Day 255: Axes

Home from staff party, for 11pm, sober. A good feeling. It was tough peeling myself away while the others were just loosening up, letting go of individual anxieties and pre-party nerves and starting to have a good time. But those days are behind me. I clung on for far too many years, but now, happily, I’m out of all that.

We went axe throwing. Apparently this is a thing people do. I did not want to go axe throwing. I do not like tests of strength, of masculinity, in front of people, I end up doing stupid things to undermine the status quo, acting camp, mocking the organisers, instead of picking a Viking name like "Tormund Windhelm", which everyone else did, saying my name was "Jeremy", and acting as un-Viking as possible - basically being a twat, because I don't know what to do around authority and it makes me feel self-conscious and out of place.

But whatever. I was considering making excuses and staying in for the evening, but I forced myself to go, and I'm glad I did. It was something new, and in fairness there was no pressure, we were all rubbish, and it was only a bit of a laugh.

Got some writing done earlier in the day, then Mike came round to watch The Wire. We were on the episode with the East-Side/West-Side basketball game, with Prop Joe, so I knew we had to watch to the end of The Cost, with Kima in the car with Orlando, the hoppers switching the road signs round, the garbled radio reports… If you’ve seen it, you know. Mike has now seen it. What a final scene to that episode. What a show.

But that took all of the afternoon, and then the staff do, and now here we are. The writing I did earlier might be good for something later, but I’ve got no words flowing now. Feel tired, a bit low actually… I never feel good after staff parties, not unless I drink enough to make me confident and gregarious. I don’t do well in large groups, I feel myself shrinking, not knowing how to act, getting quieter and more introspective, going inside my head - and either I drink until I knock that part of me unconscious, or I come home feeling lonely and out of place.

I don’t know, I’m just tired, annoyed because this writing isn't working. Sometimes you can feel the music, sometimes you cannot. Right now I cannot. The sentences will not flow. My thoughts are bland, uninspired.

Ahh well. I’m here. Checking in. Another day ticked off. Sometimes that’s the best you can do. Going now to meditate, brush my teeth, get to bed at a semi-respectable time. Tomorrow is another day.

......

Music: Kismet Kill, by Haley Bonar.