Like it or not, Andrew W.K. does create a very compelling argument . . .

Oh yeah. By the way, there was no post last Sunday on account of the fact that over Saturday, Sunday and Monday I managed to obtain the grand total of 6 hours sleep.


It was my 21st birthday part- actually, wait. That's not right. It was a big ol' family party. I'll give you the rundown:
Mine and my cousin's 21st birthday (which had been in June and April earlier this year)
My grandparent's 80th.
My dad's 50th (actually a few days after the party)
and my little sister's 18th.


My dad thought it'd be a greeeeeeaaaat idea to just have a big party in one of our sheep sheds where everyone would come and noone would get annoyed if people chose to go to one over the other. A good plan. Worked out pretty well. All I'll say is thanks be to jaysus that I wasn't there until two days before the party, so I managed to miss out on, oh, say, all of the buildup stress and madness, and was only present for the preparation stress and madness.


We had around 10 Canadian second cousins come over, whom we haven't seen in about 10 years, about 20 of the English relations, our cousins from Northers Ireland, and one American (because, y'know, there's always one. They're like ants like that.). And that was it, apart from absolutely everyone we knew within a 50 mile radius.


And then there was the food. Three pigs on a spit, with a few sides of pork thrown in for good measure. A pallet full of alcohol, and soooo many cakes. Brownies for dessert and about 8 different regular old cakes to ensure dancing would be impossible during the disco afterward.


Did I not mention the disco? There was a local musician who plays in our favourite pub every week, on guitar for two hours, and a generic DJ. All 80's music. For the whole night. All of it. I'm not saying it was a bad thing, after all, the average age on the dance floor was well above the mid-life crisis stage. But there's only so much Rick Astley-era cheesy tunes I can take. And that amount is 6 hours.


Anyway. The DJ packed up and left at 4.30, I stayed up and was talking away until around 5.30, (when the sky was a glorious, and almost unnerving, shade of azure) when most went to their tents (There was camping! Crap. I knew I forgot to mention something else.) but they all went in pairs and there wasn't any spare tents, so I just stayed at the impromptu campfire out the back and talked to the last few sleepless stragglers. Three neighbours, one of my friends, and my dad.


When the three neighbours and my friend went off to catch some shuteye, my dad and two of my big sister's friends (who went off earlier but were finding it hard to get any sleep because of the exodus of dipshits that had suddenly invaded the camping area) helped with the bulk of the cleanup: bottles and cans. i tell ya, only in the unique setting of a party aftermath, do you truly appreciate how some people just have no taste. Bottles of sugary, luminous water everywhere. A lot with only a sip taken out of them before being abandoned. 


So anyway, when we finished that, the other three went to finally get some more rest.


So then there was just me. 


I thought about getting a few hours rest, but then thought: no. No and fuck that shit for a game of monopoly. I'm gonna see this through all the way. So I grabbed a deckchair, and sat in the garden in the front of my house with a sketchpad and a set of headphones, and watched the sunrise. Alone. In complete and total silence. 


Just that hour or so turned an amazing birthday into the best birthday I could've hoped for.


So thanks to everyone who came, but expecially to my friends Abe, Alan, Gavin and Jonathan. Just for being there.


 . . . 


Wow. Uh. Ok. You can all just forget that I actually typed all that crap. Wow. Did not mean it sound like such a total pussy. But fuckit, 'tis the truth. Four of my friends out of the twenty I had at least hoped for. But life goes on. Like it or not, there is no retry option.


 . . . 


That's all for now, now go ramble on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about nothing in particular intil people get bored or something . . .