There's something satisfying...

About a nice cool shower on a muggy day.

I'm sitting here with The Beatles gently plucking their way through Blackbird, the sun is sinking low in the sky, shafts of sunlight are slicing their way through the clouds and making their way towards the ground like stairways to The Other Place. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arrive."

There's a joint in the ashtray, the blue smoke dancing in the slight breeze coming from the open window and an inner peace settles over me. I look to the picture I took of Abbey Road on my mantelpiece and drift into the song. All is calm in the Kingdom of the Grand Whazoo.

The music changes to Snow Patrol's lament How to be Dead. "Baby let me explain something, it's all down to drugs. At least I remember taking them and not a lot else." The thought strikes me that this line could describe me. Then the paranoid thoughts begin. "Perhaps all matter is a singular consciousness..." A strange voice in my head whispers. "It's just a song. It doesn't hold any significance to your life per se, it's just something that your drug induced mind has created." Another voice says.

"Fuck off." I say aloud, awaiting a reply of some kind. None is forthcoming.

I've no idea how I done it...

All I know is that I did.

Here I am again sat in front of the computer cursing my luck. Why? You ask. Well, it's cos I've fucked my back somehow. All I did was bend over to pick up a pair of my boxer shorts I'd dumped previous to getting in the shower this morning from the bathroom floor.

Perhaps this is a sign that I'm getting old... I hope not.

It's all swings and roundabouts...

Ups and downs, highs and lows, ins and outs (if you're lucky) and peaks and troughs.

I've been in a bit of a trough for the last month or so with my writing. And to be honest I've got no idea why. It's not as if I've sunk into some kind of depression (I can spot a depression induced slump a mile off.) so there really is no rational reason why my mind should choose to dry up quicker than moisturising cream on the face of a pensioner.

Part of the blame may be attributable my dreams.

Lately my dreams have been very "emotionally involving." For the past two weeks the lasting memory I have when I awake is of an old love saying "I can't come with you. That's not my world." Very strange if you ask me. But that's probably not a good idea. Asking me anything is always guaranteed to elicit a reply tha would make a lunatic consider a new life-path.

Truthfully I have no idea what's causing it.

They say...

That good friends are hard to come by.

This is plainly a load of shite. Good friends are easy to come by. Take my friend Lyndsay "With an I" Broon. She's funny, intelligent, engaging, open-minded, free spirited and ever so slightly deviant. Just the way I like my friends to be...

Today Lyndsay and I met up for lunch at Negs where we spent an hour or so discussing many varied (and at times downright fucked up) subjects. She's no longer an employee of the club I used to work for as she was sick of being sexually harassed by committee members and pervert punters so we had a right good go at the swines for being morons who are hell bent on alienating their staff.

After a while the subject was dropped and our conversation strayed onto the subject of sex. Specifically, why she seems to get it so easy and why I haven't fucked anything with a pulse in the last 7 years.

...Jeebus, has it really been that long? Doesn't time fly when you're a hopeless romantic who can't find a woman who doesn't end up ripping your heart out your arse, throwing it in a blender and hitting frappe...

After lunch Lyndsay suggested we take a walk around the corner to Blackwells bookstore where we decided a book buying session was in order. My purchases were "White Man Falling" by Mike Stocks, "The Book of Dave" by Will Self and "Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold.

As the books were on a 3 for 2 offer I only spent £15.98 (a bargain in my eyes as I'm pretty sure all three are going to be great reads) and I've decided that my rereading of "To Kill a Mockingbird" can wait for a week or two.

As Lyndsay was meeting a friend an hour or so later we took a walk up the road to The Pear Tree where we spent an hour discussing topics that you normally only have with people you really know... "Which cartoon character would you like to fuck?" Etc etc etc etc... And people watching.

After Lyndsay and I parted company I took a leisurely walk along the road to Cockburn Street where I purchased two pairs of Aviator style sunglasses (£10 for 2 pairs) and continued to walk along Princes Street where I spent three hours sitting on the grass in the sun watching the world go by.

There's nothing quite like...

Drinking too much to knock hell out of your body.

I found this out (Again...) on Saturday morning after spending almost £80 on alcohol at Gorgie Mills Bowling Club on Friday night. (Four 35ml spirits and accompanying mixers was less than £5 so I know I must have tanked a fair old amount of booze during the evening.)

The reason for my darkening the doorstep of a bowling club was that it was Jenny's sister Gill's 30th birthday and I'd been invited along.

I did give give serious consideration to not going as I was afraid that I'd be spotted by members of my former workplace and they'd hound me out the building and chase me down the street for having the gall to say that the place was run in a less than efficient manner.

I was under strict instructions from Jenny that if I didn't show my life wouldn't be worth living if I let her down so I popped on my finest Hawaiian shirt and off I went.

Gill looked stunning (As she always does... I've fancied her ever since I first clapped eyes on her when she attended a cabaret in a red dress that would make Chris De Burg tear up his lyric book, recall every copy of "Lady in Red" and move to a small island somewhere.) dressed up as a can-can dancer complete with garter belt and a smile that could easily convince me to do anything she asked of me.

I, of course, began the night by throwing as much drink down my throat as was humanly possible in a space of time that would cause the average alcoholic to pass me an invite to their next AA meeting. (The first round was a double rum and coke immediately followed by a second double rum and coke chased with a shot of Aftershock.)

Within an hour I had abandoned the short glasses for a pint glass of rum and coke and was drinking like alcohol was being banned by the government at midnight. After that things got a bit hazy to say the least.

Amongst the things I do remember...

• Asking Jenny what the fuck Gill saw in the human hamburger.
• Arguing with a senior citizen about Muslims and followers of Islam (His view on the subject was that they should all be shot, my reply was to tell him he was a "Stupid old cunt" and if I had my way he'd be the first against the wall closely followed by his family and friends.)
  
• Screaming at Jenny "Women are as deep as puddles, Men are idiots and we're all doomed!" after a philosophical discussion on what women see in people who's IQ is significantly lower than that of a steak sandwich.
  
• Attempting to hump the leg of an old friend. (Just to see his reaction.)
• Drinking a pint of Malibu and coke and two pints of Smirnoff Ice mixed with Orange Bacardi breezer and blue WKD in the space of three minutes as no-one else wanted them.
  
• Yelling at the top of my lungs in the street as the club emptied "I do not have a wee fat cock!" at Jenny.
• Falling flat on my arse after taking a short cut along a muddy, dark path and laughing hysterically at the situation I was in.
• Having a heated argument with someone on the other side of the riverbank who was attempting to get me to keep the noise down.
  
• Collapsing in a heap in the public park around the corner from my house.
• Being awoken in the park by someone walking their dog at 3am.
• Telling a lamppost that I despaired for humanity in a conversation that lasted for about fifteen minutes.
  
• Waking up on the hall floor of my house at 6am in a shape that shouldn't really be possible for a human being to get into. (I'd somehow managed to contort myself into something resembling the shape of a pretzel.)
• Almost destroying the bathroom after attempting to use the shower curtain as an aid to keep me upright.
• Arguing with the aforementioned shower curtain for not being more supportive in my hour of need.
  

The following day I lay in my bed until at least 5pm with the curtains drawn and a pillow over my head in a vain attempt to make the pounding headache go away.