When life gives you lemons...

A couple of weeks of relative hardship, combined with a lack of mental fortitude had driven me to close this particular bastion of self expression, but then I thought to myself, “who am I to deprave the net of my incoherent ramblings and general bemoaning of life?” so the blog is back. Back for how long, I cannot say; my fleeting temperament does not lend itself well to long term commitments to projects; however I will try my utmost to keep things going for the time being.

Without being too specific about my recent goings on, I will just say to you that if there are a set of fates on some cosmological scale that have chosen to play a part in my recent attempts at life, they have been decidedly against me in their actions. To this effect, I have decided to revert to my tried and tested method of introversion and self improvement; work my way from the ground up rather than aiming for the big goals in life.

That being said, there are just some instances in life when you really just curse your own luck, for example, last Wednesday I had a trip for my college English course in which we were to watch a play at the famous Globe theatre. Now I’m not really much of a theatre goer myself but I decided to persevere and partake in a free show. I could not fault the play one bit, it was a production of Dr. Faustus and it was performed expertly by a cast of amazing actors, had the right combination of drama and comedy as it followed the tale of Dr Faustus who sells his soul to the devil in order to gain his second, Mephistopheles, as what is akin to a manservant for 24 years, during which Faustus uses the magic of said devil to achieve knowledge, wealth and fame. To top it all off, Mephistopheles was played by Arthur Darvill, better known for his portrayal of Rory Williams in Doctor Who, so I had the opportunity to see the full breadth of this brilliant actor’s range. That’s where the good luck ends.

It would appear that the organisers of this particular trip had managed to pick the day on which the Gods had decided to empty every vessel of heavenly water at once, as it seemed to rain non-stop for about 3 hours. Now you may ask why this would be such a bad thing seeing as I was watching a play at the time, however the well versed in the theatrical arts and culturally aware (read: middleclass) among you should know that the Globe is an open air theatre, which may not have been so bad on its own but it was expertly coupled with the peasants standing position that I was told would “build character” that I had to hold for 3 and a half hours. If by, “build character” they meant, “Cripple your feet and ruin your suede shoes” then yeah, I had a whole heap of character building on that day. That’s not including the walk too and from the train station. Certainly a fun day, would highly recommend it.

Joke to get the blog going once again

A guy went to a psychiatrist. "Doc," he said, "I keep having these alternating recurring dreams. First I'm a teepee, then I'm a wigwam, then I'm a teepee, and then I'm a wigwam. It's driving me crazy. What's wrong with me?"

The doctor replied, "It's very simple. You're two tents."

Story excerpt: The creature

Its dendroid frame reached out to me. The sanguine hues of its skin morphing before my eyes, leaping from one horrific shape to another, unbound by any and all laws of sense and reality as I knew them. I was captivated, in awe at the sight of this gruesome creature; its skeletal form seeming to speak to a subconscious part of my mind. My body was no longer mine to control, I had long since given into the dominating cacophony of shudders and creaks that emanated from the approaching spectre; it roused within me a primal fear that struck my very core, I was at the mercy of my baser instincts in its presence.

Before it had me within its grasp, I used the remnants of my slipping grip on reality to snap myself out of its mesmerising gaze. “Move. Goddamnit move!” I shouted, willing my legs to take my orders once again. When no such return of control arrived, a sudden panic hit me as I realised my fleeting existence was about to come to a rather juddering halt.

Scrambling along a nearby surface, I managed to find something of use. Turning for a split second to gaze upon my last life line, a sudden movement from the corner of my eye grabbed my attention. In the moment I had averted my gaze, this denizen of planes unknown had managed to close the already uncomfortably short gap to a point where I got a clear look into the empty void of its eyes.

Time stood still, or more accurately, it seemed to stop applying. In the single glance I managed to steal, the seconds felt like days, the days felt like aeons but at the same time, fully aware of the absurdity of that thought pattern, yet I had no way of snapping out of it. All the while, I could hear it talking to me. This was no beast. It was sentient, it knew what it was doing and it had done so before. I knew not of what foul language it spoke to me in, what ethereal means of communication it employed but like a rabbit faced with the gaze of a hawk, it spoke to me in the way only a predator could; fear. Primal, passionate, unabridged and most hauntingly, pure fear.

Flailing in the last throws of prey verging on death, I somehow managed to unnerve the creature. Maybe it wasn’t used to resistance, maybe I got lucky, maybe it was all part of the creatures plan but whatever the reason, I used the precious seconds gained to jab my leg, with what was now revealed in the dank gloom of the candle to be a broken piece of wood. The sudden jolt of pain kick started my synapses once again; I was free of its control.

Falling backwards with incredible force, I scrambled for the nearby exit. The bare, wooden floor boards groaned under my weight as I crawled but in spite of their aged discrepancy, they held with surprising strength. Daring not to face the creature again, I ripped the door open with my last reserves of strength, slamming it closed as I passed through.  Greeted by the dusty smog of the passageway beyond, the stifling air caught me off guard; it had obviously been undisturbed for many years and was not too accustomed to the frantic limping of a middle aged man.

With little choice as to my escape route, I shambled as fast as my self-inflicted wound would allow to the only visible exit, a single, un-adorned door at the end of the room. Upon reaching it, I quickly spun about to make sure my pursuer was not within reach and thankfully, it seemed like the figure had not yet made it through the door... the oddly familiar door I had just walked through. Turning to face the escape, I was stricken by an overwhelmingly ominous sense of foreboding; this door was exactly the same as the other, down to the frayed edges and worn, plain panelling.

Breaking out into a cold sweat, I slowly bent forwards towards the door. The sound of my heart beat was deafening, lub-dub......lub-dub.....lub-dub.... lub-dub. Upon reaching the door, I held my breath in anticipation of what I would hear...

Joke to lighten the mood

Q.What is brown, red and sticky?
A. That bloody stick again

Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness (That's a bit much even for me)

Two posts in and my fears have already been realised; I’m incredibly verbose. I started this blog as another attempt at the whole social media shtick after the last disastrous attempt (the last time being on twitter, where I quickly reached levels of pseudo-intellectualism un-observable outside popular coffee chains), and therein lies my problem; how do I avoid a similarly embarrassing problem from occurring?

I must start by pointing out that my overuse of long words (almost said polysyllabic) stems from a love of language in general. It is rare that I get to use all the words at my disposal in every day conversation, as for one, there’s always an easier way of explaining yourself and two, I’d have to spend half the conversation explaining what all these seldom used words meant. For that reason and that reason alone, I intend to flex the metaphorical muscles of my mind at every opportunity, if only to find a use for all the strange words I’ve come across recently (e.g. squamous, dendroid, litany), that would have no place in everyday language.

Just thought I’d clear that up before my façade of frankly gratuitous and overtly pretentious language was misconstrued as some form of vacuous smokescreen for a lack of true substance...  yeah of course not...

Joke o’ the hour (You didn’t think I only had the one now, did you?)

Q. What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back when you throw it?

A. A Stick

I'm so good at procrastinating, I could write a book on it.... If only I didn't procrastinate so much...

Procrastination. Never has one word held such sway over my life.  At times I feel almost constricted by the un-requiting hold my ethereal mistress has over me; however I can never quite seem to shake off the urge to goof around.  Even now as I write this I am supposed to be reading up on various bits of chemistry or the inanities surrounding my English work for my exams, both of which are only a few days away. Yet here I am, urged onwards by some misdirected sense of priorities that has me writing down my thoughts instead. 

Now I’m sure I can’t be the only one who does this but I must enquire as to whether I am alone in my almost self-sabotageingly annoying knack for leaving things to the last possible point, at which I frantically panic and curse my past self for being so lazy. Reason I ask this is because if I’m not the only one, then you too must also commit this act, again and again. You’d think I’d learn from the same mistake repeated ad infinitum but no, I’ll continue to waste my time until the point comes when it’s truly mine to use as I wish, then I’ll be at a loss as to what to do...

Whilst it may sound like I am whittling away the hours on a useless discourse, rather than doing what matters, I actually find the act of typing this out quite comforting. There’s definitely a benefit to be had in expunging this train of thought rather than allowing it to rattle about in the cavernous, empty void of my mind. Who knows, one day I may read back on this and laugh, if not for the contradictory nature of the rant itself but for the shear irony; the fact that the second half only appeared after a mid-rant pause to persue another time wasting endeavor.

Joke o’ the hour (A personal favourite)

Q. What’s brown and sticky?

A. A stick.

Dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

Well this is a rather new experience for me, never written a blog post before but there's a first time for everything. Every platform has to have a start point, however low the quality of said start point is, so this is it, the post that shall mark the time at which my writing endeavours began. Who knows where it will lead...