'The Cave Dweller', or 'Whatever happened to the last few Years?'

 Harumph.

So I haven't blogged in a while, a long while. Yesterday, I happened to click into my bookmarked pages, and this bloggo came up, and I shamefacedly had a look.

Nothing. Nothing happening at all. It was about as much fun as a 'Make a Wish' daytrip to Chernobyl, and not even half as entertaining. I looked over at the section marked 'The Past' and was surprised to see:
2011 (3)
2010 (42)
2009 (78)

Not even a single post from 2012 - how terrible.

My little blog had gone from being a (hopefully) funny and well-written online journal, to a dirty, festering, stinking, lethargic pile of shite; lazy and insignificantly dull.

In the last two years, I more or less gave up on the whole blogosphere heart-on-sleeve approach to writing, and tried to write a book. Also, I got a girlfriend, a real life one this time, and the relationship soon surpassed my previous record of 9 weeks. I soon got involved in the trivial and wonderful aspects of having a lady-woman to report to, part of which probably meant quitting from divulging my shameful, drunken antics to internet strangers, and I 'settled down'. Yuck.

Anyway, I'm still with the lovely woman (she's a mad Jewess with curly hair and a wicked sense of humour) in our little cave that we share in Fulham, and I'm still writing my book, which is about a crazy man, but I'm happy to return to the Pizza Box and pick up where I left off.

One reason for this turnaround is that I have no memories from the past two years, and very few from the past three or four other than the ones I can glean from Facebook, the photos saved to my harddrive, and past posts here. Seriously, hardly any at all!

I lived in a bit of an insomniac, drunken haze since I moved back to Ireland from the USA, and I stayed in my little shadow world thereafter, until a few weeks ago when I had a sudden moment of awakening and found to my horror that I was 25, and sleepwalking through my life. I had ballooned in weight, was seeing a shrink, had taken to sleeping all day during the weekend, and went for days at a time without speaking. When I did speak, it was either to snap or bark at someone, or rasp sarcastically. I had gone from being a cheerful sort of chap to becoming a bit of a cunt. I'd even fucked my career up! I was supposed to be a lawyer, remember? But I can definitely recall being invited not to continue my career with the firm I was supposed to work with. Good job, Conbot.

Years had passed, and I had lost the way of myself a bit and woke up to the great hangover of the truth that I had missed at least four years of my life. My personality had completely changed, and I had no idea who I was. I'm sure there are people I knew when I was younger who wouldn't even recognise me.

It's bizarre, I rummage through my bureau in my room, and find the manuscript to a novel I've been writing and it's 60,000 words. I have only vague memories of writing a lot of it, and have had to rediscover the characters and the plot.

Other things are harder. I saw a picture of a friend of mine on Facebook, a girl from University. She and I were 'rather close' then, and I can barely remember more than a few glimpses. Not even the bad stuff, which I'm sure was abundant (if she was hanging out with me!)

So I contacted a load of my friends and gave them the skinny. I had fallen off the radar and plummeted headfirst into a large quagmire of shite and doubt, changing from a happy scamp into a hairy recluse man. I asked those friends I could remember to help me by loaning me some of their memories, and that's why I'm back.

Over the next few weeks and months, I'll post what these friends reply to me with, and try to add my own memories of what they mean to me. It'll be as new to me as it will be to any of you suckers who stick around to read.

At best, I might get some memories back and maybe rebuild my blog. At worst, I'll chase what remaining followers I have into the ocean.

We'll see.
C

Here's to 2010...an en masse resolution

Okay, so can I find anyone who actually liked 2009? Actually, can anyone say they actually enjoyed the Noughties?

(btw - i'm gonna swear like a fucking cunt in this post, and because I'm watching American Psycho at the same time, I might also kill a hooker...just saying)

I've realised that this year has been a fucking shit-show of a bollocks-fest, a drawn-out, melodramatic pile of itchy goat testicles. The only relative positive to this putrid, mediocre year is that we can throw a helluva massive hoolie to wake this horrible fucking decade to the Underworld.

There have been a few highlights of course, little things have made the year quite nice at times, and downright hilarious at others. A few classics spring to mind:
-the many happy hours with my partner Dr McQuillan writing, presenting and editing our radio shows ‘The Conor(s) Show’. We were nominated for an award for it, but the best times we had were the off-air moments when we’d stuff our faces with chocolate, wine and crisps.
-visiting my brother in the Czech Republic and hill walking with the boys in France.
-somehow graduating without losing all my hair or killing anyone
I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of them right away. There were a few bad times too, but let’s not go into them, any more whining Fort Boloxi nonsense on this old Pizza Box and things’ll get fucking ridiculous.

There have been a few really cool things that changed my perspective. These life-defining moments have given me a weird insight into how I look at the world and have changed my attitude in their own ways. The ‘Boom Boom Pow’, the crazy tumble-drier fall down the escalator at Waterloo Station both taught me to toughen up and helped give rise to Mr Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive, and his little brother The Pizza Devil. The mad snow and horrible fucking flight schedule have made me realise that I love and miss my family, and the sheer fucking horribleness of October-December have made me want to get a job and start being productive with my time, and make sure that because I have the next 6 months free means that I have to make something of my time.

There was one great thing that happened recently though, which I believe is a hugely good omen for the year to come. My flatmate, Sparky (Mark) recently had a spot of good news. On Christmas Eve, he took his girlfriend for a drive to Navan Fort, a lovely ancient fort in Ireland, covered in snow and looking absolutely beautiful. He got down on the knee and popped the question...and of course, she said yes. I’m absolutely delighted for them both, and I know that 2010 will be a phenomenal year for them both. I’m going to make it a great year for me too, it’ll just take a bit of work.

So now, with one of my best friends getting married (at some wonderful undisclosed future point) and with the crazy humming noise in my head spurring me on, I’m going to make a resolution. Not some vague ‘eat less, work more’ promise to myself, just a promise to say (in the words of Jay) bollocks to the middle and make the year a great one.

So, we're going to have a great year okay? All of us. There'll be low points too, obviously, and we'll feel the normal highs, and lows, but let's make a resolution to actually try and make ourselves happy this year, to live proactively and make a productive difference. Let's take this next decade by the balls, us 20-somethings, and try to make the Tweenies (my name for the next, looming decade) as fucking happy and good as possible...WHO'S WITH ME???


Oh, and here is a great song about what I like about this time of the year, it makes me cry every time...





Here's to 2010, folks...

Interactive Thursday

Again, the Novelista Barista has thrown down the gauntlet to her blog-followers to interact with her and answer a random question every week as part of her Interactive Thursday.
This week:

'What is one song or album that you’ve listened to over and over again in a very rough period of your life? What is your sad song?'


Well, to answer her question I'll have to refer to two different songs:


Backwardly, my sad song. I'm one of those people who, by mixture of being a prick and a fool, has gotten myself into, and managed to fuck up (or get fucked up by) a whole load of relationships. Some of them I've almost forgotten, but others....well, not quite.

One of the ones that was important, we had a song. It was one that we played whenever we were hanging out in my flat, and it set the mood really well, as well as really helping me to relax (which I often can't really do due to my silly brain) and keeping us company when we had those great comfortable silences. It was the wonderful 'Comfortably Numb', by Pink Floyd. The version that I played was the 'Live in Berlin' recording with Van Morrison as guest vocalist.



But we broke up, and it hurt. I did the whole after-split mourning period with this song on repeat in the background, watching the complete docu-series 'The World At War' (to harness the 'rage' side of the break-up by watching the entirety of the War with Laurence Olivier's narration) and quaffing Apple Schnapps like it was going out of fashion.

NB: That's a really good way to break up and I got the idea from Charlie Brooker. The apple schnapps ideas is my own. It works, but hurts.


So when I feel really sad now, one of the first songs that I'll go to is this masterpiece.

But this pales in comparison to the 'Rough Time' song.



The song that I have listened to during rough patches, and which I listen to as often as I feel I can is 'The Court of the Crimson King' by the late '70s/early '80s prog-rock band King Crimson. The first time I truly appreciated this song was when I was living in the United States in the wee small town of Lexington, Virginia. I had returned home, slightly baked, to my little apartment when a FRICKING MASSIVE thunderstorm came out of nowhere and rent the night in two. The lights for some reason went, and I had to unplug all the electrical items in the room.

Luckily, my laptop was fully alive, so I was able to sit and listen to music whilst doing some writing, illuminated only by the glow of the screen. My back had been killing me for days so, in my altered state, I lay flat on the floor, when this wonderful song came on. My head swirling with thoughts and ideas for the stories which I had been working on, raced as the neurons stonedly dealt with what I had been working on. The lightening got really close to the house, and as I lay, humming along to myself, a massive sensation of euphoria overtook me, mixed with a great feeling of calm, a feeling which I very rarely experience. My mind was still racing, but not in the usual grey-hair way. Everything made sense, and everything was good. The song was almost perfect.

The theatrical nature of it; with its epic choruses, three-act dramatics, mystical lyrics and its underlying sense of reflection made me extremely happy. It was like someone had flicked on a lightswitch in my head, and the joint feelings of world-weary tragedy and hope that the song inspired really took a hold of me. It was one of the greatest ten minutes of my life, sad as that sounds.

Since then, if I've been going through a really rough patch, and nothing really seems to make sense, I just lie on the floor, put on my studio headphones and crank up the volume...





Here ya go Jen, I hope you enjoy these songs, and thanks again for a great Interactive Thursday question.

Con
:)