Right... Now some serious thoughts about some drunken nights out...
Last Tuesday I went out with my old friend
Mike Haydock, who I've known since I was 8 or something, but not seen for about 3 years or something stupid. We kinda lost touch a bit before uni, and managed to drift a lot even though we both went to
Durham. So, while I have known him longer and better than anyone I am not actually related to by blood, I haven't seen him in some time. Fortunately the wonders of modern technology allow us to keep in touch through our blogs, so we've gotten back in touch of late.
Anyway... We met up and went for noodles at a restaurant in Soho, which were delicious, and enjoyed by all, even if I gave up on trying to use the chopsticks approximately 0.3 seconds after picking them up. Never mind! After that we pottered through Soho and found a great pub called the glasshouse, which was utterly surrounded by the establishments for which Soho is most famous. Dodgy... The pub was nice though. And so, we sat and drank and talked until chucking out time. We talked about life and what's going on and jobs and houses and wives and girlfriends (not frickin'
wags, for goodness sake, stupid OED - and here I want to link to a story about the Oxford Dictionary adding the acronym WAG, but can only find a story at the Daily Mail, and will not sully my page with a link to that rag... but I digress) and my baby and his sister's impending baby and old friends and new friends and music and... possibly a whole load of other stuff, but my memory is hazy. I recall Mr Haydock decrying
Strictly Come Dancing as rubbish (he is wrong) and
Jo Whiley definitely appeared in conversation, though I have no idea in what context. So there you go. All in all we had a great time, and I once again found it very reassuring to catch up with someone who I know so well and who knows me so well. Great to see he's still the same guy I remember, even down to saying words that no one outside our circle of friends from all those years ago would even really understand... Great days.
And so, to Thursday... Thursday night was in honour of the birthdays of the venerable Katie and Kevin, friends of mine from my tax course. We went to a bar called
Babble and proceeded to drink and dance and do all the other things that people do in bars, which is to say we talked about the pros and cons of
breasts (generally speaking, we are for them) and set fire to
highly alcoholic drinks in our mouths. As one does. I drank a lot, quite probably more than I have ever drunk in one night before, yet managed to stay with it somehow. Goodness only knows how to be honest... I drank
Long Island Iced Tea like it was going out of fashion. We left about midnight, which was the right time, as one of our fellow revellers proceeded to be sick on the floor. I'd say it was outrageous, had I not done many and various worse things in my less than sensible youth. Ho hum. So, that was a pretty crazy night all told.
And now, the musy emo part of the post... Those with an aversion to such things, look away now...
I get quite fed up with myself from time to time, because I feel like I'm trying to be someone I'm not. It is painfully obvious to me, looking back, that with Mikey I could just be myself and get on with things, but with the folk on the other night I was kinda acting.
I find myself trying to show off particular traits, which are invariably much less prominent in me than I'm making out. I fit myself around the people I'm with, and act up to fit in. I overplay my andogyny to appear less threatening to the laydeez so I can be friends with them, then overplay it with the guys so they can gently mock me for being gay and all the rest of it, and I try to be funnier than I am, and cruder than I really ought to be, and I try too hard to be quirky, and I show off my mental arithmetic when I really don't need to... It's silly, because I am all of those things (androgynous, funny, crude, quirky, good at mental arithmetic) but I end up forcing it and it feels a bit like I'm playing myself in some kind of idiotic sitcom.
Now, as I said earlier, this is all emo teenage whining and worrying, but this is a blog and you get what you pay for, so to speak. It just bugs me that I'm 24 and still pretending about who I am to some people. I know pretty much everyone does it, but that doesn't make it right, and I really wish I didn't have to do it. I guess it comes out of worrying that people won't like you, but that's just silly, because most decent people won't really care, and besides - I like to think I'm unfettered by the opinions of others. Nice try, I guess.
And, by way of a vastly understated coda, it's worth noting that the bit of me that gets underplayed with nigh on everyone is my Christianity. Damnit.
So, there you go. Here's the full lyrics to the Ben Fold's Five song from which the post title is taken. It says it all very well really.
The Best Imitation of Myself - Ben Fold's Five
I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest
So I can be for you what you wanna see.
I got the gestures and sounds, got the timing down,
It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me.
Do you think I should take a class, to lose my Southern accent?
Did I make me up, or fit the face till it stuck?
I do the best imitation of myself.
The "problem with you" speech you gave me was fine,
I liked the theories about my little stage.
And I swear I was listening, but I started drifting,
Around the part about me acting my age.
Now if it's all the same, I've people to entertain...
I'll juggle one handed, do some magic tricks and
The best imitation of myself.
Maybe I'm thinking myself in a hole,
Wondering who I am when I ought to know
Straighten up now time to go
Fool somebody else... Fool somebody else
Last night I was east within, and west within
Trying to be for you what you wanna see
But I can't help it with you, the good and bad comes through
Don't want you hanging out with noone but me
Now if it's all the same, it comes from the same place.
And if my mind's somewhere else, you won't be able to tell
I do the best imitation of myself.
Yes it's uncanny to see
You'd really think it was me
The best imitation of myself
The best imitation of myself
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here... all my life. Good night.
