sickbed

I am
reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude - it's brilliant, even better when you have a fever
listening: To the email alerts on the computer in the room next door - must get my iPod
drinking: Lemsip - my dad went out and got more. yay dad
writing: blog nonsense and the book
lying: on the guest bed, which has been my refuge for most of the day
hoping: I feel better by morning
pondering: a party in July
rejoicing: because I found my favourite Red Sox hat
regretting: buying two new Red Sox hats in Boston
reasoning: that one can never have enough Red Sox hats and that in buying the new ones, I ensured that I would find the old one, which I love more
realising: I shouldn't bore my readership so much with the Red Sox - but they won tonight, and the Yankees lost. heh
planning: my new set of adventures
driving: my parents to Portsmouth tomorrow
longing: for lovely, beautiful, single women to lavish me with affection. Preferably after I drop my parents off in Portsmouth.

all out of lemsip

Friday night - I sit down for dinner with some old friends. Nothing fancy, just a Pizza Express on Victoria Street. As I pick up the wine list a small tickle dances at the base of my throat and for a split-second my face flushes. Bollocks.

Yesterday - pick dad up at the airport with my throat feeling like wet gravel. I sound slightly rough but am sort of all together. Once we get home I have a lemsip and take a nap. I'm supposed to go to a BBQ down Camberley way and hope that lemsip + nap = cured. Lemsip + nap = better rested and no worse, and that was good enough for me, so I hopped in the volvo and shot down to Camberley listening to The Editors at high volume with the window down and sunroof open. About as close as I'm ever going to get to being a boy racer. The BBQ is lovely - nice weather, a bouncy castle, giant connect 4 and sumo suits. There's also loads of booze that I'm not touching for sake of both throat and driving. I catch up with old mates who look bewildered that I'm not drinking. Their shock at me driving as well brings a smile to my face. The wet gravel is drying out and quite sharp now, so I make my excuses (and sadly miss the fireworks) and drive home to console a recently jobless friend. The recently jobless friend is surprisingly chipper due to the 8 pints of the day and is excited about the blank canvas of the future. I drink pints of oj and lemonade. Closing time hits and I walk home feeling as though my head is slightly seperated from the rest of my body.

Today - dad picks mom up from the airport. My first words this morning sound like they come from a consumptive seal, eviscerating my throat to the point of tears. I keep the curtains shut because it's a beautiful day and I'm supposed to be going to Clapham for a nice Sunday lunch and if I open the curtains I'll try to go out and feel the worse for it. I'm drinking Lady Grey with honey and lemon, a concoction so bitter I feel it must at least build character if not cure me. And I'm all out of lemsip.

clam chowder

Childhood hypocrisies are the best hypocrisies, as they are shameless. One of my favourites was my attitude towards seafood. I abhorred it, believing it something to be avoided even at the risk of rudeness. When my mother wrote a seafood cookbook, I shunned her and ran screaming away when she wanted me try a new recipe she was testing. At the same time, my favourite soup was clam chowder, I would devour an order of fried clams with tartar sauce at the Hull Yacht Club and would proudly munch on whatever catch there was on the rare occasions I went fishing. I boasted that I loved eating shark (one of the few fish I would eat). The irony was lost on me as it would have been on any child. I didn't bother to reconcile the two things in my mind - that while uninterested in most seafood some of it pleased me. Or the greater truth, that if I'd bother to try seafood I would have liked it. But no, mediation and rationalising were beyond me and childhood prejudice has a strong grip.

These thoughts came to me as I had the best clam chowder ever last Wednesday lunch time. I was at B & G Oysters in South Boston. Now, clam chowder's a pretty homely, comfort-food affair, and there are probably a thousand restaurants throughout New England boasting the world's greatest, but this was different. It was so good I asked if the chef had a cookbook - I wanted the recipe. Richly textured but not too starchy, the potato chunks still firm, massive pancetta lardons and perfect whole clams with sauteed onions and garnished with fresh spring onion; pretty fancy for clam chowder. It was served after a few oysters on the half-shell and before a Maine lobster sandwich. I'd eaten lobster for dinner the night before. I love seafood. And I think I always loved seafood. For some reason though, I used to hate the idea of seafood. And as such hated all seafood.

Weird.

Is this a pointless post? I don't know. But I'm not feeling so good, and the mind wanders at such times. Some would suggest chicken soup for such malaise, but I think I'd rather have the chowder.

beware the mope

Self-pity is a good way to avoid anyone else's pity.

I spent most of the day on my birthday surfing the net. Then I went to buy trousers for the rehearsal dinner. Then I surfed the net a bit more. I was grumpy. I knew I was going to be grumpy and gave in to it. Grumpiness should be battled but I succumbed because I felt I had a right to succumb. I earned my grumpiness through the actions of others.

Towards the end of my square-eyed, slack-jawed surfing I came up with the idea for a gift for a friend. It was a pretty simple idea. It popped up while I was turning the pages of previous birthdays in my mind, birthdays in Boston. It was a great idea, despite simplicity. It was something from the New England Aquarium. I spent much of my childhood at the NEA because my mom used to work there. I checked my watch and realised it was time to go to the rehearsal dinner. I hadn't time to go to the aquarium. Or the Musuem of Fine Arts, which popped into my head quickly after the aquarium. I'd had the whole of my birthday to do stuff and moped. And not in then groovy Vespa way. So my birthday being rubbish was not through the action of others, but my fault entirely.

Then, at the rehearsal dinner, through the action of another, a birthday cake appeared and a room full of happy (mostly) strangers sang happy birthday to me.

So beware the mope, even when you deserve it or think you deserve it. Unless it's in the groovy Vespa way. In which case, wear a helmet. Ciao.

word of power

The big chunk of seats in the middle aisle of a jumbo are the purgatory of the skies. You know it will come to an end but it feels like an eternity of suffering. You cross your fingers, hoping there'll be no one next to you. As it happened, on the way to Boston, there was no one next to my mother. So crossing fingers works but the aim's a bit off. Oh well. Next to me was a little girl, her mother and her grandmother. Well, the grandmother was Italian, so she was her nonna (work for Italians for 5 years and try not to know that). In any case, this kid, maybe 5 but probably 4, is demanding to sit next to me. My reflex is to pull my cap low, bury my face in my book and plug my iPod in but not too loud, as I want to eavesdrop just enough to work out whether the little girl is going to be sitting next to me. She sits next to me. I look towards the family and smile, letting them know that, in spite of my fervent belief that imposing rambunctious children or pets on others is the 8th deadly sin, I'm still a nice person and willing to put up with it.

In any case, I figure it's karma, as I flew a lot in my youth and was not just rambunctious but full-blown hyper. And little boys tend to be far worse behaved than little girls. I have both nephews and nieces and know this to be true. So for all the adults I drove crazy, all the stewardesses I plagued, this was my little penance. That is, after all, what purgatory is all about.

The kid was fine. She had a new toy and it delighted her. It was a word. Kids with new words are like kids who chuck the toy aside and play with the box it came in - bursting with power. Just like the box becomes everything they deem it to be, whether a fort, an airplane, a rocket ship or a time machine, so the universe becomes subject to the new word, and everything and anything that happens or simply exists within the perception of the child will be linked to that word for the duration of their fascination.

This girl's word was ridiculous, which was perfect. Lots of syllables and hard consonants. A little girl can establish her authority with such a word, deeming anything to be ridiculous with confidence.

Little girl: "Nonna, why aren't we flying yet?"
Nonna: "Because they've got to fix the plane."
Little girl: "That's ridiculous."

She pronounced it carefully, loving the power it gave her. It was an adult word, and she weilded it trying to be adult in the way that only kids can. Innocent to the subtext and the irony one could impose on it all. In the three hours we sat at the gate while they attempted to fix the plane, all of the excuses and announcements, once explained to the girl, were greeted with gleeful accusations of ridiculousness. Before we took off, she changed seats, so she was bracketed between her mother on the aisle and nonna on my side.

Waiting for luggage in Boston they stood next to me and I helped her mother get one of her bags off the carosel.

Little girl: "Mom, where's my bag?"
Mother: "It's not out yet sweetie."
Little girl: "But that's ridiculous!"

How right she was.

home again?

Just woke from a nap. I used to be really good at the whole jetlag thing. Not so good anymore. Got two posts to do - maybe three - over the next couple of days to wrap the whole Boston thing. Maybe four, actually. I took a lot of notes. I want to get them typed up. There's laughter, there's tears, there are more photos to come. To give you a heads up, two of the posts are on little plane observations, one of them's about food and the other is about the wedding. But then there's one that I wanted to do on life. So that's five. Not the tastiest previews ever. If they were trailers, you wouldn't see the movie. Or at least, I wouldn't.

I'm going to order myself a curry. The food was awesome in Boston, but there's no beating a good curry when you get home. Curry, beer and The Goonies - is there a better night in that doesn't involve sex? Nope.

79p

Bought My Hometown on iTunes just so I could listen to it while I'm in Boston. I have it on my computer at home and on CD. I am a big, nostalgic sap. But there are worse ways to spend 79p.

some boston pics

Just a few pics from my home town. My photography hasn't been that inspired of late - though I did get a few good wedding shots, to be posted soon. But I like these.

The New England Life building on Newbury St.The Meeting House on Beacon Hill.

The footbridge at the Public Gardens.

Otis Place, from in front of my building, which still boasts my old curtains.

Lime St.

curtains

So much comes back.

My parents refurbed our apartment in Boston in the mid 80's. I think I was around 8. My mom asked what colours I wanted my new room to be decorated. New room. I couldn't believe I was getting a new room, and it was going to be huge. So big they were going to split my bunkbed - I had that much room. My favourite colour varied in those days - it was either fire engine red or navy blue depending on my mood, or which crayon was less of a stump. I think my final decision was that I wanted the entire room to be red. Bright red. Red curtains, red carpet, red walls - the works. Fortunately for the retinas of my guests, mom overruled a bit. The walls were painted white, but I did get a red carpet and red curtains. The latter had diagonal white pinstripes. My mother made them. I think this was 21 years ago. The curtains coincided with that rite of passage known as getting rid of the nightlight. So extreme was the change that from needing the small glow in the corner I couldn't stand any light in the room at all if I was trying to sleep. Hence the curtains would be pulled down before bed, giving off an eerie red glow as the streetlight outside tried to get in. The red glow didn't bother me so much and as the next few years passed I slept later, and the curtains would stay down longer.

I wandered around the old neighbourhood on my birthday, looking up at the old apartment and looking to feel something. Expectations were low. I don't even know if they were expectations. Maybe I was looking for something, I really don't know. We left Boston 17 years ago and sold the house 12 years ago. For the 5 years we still owned it, the house was rented.

So I turn the corner onto Otis Place and stare up at the windows to my old room. They're just windows. I never looked at them when I lived there, and they're nondescript from the outside. At first I thought I was hallucinating. So I took a picture. Whoever lives there now kept my curtains. Curtains designed for a hyper little boy whose favourite colour was red. I've been trying to make sense of it. Prodding it in my brain, seeking some deeper meaning. Hoping there's some prophetic lesson to be learned. Meaning in curtains? I don't know, but with all that's going on and how quickly life is moving, it's nice that there's an inadvertent monument to my childhood somewhere. Even if it's only a set of curtains.

missing music

There's something to be said for the big iPods. I've had a craving for Bruce Springsteen's My Hometown since I got here on Wednesday night (very late on Wednesday night I might add) but it's not on my wee nano. Struggling through a trial such as this make me a better person.

I'm not sure what to write. I'm 30. I'm sitting almost 2 1/2 miles away from the hospital that I performed my first gig. Boston's good. Good food, nice people and aside from a couple of thunderstorms yesterday, beautiful weather. I've been taking pictures like a tourist. I've been able to watch Sox games as opposed to just checking the results online. There's other stuff too, but I'm not quite sure how to write it without whining about nostalgia and all that. I'll work it out and post some pics as well. Later.

sorry

I want to write something, I really do, but I'm exhausted, still on UK time and need to get some sleep.

And I'm 30. I've been 30 for 12 minutes (Boston time, 5hrs 12 minutes London time) and no one's said happy birthday to me yet. Well, they've pre-empted quite a few times, but no chat on the day. So far. There's 23 hrs and 46 minutes to go.

Boston-bound

I fly to Boston this afternoon, a year and a day since my last visit. I've already got a boarding pass, thanks to the miracle of the internet and me not losing my booking reference. I haven't packed yet. I'm dreading it. Packing. The trip is warming on me. I love Boston. I've got some free time and no money, so I'll get a lot of writing done, take some pics as well. If I'm real lucky, I'll get my godfather to give me one of his season tickets to Fenway on Saturday. If I'm luckier there'll be scores of attractive single women at the wedding on Sunday.

I've not decided whether I'm bringing the laptop or not, but there'll be some posts no doubt.

Dinner last night was lovely. I failed to have a bad time, in spite of a brooding and grumpy day beforehand. It was sort of a birthday party. I got presents and everything.

sometimes

Sometimes you get home and even reading Calvin & Hobbes doesn't make you feel better.

Well, maybe a little better.

new numbers

13.8mm
Diameter of my iris

41
The age my brother turns today

12
The age my niece turned on Friday

5
Days until my birthday

30
Years-old on Saturday

3,272.45
Miles from home I'll be on my birthday

2.44
Miles from where I was born I'll be on my birthday

2000
Minimum number of words I'll write today.

1
Times I want to be married

10
Years before I start really worrying about not being married

1
Wedding I can't go to but wish that I could.

1
Wedding I'm going to and can't really work out why.

209.45
Pounds Stirling overdrawn from my UK Bank account.

2752.54
Dollars on my Visa card

752.54
Dollars over the limit on my Visa card

90
Pairs of disposable contact lenses purchased today

4
Times my t-shirt made me smile today.
My t-shirt has a picture of a smiling sun on it, underneath it just says 'shine on'. It's pouring with rain today.

?

What was I going to write?

It was something. Either about sleep, bad weather or BBQ's, but I can't for the life of me remember which. I went out last night and a good time in spite of fiscal issues.
Only six pints and I felt pretty rubbish today.

More and more friends are coming to crossroads and I wish I had a better map to lend them. But I don't. And, to be honest, I'm not far enough down the road myself. Yet.

Hangovers and more sloppy metaphors: typical Sunday. Go. Do something. Laugh.

geek-of-all-trades

A sub-genre of my geekery found its voice yesterday, and asserted itself among interests in computers, wine, food, photography, science, history, film, literature and comics. It came as a revelation; a book spotted in Waterstones giving a name to an interest I never really acknowledged. And no, it was not The Da Vinci Code.

It was The Cloudspotter's Guide. I like clouds. I knew that. When I was 8 or 9 I did a project on them, which was little more than naming and describing the ten main cloud types. I did illustrations as well, though I'm not sure they were good enough to serve in a cloudspotter's guide. For some reason I retained that information. I know cirrus and cumulus and cumulonimbus and the differences between them. Why I retained that and not the rules regarding the use of a semi-colon I'll never know but it haunts me.

Anyway. I saw this book and realised I was a bit of a cloudspotter. I take pictures of them sometimes and I note their beauty when they deserve it - that sort of thing. Not in obsessive way of course. I don't have a cloud notebook or anything. But I have a guidebook now, should I want to get more serious.

Most of my geeky traits are noncommital. I'm a Star Wars fan but wouldn't dream of standing in a queue for a week dressed as Yoda. My love of mediaeval history stopped short of Latin, paleography and postgrad studies. I don't develop my own pictures. While I adore cooking and being a foodie I'd never be a professional chef. Wine geekery took a back seat once it looked like a career. Comics have been outgrown for the most part. Science is awesome until I have to do math and proper research. My geeking just lacks focus. I'm sure other geeks would spurn me for not choosing a faith and sticking to it. But I'm afraid I'm a geek-of-all-trades and master of none.

As it happens, The Cloudspotter's Guide is quite fun.

Some pictures in which clouds play an important role, all from last summer, and all from my old Pentax.

251

This is my 251st post, or my semiquincentennial-plus-one post, and it makes me wonder what on earth I'm doing with this thing. But while pondering that, I found this old picture of me with very big hair and it distracted me.
That's a lot of hair. I think that was taken in a sushi restaurant in Key West. I also think it was taken a very long time ago, but I have no idea when.

I'm in a bit of a daze today. I'm not sure why. I did have that exciting one beer after my wine last night but refuse to think that three moderate drinks spaced over 4 hours would have that sort of effect on me.

Torrential downpours punctuate periods of glorious sunshine outside. The rain makes it easier to write, the sun more difficult. If it goes well the clicks of the keyboard and the patter of rain churn out asynchronous rhythm. If it goes poorly only the rain is heard, or nothing at all.

tidbits

This interested me. It's science-y, so if you don't immediately jump to the link before reading on, it's about predictability in evolution. I almost understood all of it, and what I did understand struck me as quite exciting. When I was in high school, I did a molecular biology course. I'm not sure how I got on it in the first place, but my subsequent incompetence in the lab drove me to the arts from science. It still piques my interest though.

Angry Alien have finally adapted Casablanca. I love Angry Alien. There's no rhyme or reason to recreating films in 30 seconds with bunnies, it's just genius. I don't have some amusing or embarrassing anecdote to go with this one. It's just funny. Go see it.

Friday night and I'm updating my blog. I've had two glasses of wine. I may, if I'm feeling adventurous, have a beer. I just watched Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. I spent today taking pictures of boxes and moving vans. I wrote about a canal. I linked to a science article on CNET. I declined an invite to a 22nd birthday party tonight. It was for twins. Girl twins. Not single girl twins but that's not the point.

Am I becoming boring? Has the towering inferno of my social life become a fizzle of charred cinder?

No.

I'm skint.

My bank isn't phoning me anymore though.

They're sending me lots of letters instead.

forgotten corners

I didn't go for my run this morning.

Instead I went to an industrial estate in North London, near Park Royal. That part of London seems to be one sprawling industrial estate. They may as well cover the whole thing with the world's largest sheet of corrugated iron. I do not begrudge them this. Most of these estates are for storage, manufacturing or some combination of the two. They don't need to be pretty to serve their purpose and the four-walls-and-a-roof (preferably corrugated iron) has worked thus far and keeps down overheads. The odd broken window doesn't concern management because the iron bars keep people out and the kettle is the only central heating. By and large the open spaces are covered with tarmac and that is covered with all manner of lorry, van, JCB and car. Litter is endemic, though none of it seems dirty; it's more untidy. Fast food vans provide lunch - and tea when the central heating's broken.

It seems quite a desolate place, utilitarian and stark. Beauty can be found though, almost accidentally, in the fossils of past industry. Running through these estates is the Regent's Canal, whose aesthetic charms mask the purpose of its origins. Before the railways, it was part of a network of canals that ran throughout Britain, feeding commerce and industry. The pleasure cruising you see these days was unheard of: it was utilitarian, designed for a single purpose and used for that.

Life is drawn to river banks, even man-made ones. And in the midst of industry and utility this lush patch of green sits sometimes unnoticed. It's, understandably, overlooked for the more pristine surroundings other sections of the canal enjoy. A few miles to the east is Little Venice. While there the canal is the focal point of the neighbourhood, the reason for its name, through much of Park Royal it is forgotten and probably resented it for drawing a line through estates.

For me it was a welcome relief. When your mission for the day is to take pictures of storage containers any distraction can turn into a few whimsical, nonsensical and nostalgic paragraphs.

Also worthy of note was the food van we got lunch - not deep fried lard, but portuguese spiced pork sandwiches. How weird and wonderful is that? Brilliant.

Lovely view, shame about the furniture. What's missing is John Cleese saying "And now for something completely different."

Is the fencing there to keep nature out or the industry in?

The ***** Chronicles?

Well, I'm moving.* In fact, I'm probably moving quite a few more times. Hopefully one more stop in London and then, in the new year, back to Scotland. So I'm pondering the name of the blog. I really like the name, so I just might keep it. Who knows? I may move to another Belfry. Updates will be posted.

The willow in the wind, as opposed to the wind in the willows.

*Not until the 1st of August though. Unless I win the lottery.