and crippling fatigue out of its way as it goes.

I have few enemies. Fewer friends, naturally, but still few enemies. If I had some kind of gnarly, mutated, twenty tentacled claws on the end of my arms then I could certainly count them on one hand. This lady is one of them. For more than a year now, since her misguided and tragically futile attempt to humiliate me in front of a room full of spinners, we have been firm foes. She has been giving it loads in the dressing room, on the gym floor. Bitching about me, dissing my hugely popular, over-subscribed classes, being the mad as a box of hammers cunt basket that she was surely born to be. I know this because of all my female allies and spies, the gym ladies who would be Gimme's were Gimme not already given. For my part, I have restricted myself to the entertainment of countless tyre-slashing, protein-poisoning fantasies.

And now, out of the filthy grey, she's changed her fucking tune. She's started showing up at my classes, saying hello, not spending the entire hour sighing dramatically at her disappointment at having voluntarily submitted herself to my exercisily whims.

So clearly the thing to do here is to maintain a professional demeanour. Speak politely when spoken to. Not tell her to fuck off you horrible shit-kicking bully. And this I have done. Not once since this Bush-like flip flop have I called her a cunt or asked her why, if she spends so much time exercising, she's still such a horribly fat fuck. And that should be enough, right?

Nu huh. Not for Gimme. I haven't been fawning. Not quite. But pretty fucking close. Compliments. Personalised encouragement. The playing of tracks that I'm aware she likes. It's pathetic, but the feeling of being intensely, intensively disliked has bothered me so much that I find myself doing everything in my power to prevent it from happening again. I justify this to myself by thinking 'Bygones, dude. She's not so bad. It's okay to give her a chance', when clearly these gones are still very much present, she remains a horrible harridan who deserves not so much a chance but a swift axe to the nose bridge.

This is no mellowing. This is a pathetic weakening, a surrendering of a core belief that I hold dear.

If I cannot hold on to my hate, then what's left?

What starts out weak might get too strong if you can't tell foul from fair

Rugby players didn't used to look like they do today. Way back, I'm talking about, when potential scrum backs and full flankers weren't pumped full of creatine, HGH and a preposterous work ethic from the age of four. When the sexy sounds of the non-stammering Nigel Starmer Smyth used fill my Sunday afternoons, rugger buggers would come in all shapes and sizes. Those front guys were predominately fat and wheezing and the take me from behind types were mostly slim and fleet of foot, but there was room in the ugly game for every physical creed. These days they all look like fucking He Man characters. The ones that are having their testicles fondled resemble the neckless Man at Arms and the rest of them look like, well, Prince Adam himself. Were there other characters in He Man? Apart from Skeletor and that cowardly green lion guy?

Anyways.

In contrast, today's filthy rich criminal class, (I cannot speak on the scum of yore, shielded as I was by wealth and power) are committed to one of two physical types. The scrawny skinny little cunt look or the dripping with globules of greasy fat fashion. Both classes are pale, acne-encased and sickly looking, unlike their glowing with good food and barely legal drugs, meathead counterparts.

It's not purely shape-based either, this contrast. Athletes walk tall, abdominals engaged, drug dealers slouch, limbs akimbo. One struts, the other sidles. Grunting on the hand, snarlingon the foot.

Can anyone guess where I'm going with this?

You'll get righteous rage and delusional demands for solutions elsewhere. Here on Stranded, the main question raised by the shooting of the unfortunate Shane Geoghegan in Limerick is 'How the fuck do you mistake a rugby player for a scumbag?'

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey

So I won Blog Post of the Month. Shared it with some pretty cool pictures of old people. So go fucking me. I find myself in illustrious company. And while I would like to respond with:

'You can't put art in a competition, man.'

and

'It's not about awards, I do it all for love and hate and self-aggrandisement.'

and

'Thanks to all who nominated me, or maybe just that one person who did so on my express request.'

I cannot. For my genuine reaction is 'Thank fuck for that.' Having ponderously proved that 18 is the magic number when it comes to the amount of times one can drop a Blackberry on a wooden floor before it ceases to function, I've been carrying this piece of Hans Brinker donated shit around for the last three months. It was getting to the point where I was being forced to choose between self-respect and contactability.



And while the cynical exploitation of a personal tragedy may rankle with some, some must also admit that half a smart phone is a whole lot better than one really fucking stupid one.

Can I break your sentiment?

I do not wear my fear, misery and loneliness on my sleeve as they wouldn't match my sparkling blue eyes, my dazzling smile, or even my comical hair. And yet.

I sat between the Bridge Crew last night at my sister's birthday dinner. Riker, who daily grows in confidence and poise, was holding forth, regaling the company with genius jokes such as 'What's brown and sticky? A brown stick!'. Data, for once, did not appear to feel the need to compete, intent as she was on hoovering the birthday girl's mozzarella into her gaping maw. And yet.

I don't think I seemed down, particularly. I made the decision early on to dump Purple and cab it home, and was at this point working my way steadily through the bountiful red wine. I was joining in the conversation, I was not being openly hostile to Hans, I was most certainly not holding my head in my hands, rocking with racked and shuddering sobs. And yet.

Data, momentarily sated by casein, turned to me. As Riker and my sister wrangled over which tosspot deserved elimination from the cunting X-Factor, my four year old looked me in the eye and asked with genuine concern, 'Are you ok?'

I thought I must have misheard her, or at minimum misunderstood the feeling in which the question was mired, so I said, 'What did you say, sweetie?' She repeated herself, with no let up in the worry, the empathy.

'I'm fine, Data, I'm fine. Have some more mozzarella.'

'Okay.'

This is an amendment to the earlier rule

Context here and apologies to the ex-girlfriend who's non-spa words I publish without credit.

Two of a kind, the first of which has been on my mind, what with the whole wanting to fuck then abandon Obama thing:



And the second of which reminds that it is Christopher Walken's Duane that I really want to be when I grow up:



On these wet and windy, high speed nights as Purple Danger tickles fifth, those on-coming headlights become ever more appealing.


Update: Turns out it wasn't an ex-girlfriend that wrote that shit on the Harry card, it was Common Law. Is my face red. Am I cold now, sleeping on the couch.

Merchants and thieves, hungry for power

I am 'A beacon of gloom to a world drowning in hope.' Oh yes, I fucking am. You should get right over there and read the whole thing. There's a lot of that 'hope' shit to wade through, but it's totally worth it for Mr. B's response to my admittedly overly verbose comment.

I do my best work, drunk and inexplicably cheerful at four in the morning.


Today's Title and Lyrics - No one does prescience like our Bob.

What was that promise that you made?

Am I tactile person? I believe that I may very well completely fucking not be. Don't get me wrong, I like touching, I like to be touched. It's nice, that touching shit. I'm certainly not one of those crazy cunts who recoils at the brush of an arm by a casual acquaintance. A hearty handshake from a relative stranger or even a strange relative is not going to cause a reflexive knee to the groin. I am aware too, too aware indeed, of the cynical use of touch in the getting of what one wants, the positive reinforcement of a pat on the back, the ego-boosting nature of a breast brush. So touching is okay, for the most part.

And yet I am incredibly protective of my personal space. You know those fuckers who stand really close when they're talking to you? Who get right in your face with their enthusiasm for life and all its alleged joys? This guy is one of those and he is representative of his type. That's the kind of shit that really gets to me, makes me want to get going with the pushing, the wild flailing, the screwdriver in the eyeing. Or maybe it's just assholes. I don't like them touching me, being near me, even fucking thinking about me. Assholes.

I bring this up like so much regurgitated risotto because I've been threatened with a hugging. You heard right. Some guy thinks I need a hug, and for some non-sexual, fucked up reason he wants to be the hugger. I know little about this wannabe embracer, but I have it on good authority that he's no asshole. I, of course, will be the fucking judge of that. Oh how I will judge. But were he to come even close to my ridiculously low standards, I might just take this proffered hug. Fuck knows I could do with one.

For nobody else gave me the thrill

That was fucking great.

For a minute there I lost myself, if you will, having fortuitously woken just as he went over the 270 waterfall. And thus followed a two hour teary orgasm, beginning with McCain’s concession and waving, waving hard, all the way to the end of Barrack’s unsurprisingly solemn victory speech. I fell asleep then, with BBC analysis whispering love in my ear, and came to life still glowing, despite somehow still not believing. I glow even now, though it will surely fade as tiredness overtakes me and I approach a mountain of ignored clothes folding.

And so to the major question of the day, with fulsome apologies to Nora Ephron. Having just squirted my hot man juice all over Barrack's skinny tits, how long am I expected to lie here holding him? Is a week enough? A month? A whole term? There’s my problem, somewhere between one week and a whole term is my problem. Because I'm already over it really. It's time to move on. In winning he's become just another fucking politician cunt and I desperately need to once more charge back to cynicism and the comfort of constant despair, endless apathy. He's given me what I want and the sooner the black bastard invades France or Canada or even fucking Liechenstein, the sooner I can get up and go to that early squash game.

And maybe it's a woman or a black man after all

B to the a to the r to the r to the a to the c to the you get the fucking idea.

I did my election spin tonight and Obama Girl is in my head, shaking her booty in my brain, forgetting to vote in the primary of my frontal lobe. I wanted to do South Park's P Diddy singing 'Vote or Die' too, but the lines 'I like it when you vote bitch, shake them titties when you vote bitch, I slam my jimmy through your mouth roof, now get yo’ big ass in the polling booth' gave me rare pause. What a pussy I am.

He's going to win, right? Right? Right?

Yeah, yeah, I fucking know, it makes no difference. They're both owned by the corporations, they'll both continue to pump cash they don't have into the Israeli military, they're both fucking Christians. But still, but still. I don't fucking know, I have hope, I guess. I'm a sucker for that hope shit. I think maybe the world would just be a slighly better place if the man from Moneygall got the gig. And really, the idea of President Palin is something of clincher for any person with an ounce of human fucking decency.

I find it so much easier to care about shit over which I have no control. Football. Fáilte Towers. My fragile mental health. And so, I care. I care an awful lot and if these cunts somehow manage to steal my pointless hope, then my grumpiness of the past two weeks is going to look like a fucking Care Bear stare.

UPDATE:
His Granny just died. Check fucking mate.

I would've got deeper, but there wasn't any need

There are good hurts and bad hurts.

Attacking the last climbing interval of the day after a week of excessive mileage is a good hurt. The sighing at the relentless aging of my Bridge Crew is another. But let me learn you this, chowheads, teaching yoga in that place between still drunk and heart-breakingly hungover is a very bad hurt indeed.

Bourbon at midnight. Caucasian nightcap. What was I thinking? I was thinking, 'I'm full of pints but I would very much like one more drink.' I was thinking, 'I think I'll have me a Whitey.' And then twelve hours later, I was thinking, 'I am completely going to throw up on this nice lady's spin shoes.'

I needed holding, and stroking and soothing, I got reeking and screaming and downward dogging. 'Ease into the stretch,' I advised, 'ease into the stretch as I would now like to ease my head down the toilet bowl in the adjacent capper toilets. And breathe, breathe deeply like I cannot, for fear of a putrid puddle upon the studio floor. '

I'll say this for desperate nausea though, as I hold my hands up to eye-gouging headaches: They distract from the pain of thought. Thinking, self-awareness, now there's a hurt that barrels beyond the bad.