The ongoing journey of the intrepid Asaphite

Just 4 Lav

2006-07-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here's my semiannual post:

Location: 5 Whitefield Rd, Llandaff Nth, Cardiff
Time and date: 2238, 30/07/06
Clothing worn: grey Tee and blue bathers
Recent books read: Bio of Smith Wigglesworth, Reality Bytes {Nick Page}
Recent interesting remarks made: "Everyone's doing holiday clubs"
Happiometer: 7 1/2
Hungriometer: 2
Sleepiometer: 8

Yup, this week was holiday club. I was yellow team leader, so my hair is now yellow. I tried to take a photo, but it came out all wrong - le voila!One thing that's happened recently in my life and which is worth including is that my appreciation of friends has exponentialised. I mean, they were always cool, but now they're extra cool. Not having many of them around, due to graduation from Uni and other forseen but still surprising events, may colour my vision a wee bit. Still, I was thinking just today when spending time with Davina D that it's amazing how relaxed I now am with such a motley array of human beings. Of course, there are limits... no-one understands me quite as much as I'd like, except the Big Guy. He's hard to compete with. But even with that in focus, I've not got much to complain about. I mean, some people are even relaxed with me! How crazy is that?

Oh yeah, and I'm looking for a new guitar. A Seagull with built in pick-up, to be precise, preferably a Studio, or any of the cedar-top models. I've managed to sell both Freddy and Hild this summer, both into safe homes where they will be (I trust) nurtured and brought up without family trauma. But I have a lifelong commitment to fostering guitars, so I really need a new one to look after. And I'll need a new name as well...suggestions on a postcard, please.

I've also formed a new band. We're called 'in translation' [coz we're virtually incoherent]. The myspace is on its way, hopefully followed before Christmas by a fuller website. All bookings welcome. We play acoustic chill-out stuff, guitar and bass, and occasionally some comedy songs. Pub, club, park, church, hall, stadium, we'll do 'em all.

Three weeks till I go to Malawi. Can't wait!

An Ode to the Fear of Becoming a Social Creature

2005-12-16T02:52:00.000-08:00

Did I really post as recently as May? That's impressive, I thought my blog had sunk without a trace long before that. Ta for comments. In honour of you, my faithful fans, I've composed a wonderful little ode to crease your cheeks/eyes and jiggle your little plump bellies around...

I am a little reject
And I've always known this fact
It comes of my rejection
Of all decency and tact

The social scene disturbs me
All the people and the buzz
The smokers give me coughing fits
And my vision turns to fuzz

In between the paroxysms
I often got excited
And spout loud witticisms
That some other wag first writed

To my surprise these never
Elicit the response
Of enjoyment I expected
The rebuttal hurts my bonce

Then I feel sick and angry
And retreat into my cage
Full of fear and self-loathing
And self-pity and self-rage

But on several days more recent
I've been mildly shocked to find
That some real and well-liked people
Have invited me to dine

Or to pop along for coffee
Or to boogie all night long
You may call me over-cynical
But I know something's wrong

I've examined my dress-sense and found
It hasn't changed enough
To make people want to see me
Nor has any of my stuff

My marks are still at average
Nobody wants my brains
And as we've already noted
Social skills aren't my domain

This had really got me puzzled
So I sat and scratched my head
Then it hit me like an apple
All my hair had just been shed!

Let me first fill in the reader...
I have long been growing hair
Rather scruffy and quite smelly
And devoid of loving care

Then a week or two last Wednesday
Several of my so-called friends
Brought the ir shears and knives and scissors
And began to make amends

Soon my scalp was out in public
Very cold and rather red
I must hand it to my barbers
There was nowhere where it bled.

But peculiarly since this
Humiliating event
I've detected quite a difference
In the invitations sent.

It is hardly that surprising
That it happened I suppose
For one thing I now look human
And am gentler on the nose

There's a moral to this story
Here it goes: I'll let you have it.
If you have long hair and no friends
You should take your head and shave it.

Woohoo!

2005-05-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

Sbeen a while....

Don't you just love traipsing back over your past blogs and picking out your little bigotries and idiosyncracies to wince at? I don't. I suppose it's educational, though, just like jumping off tall buildings.

By the way, I swear this blog programme didn't look half so neat last time I was here. I'm enjoying just ogling at the font I'm writing in. Ooh, you beautiful serifed little number, come here, let me lick your toes and squeeze your lovely rounded shapes....

Prayer is really quite exhilarating. I'm sort of rediscovering it (at God's suggestion...I never suggest prayer to myself, sounds too much like watching paint dry), and it's not much like watching paint dry at all. It is sometimes annoyingly long, coz when you're really praying, you can't just leave God and head off back to 'real life', you have to sit around until He fancies letting you go. That is, if you call Him Lord...I guess for all you praying atheists out there, this is sounding like divine bondage or something. Heehee, it is divine bondage, there's nothing like it really! It's also really hard to structure it, because in my experience, God takes longer than your average person to get around to saying anything. He seems to just like sitting in my company, and have me sit in His. Now, to the normal, sane, usual, content, unbothered, complete person this might be a bit claustrophobic, but unfortunately I am none of the above, and I can't afford to forgo love where I find it (even if it's a font that's seducing me). And I especially can't forgo God's love, seeing as He decides when I live, when I die, when my parents split up, and (more immediately) my exam results. So, yeah, I sit around with Him until He says stuff. I recommend it in general, but there are definitely bits of me that hate it, so make sure you know what you're getting into.

OK, I think I'd better go before I start caressing my PC screen...you sexy, sexy characters, you titillating text, you foxy fonts...

Yoda, Jesus, and Jayme

2004-11-20T16:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I forget to compartmentalise my day into actions achieved, places gone, people helped, etc. It's really good. Unconsciousness is the state of holiness, I think. You can't be self-aware and get things right...self-awareness tends to throw a spanner in the works. If I only go to Jayme's party because I feel that doing so will in some way help Jayme, I'm being patronising. Things have to be worth doing for themselves, and then, if by doing them I help someone else, that in a way validates the action. I guess that's what Jesus meant when He said 'Seek first God's kingdom, and His righteousness, and everything else will work itself out.' When Yoda told Luke 'Do not try; do, or do not,' he was saying the same thing. Luke was trying to get his fighter out of the bog because Yoda told him to, but it wasn't about Yoda - it was about getting the fighter out of the bog.

Today was like that. It just happened. I woke up, read a bit, emailed a bit, went to work, came back, watched the rugby, went to Bridget Jones' Diary II, and had pancakes. I probably didn't take in all I read, but I didn't worry about it, and if I had it wouldn't have helped. My emails were probably a bit confusing at times, but trying to explain it now won't help, I just have to hope and pray that the meaning got across, and get on with life. Whatever your hand finds to do, work at it with all your might...

On Ely and music

2004-11-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

I know nothing of music. This fact is rammed home to me on the many occasions when I and another human being are listening to the radio together:

[long pause...music plays]

Me: Eh, Tom, who's this by...
Tom: [staring pointedly at me] Haven't you heard it?
Me: [somewhat abashed, but used to this treatment by now] Um...no.
Tom: It's 'Amazing Grace'. We sang it last week in church. It's by John Newton
Me: Ah. I was sure I'd heard it somewhere before. [pause] Wasn't he the guy that discovered gravity as well?

Claiming to be a musician myself, I'm not sure this lack of knowledge is really a good thing. I mean, it's all very well for me to be writing pure, unadulterated music, influenced by no-one and nobody, but that's really not the point. I write music as a vehicle for truth, whatever that is, and so the vehicle can be a Nimitz, a Porsche, or a pair of rollerskates, just so long as it carries the message. I'd quite like to have an intimate knowledge of music...the only problem is, I have financial problems with buying loads of music, ethical problems with downloading it free, and time problems with borrowing and listening to other people's music. Life really is too short.

I had a very interesting conversation today, with Mssr Craig Beaton, while travelling by bike from the Harrises house in Whitchurch to the bottom of Whitchurch Road [by the way, don't try this at home, we had to shout to be heard whenever a car went by, and frequently held up traffic by cycling alongside one another]. Craig had suggested that he might like to live in Ely next year, which would be a brave move in itself, especially as Craig does a proper course, medicine, and has little free time for travelling to and from distant council estates in Cardiff. So I said if he was game, I was. Just the bizarrity of the move appealed to me, but thinking about it now, it appeals to me even more, partly because I know and like Jon and Sophie, who also live there, partly because it would give me a real sense of direction for God which my first year at Univeristy really did not do, and partly because I still remember the good times we had in Ely this summer.
So if anyone out there has any feedback on the issue, I'd be grateful.

Super-funky Eurodisco, jah?

2004-11-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

I attended my first Internationals Cafe at Cafe Aroma today...it was bizarre. We had one converstaion that kept switching between Italian and French, another in Spanish, and the rest in halting English. Great fun. Met Enrique (not the singer), Manuel, Giuseppe, Rasa, a couple of German guys, and a French language expert whose name I've forgotten.

Ooh, here's Andy and friend. Slightly blotto. With wing mirrors from our neighbours' car in tow. Owch...OK, there goes all the camraderie and bbq-sharing we've been working on for the past month or so. Never seen him this drunk before, actually, he usually holds it quite well. They lost at footy, 1-0 to Momed, but that's hardly an underachievement.

Incidentally, we are go! Chris, Tom and I are playing a set next week at Cafe Aroma...got permission tonight, and we've got most of the gear organised...I've waited a year for this. That's not to say that it's all going to be peachy. Pear is a more likely shape. But at least we have the op.

Toast continues...but i think i was the only one up for it tonight. Ah well, when the buzz wears off, only the real toast-lovers are left standing.

Arrivederci.

when student blokes get togever late at night...

2004-11-02T16:17:00.000-08:00

I have a theory. If you hang on a minute, I'll just patent it and be back...

[imagine jangly music playing over your telephone while you wait to be put through]

OK, I'm back from the patent office. The theory was that when you have late nights and student blokes in student houses (hence, they haven't gone out for a night on the town) and time to spare and an ambient atmosphere (ca 45 ambs, give or take 1.5 ambs), a very strange phenomenon occurs. They begin to consume large quantities of toast. For example, on the 2nd of Nov, 2004, 16 slices were consumed in the residence at 14 Cwmdare Street.

What can we learn from this phenomenon? Well, firstly that said student blokes didn't have much for tea, perhaps as a result of one of their number promising to make a stew, and then reneging on his promise. Also, that said student blokes had priorly been engaging in exertive activities, such as volleyball, physics, and jamming, which had drained the level of energy in their blood and brought on what is scientifically known as 'toast-mania'.

Further, I wish to air the notion that said students have had a long day of lectures and require an amiable form of relaxing comfort, such as toast-consumption, to wind down before retiring for the night. In particular, I believe the evidence shows that one of the students, as well as attending lectures, which he enjoyed [as they focused on the chief pastime of his life], cycled into town to catch up with an old friend in a meeting that applied certain emotional drains to his system...perhaps there were apologies that needed to be made, perhaps he had been too judgemental in the past, and had not yet made full amends. Perhaps he had to grapple with the idea that the wisdom which he thought he had attained, particularly in the area of creativity, was by no means complete. Perhaps he was brought face to face with his own arrogance, and neither he nor it would back down for love nor money.

In any case, at the end of the day, said student bloke has been somewhat taxed in physical, mental and emotional capacities, and longs to escape to never-neverland via a few hours of REM-induced halucination. But not without his toast.

"Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God..."

Welcome to the planet!!!

2004-10-28T01:35:00.000-07:00

Oooh, look! Lots of funky new stuff I don't understand. Seems a bit like Mind, Thought and Reality lectures, but without the lecturer droning on (apologies to all Cardiff Uni MTR lecturers reading this, but you did, just a tad).

I think it's time for an inaugural anthem:

Here we is on the blogger
And it is frappin' spukky
So let's all sing about it
And tell the world we're kukky.

An epic. I might enter it in the Cardiff Poetry Competition. Or not. Now, let's get down to business...[for those who know the joke, fill in here as appropriate______]

Today is the 27th of October, 2004 AD. Or CE. Which is the same thing with another name, because it's still Christ's birthday we're celebrating, whether we put His name in it or not. Today I had two lectures [which were average], football (which we lost), SLOBS {in my muddy gear}, and West Side Story at the theatre with some International Students, colloquially known as 'The Spanish girls', despite the fact that only four of them are Spanish, and several aren't girls. For more info on that, apply to Hannah Trevett, Prayer Secretary, CU...I believe she keeps an exhaustive file of my doings with said Iberian femmes.

Just had toast. At midnight. It's great. If you haven't had toast at midnight, you've probably never been born. So here's a big ol' plug for midnight toast. Some times it's even good with butter. ;-)

To those who are about to finish reading this missive, I salute you.