A town called malice

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since my last update -- and then I only blogged about the weekend's hockey, the truth is the week's pass almost without event or remark, not necessarily in a bad way but there's frequently little to comment on, other than what customers have yelled at me in work that day.

There was meant to be an update earlier, since I've been tagged by The Wee Italian Chick to post six weird things about myself -- but I only got to three or four before running out of things. Don't let's get back onto how I'm normal, please, I'll force myself to think of a full list for a future post.

The week has ended with far more interest than most, Monday through Thursday were very ordinary and unremarkable days. Get up, go to work, come home. Friday I took the day off work because it was my birthday and I was going to Portsmouth with a couple of my friends for the weekend -- so I got up late and spent most of the morning smiling at various text messages of happy birthday wishes. We set off for Portsmouth about 5pm, and probably arrived a good three-and-a-half hours later when you take into account traffic jams and misdirections from the GPS.
GPS speaking with the voice of John Cleese: "You have arrived at your destination".
Me: Uhh, no, this isn't it.
Nick: But this is the postcode you gave me.
Me: I know, but this is not the flat.
(considering where we had arrived was some backstreet and the apartment building looked more like a multi-storey car park).

When faced with choices of food, we decided to opt for takeaway pizza. I looked up "Pizza Hut" in the phone book and found the nearest one under "takeaway/delivery units". But they didn't deliver. So plan B was Domino's, and although Nick took some convincing (apparently their pizza uses too much tomato for his tastes), this one did deliver. After about an hour. We discussed what to do that night, but since Nick had been in work that day on an early shift and then driven to Portsmouth straight from work and Jon didn't seem overly fussed what we did, we opted to stay in.

Having come away without a printed record of my comedy club booking for Saturday night, it was helpful when Nick was able to connect his palm pilot to the wireless internet of someone else in the terrace of flats. And in true Jay-style, I found my confirmation email said I'd accidentally booked the wrong night for the comedy -- in fact, the Friday night. We were still able to book for the Saturday the following morning, but I'd wasted the money for that night.

Saturday was a weekend not unlike any other -- we bought some music and DVDs and had dinner out to celebrate my 26 years on the planet, then went home and changed for the club. During the day, there was a knock on the door of the flat which worried us at first, since we thought it might the owner of the wireless internet network we were using without permission. Instead, it was our neighbours from upstairs who had been told by my parents I would be staying. They told me they understood I was very handy, with making things and the like, but I corrected them -- that's my brother, the one who has done all the work on the flat. They laughed and asked if that made me "the intelligent one". No, I said, I'm an artist. Again they laughed at something that wasn't a joke and said they would have to get me to come upstairs and paint them a mural. I didn't bother to correct them. I never established what they wanted help with. Later, in a text message my Mum asked if I'd helped or given them my brother's number. "No," I said, "I just lent them a hammer".

The comedy that night was good, and we decided to stay for the nightclub after the show -- Jon was very drunk at this point, and insisted we should dance. In a remarkable display of foresight on my part, before leaving my jacket on the chair with my friends' coats, I remembered to take out my key to the flat.

Fast forward to the end of the night, Jon is even more drunk and ranting about blonde chavvy girls, in particular one chav girl who had been giving him the eye -- because in his words, he was throwing shapes better than anyone else out there -- but she'd lost interest when he didn't respond to her. I'd been interested in a brunette whom I thought maybe looked a little bit like a curvy Rachel Bilson, and she seemed to be catching my eye. Maybe she'd been catching me looking at her, or maybe it was the other way round. But I wasn't worried when we figured it was time to go. What did bother me was that my coat was stolen. The others were still there, but mine was obviously missing -- not on the floor, not on another chair, and I even asked the girl in the cloakroom if it had been handed in. But between the music and what seemed like a limited grasp of English for her, I got the impression it hadn't.

My brother gave me that coat only a couple of weeks ago. It probably wasn't expensive, but it had been his for several years and he'd then given it to me, and that meant more to me than anything I could just replace. I'm glad I was smart enough to take my valuables out of it -- in my job, I get so many phone calls describing how someone left their mobile phone, unattended, in their jacket, then found it missing at the end of the night. We went back today, but there was nothing given in lost -- whomever took it either mistook it for one of theirs among a pile, or else thought it might have something worth stealing.

And so today we got Subway for a late brunch (after Jon was over the worst of his headache, he also says Nick kept him awake snoring every night), we took a walk along the seafront and then made our weary ways back home. And I've just time now to hit save, grab a shower, change into my Phoenix Coyotes jersey and head out to the Sunday night hockey.