Warning : This post contains Death

Have spent the past few hours feeling muddled.  Perhaps the late afternoon nap was a bad idea.  Now I'll be up until two in the morning.

To take my mind of such, I stuck in my Iron Man 2 Blu-Ray.  Now I have Marilyn Manson's The Golden Age of Grotesque album playing.  The minister in my church once said, in relation to being a Christian, that, '...we are entertaining ourselves to death.'

Strong words.  As if my entire life is floating with television, film, music and books.

However, in my defense it's probably stopping me from becoming a lunatic.

Whilst at church this morning I heard of the death of a lady who I used to know.  Her name was May.  I don't know when the funeral is, so I'm not sure I can attend.  She was really dotting, immaculately dressed and reached her early nineties.  She had such a good will to stick around.

I remember serving her as a teenager in the local newsagent I used to work in.  She would read the Daily Mail, yet mainly for the crossword.  Her consideration for others was wonderful.

Thoughts of death have maybe been plaguing me.  Combined with Margaret Thatcher's recent death and hearing of various other bereavements, it's becoming clear that in my life, I'm moving on.

One day I'll die.  And I'm trying my best to not be frightened by it.

Mum and I had lunch at Muriel's Cafe Bar (Church Lane, Belfast).  I had two beers.  That probably didn't help.  What did help was finding Rocko's Modern Life on DVD in Poundland.  Once I saw the poster I was thrown back to memories where I watched it straight after Batman on Channel 4.  Notably in Portrush with my family whilst on holiday.  I think that was 1994.

I also remember getting a plastic Bart Simpson watch from a gumball machine.

Dish washing, a boring Doctor Who and no reading done, this has been my Sunday.

Have also been trying to hide my phone.  There's only so much of the 'pretty, pretty ones' on Twitter I can take before I feel my life is totally redundant.

I am smarter than this.  But I'm not smart enough to use such wits.

Salt of the Saturday

There's an unnatural salty smell in my living room.  Perhaps I've overdosed on the last Guess fragrance my mother bought me.  Or I've not been burning my Yankee Candles enough.

It can't have been from the local Chip Shop.  I've vowed only to have chips once a week (once every two weeks if needbe).

There's a cup of peppermint & nettle tea sitting at my foot.  This should help me sleep.

Considering I've been awake since 07.30 (it is now 00.46) I shouldn't need any help.

The dream team of myself, CBG and Claire closed up the cinema this evening.

To a degree I owe my job there to them.  I name dropped them in the interview, knowing them previously*.

So a soup stain on my trousers, a few pages further into A Clash of Kings and a bump into Grace at M&S. My Saturday is my Tuesday.  And it sounds mundane.  But I try still to look at the small conversations and simple tastes to help.

It's my neighbor's birthday.  I tried knocking on their door, but I think they're so swept up in karaoke from Les Miserables that I wasn't heard.  No matter.  At this point I no longer read into actions.  Bed calls and cares for me.

*I even know CBG's real name

Friday = Monday

Using hair straighteners for the first time in months.  It was a daily ritual that used to take up the bathroom and living room each morning.  My parents were always getting frustrated.

Now that I have my own place, I get to go to bed when I want.  Which results in me sleeping in more than I should.  Which then stops me having time from running such an exercise on my strawberry blond hill of hair.

I don't use wax.  Or any such after product.  Because it'll mean I'll have to wash my hair again tomorrow morning.  And I barely have time to have one glass of orange juice.

This morning I had nothing.  The effect was to have a headache around lunch time.  There was coffee.  There was hot chocolate.  Milk will surely sustain me.  Although the headache was slight, it was present.

It could have been done to using my smart phone far too often.

But I pressed on and the day was fine.  Busy however.

Friday happens to be my Monday.  Where both jobs I attend have their rotas synchronised to begin on Friday.  Which means I get to enjoy the middle of the week - but that a Friday feeling is a memory.

Bugger really.

Then again, I shouldn't fear difference.

Caught up with Mark Thomas on Radio4, one episode of Twin Peaks and will now forget the pounds I put on by eating strudel.  This is done by the cleansing of teeth and the reading of fantasy.  One will feel more enriched by midnight.

If not a little weightier.

Brokeback Biscuits

Or 'One Flew over the Cookie's Nest'?

If you have any other biscuit replacing movie titles, discuss in the usual fashion*.

My sleeping pattern has taken a hit.  Due to Candy Crush Saga.

And I thought I was an individual.  To be different to what everyone else was doing.

As well as being glued to my Smart Phone on pointless practices, I've also learned I need to eat my own words.

Certain friends will know how I don't like what I brand as, 'Cosmopolitan Fiction'.  The books that everyone else is reading.  Usually they've got a movie adaptation out within the next six months.

Jonny bought me the first two books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.  This was two years ago when HBO's Game of Thrones series was building real momentum.  Especially in Northern Ireland where a good portion of the show is filmed here.  This has generated a number of extra work jobs for long haired men.

Which leaves me questioning why I haven't gone for a role.

But anyway, am currently on the second novel : A Clash of Kings.  Martin's prose is a breeze on the reader.  His characters, albeit many of them, are all as satisfying as each other.  He's managed to do what I find fantasy writers in Tolkien's shadow want to do.  Create a politics system, involving religions and myths, stunning fight scenes and witty debates, men in hooded robes and holding large swords.  But first you have to set the scene.  And for the greater part of a novel readers can be bombarded with details galore - so that the end scene of battles and fights will come easily.

Or is that just me and how I've tried to write?

This morning the boiler man came to check the, well, boiler.  And he was very impressed.  You could almost see him floating out the door at such a well kept instrument.

Many cups of tea later and I was off to work.

Now I am home from work.  Gosh.  Where does the time bugger off to?

Dish washing now.  And whatever BBC Radio6 Music decide is useful for this time of night.

The life of a bachelor?

*Comment, Tweet, Blog, Postcard, Tea at the Park

Dear Blog

My brother, Jonny, has only had me return home from my parent's house.  He wanted to borrow my Thor Blu-Ray for inspiration on his song writing.  The theme being lightening - everyone's favourite choice element to die by.

"It's the coming of evil," he said.

"Thunderbolts of lightening?  Very, very frightening?  I'm sorry Jonny but I don't think anyone's going to take a rock song like that seriously."

This was straight after I had gotten home from the cinema.  Trance Danny Boyle's latest film made me feel I was back in the late 90's again.  As a late 90's kid-cum-teen I felt like I was back at home.  When Film4 made films for recently graduated students.  

If ever a soundtrack from a late 90's film is played, I'm immediately wharped back to when everything was colourful.  Summer days lasted for ever to read Roald Dahl.  Kids around my area were interested only in the next ice pop.

Trance used some tricks Boyle used in The Beach.  And like The Beach, Trance hasn't received kind reviews.

But I like them both.  Within both films they both in their own way come together at the end.  And I left the cinema feeling satisfied.  

Trance felt like the kind of film Jason Stathem would act in.  And if he did, Boyle wouldn't be directing, imagination wouldn't be filtered through and I'd leave thinking; "Stathem did that in his past five films."

James McAvoy on the other hand is always watchable.

The kettle has not been switched on yet.  This is unusual for me.  It's normally a practise for me to refill with fresh water, select a tea and take pride in holding the biggest mug I have.

This evening however I have returned to blog writing.  Whilst at University I managed to enjoy blogging.  It was useful, informative, full of ideas and (sometimes) printable for various assessments.

Now one must be careful what to share on this blog.  Any matters regarding work in a professional manner must not be uttered.  

Any jokes shared between staff however...

"I should get up to the Giant's Ring," I said in the Cafe today.

Jenny started giggling.  "Where you watching that show on Channel 4 the other night?"

"Show?"

"The one about dogging?"

Never in my wildest dreams.  My urge to get to the Giant's Ring was because of a part in the story I've been trying to write for years occurs there.

Marilyn Manson's Holy Wood album is playing in the background.  Recently I've been going through his albums chronologically.  My favourite remains Mechanical Animals.  However I always state that Holy Wood has the superior writing within.  It's reported Manson had over two hundred songs written for it.  And that's not a surprise.  In the aftermath of the Columbine massacre, it took its toll on him due to vats of blame being dumped upon him.  

Sadly, a number of writers find the energy and urge when there is turmoil and question marks above their heads.  

That's maybe why I haven't written a great deal in the past two years.  The time restraints is one excuse, but ultimately I've been pottering along.  Life has been fine.  Not overly dramatic.  But not unhappy.  

One has learnt to enjoy the small scenes of Belfast.  

And the book collection that has been amassed.

With the tea that warms the soul.

Simple pleasures.