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.

Stepping towards Yuletide. Emotionally.

A large portion of my time is spent in Belfast's Victoria Square.

I had to pass through the crowds on Friday.  Forty per cent of them were stationary Christmas Trees that are simple and pretty.  The rest of the crowd were young, free and enjoying whatever the latest Twilight film had taught them.

With working at the nearby cinema, my exhaustion was starting to kick in.

And it could have been very easy for me to kick up.

The amount of hours I've been working is close to vast.  And that's maybe what causes distress when I see hundreds of everyone else enjoy themselves.  Hopefully my holiday time booked off from the cinema will relieve me.

I do have a large book collection to try to read.

Some things about Chris Gray never change.  Resorting to books will always be a staple in my lifestyle.

Is it me or am I the only single person left?  It certainly feels like that.  Certainly not a complaint.  If anything I like to think it gives me that state of individuality I was always meant to uphold.

Despite the long shifts and the lack of social life, I have had small items of pleasure.  A haircut.  My first Mince Pie of the cold season.  Sleep is better.

Although am still tired.  Which made church a little difficult this week.

Ideas of a faith I once had are still being bounced about.  You really do need to be a child to believe in God. Which is maybe why we all long for that time when summer days stretched out to eons.  Where at Christmas you could feel the magic sprinkle down the chimney at night.

Often I could be criticized for believing in God.  There's something fluffier and more sentimental about it.

It's either that or watch the Christmas 24 channel.

The End (before the beginning) of Summer

"I had a dirty McDonalds," I said.  It was the end of my break and the cinema going public hadn't shown up for our attractions.

"What did you have?" asked Enya.

"A Spicy Veggie sandwich.  Large fries.  A Twix McFlurry and a Tropicana."

"What do you mean 'a dirty McDonalds'?  You're a vegetarian.  You can't even do 'a dirty McDonalds' without still being healthy."

Enya's probably right.  I spend a lot of time worrying about my diet.  Whether or not I'm taking in enough fibre or Vitamin C.  Maybe not looking at the salt content on packages of food that I don't expect to be much of.  Or generally treating each day as a Saturday and therefore it's fine to have that large Salted Popcorn, Large Pepsi Max and that bag of White Chocolate Buttons*.

Right now there are noodles cooking.  Noodles that I will sprinkle Soy Sauce into.  

Memories of being a student and dealing with whatever tidbits you had left in your cupboard.  

I miss those days.

I've been busy.  And because of this my grocery shopping has not occurred.  

And it is with this excuse I also make claim of why my blogging hasn't managed to be seen for too long.

So it is now, on the longest day, that I make my return.

As a child I would be taught that after the 21st June, each day would have less hours of daylight.  That already we were heading into winter.  Which is a trifle unfair.  Imagine getting your summer holidays from school but being told that it's no longer summer.  As a child who over thought, this was depressing.

Similar, a few years ago was the late Linda Smith's view of summer being ruined for children with a similar idea.  It can be seen on this episode of Room 101 (if you have a spare half an hour, do watch).  

You could argue that living in Northern Ireland with a wet weather system, it doesn't particularly matter about longer days and the placing of seasons.  But surely we all have memories of days where time isn't applicable, sunny days are grasped, cartoons are viewed in heaps, salads become the main meal and movies at the cinema are full of heroes.

And if we're honest, every year, no matter where we are in our lives, we probably imagine this summer to be the same.

*Which I usually mix in with the popcorn once I get bored of it.  We buy bulks of it, yet manage to drop more than we eat.