Thursday 24 November 2011

The Great Curve

Get the fuck out
of here
The funny thing about keeping up a blog, is that it's pretty difficult when your keyboard doesn't work. It has been slowly deteriorating for a while, and it now rests in pieces. I'll offer you readers an invaluable hint. Even when your keyboard presses return every couple of seconds so that instant messenger conversations have the consistency of diarrhea and 20 different windows of google chrome are opened up, don't punch your laptop. That's what it wants. Needless to say, the keyboard doesn't really work at all now. So this blog is being done at my university library. This is quite good in a sense, because my room is not a productive place to be. If I attempt to write an essay there I'll end up 'taking a little break' after 5 minutes. Multiple viewings of hilarious cat videos and facebook statuses later and it's time for dinner or bed. But I can be focused in the cold, mechanical library. There are no friendly faces to distract me here, just straight faced law students that iron their underwear and drink diet coke. Other things. I now do the request show every Sunday at the hospital radio. I mostly play requests, but when they run out I can stick on my own stuff. It's a lot of fun, but I'm still working out everything.

In case you didn't already know, I'm a huge fan of the band Talking Heads. My favourite album by the group is Remain in Light, a pulsing album full of hazy jams, surreal guitar work and body moving tribal rhythms. The first single off the album, Once in a Lifetime, was one of the band's most successful releases. It describes a man 'living the dream', who is just coming to terms with where he is in life.
"And you may find yourself in a beautiful house. With a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"

-"Hey, let's make sure that we have a really cool
cover for our next album!"
-"You know, we could spend 15 minutes fucking
about with it in MS paint and head to T.G.I fridays."
-"Okay, deal."
Do you ever do this? Abruptly waking up from your unconsciousness to ponder where the last few years of your life went? I did it just 5 minutes ago. I told myself I needed to pee before to university. And then a little while later I sort of came to consciousness, finding myself outside the university toilet. But just now I'm thinking about it on a grander scale. It barely seems like I've spent 3 years in university, in the back of my mind everyone looks, sounds and acts exactly the same as they did from high school. It's a bit of a shock when I find out that it's otherwise. At a time where I'm asked in countless job interviews where I think I'll be in 5 years time, I'm just starting to look past the mindless programmed answer I usually give and actually wonder. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I woke up tomorrow, 5 years old again, staring at my dinosaur posters and my burglar trap. People say that life is simple when you are young, and it pretty much is. But it doesn't make a difference because we adapt. The spelling test and getting onto the next level of Spyro are on par with financial problems and essays on law and journalistic technique. It's the same sort of level of challenge, because you don't know anything harder. My first day at school. My first interview. My first kiss. My first exam. The first time I guided Spyro into Crush's dungeon. My first essay. My first blog entry. They all gave me the same sort of feeling of heading into the unknown.
I was insanely terrified of James and the Giant Peach when I was younger, and now it just seems like a pretty flawed (although fun to watch for nostalgic reasons) kid's film. And one of the weak lines that came from the weak script was
"Try looking at it differently!!!!"

Peach Schnapps anyone?
Conveniently, this vague phrase applies to all the protagonist's problems and somehow makes everything alright. And usually I slate this sort of thing for misleading children. But I think this line is actually pretty relevant. People are very concerned with where they are heading in life. When pressure rears it's ugly potato head, a lot of people cry 'depression!' or 'stress!' If you just blame an unfair life or some non existent illness, then everything is pretty daunting. Try looking at it as another challenge. How did I get here? Who knows. Just forget about it and enjoy yourself for the time being. Life and its experiences are worth all the money in the world. Although my bank can't seem to agree with me on this.

The spell-checker doesn't work (it listed 'but' as a spelling mistake) so although I'm taking extra care there will probably be something silly regardless. Still no zombie photos. Hurry up Adrienne. If you folks give me an hour or so I'll upload 'Remain in Light' to mediafire so you can have a listen.

What I'm currently listening to > \Click-clack - The busy law students typing (I'd be listening to Talking Heads but loading up youtube crashes this shite computer)/

Thanks for reading.

6 comments:

  1. I never wake up and wonder where the time went but I do imagain I am a billboard standing tall by the side of the road!

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  2. I remember that movie, dunno there but here was "Jimmy y el melocotón gigante"

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  3. This happened to a laptop I owned once. I punched it, and the keys all fell out. More like 'rained all across my lap.' It will still highly satisfying, and encouraged me to buy a new one finally.

    Also, don't dog on MSPaint. That works for some of us...

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  4. I’ve always been a big fan of a “Road to Nowhere” myself

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  6. I was and still am afraid of James and The Giant Peach.

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