Packing things away, getting ready to go.

I have a lot of drafts. My blog is a drafty place. Here they are.

-Untitled
So you see there’s this guy, right, and he’s with his girlfriend on the bus (where I seem to encounter a few interesting people these days) and they’re having an argument or a discussion or something. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting. What I can tell, right, is that the girl’s mad at the guy or concerned at the guy or something. Basically she’s the one that’s in some form of distress. Now, this damsel is doing the works; concerned frown, short, quick gestures with her hands and a little bit of hope lingering on her lips. The guy though – this swooping knight in shining armour that’s supposed to rescue her or something – he’s just like sitting there confused. He’s got a little frown too, right, but it’s a frown like he doesn’t know what to do.

I can sympathise.

Anyway, so this girl who’s talking to him about her parents or her problems or her choices or whatever, she gets a little mad. Like, angry mad, right?

—

-Untitled
So, I’m a room. It’s a big room, a little too big for my

—

-Because anything else I write is riddled with too much feeling
Films! I’ve been holed up in the flat sick as a dog for the past few days so I thought I’d recount some of the films I’ve watched. And other things. Like TV.

First up is the much too short Afro Samurai which I will let people borrow as soon as I make my way through the special features. The only problem that I’ll highlight first would be the appalling lip-syncing. It’s as if Samuel L Jackson looked at his characters and said “Fuck it, I don’t want no mother fuckin’ restrictions on my mother fuckin’ lines” so there’s the occasional weird jarring when the character is shouting and good old Samuel is whispering something. Other than that everything was seamless. I watched it over two days and I really wished I could’ve watched it in one. The animation was seamless, the action was perfect, and I only saw a single example of a reused scene. And the teddy bear! I liked him better when he didn’t take off his mask but still he was awesome all the same. It was brilliant.

Another on the anime list would be the second series of The Big-O which I’ve laughed at so many times just because it’s slang for orgasm. It’s a classic series, made by the same people and (roughly) at the same time as Cowboy Bebop, and it’s occasionally very ridiculous. The age on it shows in its story and characters, but it’s made up for by the style and the overall feel. The main guy’s car is pretty awesome, and Big-O itself thankfully spirals away from the generic design of most mecha-suits. It’s surprisingly easy to get into for a second series. Usually shows require in depth knowledge of the previous series before moving on to a new one, but this one sits you right in without missing a beat. Though, saying that, I do wish I had seen the entirety of the first series; I have vague childhood memories of watching it and becoming perplexed at the surreal stage sets at the beginning and end. Still, it’s a good show.

Took another bash at Lucky Number Slevin the other day and by God I forget how much I love that film. I think it’s the amazing cast really (with the exception of Josh Hartnett, but he actually manages to pull off a good show this time round), but just the overall art nouveau style and Noir-ish sentiment going along with whip crack dialogue makes it phwoar. I know that previous sentence made no sense but hey ho.

—

-Untitled
Right now I’m a little annoyed and very tired but mostly just feeling annoyed at myself for making the silly promise of not stalking people. See if I stalk people then I can justify feeling sad right now, because then shadowy thoughts are confirmed and

—

-Untitled
I have a new bus now. It’s better than the old one, in that it’s ten minutes faster and doesn’t go through the area that makes me ashamed to be human.

The part I like most about this new bus route though would be the walk I get when I step off it. My old bus deposited me in the centre of Glasgow, right beside a newsagent that sold my brand and a cash machine if I was low on change. And a bakery. That was nice too I guess. But this new bus deposits me a good five minutes away from my old stop, right in the middle of the merchant city.

—

-You’re barred, mate
“That guy is a fucking wank!” he yells, slurring but eloquent. He takes a drink from his glass (his ninth pint that night, lying to his girlfriend beside him when he whispers it’s his third) and slams the bottom back down on the table. He’s a dick. He’s a complete and utter dick, but somehow I like him. He was at least more interesting than anyone else sitting at the table.

“Yeah, but why is he a wank?” I ask too flippantly, too casually, realising as soon as I said it that it was the wrong thing to say. I had mistaken him, just in that single moment, for someone else.

—

-Untitled
Lets take a second here, shall we? Just a second.

I had a good day yesterday (if you take away the sole reason which made it not a good day, but we won’t go into that)

—

-This post definitely isn’t about you
Unless you’ve found me somehow which I doubt

How do you do it? How do you creep under my skin so easily?

I’ve complained about my bad memory before. I’ve been so angry at myself for saying things and then forgetting them so I can’t apologise. In a sense it gives me the ultimate freedom, that I can say and do pretty much anything I like and within a week I’ll forget I ever thought about doing it. But it comes at such a cost when someone reminds you of you’ve said and done, when they tell you meaning to be a funny little anecdote and it sounds like something you would say and so it’s likely that you did say it (but sometimes you are reminded in hot headed revenge, which sucks really).

So I have a horrible memory. Truly horrible. But then why can’t I forget on command? No, lets be specific, why can’t I forget you on command? Yes you

—

-This post probably is about you
If you still read here

I’m gonna pull you in close,
Gonna wrap you up tight,
Gonna play with the braids
that you came in here with tonight.
I’m gonna hold your face,
and toast the snow that
fell.

I can’t remember the last time I got high. I just have this one memory of one fantastic time. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe from laughing. I danced and some people faced my selotape. I woke up with cotton mouth and a cut on my forehead.

—

-Tiredness kills
And maims and injures and hurts. But mainly it kills. It kills a lot of good people.

It’s worse than alcohol really. Alcohol is bad, I know, but it’s not as bad as being tired. When you’re drunk you’re loud and obnoxious and you do things you wouldn’t usually do, but when you’re tired your mind shuts down. Completely. The biggest regrets I can list in my life are things I’ve said or done when I’m tired.

But let me define this tiredness. It isn’t the eyes burning sluggish tired. It’s a whole different tiredness altogether. It’s a tiredness that takes hold when you’re about to fall asleep, or when you’ve just fallen asleep, and someone disturbs you. You say and do so many things because you are so tired. You can’t think. Images blur in lust.

—

-Untitled
Oh lord oh lord you’ve made it.

You wanna drag your hearse in? You wanna rush your-?

Be my fucking guest.

Most of this is true

You have ten messages.

Message one. Tuesday nine-fifteen p.m.
“Hey Jonathan it’s mum. Just wondering what time you’d be round on Sunday?”
Message deleted.

Message two. Tuesday ten-twenty-two p.m.
“Hey Chris it’s Martin. I was going to be round in ten but I guess you’re not in. I’ll see you later.”
Message deleted.

Message three. Wednesday twelve-nine p.m.
“Hey boys it’s Dad here-”
Message deleted.

Message four. Wednesday five-fifty-seven p.m.
“-already won. If you would like to claim your weekend for two in Bergen then press one now.”
Message deleted.

Message five. Friday eleven a.m.
“Hi it’s Tommy McClean here. I’m calling about the motorbikes? I haven’t heard back. [pause] Bye.”
Message deleted.

Message six. Sunday ten-twenty a.m.
“Hey guys it’s Dad-”
Message deleted.

Message seven. Sunday one-thirty-nine p.m.
“Jonathan! What’s up? Haven’t talked to you in a while. Gimme a ring back.”
Message saved.

Message eight. Monday two-ten a.m.
“Shit, Jon. It’s just… You know. Shit.”
Message deleted.

Message nine. Monday two-twenty-two a.m.
“Mercer! You have failed me for the last time!”
Message deleted.

Message ten. Monday ten-fifteen a.m.
“Did I call you last night? Where were you? It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you on Thursday right? Bring food.”
Message deleted.

You have no messages.

On this day

Four years ago I was having problems with a camera and swearing far too much. Really.

Three years ago I bought a Bible (and gave it away about a month after). I wanted to read it and make an informed decision. I don’t think I got much further than Exodus.

Two years ago I was sacrificing sleep to tell everyone about my ex-girlfriend. We met up and returned our belongings, and then she gave me seventy pounds that she owed me. I spent the next weekend drinking myself to death because I couldn’t deal with it.

One year ago I was annoyed that lighters came with instructions incase people didn’t know how to use them.

Today? Hmm. I’ll tell you about it next year.

My wonderful day

What a horrible, horrible day.

It started, as days tend to do, at the stroke of midnight. Here we were stumbling out of a bar after I bought THIRTY-GODDAMN-POUNDS worth of alcohol that I didn’t want to buy but people convinced me because it looked tasty and then they didn’t drink it because IT WAS NOT TASTY. Anyway, walked through most of Glasgow to the flat of a friend who was setting me up for the night, and my bag breaks. Whatever, it’s no problem. When we got there, the girl who lives not too far down the road (not too far at all, not really, just another ten minutes, ten small insignificant minutes) demanded that she stay too so of course she got the fold out bed and I got the couch that was four feet long (note: my height is over six feet).

But I’m drunkish. I’ve drank a fair amount of the shit alcohol in order to convince myself it was worth buying and in the process my head is hazy and my speech is slurred but fuck it I’m not drunk I’m drunkish. This makes me sleepy and mildly comfortable with my legs hanging over the armrest, and I’m ready to go to sleep and I say goodnight to the woman taking the luxurious fold out bed and she replies with “can I ask you something?”

Which spurns an hour of useless conversation about nothing I know about and nothing I care about. I eventually drop off at around two-ish.

I have a dream that the walls are crumbling around the couch and everyone’s faces are lit by blue pixels. Children are standing watching me from the hallway in funeral dress, their hands clasped at their fronts. People are behind them dancing and having fun, little blue smiles flying back and forth. I feel like joining them but I’m too tired to stand from the couch.

I wake up too early at eight and wander back across Glasgow with a nice hangover. I head up to uni (yes, I forgot to mention, I’m back at uni) and make my way to my first nine am lecture. I sit outside for ten minutes, wondering why the place is deserted until I see the mother fucking sign that tells me that the fucking class is fucking canceled. Fuck it. An email was sent out last night, but since I didn’t have access to a computer from three pm to that moment I seem to have missed it. Turns out the entire course has been canceled, so now I have Wednesdays free. But! A testament to how rubbish my university is is how I now have to pick another class and the only other class available is on at the exact same goddamn time as a class that’s been moved from a very nice Tuesday and Thursday to Monday and Friday. So now I don’t get Fridays off. Honest to god I’m so fucking sick with how they keep switching round the timetable.

So I head to the only comfy coffee shop in the uni. And it’s closed until further notice. SO. I head up to the completely uncomfy coffee shop and have a fucking horrible coffee. I leave and have a brief run in with Mike which has been the highlight of the day. I go and buy some new clothes which fit me quite nice and look good and would be considered a good thing if it weren’t for the fact that they cost me seventy quid goddamnit. But my new bag’s nice. It’s not broken or anything.

Anyway, I’m feeling depressed and sick and horrible and angry and so fed up that I go to my local bookstore and browse about. They’ve got deals you see, and I end up wandering for half an hour trying to find a third book for the whole buy two and get one free thing. So I pick out three books with the magic sticker (Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov) and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce just for fun. I take it all the way up to the counter and the woman scans them all and gives me this kiddy apple eyed look and says with the sweetest of smiles that sorry these books were labeled wrong and that only one was three for two. But she did happily announce that there was a 20% student discount on and if I had a student card then I’d be able to benefit from this discount, the chirpy bitch. So I showed her my card, bought my books, missed my bus, found another bus and started my way home. It was only then that I checked my receipt. It turns out the chirpy happy smiling cunt of cashier only gave me a discount on one of my books. The cheapest of my books. So instead of the 20% discount of £7 that I should have gotten for spending £35 on books, I get a discount of £1.60.

Ohh I’m so mad I could hit something.

And the day’s not finished. What else can it hold? We can only find out.

Goddamnit.

The segment concerning Promap is a relic from my old blog. The rest is new.

(don’t judge me too much. i was young)

FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING CHRIST.

I just had a really big update for what happened on the fucking weekend and fucking promap has a fucking error and fucking fucks it up!

Fuck it. I’ll update to-fucking-morrow.

FUCKING PROMAP!

(a post written two years ago is found in the dreary wastelands of a search engine that races its min d with arbitrary worrrrds a nd comes up with mag-ick)

(wanderers stumble across such a treasure and th-black-ink that they know what it means)

(they do not)

I would like to remind any and all visitors to this site that this post from an old personal blog which was written in August 2005.itellthembutdotheylistenohtheydonot.

(and so, two years after this post was created, these wanderers scrawl one final message before the wi nds of life dis-murder_mystery-solve them)

(and i cannot answer them)

the memories are stored in everything that you can imagine_ smell especially, but not limited to that_ i heard someone say a phrase and my mind was flung to huddled in front of the breakfast club and eating peanut butter raw from the

and smiles and sunsets and grumpy eyebrows that furrow and smile and shine and feel of silk and god that silk

but enough distractions.

I’m liking this.

The lecture finished and people filed out of the hall as quickly as they could – having already packed up while the lecturer was in her final comments – and I was left alone at the podium. I was waiting patiently for the lecturer to notice me as she ducked under the desk and gathered up her own things. After a while I grew impatient.

‘Shona?’

Her head shot up from below the desk, her fingers ringed with silver clutching a long brown coat. She looked at me, bewildered for a moment, before producing a well practiced smile.

‘How can I help you?’

‘I was just wondering if you were taking any tutorials this semester,’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The tutorials for the course on Power. I was wondering if you were teaching any of them.’

She glanced at one of the pieces of papers lying out on the worktop in front of her. A crudely drawn timetable was on one of these, and she scanned it quickly.

‘No, I don’t think so. My timetable’s really busy this semester so I don’t have much time for anything else. They might slot me in there though,’ she reached down and lifted her leather handbag to her shoulder. ‘May I ask why?’

‘I was just wondering if I could transfer to one of your classes.’

She laughed. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘I find you interesting.’

She was taken aback, but she barely showed it. There was the slightest flutter of her eyelashes and her eyes focused properly on me for the first time since we began talking. She placed her bag and jacket on the worktop and leaned on her hands, spreading her sparkling fingers wide. ‘Who’s tutoring you now?’

‘Billy.’

‘And what’s wrong with him?’

‘Nothing. Well, nothing much. He doesn’t handle debates very well. He’s good at teaching the main points of the topic, and he can govern a discussion, but he’s not really good in a debate.’

‘Ah, but I have first hand experience with Billy. He’s a good tutor.’

‘But he fires down a debate at the first sign of inflammation.’

‘Hmm. Can I ask, what’s your name?’

‘Jonathan. Jonathan Mercer.’

She smiled at me. There was a spark in her eye that only appeared when she was lecturing something she felt really passionate about.

‘Ah. The infamous Mercer. I have an email to send to you.’

I laughed. ‘This wouldn’t happen to be about the sarcasm I threw your way on the university message board is it?’

Either she didn’t hear me or she just didn’t answer. She pulled on the jacket and slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I need to go. My train has long gone by now, but I still need to hurry to catch the bus. It was nice talking to you Jonathan.’

And she was gone.

Despite the rain the ground outside was relatively dry, so I sat on the steps in front of the building and lit a cigarette. She had said ‘The infamous Mercer’ with a devious grin. I wondered briefly at what I had done to win myself such an illustrious title, but when the list of probably noticeable acts I’ve committed exceeded the fingers on my hand I realised that it was probably better that I didn’t know what I had done to have my name passed around the faculties.

It didn’t matter anyway. It was just cool to have someone recognise my name.

As I looked out the window onto my balcony, I had the sneaking suspicion that the garden chairs I sit on are of Persian origin. A quick check of the mold tells me that they are, in fact, made by Homebase and that the supernatural levitation can be explained by the gale force winds that caused me to levitate back into my living room. By the time I pick myself up I’ve decided that the wind is an evil bastard.

Like most people, I own a TV. And this TV (in spite of my crippling financial status) has the benefit of a satellite connection where I am connected to over one hundred channels of television goodness. It’s good for after a day of hard work, or even a day doing no work, to sit back and relax with a good hour or two of mindless twaddle. But the wind! Oh the wind has its own plans to disrupt my mission of wasting my brain away, for two weeks ago the bloody wind blew my satellite off course, causing my television to be nonoperational for too long a time. My brother and I coped though. We honed our videogaming skills, we rewatched every single DVD we could find (apart from the bestiality movie that was a fantastic souvenir of mine from Barcelona*), and basically did everything that didn’t include reading a book.

So, for two weeks we were without TV. Numerous blunders with the TV repair men meant that our agonising wait seemed like forever. But lo and behold, they arrive, they fall off the roof twice (this is no joke, there were real dramatics up there), and they fix our TV! It was brilliant! I could waste the day again with a pizza box perched on my lap and the remote glued to my hand as I sequentially flicked through the channels at my disposal.

But the wind had other plans, that devious bastard.

I’m sitting at home, writing a bit and watching Jonathan Ross in the background, and the wind kicks up a fuss outside. I can hear it press against my windows in that pseudo-threatening roar it has, and my TV flickers. For a moment it becomes garbled, but soon returns to normal. I eye it suspiciously, but soon forget about it as Jonathan begins another witty anecdote. He builds up the joke, pauses for the punch line, and the screen garbles for a second before cutting out completely. The screen turns blue (oddly resembling the classic Windows blue screen of death) and “No signal being received” flashes up. I look on in dismay, but the picture returns to normal with Jonathan smiling and the audience laughing at whatever the great joke was.

I return to the show, waiting to laugh from the build up before to come, and sure enough there is another build up. I listen, waiting intently for another wacky story of his, when right at the punchline, it cuts out again.

It’s been doing this for two days now.

Every time I’m watching a funny program, sit-com, or cartoon, the wind blows a gust and cuts the signal out right at the punchline. And it’s ONLY with funny programs. I can watch two solid hours of the Dog Whisperer or some random documentary, and not a single interruption, but as soon as I flip on Robot Chicken or Scrubs, the signal cuts every minute or so.

I hate Scottish weather.

*I use the term bestiality loosely here. It’s forty minutes long, and twenty five of those minutes consist of three men in gimp masks having sex with a really fat woman before said fat woman molests a really, really unattractive dog. I mean, they could have picked any dog, but an unattractive one? Still, it was a good laugh to browse through.