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Ta me air meisce
Ta me air meisce – ‘I am drunk.’You enjoy a drink – or five – now and then. You can usually be found in a pub – it doesn’t matter which one, because they all look the same after a few drinks – or hugging the porcelain.

I planned to tell folk in this order:

1. Pete and Jane tonight but Jane’s away till silly o’clock this evening
2. Elly (cos Heather already knows and it seems wrong to treat them unequally)
3. Angela and Mark (Angela introduced me to IM which got me together with you in the first place. They, along with Elly, Heather and Richard are my oldest friends)
4. parents
5. those who need to know at work

Also, I feel kinda bad at demanding back the overtime from the Past Papers considering I’ve just cost GL a load of money. I have 15 regular days of holiday left and want to see the PP project through, then go somewhere and do the necessary crying, so I can get it over with and start to try to reconstruct my life.

Part of this will involve trying to sort with J how I need to interact with her from now on. She is a nice person and there are so many parts of her that are worthwhile and and delightful to interact with but I need to convince myself not to want a return to the ‘good old days’, while still seeing her as a special friend?

Update: 10.44pm: just spoken with Elly, so plan not too badly off-kilter now.

1. huge thanks to Jayne and David for helping me get the wood (which will soon floor some of my loft) home last night.
2. it’s been an interesting day
   • The new proofs of the stuffed maths answers weren’t ready first thing this morning (which had been promised)
   • Some chasing got them to appear
   • I checked them and signed them off
   • Then arrived two other proofs ready for sign-off, so I checked them and signed them off.
   • But they arrived with a proof of a book which should not yet have reached that stage – we’d had to stop it because of a © problem
   • so phonecalls ‘er, if we have to reprint this section, this is at printer’s cost, cos we told you not to print it yet’
   • Then our secretary calls up – she took someone to Dundee and then had a puncture – can my colleague go rescue her
   • so he did, and reapperared 3 hours later, cos they’d had to get her new tyre fitted to the wheel, take this back to the car, get the car unimpounded, fit the wheel and then get home
   • meanwhile phones were going crazy!

Then got parcels from Lady Ja nd had to deal with her embarrassment at who she is. But she has FUCK-ALL to be embarrassed about. We all have our faults and hers are mearely the impetuosity of youth, and are far outweighed by her central concern (almost to a fault) for others!

Right, time to go plank my loft!

On top of all that’s happened

1. the answers to Higher Maths Past Papers contain only 2002 to 2004 but the book also has 2001’s exams
2. the cover says ‘2000 to 2004’

I signed off the answers and the person who signed off the cover reports to me.

We can reprint the answers but we can’t reprint the book.

This is the worst possible mistake in my professional life – a complete reprint of something for which I am responsible.

Many thanks to Jayne and David for helping move the wood and showing me that life goes on.

Is there no end to my clumsiness or at least lack of thought? Whatever I do as ‘natural Bruce’ hurts Julia. OK, I could say it’s none of her business but by telling her, I make it part of her business and she can’t help but have feelings. So I could either not do something or do it and lie. Of course, I do it and tell her…

… and she is horrified and numbed, right in the middle of a college crisis.

And to cap it all, one of the leading components of my tension is that I haven’t been able to talk with Julia properly, so I go out and do something that makes her have more feelings and makes me tired so I have even less time and ability to communicate!

Heather took me to a club. It was a real eye-opener. I think I understand her better now and I think I understand myself better too. I’ll write more about it later but for now, Heather: THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

From Roy Harper’s The Dream Society’

Can’t you see the future in drugs for everybody
Can’t you see the future in our hands
Spliffs at 15p down at the 7 to 11
Make your choice from 20 different brands
Smoking shit
Talking it
Can’t you see the future in our hands

The future
Well she’ll be right on by
En route to the never ever lands
Back on the gondolas
With the broken rock-n-rollers
Dreaming of some future in their hands

Can’t you see the future in drugs for everybody
Don’t you want to live the fairy tale
Happiness available on tap over the counter
Life and death and skunk all in the mail
With Hillary
Ancillary
To make sure Bill remembers to inhale

The future
Well she’ll be right on by
En route to the never ever lands
Back on the gondolas
With the broken rock-n-rollers
Dreaming of some future in their hands

Can’t you see the future in drugs for everybody
Helping us escape the aches and pains
The future is a planet I imagine I inhabit
On board the cocktail flowing through my veins
Reality
Is not for me
I’d sooner be completely out my brains

Can’t you see the future in drugs for everybody
We could all be hundreds of years old
Grafted onto blue baboons and propagated monkeys
With valium
Up the bum
Can’t you see the pharmacy unfold

And the great Pharmacist
Well he’ll be right on by
En route to the never ever lands
Riding the gondolas
With the broken rock-n-rollers
The future permanently put on hold
As usual everybody put on hold
We could put the universe on hold
Let’s go put the universe on hold

I’ve left my yoga homework in the scanner at work. I had planned to scan it and email it to Lady J.

For the first time in ages, last night I drank a beer. This took 2 attempts:

1. Pete bought me a Thrappledouser but the barmaid then pulled another pint of it, was told it was off and then came to check on mine. It tasted OK to me but Pete vetoed it.
2. The Thrappleshagger was replaced by a St Andrews Ale. A bit insipid but it felt like beer.

Of course, my body punished me by waking up at 6·30. This was after Julia had phoned at 1·30. I’m truly non compos mentis right now

I’ve just seen William Shatner – looking fat and crass – in an advertisment for All-Bran. This really hurts.