When you’re drinking, it doesn’t matter whether you know the people you spend time with. You’re all just so happy to have company. We sit on a long couch that extends across the back wall of the upstairs room in the club. People talk over circle tables across from the couch. This is not a booth, this is not our contained world, we are connected with the other drinkers. I drain the rest of my beer. I need to be drunk. I need to feel connected. A guy sitting next to me starts to clap.
“Reeehh!” he says, and puts his arm around me. He takes a large gulp from his own lager, letting it spill over his face. He wipes away the dripping lager with his forearm and then levers his head upward to belch loudly; using his whole torso to create an impressive rumble that sounds like thunder from a distance. He turns to me and raises his eyebrows. Is he trying to challenge me?
“You alright, mate?” he says.
“Yes, are you well?”
“Fucking ace, mate!” he nods drunkenly.
I wonder what he means with his insistence of the word, ‘mate’. I wonder if he truly means to befriend me, and if he thinks that by calling me ‘mate’ he can convince me that we are already friends. I am not easily manipulated, and don’t appreciate when people are dishonest with me. Why can’t we be more accurate with our labels, and call each other ‘Stranger’ or ‘Suspicious Drunk’?
Kanye West says, “Let's get lost tonight, you can be my black Kate Moss tonight.”
“Fucking choon!” says Excessive Lad.
“We’re gonna hit the dance floor again,” says Fraser, “you coming?”
As much as I want to be away from Uneducated Troglodyte, I can’t stand the thought of re-entering that pit of sweating and oversexed bodies. “I’ll stay here,” I say.
“You sure?” says Daisy, surprised that I’d picked bonding with a male stranger over the euphoria of the dance floor.
My housemates leaves, but Meathead’s arm remains. Has this not overstepped the mark of masculine camaraderie to a come on? His friends seem to think nothing of it. They look as trashed as he does. His arm connects me, by association; I’ve now become part of his group.
I look around the room to see who is looking at me. I will meet their eyes and tell them that this is normal. Do I want to be part of this group? I want to join this group as much as I want Kevin to pant in my face. People can’t tell this though, there’s no way they can read my thoughts, but they can read my face. And what face am I wearing? I try to smile, but it probably looks unconvincing. People can tell a fake smile, there are a lot of facial muscles that don’t get used in a fake smile. I’ve read you can tell by looking at the eyes. I wouldn’t have this problem online; there is time to edit yourself, to present whatever image you choose. There are representative emoticons. Smileys. I will wear a smiley. Maybe people won’t notice, I’ll be so normal. Maybe too normal, strikingly normal. But someone has noticed.
She’s tall and slender, like a model. It’s times like these you realise that most girls aren’t built like models. Most girls are short and fat or tall and broad – bulky. She’s not a model at all, no ones looking up to her (besides literally), she’s a freak. She sticks out like a sore thumb on a row of toes. I notice her because she’s just come up the stairs. I notice her because the first thing she does is look at me. She looks at me as if she was looking for me, and now she’s found me, she’s not turning away.
We lock eyes, something I’m not usually good at. I find it hard to maintain eye contact with women because when you see them looking at you it means they can see you looking at them. She’s walking over now, and she’s biting her lip. She’s got something to ask me or something important to tell me and I can’t look away. I just can’t believe she’s still looking at me, and coming towards me, just as if we know each other. Do we know each other? Perhaps sometime from the first semester? Is her name Karen?
She’s crossed half the room now and isn’t changing course, it’s too much now. I break her gaze and look to the rugby players that I’ve somehow become a part of. I don’t want her to think this is who I am. I take Meathead’s arm from around my neck and place it in his lap. He turns to me, looking hurt. I just rejected him. He then turns to the girl fast approaching, and his mouth falls open stupidly.
She strides the whole way, and doesn’t break her motion until she’s sitting next to me. I continue staring ahead. If I keep looking ahead, maybe we’ll just forget that we were even looking at each other. She’s sitting so close to me, her hip is touching mine, and she’s cold, as if she were a dead body left to float down stream. She floated and drowned for so long, but then she finally shored and she got up and sat next to me. She could be dead or in my head, but Meathead saw her. In fact, he’s still looking at her.
“Ahrun?” she says, turning to me.
Our faces are very close now. I can’t smell her breath, but I’m worried she can smell mine.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I know your brother, David.”
“You mean, knew.”
“Yes, I knew him very well.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, and I already think I know the answer, “Were you his girlfriend?”
“Yes, at one point. Your brother had a lot of girlfriends.”
“My brother had a lot of girlfriends,” I say in wonder. Of course, it makes perfect sense. He was handsome, though not as handsome as me, and a genius, and a charmer. He was always the charmer. I guess I figured he’d be a catch, but he never told me about his girlfriends.
Meathead says, “Mate, do you know this bird?”
“Natalie,” she corrects.
“She knew my brother,” I say.
“Who was your brother?”
“David Misen,” says Natalie.
“Misey?” Meathead says back, his eyes becoming moons.
What the fuck does he mean, Misey?
“Lads, lads” Meathead says to his fellow Meatheads, “this is fuckin’ Misey’s brother!”
The rugby players all turn to me with the same mooneyes as Meathead. I am the brother of David Misen. I am the brother of a dead guy. The amount of awe is overwhelming, there is too much of it for anyone to say anything, only for them to breathe heavily and gape. I’ve had to become used to this reaction, no doubt they will now feel impelled to share their experiences with me.
“Mate,” says one of them, “your brother was a good player. He was a fucking tank. I mean, he was a fucking weed, but people just couldn’t take him down. It was like his feet were roots that went deep into the earth, he was always upright. At the end of every game his kit was always as clean as when he first put it on,” he licks his lips. “It was like people were afraid of touching him. Like they might break him. No one wanted to be responsible for destroying something so rare; there was so much potential in those bones, in that face. You could see it. And when people grabbed hold of him, their hands never stayed, like they got burned, like he was on fire.”
A hushed sense of held breaths falls over the rugby players, as if they think their words might break what is left of David. This is all that is left of David, the words of others. Even the music seems to have drop a few notches, out of respect, but more like it’s been muted by a filter that makes it sound like it’s on the other side of a wall. They do this in dance tracks.
“Why the fuck he have to go kill himself?” The players turn to me, looking to me for the answer to this question. And who else are they going to turn to. I’m his brother. I’m the brother of someone who killed himself. Only he didn’t kill himself.
What they’re looking for is family tragedy, so I’ll tell them what they think they know, “David was a genius, but he paid the price. He thought too deeply about things. Things that are best not thinking about.” Of course this untrue. David was the most well adjusted person I knew, at least in our family. Our family has a history of malfunction. My grandfather and two uncles committed suicide. My dad might have killed himself if he hadn’t have been killed first. History has a way of repeating itself, and when suicide gets into a family, it gets set on a loop. The same story, again and again. I always figured it would be me. I think even my mum thought it would be me. I’ve felt something from when I was about six. A very real desire, sometimes a whimsy to extinguish my life, or just a life. I become paralysed when I cross over railway bridges. What if I were to suddenly throw myself over? Half an hour later I think, I could be dead now. I can’t decide whether this is terrifying or liberating. It doesn’t seem so bad to not be living anymore.
Natalie says, “Your brother became very distant before he died.”
“The last time I spoke to him, he was happy,” I said, “then three months later we received a phone call to inform us of his death.”
“He became very preoccupied in his final months, he wasn’t his usual self.”
“Did he become involved with anyone? Dangerous people?”
“He was involved with everyone. Everyone knew him, and everyone loved and admired him.”
“David didn’t do this to himself. He couldn’t. He wasn’t able to.”
“You don’t think David killed himself?”
He mustn’t have killed himself. It’s important to me that he didn’t kill himself.
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Friday 24 July 2009
House Hypochondria
House M.D is a hospital drama about solving medical mysteries. The ailments are almost always fatal and the patients are almost always saved from the jaws of death, or about 38 minutes into the 40 minute episodes. If we were to breakdown an episode, most of it concerns the specialist and expert crew of House’s (that’s Hugh Laurie) lackeys brainstorming potential suspects (it’s usually a tumour), whilst prescribing the wrong treatment three or four times, nudging their patients ever closer to death, as the time ticks loudly away.
It sounds like a good show, I know – that’s why I watch it. The intro to each episode starts with a new set of characters who seem healthy enough, or show only the mildest of clues that they may be ill – a cough, a twinge, a bleeding anus. So each episode is a guessing game of whose seriously ill. You see teenager reach for his prescription medicine, and you begin to think, this guy ain’t looking so good. But it’s usually a red herring, because his mum is now clutching her chest as she takes a sharp intake of breath. The onset of a cardiac arrest? No, it’s turns out to just be heartburn because who’s really got our attention now is the boy with cream coming out of his ears as he goes into a seizure. The point here is that, everyone seems healthy enough, and the person who hits the deck is never who you think it is. How is that these people, who exhibit little or no symptoms, are suddenly attacked by the most violent and often humiliating of viruses?
This show seems to be suggesting that this is how life-threatening illnesses make themselves apparent. Striking without warning and with maximum damage or a mysteriously bleeding anus (that one’s happened a few times, actually). This must be the worst show to watch for hypochondriacs, as it encourages the view that even common symptoms are indicative of something far more foreboding. I myself have fallen prey to this alarmist response to anything unusual in my body’s function. Every twitch of the eye, creak of the neck, every skipped heartbeat and bleeding anus becomes transformed into a death sentence, masquerading under the names lupus, Wilson’s disease and lymphoma (my medical knowledge has skyrocketed since tuning in). It’s become difficult to function since worrying about every hurty knee and itchy nipple (so far just temporary).
What’s scarier still is just how fast the patient’s health declines, and how it pushes the genius House to his mental limits until someone makes an off the cuff remark about another case that just happens to link to his, like, “the woman’s having twins,” or perhaps someone’s anecdote triggers a moment of realisation, shown through a big close up of House. With a face that says, ‘My god, it’s been there all along. It’s been staring us in the face this whole time, how could I have been so stupid? Wilson!’
Of course, most of the ailments are easily treatable, so that the episodes can end happily, but the bigger problem facing the team of specialists is the correct diagnosis. Throughout each episode they exhaust so many options, performing expensive tests one after the other. You get the sense that normal doctors are idiots, and if weren’t for this detective department that is unique to that hospital, all these patients would die, the reasons only becoming clear on autopsy.
So where can we turn? If you’re British, you’re lucky enough to have the NHS. What’s great about the NHS is its self-diagnosing facilities on its website. Now an informed database of symptoms and their corresponding illnesses can be accessed by those who looking for comfort in their time of worry. It uses a traffic light system to let you know how scared you should be. Green is ‘visit your GP.’ This is the least scared you should be, and yet you still need to see a doctor. There are apparently no symptoms where the website simply tells you to ‘Not bother, there’s nothing to worry about.’ I would at least expect a ‘Put an icepack on it you idiot.’ Surely a program with such a wealth of knowledge could afford to be more specific in such minor cases of health issues, such as ‘apply Deep Heat to area of pain’ or ‘make vertical incision along trachea.’
What should be next in this traffic light system is amber (it’s orange, really), but the NHS feels that anything more urgent than a skin rash is a serious threat, and so you are presented with a red page that screams at you to dial 999 and ask for an ambulance. And if the whole red page thing didn’t quite shout danger enough, they’ve also provided an exclamation point in an orange triangle.
The combination of shows like House M.D and the NHS’s hysterical advice page is enough to send hypochondriacs into a frenzy. I can understand the sensationalism of entertainment, but the NHS is basically asking for timewasters and really annoying ‘self-diagnosers.’
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my nipples are raised again, which either means I’m cold, or dying. The emergency services have been informed.
It sounds like a good show, I know – that’s why I watch it. The intro to each episode starts with a new set of characters who seem healthy enough, or show only the mildest of clues that they may be ill – a cough, a twinge, a bleeding anus. So each episode is a guessing game of whose seriously ill. You see teenager reach for his prescription medicine, and you begin to think, this guy ain’t looking so good. But it’s usually a red herring, because his mum is now clutching her chest as she takes a sharp intake of breath. The onset of a cardiac arrest? No, it’s turns out to just be heartburn because who’s really got our attention now is the boy with cream coming out of his ears as he goes into a seizure. The point here is that, everyone seems healthy enough, and the person who hits the deck is never who you think it is. How is that these people, who exhibit little or no symptoms, are suddenly attacked by the most violent and often humiliating of viruses?
This show seems to be suggesting that this is how life-threatening illnesses make themselves apparent. Striking without warning and with maximum damage or a mysteriously bleeding anus (that one’s happened a few times, actually). This must be the worst show to watch for hypochondriacs, as it encourages the view that even common symptoms are indicative of something far more foreboding. I myself have fallen prey to this alarmist response to anything unusual in my body’s function. Every twitch of the eye, creak of the neck, every skipped heartbeat and bleeding anus becomes transformed into a death sentence, masquerading under the names lupus, Wilson’s disease and lymphoma (my medical knowledge has skyrocketed since tuning in). It’s become difficult to function since worrying about every hurty knee and itchy nipple (so far just temporary).
What’s scarier still is just how fast the patient’s health declines, and how it pushes the genius House to his mental limits until someone makes an off the cuff remark about another case that just happens to link to his, like, “the woman’s having twins,” or perhaps someone’s anecdote triggers a moment of realisation, shown through a big close up of House. With a face that says, ‘My god, it’s been there all along. It’s been staring us in the face this whole time, how could I have been so stupid? Wilson!’
Of course, most of the ailments are easily treatable, so that the episodes can end happily, but the bigger problem facing the team of specialists is the correct diagnosis. Throughout each episode they exhaust so many options, performing expensive tests one after the other. You get the sense that normal doctors are idiots, and if weren’t for this detective department that is unique to that hospital, all these patients would die, the reasons only becoming clear on autopsy.
So where can we turn? If you’re British, you’re lucky enough to have the NHS. What’s great about the NHS is its self-diagnosing facilities on its website. Now an informed database of symptoms and their corresponding illnesses can be accessed by those who looking for comfort in their time of worry. It uses a traffic light system to let you know how scared you should be. Green is ‘visit your GP.’ This is the least scared you should be, and yet you still need to see a doctor. There are apparently no symptoms where the website simply tells you to ‘Not bother, there’s nothing to worry about.’ I would at least expect a ‘Put an icepack on it you idiot.’ Surely a program with such a wealth of knowledge could afford to be more specific in such minor cases of health issues, such as ‘apply Deep Heat to area of pain’ or ‘make vertical incision along trachea.’
What should be next in this traffic light system is amber (it’s orange, really), but the NHS feels that anything more urgent than a skin rash is a serious threat, and so you are presented with a red page that screams at you to dial 999 and ask for an ambulance. And if the whole red page thing didn’t quite shout danger enough, they’ve also provided an exclamation point in an orange triangle.
The combination of shows like House M.D and the NHS’s hysterical advice page is enough to send hypochondriacs into a frenzy. I can understand the sensationalism of entertainment, but the NHS is basically asking for timewasters and really annoying ‘self-diagnosers.’
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my nipples are raised again, which either means I’m cold, or dying. The emergency services have been informed.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Saturday 18 July 2009
The Best of Keyboard Cat
I'm sure you're all aware of the wonderful keyboard cat, so I present to you the best three videos inspired by this phenomenom.
This is also absolutely genius, and must not be missed.
This is also absolutely genius, and must not be missed.
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Excerpt 2
This week is another excerpt from the novel. Is this laziness? I guess so, but I'm also writing more than I ever have and am just plain struggling to maintain this blog as well. This will probably be the case until the end of September. If these excerpts don't feel adequate enough a replacement then kick up a fuss and I'll try harder. Little context for this passage, Ahrun, the protagonist, is in a nightclub. Enjoy.
* * *
I see many familiar faces of students from different classes. Their names escape me. I knew them only last semester, and now we know each other no longer. When their eyes meet mine they don’t register recognition, because all they see is a stranger. This is not true of all students though. Some of them can’t shake the fact that we no longer need to speak anymore. One such catches my eye, his name is Kevin and he has acne. He nods casually at me, I nod back, thinking nothing of this harmless exchange, but he’s misread my nod, he thinks I’ve called him over.
Clubs aren’t designed for talking. They’re for the wordless communication, the mating rituals that existed before chivalry and language.
“Hey,” he says, reaching me. His voice carries easily despite the deafening decibels that drown out all else.
I say hi back, but I can’t even hear myself.
“How’s it going?” he says, stepping forward. The fetid stench of wine breath punches me in the face.
I assure him all is normal, and return the question. Can he even hear me?
“Yeah, haven’t seen you around in a while,” he says this as if this is a great shame, but can he really mean it? Or is his insincerity so honed, so practised, it is indistinguishable from his sincerity? Can he even tell which he is being?
I return the sentiment, and make a wry observation about it being part of the uni experience.
He laughs politely, expelling clouds of condensed stink into my mouth. It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t standing so close to me. Why is he standing so close to me?
I take a step back but he immediately presses forward, afraid he might lose me. He touches my arm to steady himself. He’s very drunk.
“What modules are you taking this semester?” I’m looking in all directions but directly at him to avoid the full force of his mouth funk.
I tell him my modules.
“Yeah, I was thinking of taking ‘Cornish Cinema’ but I didn’t have good enough grades from college.”
I start to edge away again, leaning and shuffling, making incremental and indiscernible movements to widen the gap between us. Kevin doesn’t realise on any conscious level what I am doing, but when it is soon apparent that there is now a foot in distance between us he becomes uncomfortable and closes the gap, almost stepping on my shoes. I can see the bristles of his fluffy moustache quiver as his toxic vapour spills out of his face.
“What are you up to?” he says.
I make like I can’t hear him, even though everyone within five metres can hear him. He moves closer and grabs hold of me, bringing his mouth to my ear, “What are you up to?” he says loudly. My eardrum shakes unpleasantly, but at least it has no sense of smell.
Drinking, I scream in his ear, hoping it hurts. This is it. This conversation has come as far as it can. He should know to leave now, that there is nothing to be gained by hanging around. It can only become more awkward. But he just stands there. The fool is smiling; he’s enjoying my company.
I close my eyes, pretending that this particular beat has sent me into dance trance. I begin swinging my arms wildly, as if they were possessed by the music; I let them crash into Kevin.
“Hey,” he says, taking a step back.
I do this for a while longer and then peek through my lids. He’s still standing there, watching in wonderment.
I feel hands clap on my shoulders, “Looks like you’ve pulled,” says Fraser.
Kevin is still standing there, watching both of us.
I introduce Kevin, saying, This is Kevin.
Kevin says, “I’m Kevin. Ahrun’s friend.”
“Fraser; I’m shit-faced,” they shake hands. Fraser says to me, “Where you been, mate? You need to get your drink on. You’re gonna get some minge tonight, I can smell it.”
I motion a goodbye to Kevin as Fraser and I head for the bar.
“Wait,” he says, “we should meet up sometime.”
Definitely, I say.
“Give me your number.”
No, I want to say. No, don’t talk to me anymore. I watch him for a while, and his face begins to fall. Did I say that out loud? OK, I say. He’s smiling again, but maybe he was smiling all along, anyway. He never stopped smiling.
I wonder if I’m really going to do this. My uncertainty rises when he passes me his phone to type my number in. I type the standard 07 and then make up the rest of the numbers.
“I’ll just prank you, so you have my number,” he says.
No.
He presses call and holds the phone to his ear, as if he were calling someone that wasn’t standing in front of him.
I get my own phone out and hold it, like I really believe his call is about to come through. He calls, he calls; my phone is tellingly silent. When will he realise that I gave him a fake number? I’m trying to think of an excuse when my phone comes to life, chirruping at me, and the name ‘Kevin’ comes up. Kevin cuts the call.
“I’ll call you sometime,” he says, before disappearing into the press of bodies.
I’m still looking at my phone. A cold heavy stone drops through me and lands in my testicles. Kevin has my number. I gave Kevin a false number, which at the same time is my number. Am I a false number?
* * *
* * *
I see many familiar faces of students from different classes. Their names escape me. I knew them only last semester, and now we know each other no longer. When their eyes meet mine they don’t register recognition, because all they see is a stranger. This is not true of all students though. Some of them can’t shake the fact that we no longer need to speak anymore. One such catches my eye, his name is Kevin and he has acne. He nods casually at me, I nod back, thinking nothing of this harmless exchange, but he’s misread my nod, he thinks I’ve called him over.
Clubs aren’t designed for talking. They’re for the wordless communication, the mating rituals that existed before chivalry and language.
“Hey,” he says, reaching me. His voice carries easily despite the deafening decibels that drown out all else.
I say hi back, but I can’t even hear myself.
“How’s it going?” he says, stepping forward. The fetid stench of wine breath punches me in the face.
I assure him all is normal, and return the question. Can he even hear me?
“Yeah, haven’t seen you around in a while,” he says this as if this is a great shame, but can he really mean it? Or is his insincerity so honed, so practised, it is indistinguishable from his sincerity? Can he even tell which he is being?
I return the sentiment, and make a wry observation about it being part of the uni experience.
He laughs politely, expelling clouds of condensed stink into my mouth. It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t standing so close to me. Why is he standing so close to me?
I take a step back but he immediately presses forward, afraid he might lose me. He touches my arm to steady himself. He’s very drunk.
“What modules are you taking this semester?” I’m looking in all directions but directly at him to avoid the full force of his mouth funk.
I tell him my modules.
“Yeah, I was thinking of taking ‘Cornish Cinema’ but I didn’t have good enough grades from college.”
I start to edge away again, leaning and shuffling, making incremental and indiscernible movements to widen the gap between us. Kevin doesn’t realise on any conscious level what I am doing, but when it is soon apparent that there is now a foot in distance between us he becomes uncomfortable and closes the gap, almost stepping on my shoes. I can see the bristles of his fluffy moustache quiver as his toxic vapour spills out of his face.
“What are you up to?” he says.
I make like I can’t hear him, even though everyone within five metres can hear him. He moves closer and grabs hold of me, bringing his mouth to my ear, “What are you up to?” he says loudly. My eardrum shakes unpleasantly, but at least it has no sense of smell.
Drinking, I scream in his ear, hoping it hurts. This is it. This conversation has come as far as it can. He should know to leave now, that there is nothing to be gained by hanging around. It can only become more awkward. But he just stands there. The fool is smiling; he’s enjoying my company.
I close my eyes, pretending that this particular beat has sent me into dance trance. I begin swinging my arms wildly, as if they were possessed by the music; I let them crash into Kevin.
“Hey,” he says, taking a step back.
I do this for a while longer and then peek through my lids. He’s still standing there, watching in wonderment.
I feel hands clap on my shoulders, “Looks like you’ve pulled,” says Fraser.
Kevin is still standing there, watching both of us.
I introduce Kevin, saying, This is Kevin.
Kevin says, “I’m Kevin. Ahrun’s friend.”
“Fraser; I’m shit-faced,” they shake hands. Fraser says to me, “Where you been, mate? You need to get your drink on. You’re gonna get some minge tonight, I can smell it.”
I motion a goodbye to Kevin as Fraser and I head for the bar.
“Wait,” he says, “we should meet up sometime.”
Definitely, I say.
“Give me your number.”
No, I want to say. No, don’t talk to me anymore. I watch him for a while, and his face begins to fall. Did I say that out loud? OK, I say. He’s smiling again, but maybe he was smiling all along, anyway. He never stopped smiling.
I wonder if I’m really going to do this. My uncertainty rises when he passes me his phone to type my number in. I type the standard 07 and then make up the rest of the numbers.
“I’ll just prank you, so you have my number,” he says.
No.
He presses call and holds the phone to his ear, as if he were calling someone that wasn’t standing in front of him.
I get my own phone out and hold it, like I really believe his call is about to come through. He calls, he calls; my phone is tellingly silent. When will he realise that I gave him a fake number? I’m trying to think of an excuse when my phone comes to life, chirruping at me, and the name ‘Kevin’ comes up. Kevin cuts the call.
“I’ll call you sometime,” he says, before disappearing into the press of bodies.
I’m still looking at my phone. A cold heavy stone drops through me and lands in my testicles. Kevin has my number. I gave Kevin a false number, which at the same time is my number. Am I a false number?
* * *
Wednesday 8 July 2009
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