Sweeney - June 23 2002

I woke up about nine I think, I am not really sure. The sun was
shining again, which makes two days in a row that it is has started hot
and sunny. I fed the cats. Then I wrote up my diary for Friday, which
was quite a long one and a lot happened that day. The longest day of
course. I managed to break a string on my acoustic while playing it
this morning (22) and I thought thats a real nuisance I'll have to go
to Southend now and buy some new strings. I hadn't wanted to go into
town, you can never get parked, and I was feeling a bit lazy, so I rang
my wife on the mobile, and left a message that I was going to Southend.
I tend to shout when I leave messages, I don't know why. Or maybe it
was the noon day traffic boiling up the road.

I had a ciggie and waited for the bus to take me there, and our bus
service is terrible. I was on the point of abandoning the whole idea,
and use the car, when the bus came along, I tried to give the chap the
fare but he pointed out that it was ?2.30 and not ?1.30. The journey
reminds me of when I was 19 riding into town on the bus to see my
friends or buy records, simple things like that. I heard some people
discussing Big Brother and was on the point of making a comment when
the bus arrived in town.

I got as far as the high street when the mobile went off, and it was my
wife. She was in the Beetle in Sainsbury's car park, did I want a lift
home, and I said "well I've just got off the bus." So I didn't need a
lift right then. I went in MacDonalds which was packed as usual. I am
beginning to think that there are large number of single mums in my
town. Lots of pushchairs and small children running about. I suppose it
is because MacDonalds is a friendly place. That's why they go there. I
left MacDonalds and truckled down to Honky Tonk in the Southchurch
Road. There's this set of lights next to a huge pizza place and they
take simply ages and ages to change. I have a vision of people caught
in time waiting for the lights that never change.

I bought the guitar in the shop. I can't really afford it, but it
looked so nice. It's a Stag Strat and is one of the first to comee into
the country. I consider giving it a name. None of my other guitars have
names, but I may call this after a friend. It seems to fit well. I am
now sitting on the bus going home cuddling my guitar. A chap at the
front wants to know where Christies is, so I tell him. I get my hair
cut there from time to time.

"Why have you bought another guitar?" my wife asks me as I come in. She
is busily working on some more copy for the latest ish of her mag. "Um,
because it looked nice, and it was the only one they had, and if I had
gone there next week it would have gone." "But what about the ones
under the bed?" she continued. "One is broken and the other is my
Columbus" I reply as if that makes it all clear.I doubt it. My shopping
exploits are legendary. One time I bought an amp and had to sneak it
into the garage while my brother kept my dad talking at the door. He
found out six months later when I was sitting on the Vox and my brother
on the new amp I had bought and he said "Oi, you've got two amps in
here!" I nonchalantly twanged a chord and looked all innocence. I used
to smuggle records in as well.

My wife has this email account which is redirected to excite, and she
hadn't received any email since Wednesday. I had a look and it turns
out she has too much email in her excite account. "Do you empty the
trash regularly?" I ask. "No". Oh well, at least thats sorted now and
appears to be working properly again. My email account at abc is
offline, I think it is due to the upgrade, a bit annoying but no doubt
it will be working soon.

I found out that .... hadn't been able to log in so immediately I
carefully downloaded the wrong IM client to see if I could help. I had
to install Netscape as well, which I did. And then a name. What name?
Every name on the planet has been taken. I ended up with icedjammer. I
don't like it much, it makes me sound like the Cutty Sark but with huge
skis underneath the hull.

I went in chat but they seemed quite busy talking. I think sometimes I
go into chat and immediately understand what is being talked about.
Other times I lurk trying to find out without whispering too much, if
at all.

I was the talking to .... on IM and my tea had been ready half an hour,
so that pizza was completely nuked. I don't know if you ever had nuked
pizza but I bet you could throw it like a discus.

Watched Big Brother, and the task they had was musical chairs. Alex won
of course and Johnny lost, and then Alex and Johnny had to pick their
housemates, Alex was quite upset at being forced to choose, but he
picked PJ and PJ was so grateful. Kate stays on the poor side and Tim
is now there too. I think he will be good on that side as he will
change things.

I wonder if we could do that, sit there and pick our friends from six
others who we know and like.