And so, but then, it is 2011. Let us move as swiftly as our eyes can take us over my wholly inadequate apology for not updating since August... I assure you, my reasons are as valid as they are laughable. I have been horrifically busy with university work, and was unwilling to produce anything like the horse-shit nonsense I wanked out over the summer just for the sake of it. Additionally, I have been racked by debilitating confusion over what ‘dubstep’ is. I still don’t know, and it haunts my dreams relentlessly. Even more additionally, I have been in dreadful health, sporadic periods of insomnia punctuated only by weeks of nocturnalism. A mix of Polish beer and flammable carcinogens has constituted the dominant part of my diet, and I almost overdosed on adverbs on several occasions. Woe is, as ever, unconfined. But I must get up off my scrawny white arse, dust myself down, sit back down on my scrawny white arse, and bugger on with writing. The insomnia and nocturnalism I mentioned above seem as worthy subjects as any, and are anaemic enough in their significance to fit in nicely with the others to be found here....
It’s 3:32am on the morning of January 10th as I write this, which is an entirely deleterious manner in which to begin a new semester. Anyone who has endured more than trivial contact with me, God-forsaken as you are for the experience, will know that I do not keep to a conventional sleeping schedule. This, you may well protest, is nothing out of the ordinary for a student, and you would, of course, be wrong. Internally, my body is as nonsensical as it is externally. Since moving to Edinburgh I have suffered at irregular intervals periods of insomnia lasting anything up to a fortnight. These are more often than not framed by periods of ineffably impractical nocturnalism lasting anything up to even longer. When most things you have to do with your life are to be done in the daylight hours, this presents something you might like to call a predicament, but which I like to call a quandary. It’s a rather vexing pickle of a mess when one has to attend an 11am lecture, and has only managed to snatch fifteen minutes of sleep around 6am. Such difficulties does insomnia entail. It is doubly vexing when you only went to bed fifteen minutes earlier. Such difficulties does nocturnalism entail. Indeed, difficulties, quandaries, vexations and impracticalities abound when you are unable to participate in an activity which, by its very definition, requires the bare minimum of effort. Truly, there is nothing at which I cannot fail... There’s an endless whirlpool of linguistic paradox to be found in there if you’re enough of a sociopath to try.
It’s not a complete embuggerment, though. What may seem endless arsery to anyone who has never experienced it before, can actually be quite beneficial. Spending so much time alone allows one to think. Someone said something once (I strike a very cultured figure at the dinner parties I am never invited to, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW) about how the English language has provided us with the word ‘loneliness’ to describe the misery of being on our own, and the word ‘solitude’ to describe its glory. I think that’s a pretty marvellous observation, unless whoever said it was a cunt, in which case I denounce it completely; it is nonsense and the man’s a cretin. It’s not that being awake while everyone else is asleep isn't lonely, of course it can be. And certainly, you can only drain so many cups of tea and smoke so many cigarettes before your whole consciousness is infused with the mercilessly raw notion that you are wasting your life. Actually, I can drink volumes of tea which would kill a bear. That is QUITE A BIT, my friends. But anyway, just as often as it is a lonely existence, it is a blessed one. If anyone, in a fit of madness, were to browse the times at which other Blog entries have been posted, they will discover that a startling proportion of them popped into webular existence in the early hours of the morning. It may well be that these are the entries of least quality, but that is neither here nor there (and as a side-note, the entries for February and March were, in fact, originally written while drunk in Glasgow, nestled in the ‘Man-Cave’). My love of the actor Peter O’Toole was conceived in what Chuck Berry called the ‘Wee, Wee Hours’. That was a good thing. My frequent donning of a cravat as a result was not such a good thing, but you can’t win them all as I’m sure Peter himself would agree, poor man.
Another good thing to come from sleep-deprivation is the fact that it fries your brain like nobody’s business. Often coffee will take the place of my beloved Tetley Tea, and I’m sure you can imagine that combining toxic levels of caffeine with a brain that desperately wants to sleep but can’t, is a rollercoaster ride of hellz-a-poppin’ fun. Michael, if good sense has not eradicated the memories of such events, knows full well that I can spend an entire morning in a state of overpowering energy and good cheer after such an evening. Now, I’m not saying that the delusion of happiness brought about by such unhealthy means is a good thing. That would be irresponsible. If you’re feeling upset, staying up all night chugging coffee may not be the best way to tackle your problems. In fact it may well be the worst way, short of sitting in a cupboard full of confused geese. Nonetheless, it’s a rather happy accident to stumble across every now and again, particularly when the alternative is despondency and hopelessness and all that bollocks. A word of warning though: near the end of 2010 I barrelled through a week’s insomnia and loss of appetite culminating in a hideous vomiting spree after a 9am seminar. Grounds for medical concern, you say? Nonsense. After such an experience, a real man forces a cold pizza down his throat and plays computer games all day.
Anywho, that was the Blog entry that was. Good morning.
Jamie
P.S. You can also watch pornography and not have to worry about getting caught. Lifestyle tips à la THE LAMBINATOR.
