Love on a bin liner

 What a queer old life. Anyway, I’m sat here as the first busses of the day are going passed. Yes, my sleep pattern is disturbed again. I only have myself to blame, as my drinking binge last week served its “purpose” of reminding me why I hadn’t drank in over a month. What a bloomin’ farce! Nothing that bad happened, although a can of beer did spray pretty much all over my lounge. You may have gotten some on you too. I think I pierced it whilst opening the case with a pair of scissors and, after initially thinking it was just a standard ring-pull error, had to run to the kitchen with jets of booze squirting all over everything. Rather comical sure but, when you’re already dreadfully confused due to your drinking excess, you can have a bit of a freak out. Which I did. Well, I think that’ll be the last until the pubs, apparently, open for good at the end of May. We shall see.

I had a routine call from my new council housing officer today. He seemed like a nice chap, and we went through some standard questions about my tenancy. He did initially ring my ex, who is still my next of kin, as I wasn’t answering my phone last week. A bit dramatic, I’d say, but I guess things have been dramatic of late anyway. My ex texted me that he was going to call back, and mentioned that, for some reason, she had mentioned to him that I was thinking of moving and she had, on my behalf, inquired about getting priority on the housing register. First of all, I don’t want to move. I did. But I don’t now. These were conversations I had had in private with her long ago. This isn’t a nice place to live, but it’s my home now and, believe it or not, I’ve settled in slightly. Not totally, but enough to not be desperate to escape. I will somehow try to make it clear to her that discussing my tenancy with my landlord without my consent isn’t cool, but I’m not sure how exactly to go about it. I may send some flowers and, the day before the flowers arrive, send her a gently worded text explaining how I feel. Or I could just call her and have a go. I’m not good with confrontation.

My gaming buddy sounds like he’s getting serious with his new gf, as they’re planning on going to visit his father together. Alas! Oh well, I’ll come to my senses and give up on that romantic possibility. Not that there ever was one. That woman from the brewery dropped off my beer off on Wednesday but, after a short back and forth by text, she’s gone deathly quiet on me again. I’m guessing that this isn’t one of the signs of somebody liking you back. What’s wrong with me?! Anyway, I’ll move on regarding that too. One needs to be realistic as time goes on, after all.

I’m continuing with my hobbies, now that my week-long hangover is officially over. I watched another episode of The Larry Sanders Show today, which was great. Shandling and Torn really do have great chemistry on screen together. I still can’t quite figure Jeffrey Tambor’s character out though. Sometimes he seems very meek and sensitive, then he’ll be a slimy ladies-man. It’s an interesting mixture of traits, but I’m not sure that they quite gel. This is no fault of Tambor’s though, who is, as always, a complex delight.

I’ve just bought the audiobooks for The Two Towers and The Return of the King, as I wanted the Appendices at the end of the latter. They used to only sell the audiobooks by the book-within-a-book so, by the time you’d completed the trilogy, you’d have made six purchases. Bastards. Anyway, they’ve stopped that now, but I’d already bought one and a half books by then. Sigh. I’d left this as it was for a few years but, upon seeing that Unfinished Tales was finally being released on audio, I did the 3 Extra Credits thing on Audible and bought up what I didn’t have. I now have a digital copy of half of The Two Towers (on iTunes, I think), that’ll just have to be a lesson learned. I’m looking forward to going through the Appendices, which is something I never did when I read the books as a teen.

I’ve been listening to a lot of history reference books lately. The other day I started on A History of Japan. It’s a book from the 1970s, but I think it’ll work well as a primer to a country I know very little about. There are some Great Courses lectures on Japan too, which I feel might be more in-depth. It sounds like Japan took on a lot of its modernity from China, who I’m already listening to some lectures on. It’s not staying in my head much, but I do plan to listen to them again. I’ve already listened to two Mary Beard books on Ancient Rome twice. I think, had I been more realistic and had a more stable education as a kid, I would have gone into something to do with history or literature. Bit late now, I guess.

If you can recommend some good history audiobooks, then do drop me a line. I’ll see about getting the comments section of my blogs switched back on. I forget how you do it, and they change the format of the settings often enough to confuse us.

The weather’s definitely improving still, although I fear there was a slight dip back down this evening. I had to put the heating on, which I haven’t done since probably before my last post. Never mind, I still prefer it cold. It’s nice to hear the birds back in town for the dawn chorus. You kinda forget you miss it, after a while. Does that make sense?

Audioreading that book on Japan got me in the mood to write some fiction in a more, I don’t know, humid climate. I’ve got this vision of strikingly tall hills and deep valleys covered in a rainforest, where the clouds never part and everything is constantly wet.  I want to write about life in this outback place, where bureaucracy has to face off against, I don’t know, the realities of hard toil. I also want to pick up where I left off with my other writing project, but I fear I have left it to long and shall have to read it all from the start to remind myself of what has happened so far. Not that I wrote much. I wish I didn’t have such dips in motivation. I feel like I’d make a good ghost writer. I love writing, but I’m not necessarily great with ideas. They’re very abstract and aimless. I guess you have to have an English degree or something to be a professional writer.

I need to start recording music again, but first my lounge requires a tidy up. I’ve had quite a few courier deliveries of late and, well, my flattening of boxes hasn’t exactly been kept up to date. I’m scared to find out what music equipment that beer sprayed onto too. Hmmm, maybe it’s all dried out by now. Fingers crossed!

Right, I think I’ll call it a day there. I’m going to go back to listening to Howard Shore’s score for Lord of the Rings and playing video games.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!