Tonight's final thought.

The rain outside is silent. It looks quite heavy; like typical drizzle. My favorite fall of rain. And yet, there's no noise from my window alerting me to it.
I've lived in this country all my life. It rains often and i enjoy it. Cleansing and familiar. I love listening to it, walking in it, the wooden smell it sometimes brings. It's never rained without me knowing about it straight away. There are many things to hear when it comes.

• Slapping against your window,
• Trickling down a drain
• You can't bump into a person who doesn't complain about it.

But under the hum of my laptop, i was oblivious to it until just now. So now im putting this machine away, opening my window and letting the tap, tap, tap of rain lull me to sleep.
Goodnight.

A two step guide to quick inspiration

If you ever need inspiration, here’s what to do:

1. Do nothing all day.
2. Try to sleep.

Side effects may include:

• Tiredness
• Mood swings
• Diminishing patience
• Caffeine addiction
• Cocaine addiction
• Insomnia

This guide may not work for you if you are a normal person.

Things to do while you're waiting for a casserole to cook...

1. Nap.
2. Read.
3. Play guitar.
4. Build a robot.
5. Do fifty million press-ups.
6. Get naked.
7. Stay Naked.
8. Ironing.
9. Improvised indoor golf.
10. Use every post it note you have to label each muscle on your body.
11. Sit in front of the oven to watch your casserole while your arse gets cold.
12. Dig out the novelty pair of clogs to walk in and sound like a horse. (Whilst naked)
13. Do a big art attack.
14. Ponder.
15. Sculpting.
16. Pose.
17. Do the safety dance.
18. Sing a little song. Many times.
19. NAKED STAR JUMPS! (Be careful. No slippery floors)
20. Tell the internet.

That coppery smell...

For the past couple of days i’ve picked up my old songbook and played/sang all the songs i’ve written in the past year and a half. There’s not as much as there should be in there but im proud of each composition.

I’d almost forgotten the fun i made out of struggling to find the right words. Singing strong melodies with stupid words in order to make it work. 

Singing them all again has given me a gentle smack in the face for forgetting to write songs out of genuine pleasure. The last 3 songs i’ve written were for a part of a project. Im going to do it more, now. Write songs for the sake of writing songs. To show off, to struggle, to cheer myself, to use my time in a way that’s beneficial to me (even if it’s just on a personal level).

Plus I love the coppery smell on my fingertips after playing my guitar flat-out for an hour. 

Contagious happiness.

Yesterday evening i was driving to a friends house. It’s a 40 minute drive so tidy music is helpful. I only have a tape deck at the moment. The two tapes i have are 33 classical hits and The soundtrack to 80’s hit american TV show; Kung fu: The legend continues.

As brill as these tapes are, i’ve played them to death.

So the only option now is for the radio to be on it’s game. I’ll usually go for radio 2 because i am one cultured son of a gun, however, it’s signal died on this journey.

So i started violently channel switching in order to find something suitable. I was in a queue that was looking at some red traffic lights. All of a sudden one of the stations started playing “Moves like Jagger” By Maroon 5. 

A lightning bolt of DANCE struck me. I had the moves like Jagger i think. Or someone young and good at dancing. 

In my satisfied trance i looked out my windows and the car to my left, filled with ladies (well, three of them) were watching me, laughing. As they should. 

I did the only thing i knew to do. SING. At them. They laughed even harder and joined in with the dancing.

And then the light’s turned green and i drove away feeling that the world was ultimately good.

Last night's show

The one i’d been stressing about for about two and a half weeks. ACRE comedy's live show about science! Oh yes.

We performed it last night. It went very well if i do say so myself. My friends are very funny and it came across on stage. I started lacking confidence which is usually the case but it grew through the night. By the end of the first half I had my confidence. Bering on stage with someone else is easier to handle. Also, i got to play my guitar which im better at compared to remembering lines.

Second half came and i started to ride my confidence well. It was an audience participation bit which my friend was managing while i played a little sting and guided the audience, telling them when to “ooh” and “aah”. The participant on stage was, honestly, amazing. Seeing him be such a good sport give me that little extra inspiration. 

We started flowing properly. Faster than we were used to and it felt good. In fact the flow gained so much momentum, my fellow performer, after being introduced by myself, came on as a baffled character. He followed his stage directions (which were to fall over and lose his papers) with such gusto that he landed on his face and lost half a tooth.

We found it, though. It was in his lip.

We wanted to rush it from there but the tooth-lost performer improvised some standup about the missing half-tooth which stalled us for about 10 minutes. We buzzed through our bits after getting him off stage, cleaned him up and, fair play, he came on for the last sketch and danced to the song. (The song was my favorite bit because i wrote it :)

The audience were very polite and i believe that they were definitely entertained.

So instead of drinking and relaxing after the gig, I drove my friend to A&E where i chatted to people in the waiting room. After the doctor told him what he already knew, we got some pain killers and drove home.

The thing i learned is this. You can stress and over prepare for anything and everything. But if a friend looses a tooth during a stage performance it will literally MAKE the night. All you have to be able to do is react well to any situation and things will go well.

From enemy to friend in two laps.

I've had a two day binge of old xbox games which has just come to an end. Im mighty glad i must say. 

Before i started I tidied my room all spick and span as to mildly justify the act of sloth that i was about to perform. (though there was no performance, except for on my TV screen) I will say, the room is still as spick and span. which is a good thing. My boundless inactivity has preserved the integrity of my room.

That one thing and the fact that I was gaming are the only pro’s of the last two days. Oh, and podcasts. Lots of podcasts.

The cons include a throbbing headache on the left side of my head, a sore neck as the Tv’s high in the corner of my room, and a numb mind.

Was it worth it? YES!

All i did in my spare time was look up in the corner of my room and playing a game, whilst laughing at podcasts every now and again. I told myself that not getting up was the “point” and i was sticking to my guns.

There was one time last night where I wanted to get up, though.

While I was cleaning my room I had made an enemy of a previously hidden tenant of my room. A 6-7cm spider (back toe to front toe) who’d set up shop in the corner behind the television. There were too many obstacles between us for me to grab it and maroon it in the unknown beyond my window. Lucky spider.

At about ten-o-clock every night it pops out of it’s little web-hut and creeps around the the room by the roof. It slowly does a lap around the room between 10pm and 2am. I was always completely aware of where this octo-legged monster was at all times when it crept about. However it never veered away from the corner where the wall hits the celling.

Until last night.

Wrex, which is what i decided to name it, did it’s usual lap in it’s anti-clockwise fashion around the room until it hit the curtain. I was always a little more tense when it was above my head as i had to move my neck to look at it when my game took a boring turn. Moving my neck defeated the purpose of my lazy two nights but i was constantly fascinated and an incy-wincy bit nervous.

So it reached the curtain and actually mounted the curtain pole, which wasn’t protocol. By the celling ALWAYS BY THE CELLING! It wasn't listening to my thoughts. No. It was creeping it’s way down the curtain until about half way, when it started getting closer to me. It had previously spun a web connecting the curtain to my guitar case, which it sat on for a while, watching me.

GET OFF MY GUITAR CASE, WREX, YOU MASSIVE, TINY DANCER! I thought. 

Wrex had broken the rules. It had entered my territory which is anything except the high parts of the walls and of course, the celling. This was my chance. I could maroon Wrex, finally.

But it just sat there. Casually watching and scratching it’s nose occasionally. Or at least something that looks like that. Scratching his legs with his fangs or something similar to what a tame animal would do in it’s corner. I couldn’t throw this sweet thing out into the cold unknown. It trusted me!

*Plus, I can’t be bothered to get up during my quickly diminishing hours of gaming. And i’ve got a headache.*

After my contemplation filled stare off with Wrex i decided to leave it be. It soon climbed back up the curtain and back to it’s silk bungalow. 

So now i have a room mate. Wrex the spider. My creepy crawly companion. Someone/something that keeps me company for 4 hours in the night.