dazed and confused

what the FUCK? i wasn't gonna write about this but consequently, Things happened afterwards — like yesterday — so i feel i need to get this down. anyway, when i opened my eyes one morning last week, i was staring straight up into this tree and i was so disoriented, if asked, i'd have said it was 2004 just due to where i thought i was, and then, it all came back.

last week i went out drinking one night, as i tend to do on the very rare occasions when i find myself all bored and shit. then i met up with these dudes who fed me too much acid laced with MDMA. usually that's a very good thing but i fell asleep, only to be rudely awakened a few hours later when i was helped into the backseat of a car. it went faster and faster and i was actually kinda enjoying the ride, especially the trails the streetlamps left against the sky but all good things must come to an end. as they flew round this one corner, i looked outside and went 'this is my stop'. i was gripping the handle of the left-hand rear door and i could hear people shouting 'NO! don't do it!' *snigger* like i'm rilly gonne listen, right? but i opened it anyway and totally leapt out and being way exhausted, i lay on the ground. i remember thinking 'it's a good thing it's Summer...' and then i must've passed out.


a few hours later when i came to, i was staring into that tree up top, then i looked around and was totally positive i was back in Germany. i mean, above pic's exactly the same view as around the corner from my old flat on Römerstraße and this:


well, that shit is so Bonn-Nord, it's pathetic. hmmpf... i don't think i'm gonna willingly do any more acid mixed with anything (at least not as much as last week) for a long, long time. i mean, i had a good time and all but where it's OK to sleep in the street when you're a kid, it's not so OK when you're supposed to be a mature adult and stuff. the good bit is no one of any consequence saw me. *smirk*

but wait — there's more; i just found these on my phone; they're the last photos i took when i was still relatively sane. last night. yup, i went back for Part 2 and i vaguely remember hanging out the car window trying to focus my phone.



uh... yeah. :-) *cough* remember, kids — drugs are bad, mmmkay? 'fuckin' amateurs' no, really... if you're gonna get high, don't be like me do so responsibly. what does that even mean, anyway? being supervised? not doing enough to kill an elephant? everything except powders? no 'hard' drugs? no intristin' mixtures? i don't geddit and never did. *snigger* but hey — be responsible cause the more there are of you, the more there are to take care of the likes of me. TIA, dudes (and thanks for last night). :-)

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Strangers' Burial Ground

last time i said, 'there's a tiny cemetery across the end of my street which's home to only three crypts and a little red fox...' and then i threw up photos of the tangle of overgrown foliage and shit hanging on the walls above and below it before posting a pic of the last house on Bellevue about which i went, 'i took this next standing in the small natural alcove of a doorway, like, right under the tops of the fence you can see...'

here's the alcove or whatever from which i took the pics:


the first, topmost photo is what y'all see if you're looking off to the left through the gates and the double crypts below (at rear) are all that're visible if you look off to the right. soz, my camera-phone ain't big i'm not talented enough to get the both into one pic. my bad.


i've spent hours pacing back and forth in the alcove whilst taking pics of the crypts from every which way but never inside, dammit; i'm always hanging through the gates and you can actually see the rusty railing i lean against, directly above at the vertical right edge. but hang on — these're much betterer:



teh funny (your mileage may vary): up until last week, i'd Googled my head off, searching for graveyards in Bristol cause till then, i hadn't found an official name for this teeny-tiny death commune that's so near to my flat. i can't explain but knowing it's there actually makes me feel more encouraged peaceful. but a day or so after the last time i wrote here, i'm clicking my head off in front of the gates and this dude stopped walking so i could continue. i laughed, thanked him and waved him on and as he went by, he made the mistake of saying, 'Beautiful, isn't it?'

i agreed and his friendliness spurred me on to ask if there were an official name for this way cosy, peaceful End of the Line-y place and then i admitted how i thought of it as 'The Bellevue Graveyard' and told him how i'd Googled up, down, sideways and slideways using all the variations of 'Bristol cemeteries' i could think of but totally no joy. he LOL'd and immediately went 'It's called "The Strangers' Burial Ground"...' and explained it's where they used to bury those who're in Bristol as tourists, spa-goers, guests or visitors, and then just died here.

i really would've loved to see the expression that must've been on my face as the dude went on splaining cause hearing that shit sent me into near-paroxyms of similar-to-but-not-quite delight — and there was no damn way i could wipe the idiotic grin offa my face. this's for shit-sure cause as he spoke, i checked his reaction and (could be my vivid imagination but) he appeared to be growing more and more alarmed as my smile grew wider and wider. yes i know i'm scarey, OK? thing is, i didn't say shit; i just listened to him cause i was totally gobsmacked and way too conscious my thoughts were actually approaching that rare state of joy.


Christine in mail: 'That's totally cool... What a coincidence, you love that graveyard and you're a stranger in Bristol!'

me: *preening* 'i know! now i know where i want my ashes scattered (take note, C, D, M et al.) but i couldn't fucking believe it when he said... and the thing of it is, if you visit NYC and make the mistake of dying without relatives or connections, they'd shovel you into Potter's Field the garbage dumps on Staten Island or wherever NYC currently ships their trash... y'know, the kinda places where dogs run wild to shit and piss freely on the markers and graves — cause they won't pay anyone a decent wage to care for the impoverished dead — and that'd be that'.

after i Googled, i scanned down then checked this one link cause it's a photo of the sign that i imagine hung on the gates of The Strangers' Burial Ground before being removed for sale (and if i had 200 quid to throw away, it'd be mine). a bit of history here, Google map here, and a bit more history here. and forgive me for the photo repetition but — but — but... *whispers* i've got like at least a hundred photos of The Strangers' Burial Ground taken from outside the gates, so suck it up 'I love repetition!' *in a Stewie voice* :-)


moving right along, the following is the nicest compliment i received in ages, coming in mail called 'This Is You':

yup, especially the 3PM 'wake up' face and way accurate time and the 9PM 'food?' but in the interests of honesty, the 11PM 'internet' face is my expression like 24/7. just sayin'.

in other news, Hiroshima Day came and went way quietly this year and thank fuck for that. Evil Proboscisface summed up my feelings on that annual horror quite nicely:


YES sorry, got a little carried away but yeah, it's 'One step closer to the grave... the box that awaits its grisley load... and soon we're gonna be food for worms...' so thank you for that, Rev. D Wayne Love — y'all put everything into perspective. as i commented over at Trollcats, 'it helps a bit with our shite attitudes. but that’s what the drugs are for, to pick up the slack, like...'

i actually find it quite fitting that not only was i born on the anniversary of the same day we showed Japan who's boss — LOL, WAIT: NOT the same year, goddammit; after — but it's also the anniversary of the day Judge Crater disappeared (1930), the first electrocution using Ol' Sparky, the Friendly Electric Chair at Auburn Prison, NY (1890) and the Tompkins Square Park Police Riots (1988). then again, there's some excellent stuff to balance out the shit: '...On August 6, 1991, (Tim Berners-Lee) posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet' so happy 19th birthday, WWW and big thanks to Tim. :-)

*cough* as for me, i spent the weekend as i do almost every other day ripped off my face... but *grumble* you have a birthday with the drugs you've got, not with the drugs you want unlike the ripped-daily bit, i was actually eating my ass off, sump'n i never do cause the years have not been kind i'm so into grazing. in the beginning, i thought i'd miss meals but nuh-uh, i don't; i just don't think about em anymore cause what's better is, i eat like i did when i was a kid: the stuffs on which i graze are only fudz i like so i can nom away to my heart's content. and i could go off on that tangent for hours so forget it, but this weekend, i had the most delicious meals cooked from scratch cause TPFKAPM was forced to come 'all the way out to Bristol' (again! [nb: he didn't say that, Dragnim did]) *snigger* to collect sump'n or another and lucky for me, he loves to cook and whoa, he's goo-oo-ood. :-)

anyhoo, amongst other things, we walked The Birdcage Walk in the pouring rain on monday — wait, next pic was taken whilst it rained down (but not on monday) so scuse the shite quality. hey, y'know, if you're drunk and you squint you can pretend that Monet painted it. well, at least i'm drunk and i'm all squinty ATM so AFAIC, it's a Monet but check prior link for the excellent crystal-clear Birdcage Walk photo taken in Winter.


thing is, i totally love being under the canopy of interwoven trees especially in the rain though i can get nothing more than crap photos when it's wet out. hmmmm, above pic was the last on my Razr and i believe it's the one that broke the camera's back thanks to me forgetting water's wet and rain's all moisty especially when it's all non-stop pouring that reminds me i'm still gonna post my little collection of headstones and crypts as well as the many gateposts or stiles or whatever-the-hell-they-are when i'm good and fucking ready ASAP.


fun-fact: the column above and the one below are directly across the road from each other. anyway, the neighbours must think me mad (nothing new there) cause like three, four times a week (or whenever i drag my ass outside before the sun goes down) i've been walking up and down this one residential road, clicking away like crazy.

hmmpf... these two dudes actually stopped me last thursday, said they'd seen me for quite some time and asked what the hell i thought i was doing but the second i opened my American mouth, it was all well cool and smiles all round. :-)


teh funny: they offered me some spliff and some beer and i toked long and hard — good stuff. :-) thing of it is, i'm not a beer drinker (not lager, not ale, not stout, not even *ugh* hops jelly Marmite); i mean, even the smell makes my stomach queasy, but i choked it down with a smile on my face. y'know, just to show i was a good sport and had good manners and stuff cause i forget if i'm in one of those places in which if you refuse a native's offering they get all insulted and shit and i wasn't about to take any chances wrecking my newfound good will or whatever.

hmmpf... sometimes i feel like a little ambassador from the primitive country of The States cause i can't count how many times people've told me 'You're so not like what we thought of Americans...' this happened in Germany as well as here and i just about preen my ass off each time i hear it, but i feel i'm about to leave on a tangent so i'll STFU and stay instead.

anyhoo, back to last week, from prior experience, i knew what came next: i instantly felt sick to my stomach but me being me, didn't say shit cause i was desperate to retain the cool i might've once had. five minutes later, i'm off down the road — as soon i was sure i was outta their sights, i ducked behind the nearest parked car and totally puked my guts out in the street (thanking my godz there was no one around even though it was a bit after 17,00/5PM and cars were beginning to pull into their driveways). i ended up at the Boots on Queens Road wailing 'mah tummeh hurts!' cause there's this very friendly (naive?) Chemist called Gellah but that was last week and i've said too much already.

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first sight

editor's note on 5, aug @19,25: it took me like two days to realise i wrote High Falls when i meant High Woods. they're two totally different Upstate NY towns and i lived in the both but after proofreading only as an anal retentive can, the fact i didn't see my moronacy... *shakes head sadly* and with dumbass mistakes like that happening more and more frequently, i don't think it's unrealistic that i'm actually hoping my Alzheimer's turns out to be the happy kind where they're always smiling and laughing and shit (kinda like Aged P in Great Expectations). i mean, it's only fair cause it'd definitely give some much-needed balance to the lifelong anhedonia. *weeps* kidding! *whispers* not about the Happy Alzheimer's — about the *weeps*.

anyhoo, when i first got here, i used to run outta the bedroom every AM and totally freak over the streaky striated skies (no two alike/collect em all) and when i say 'totally freak', that included encouraging forcing TPFKAPM to ooh and ahh along with me cause i wouldn't STFU until he looked out as well. hmmpf... there's a reason there're many, many reasons i always go 'poor Chris' but those are stories for another time. hmmmm... or never. is Never good for you? i mean, i'd need like a week or so to explain each one and, y'know, who's got the time? and who the hell cares, anyway? so good — that's settled, then. never. :-)

anyway, i'm a big grrl now i only do that — check the freaky skies — when it's cold out anymore — wait. what did Alan Moore write in his first (or second) Swamp Thing? it was on the first (or second) page... hmmpf. i have it here but too lazy to dig it up sump'n about 'the slashed wrists of the sky...' i totally loved the metaphor when i read it in NYC but i actually thought he was bullshitting — using poetic licence — cause i had no idea what he was tawkin about until i finally got here and saw for myself. :-) and then i was all like 'Ohhhhhh... I'm sorry for doubting you, Alan'. *shamed*

uh... where was i? right, every morning from like june to september, after i come to, i hobble crawl run into the kitchen and take pics to record how high Leaf's The Catwalk Plant's grown. so now i've got an interminable series of pics like the above, the only difference being Leaf's the plant's height and the weather behind it. yup, i really dig serieses of things. serii? i dig serieseses best, actually. and naming inanimate objects and attributing human personality elements to em. :-)

*cough* you should've been there after the first time i anthropomorphosised Rahsaan this hugeass Catalpa tree in High Woods (upstate NY). fun-fact: my fave wood is totally oak but my fave tree EVar is the Catalpa cause it's got everything beautifully unique: its flowers, beansprouts, leaves, bark and more (and that's another post i'll never write). back to Rahsaan, these State-worker dudes came to chop him down one Summer but seeing that he seemed to thrive on my fave sax player, Rahsaan Roland Kirk's miraculous circular breathing and unparallelled music, we'd all end up uh... 'arguing' (let's call it). it was me and Paul (musician BF) and/or Karen (nurse-to-be) vs. upwards of twenty redneck State-workers (and this in the middle of the old culture wars, which's yet another post i'll never write. but i digress). :-)

according to this old calendar on which i used to keep track of shit, they came over like about fifty times that Summer. which reminds me, there's a book called Spite, Malice and Revenge and at the time, the initial ideas of the books were being practised by hundreds of thousands of kids all over the country and all unknown to each other. we three dug taking credit for the old 'glue in the keyhole' prank but i'm sure we weren't the first. and since i dunno how long the statute of limitations is for that kinda stuff, all one needs to know is Paul and i lived there – undisturbed, as did Rahsaan and Karen (as it turned out, she was a two-faced twat but at the time, who knew? for a few years longer. and when i got outta Uni to go back to NYC we were still all SG&Co batting 1,000 and NYS rednecks nil, nada, bupkis. hmmpf... no idea how i got from my first AM sight of Leaf on the catwalk to Rahsaan in High Falls Woods. they're aware they're having Alzheimer's, right? som-uv em? wait — i know i said that out loud. let's move on. :-(

OK, i shall be back when i'm ready with more glorious pics from a number of cemeteries in the area here as well as a series of different stiles and monoliths i've found on this one road alone, sump'n i find totally amazing. not the road, just the diversity and number of stone pillars at the ends of so many driveways, garden paths and hedges. *sigh* holy shit, this is their normal! (she shouted for the thousandth time) *cough*

and as the sun sinks slowly in the West whilst i collect the shreds of what's left of my dignity (i rilly, rilly had some. once. i think. maybe), i'll leave you with these next of Stoneleigh House, taken earlier this evening why oh why they chose that awful shade of purple or whatever is totally beyond me, but hey, none-a my biz.



how these occurred: i was drinking at my local when i realised i hadn't flipped out over That Place in quite some time, so i dropped my jacket and bag and flew across the road. for a few seconds, i played balancing act tryna hold onto my drink, focus my phone, my cig and a jay this dude had just passed over. he inadvertently made an ass of himself when i heard him behind me and realised he'd assumed i was gonna split with his shit — one stinking spliff! — cause he actually had the nerve to say — and i quote — 'Hey! Where do y'think you're going with my smoke?' *in a posh Brit accent*


hah! how petty can you get? all my stuff was at the pub but the really funny shit is, he'd just asked me out (for this friday, but to be fair, he couldn't have known) and i'd been splaining how that particular night might not be such a hot idea, what with it being Hiroshima Day and all when at that very second as i sought to not meet his gaze even more than before, i'd thankfully caught a glimpse of Stoneleigh and immediately flew out after going 'be right back, dude'.

i don't geddit. but it's totally more proof i shall never understand guys. so i'm thinking 'no great loss' cause apart from being all petty and shit, this one was definitely too old; i mean, it was a total obviousity that i'm like maybe only ten years older than he is. and nah — nuh-uh — no way am i gonna lower my standards or whatever i tell myself they are. which is kinda a shame cause he was cute and all but nope, no standards-lowering going on around here. i mean, the age-dif is one thing but that biz with the joint? that's totally sump'n else — i mean, is that cheap or what? rilly, beneath contempt... 'laughable, man — hah! I would've fucked you in the ass Saturday. I fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. Wooo! You got a date Wednesday, baby!'

hmmpf... i actually could've said that to him — shit, it fit the situ and i thought it at the time and i shoulda said it just to see if a) he were into the film and b) if he had an infantile sensa yooma and c) stuff. shit! i would've seddit, dammit, if i'd any intention of going out with him but that thwoop thing killed it. hmmmm... oops, thinking out loud again. *cough* soz... it's been awhile. hey, look over here:


there's a tiny cemetery across the end of my street which's home to only three crypts and a little red fox. :-) above and directly below pics're only part of the glorious overhanging tangle of plants and greenery and other shit i never saw in NYC, stuff i see and drool over every day now.


the little cemetery and the lovely stone walls and green shit are like almost directly opposite the end of my road; in fact, i took this next standing in the small natural alcove of a doorway, like, right under the tops of the fence you can see at bottom left (two pix above).


that's the last house on my street and you can see a bit of *snigger* The Pleasure Gardens at far right, in back) but i just skimmed through this and none-a that makes any sense, right? no matter cause it does to me. now where was — right: there's a very good reason it takes me like over an hour to go to the nearest shops (when i've timed it at seven minutes each way, from my doorstep to Queens Road. but only if i absolutely positively need to totally move my ass and fast). it's cause i'm the Worst. Tourist. EV-ar.

i dunno, maybe if i moved here when i were in my tweens like i first wanted, i would've gotten used to The Way Things Are but after six years, i'm still totally agog and i get all shouty almost 100% of the time i'm outside, as if i were seeing things for the very first time. is this an old thing? a memory thing? senility? *shrugs*

for once, i rilly don't care. *smirk* anyway, stay tuned for crypts, The Birdcage Walk (shown in previous post) and moar Death-y stuff, like real cemeteries (the kind i'd only seen in films until i got here).

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