Running with leopards

I just logged into bolo for the first time in a week or so and was somewhat surprised to find that the spam collector had managed to pick up 3,400 spam comments in the week. Makes you wonder how much filth, (I’m not saying the ‘p’ word because I don’t want to encourage these ingrates through using words that make them think this site is worth advertising on), used cars, man extenders, lack of potence curing, degree giving, church of scientology (quite agree with Breakingstein), monkey chimp baiting activity there is out there. Almost like the whole internet is just one giant huge rotating nipple on the back of a fat three headed man, one smoking a pipe, one biting the leg of a baby and the other one lecturing you about the values of open source software and tax rebates through the use of patent pending productivity maximisers. Incidentally, I think a lot of it may be to do with swearing, so there’s an interesting and new reason for encouraging fucking censorship.

Well yes, hit the ‘delete’ key and that stuff’s all gone. Out the proverbial window to go wherever unwanted data streams go. Perhaps to a cyberspace version of Neasden or a Northern club on the grim North Western Coast on a Wednesday evening. Incidentally remember that poor chap that died on the way back on the bus one night in Freshers week? What a way to go.

But once again I digress and what I really wanted to talk about was things that probably will stay with me. Memories that have that tendency to dig deep, to pop up in the head during a moment of silence with mates at some imagined point in the future and you go ‘oh yeah I remember that’.

I wanted to talk about finally finishing work and moving onto the world of full time design company running and freelance ambling shambling consultancy. Yes, finally it is here. The last few months racing through like they were vexed just being here and suddenly I was walking home on Thursday night and thinking: ‘Oh my word, tomorrow I leave work’.

Friday morning I was as usual into the office tired and bleary eyed. Missing my ipod because I couldn’t afford to take it in on a day when I knew I’d be consuming a few beverages. I got to my desk without incident, fired up my computer and prepared for a day of idle email traffic and japery. At some point later on having consumed my first cup of coffee, my senses cleared and I suddenly realised that a good proportion of the company’s workforce were wearing the tshirts that Crimpanort designed last year for the awayday to Paris. It was an epic tribute and I felt highly amused, even putting aside my usual hatred of fancy dress to don my own version of the shirt.

Later on, I was lucky in that the speech I had been failing to conjure up in my head during the quarterly company meeting for the last couple of hours, somehow fell perfectly into place as I stood up to the humiliating demands of the obligatory circle of fear. That task over it was off to Bar Music for a few drinks to celebrate the moment of escape.

The night itself is a bit blurry towards the end, but began distinct. A sea of faces old and new raising glasses, impromptu outbreaks of dancing and frenzied photography. Doing the rounds to grab moments of conversation, explain future plans for the thousandth time and laugh at old reminiscences. Just about hold politeness in check for the most part, least till near the end, when the loss of cigarettes and the combination of pints plus cheerily profferred shots of sambuca had me potentially raging. Ah the joys of memory loss, but no creeping fear this time and mainly the feeling of happiness as I bopped onto the dance floor to spill my own pints and throw some shapes into the air.

Least till the morning, when I awoke on a friend’s floor in Bow, sickened, staggering out onto the blazing hot street and buying up a milkshake, a Dr whatserface smoothie, and two cans of cream soda. Observe the regeneration money spent on the area and the zero danger of a beating when looking like a crazy man and sucking volubly from a giant carton of banana milkshake. Onto the train to sweat it out with the weekend travellers, through the drinks collection by home, to spend the rest of the day vegetating out at my friend’s barbecue, aching limbs portending of creeping doom.

Suddenly the implications of what I had done sunk in. It all seemed a bit more epic than it had been before. It was no longer pretend. I’m still not sure I fully comprehend it, but it certainly appears real. Fortunately no real time to over-think. Today spent getting an events board ready for a client and processing the last few day’s amusements. Not too bad and starting to calm down, as the afternoon went by and jobs sailed out of my fingers into the keyboard into the programmes and up into the big nipple in the sky to be picked up by satellites, passing ufos, wireless connection stealers, credit card readers and more importantly, their intended targets. When the jobs were done I felt better, so I wrote a list of the jobs to do the next day, and then I remembered I hadn’t written anything on bolo for far too long. So I wrote this. After that I felt on top of my game again, so I went to sleep to dream of leopards and alligators and the impossibility of being able to fly for a consistent length of time.