When did this storm begin

Alternative title: (Mis)Adventures in Oxford)

So, Wednesday night saw a small break in the standard Work/Sleep/Eat/Repeat routine I have going here, with a gig and some various shenanigans after said gig.

Me and Toby headed out to Oxford to go see My American Heart, a suggestion I made with the aid of the last.fm reccomended events thing and spurred on by Toby's desire to attend more gigs (this being only his second). Other bands touring that were considered included MGMT and Cold War Kids, MGMT being the favourite, but also sold out... I digress.

We got to Oxford just in time to dump stuff at TimDaves before hitting up the Carling Academy to watch the two fairly average standard support bands; they didn't quite get to The Walk Off territory, but weren't amazingly thrilling either (One song title made me cringe a little.. "You Broke My Heart, So I Broke His Jaw"..) My American Heart came on and played a good set, if somewhat short, and I had a nice sing along/some very selfconcious bouncing around.

Fast forward to back at Armstrong's, where there was some drinking. There were a few lulls in the conversation, so I declared that upon every noteable pause, we had to drink, which resulted in some drinking but served the better purpose of causing some fairly rambling discussions. Simon showed up for a short while, but as the oxford boys are all busy little bees he couldn't stay for long, but it was good to see him. Me and Dave walked him out, and Toby was pretty much crashed out when we got back, so there was a little more drinking, and some more conversation, some more slightly inebriated conversation by this point.

Dave went to sleep at what I am going to roughly estimate at 3 AM, But since at that point I had only been awake for 12 hours, and was a little drunk, felt unable to sleep.

At some point I decided to wander randomly around the University College grounds with a drink.

Whether this was a good idea or not should perhaps be left up to you.

The first "incident", if we shall call it that involved a statue of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and some poetry inscriptions on the surrounding walls.

Having looked into it somewhat... the Wikipedia page may be a helpful reference point here.

"It is housed on a decorative plinth in a small domed late-Victorian room designed by Basil Champneys, behind ornamental railings that protect it from students."

Somehow, *cough*, somehow, I ended up on the wrong side of these railings.

I was about halfway through the inscriptions when there was an odd clicking sound and then I heard a door opening.

In a moment of mild drunken panic, being somewhere I was most likely not supposed to be (the locks and railings seemed to at the very least hint at that) I hid behind the statue. The statue, which, if you look at the picture in the wiki, at crouching height, has a whole bunch of holes in it.

due presumably to the poor lighting at that time of evening, what turned out to be some manner of security guard failed to see me, despite going past three or so times, in and out of different doors. After he left (And I finished reading the walls.. all of which has completely gone from my memory) I climbed back through the railings and walked on towards Dave's, through some doors, and past the man I'd just been hiding from.

I even gave him a small nod as I went on my way.

The night did not end there, but mostly what happened next was just some wandering and admiring the architecture, almost getting lost in winding hallways, locking myself out into some kind of locked on all sides courtyard thing; I had to climb over a wall to get out onto an actual street so I could work my way back to the main entrance and back to where I'd started.

After that, I drank a little more, until Toby got up and went home, then I drank a little more, faffed about a bit, and when he eventually woke up, regaled Dave with tales of my travels.

Still drunk (Lets say.. around nine-ten? I forget) I followed Dave to his first lecture and joined him, doodling and writing a bit as some complicated mathematical formula stuff went completely over my head.

While Dave had more lectures, I went for a wander in Oxford, broke and well on the way to hangover town. I got "Breakfast" consisting of pita bread and water in a Tescos, and cold, tired and somewhat headachey, headed back to Dave's to collapse in his "porch". When he found me, he commented on how uncomfortable I must have been, but.. I've slept in worse places.

Thus concludes what was a rather surreal experience.

The moral of the story is: Don't leave Rory unattended while drunk?

I'll move to paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars

Long time no see, yet again.

My mother and siblings all moved over to Ireland way back when. Seems almost like forever ago, now. Been living with dad, although our schedules tend to mean there's not a lot of time we're both home.

I'm currently working back at the Yeoman, under new management. "The pay's not great, but the work is hard", would probably be an apt summation of the job. I'm also not even getting enough hours, so the jobhunt continues.. or at least should continue, my motivation to do anything is much the same as ever.

Most days of have been spent much the same as my unemployed days, sleeping too much and watching too much terrible TV. The american TV season restarted about a month ago, so now not _all_ the TV i'm watching is rubbish.. should be watching Heroes, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory later tonight, for example.

Work, sleep and television aside, I have done one or two other things to amuse myself; one weekend was spent in Ireland, mostly visiting Michelle rather than the rest of the family, and there was a very spur-of-the-moment visit up to loughborough, which resulted in a rather entertaining but horrendously expensive evening.

I also hung out with toby a bit, some drinking and a trip to see How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, which was a surprisingly entertaining movie. Hannah joined the two of us last saturday and there was some heavier drinking, and not a lot of sleep.. working the next day was simply painful.

I'm going back up to loughborough and nottingham, for a more planned and longer visit, on thursday afternoon. It should be good times for all, but we shall see.

My eyes can't believe what they have seen

Another short story. possibly titled 'Never Again'. also due to 5AM typing/editing, may or may not remain as is.

~

“Never again.”

I want to nod, to agree, but my head feels like it will burst with the slightest movement, like it will break with the lightest touch.

I settle for grunting in a manner I hope shows my agreement.

“That was some night though, huh?”

This time I do nod, and it feels about six times worse than I could have ever pictured, raw agony flaring through my skull.

I groan and take a sip of my coffee, the usually bitter heat tasting of nothing, my tongue far from working the way it was intended to.

The coffee shop is mostly empty; it’s still early, too early. I feel like I should be asleep for the next decade.

I try to remember last night – all I get is flashes; things I know happened, things which make sense, and then…

…The other things.

It must’ve been a good night, seeing how little I remember.

I muster the strength for some words, and force them out, even though it feels like my throat is full of gravel.

“…what happened last night?”

Jim smirks at me, a little twinkle of glee in his eyes.

He looks so much better than I feel that I almost want to hit him.

“So you don’t remember… Francesca?”

Some of the shattered mosaic that is my memory begins to piece itself back together.

I remember meeting Francesca, a cute brunette from some other school, from some other social circle with just one link or two to ours.

I remember the small talk two people share when they’ve just met, who you know, what you do, where you’re from.

I couldn’t tell you what she said. I couldn’t tell you what I said.

“You remember now, huh?”

Jim grins at me like an idiot.

“Yeah”

“Oh good. You can’t have drunk that much then.”

I remember drinking a lot.

I can see flashes of all kinds of things, of beer, cider, tequila. I see something a horribly unnatural shade of green.

“I still can’t believe she got with you, of all people.”

I can’t either, really. She could have done a lot better.

More comes flooding back, snapshots of moments, little disjointed scenes that don’t quite fit together.

I remember a hat, a pinstriped trilby, making the rounds, going chaotically from head to drunken head.

I remember a playful little scuffle, the prize for the victor that little scrap of patterned cloth.

I remember, clear as if it were happening again, the blinding white hot pain of a knee connecting with my crotch at a hundred miles an hour.

The light died, faded away. Alcohol dulls all pain.

If you want to make sure a guy never, ever forgets you, a swift kick to the groin tends to do that job pretty well.

Ok, so he’ll also never forget that you kicked him in the balls, but infamy beats obscurity any day, right?

I come back to the present, back to my current aches and pains. A gentle breeze could knock me down and I’d shatter like a pane of glass.

Jim is talking again, something about last night and someone throwing up, but I’m not really listening. He starts to laugh, so I chuckle into my coffee.

I remember being alone with Francesca. Alone, with a door closed, sitting on a bed.

I remember her saying she was sorry, a thousand times sorry.

Asking, was there anything she could do to make me feel better…

I don’t remember the words, but I remember what I said; I remember where my hands went, and my lips.

I remember what we did, the softness of her skin, the awkward fumbling.

I remember… release.

I remember watching her shrug her shirt back on, watching her walk away.

I remember falling asleep, and waking up.

Alone.

I told her she was special, she was different, she was interesting. I said, I don’t usually do this.

I lied.

But she still left me alone, with my thoughts, feeling empty, feeling rejected, despite what we’d done, or because of it.

Never again.

Jim downs the last of his coffee, so I do too.

“We should probably go catch that bus, huh”

“Yeah, sure”

I lead the way to the door, stop to hold it open for the two girls coming in.

The shorter one, with long black hair and bright eyes, smiles at me.

“Thanks!”

A pretty girl smiles at you, and all your cares in the world, all your pain just washes away.

We stumble through the door and head for the bus station.

“Man, I am never drinking that much ever again… I feel like a bus kicked me in the eye.”

I shake my head.

Never again?

Yeah, right.

~

Watching it burn to your fingertips

A rough three months of nothing, huh. I'd chastise myself a little if it weren't for everything that's been going on, but as it is, I think not posting a little ranty thing that no one ever reads on a little irrelevant corner of the internet is something I can cut myself some slack for.

So, I'm tired and don't have a huge amount of time anyway, so lets examine the most salient issues of the last few months...

I dropped out of university. This was a surprise to a large number of people, mostly because I was lying to everyone. Woops.

My family is gradually initiating a move back to Ireland. My two younger siblings have places in schools over there to start in late august/early september, and in almost exactly one calendar month they are going over with my mother to live and learn and all those other things. My father is contracted to work till roughly december of this year, but is or will soon be looking for work in Ireland so the family can be in the same country together and so on.

I do not want to move to Ireland. Indeed, I am not doing so. But them leaving means that not only do I have to find work, now, which has thus far proved no simple task, I will have to find somewhere to live around or before january.

All of which is a big barrel of fun, as you can no doubt imagine.

Now I feel like going to collapse upstairs, so I think that is what I am going to do.

I promise to remember that making promises is always a mistake

So. Yesterday I finished a book, and it was a pretty good book. It was entitled "John Dies at the End", by a man named David Wong. Not quite coincidentally, it is also about a man called David Wong, his friend John, and a number of their escapades. It is, however, not at all autobiographical; the name is a pseudonym and the story is in no way presented as truth... some quotes will get this message across fairly well:

“We’re talking about a tentacled flying lampfucker, Dave. What are you prepared to call unlikely?”

And also:

"There’s something I don’t trust about the way she exploded and then came back from the dead like that.”

I should probably add that these are not random non-sequitars out of context: the book is advertised as somewhat of a cross genre horror/comedy, I believe one comment describes Wong's writing as a cross between Stephen King and Douglas Adams. Personally, while that is a somewhat apt description, a better one comes to mind because more than anything else I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman's writing.

But anyway. What with exploding dogs, satanic possessions, interdimensional travel, sex, drugs, rock & roll and more penis jokes than you can shake some sort of phallic object at; it's definitely worth a read.

Oh, and did I forget to mention it can be read for free online? because you can totally just click that link and start reading!

Admittedly, it's fairly long and reading it on a laptop isn't great, partially because I prefer to read curled up in bed and it's hard to do that comfortably with a large hunk of plastic. So yeah, if you like reading, or being entertained, give it a click.

Anyway. It's pretty good to be home, some drinking and various other shenanigans going on all around, so besides the rather lengthy rant about a book I read on the interweb, I haven't a lot to say.

Take Me Home

It's been two months, because I am lazy, and there have been things I did not want to write about, and because I just plain forgot a large portion of the time.

Anyway, four or five days till I head back home (depending on your perspective) for easter, and all manner of things are due to happen back in and around the old hometown. I am looking forward to it, so woo,

I am currently in the computer labs again, but not because I've locked myself out this time, I've got my keycard.. but I was going out to the campus shop to grab some breakfasts, thinking it had been open already for an hour and a half when in fact it would not open for another half hour. I always seem to want to go to a shop when it's closed, but at least this time it's about to open rather than just having closed.

Anyway, I haven't a terrible amount to say so this is being cut short. We'll have to wait and see if the next one doesn't take even longer than two months to come around.

Oh, And I turned 19. That's fairly important, I suppose.

No Sleep Tonight

Whee. Well, being a clever little individual, when I left the flat at around 5 AM to go outside for a bit of a stroll and some fresh air, I accidentally left my keycard in my room somewhere.. which I didn't realise until I headed back inside, and got to the flat door.. and no further. It being stupid o'clock in the morning, I didn't want to wake up and antagonise one of my flatmates, so I relocated to the 24 hour computer labs. Blech.

In other news, the christmas holidays were for the most part lazy, with various bits of fun thrown in, just to mix it up a little.

also, the Give It A Name '08 lineup was partially announced today/was floating around for a while, and looks fairly decent, with Paramore and 30 Seconds to Mars headling the two days.. both bands I've seen live, and I wasn't amazingly impressed with 30stm, although there are mitigating factors, and Paramore are one of my favourite bands, high on the list of "Bands I want to see live again as soon as possible" which is always good. Other bands I am looking forward somewhat to seeing are My American Heart, Mayday Parade, Billy Talent, and Glassjaw; After examining briefly all of the unknowns, I have to say Meg & Dia are looking good, and also to a lesser extent All Time Low.. and of course I am intreuged as to the identity of both the Special Guest and the Very Special Guest.. as well as just the rest of the lineup that has not yet been released.

Anyway, seeing as it is now eight, and at least two of my flatmates have a lecture at nine, I might just stroll on back to the flat and make a nuisance of myself

Are you dizzy yet?

I seem to have broken my promise, or at the very least made myself a liar, seeing as how it's very nearly been 9 weeks since I've been at uni, and as such, nearly 9 weeks since I last wrote a post like this. I am currently bored/ drunk/ lonely/ angry /introspective and I'd like to say that's a list of items you can delete as apropriate, but I'm having a bad week and it's not looking to get better without intervention on my own part, and I just don't know what to do.

As far as the last nine weeks are concerned, I can't think of a terrible amount that merits discussion, so we're not going to get a long, rambling version of nine weeks from my perspective. I will say a few things, however.

I miss everyone from back home. Seeing Ellis, Andy, Ollie, Simon and Dave last weekend seems to have actually made this worse, rather than better.

I'm currently living in a small cell on the seventh floor of a tower. My 15 flatmates are for the most part fairly sociable, and I could have been much unluckier.

Toby, our family dog of over 10 years (I'm sure you'll forgive me for not knowing the exact date or even year we got him, me being younger than 8 at the time) became sick shortly after I left for uni, and had to be put down in early november, a sad event I went home for. I hope I never have to dig another grave, for any living thing, especially not while it watches, and I certainly hope I never have to stand there while someone administers a lethal dosage of anasthetic to a family member. Toby's absence makes being at home even more surreal than it was because I've moved away.

If sitting here drinking by myself is what it takes to write a post, there might be another one much faster than it took to get round to this one... after I go buy more vodka, of course. There isn't even enough left in this bottle for a decent shot.

I Was Never A Normal Boy

It's been a long, eventful summer. This doesn't mean I'm going to talk about it, for the same reasons it's taken so long to write anything about it at all. There were terrible times, amazing times, more teenage-angsty-drama than all seven years of secondary school combined (while this is probably hyperbole.. there was a lot) more alcohol than all seven years of secondary school combined (probably not an exaggeration this time, but it might go some way to explaining the last bit) and so much more that even if I wanted to talk about the painful crap (which is so intertwined with the awesome stuff that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference) I wouldn't have the time or the motivation anymore. It's been too long, and too much has happened.

As it is, anyway, the summer is over, and tomorrow (Later today, really. about nine hours if we keep to my dads plan) I'm leaving to go to the University of Essex to study English Literature and get obscenely inebriated (Not necessarily in that order. I may well even try both simultaneously).

The most important part of this is that it means everything is changing. Leaving the summers events behind probably means I can start posting again.

As soon as I recover from freshers week, of course

Let the Flames Begin

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