Saturday, April 17, 2010

How To See Yourself As You Really Are

One of the many books I have lying by my bed is How to See Yourself as You Really Are by the Dalai Lama. It's one I picked up while working in the charity shop (His Holiness and his publishers would have liked me to have paid seventeen quid or something for it, but hey, I guess that's not who I really am). There's some good advice in it at times, and even the odd sniff of genuine profundity. Still, one can't help but wonder, at times, whether yer man's quest to see himself as he really is has ever taken in that noblest of pursuits in the pursuit of self-actualisation,the one known as "snorting vodka."

I've this friend who snorted a bit of vodka, in his time. The first time was on New Year's Eve, at a house party, when he was seventeen. Another lad, undeniably the smartest in his year, told him it that it had never done him any harm, so it must be fine. Solid enough logic there. He sniffed it right up and it burnt his nostrils and gave him brain freeze but just that one teaspoonful made him feel like he'd drunk three naggins so he had another one. A few minutes later he jumped up really high in the air thrashing around on his air guitar to the intro to Radiohead's Just and he landed hard on his left hip. Everyone laughed really hard so they put the song back to the start and he did it again. He only started to feel his hip ten minutes later. He reckons now that he cracked it, but he was far too embarrassed to ever seek medical attention for it. Still gives him the odd sharp pain now, eleven years on.

The second time was when he was eighteen, about to finish school, and he and his entire class mitched off to celebrate this step into adulthood by going and getting absolutely fucked in the sand-dunes of Brittas Bay. This was to be achieved through a cunning combination of cider and sunburn. And a capful or two of uncle Smirnoff, route one through the nose and into the good times. He remembers deliberately head-over-heelsing down a steep, high dune, and little else. A few of them headed straight to The Forge once they got back to town. They weren't all eighteen, but no-one gave a fuck at 5 o'clock in the evening. He remembers ordering gin and tonic and smoking a cigar, in what he can only imagine was intended as a display of louche decadence. He remembers blowing cigar smoke in the face of a toddler who looked over from the neighbouring booth. He remembers the child's mother not seeming to mind, as she said they were keeping him entertained. He remembers being warned that he had tapped cigar ash into his G&T. He remembers drinking it anyway. And how he vomited all over the table a few minutes later. And how they just changed tables and how, inexplicably, no-one kicked him out, this friend. Someone should really have kicked him out.

16 comment(s):

Radge said...

You seem to know an awful lot about this 'friend.'

Jo said...

Oh right. I was waiting for a cautionary death story.

I never did any of that shit. Me nor the Dalai Lama.

wv: corscled

Andrew said...

Radge - yes, he's quite the sharer.

Jo - Heh, I can see how it read that way.
It's still not too late, y'know. Just a few drops of Smirnoff on a teaspoon and you're away. Just don't blow smoke in the kids' faces, that shit is really not cool.

Tessa said...

Sniffing Smirnoff. Holy shit, I thought I had a naughty adolescence, but it never occurred to me to waste booze by imbibing it through my nostrils. Besides, I suspect rum and black might not taste all that great mixed with snot.

So lovely to see the word 'mitched' again! I got myself expelled from Miss Galwey's Secretarial College for Young Ladies for mitching off to Slattery's for a few or five of the afore-mentioned rum and blacks every afternoon.

emordino said...

Did it with brandy once. Also, uh, vinegar. The latter made half of my face feel so awful that I had to snort it through the other nostril just to balance out.

Unknown said...

"...and I will bet one silk pyjama there isn't any three L lllama"

Which is another way of saying it'd be only fair seeing as how yer friend has, like shared so much with us, that you let him do the auld guest post about this, you know, friend of his who has a blog.

Andrew said...

Tessa - You sound like my kind of lady.

emordino - vinegar? I have no words. I doubt you did, either.

Conan - I'm a little confused. It's all getting very meta around here.

Radge said...

Nice makeover boss.

Jo said...

What? Oh! I don't know... change, it's unsettling... it's pretty, in a girlie sort of way.

It's like your wearing pale blue silk pyjamas.

Gaurav Keshri said...

great..well written friend

Andrew said...

Radge - Cheers. I'd originally intended this template for a side project, then decided I liked it so much that I'd prefer to have it here.

Jo - Girly? Go on to fuck, would ya. The dude who designed it calls it 'Scruffy', and that's good enough for me. This place needed an overhaul, you'll get used to it.

Gaurav - Thanks. And good luck with your blog.

Blazing said...

Side project, eh? Keep us in the loop.

As for snorting vodka, even I never got round to that one. No harm with anyone trying anything once, but as soon as you have worked out it really isn't a great idea then swerve it thereafter.

Andrew said...

Haven't touched it since, Blazing. In any method, now I think about it. As for the side project, it's really nothing earth-shattering, but i'll put up a post asking people to take a look once it has a bit more content.

Kitty Catastrophe said...

Am I a terrible person for thinking that blowing cigar smoke into a kid's face is a little bit funny? Just a tiny bit like. Just for that one instance.

I'm going to hell, aren't I.

Andrew said...

It was a little bit funny, now that my friend thinks of it. It's not like it was right in his face, he was a couple of yards away. The mother just turned round and thanked us for keeping him amused.

Deviatrix said...

Tormenting a child with cigar smoke isn't the least bit funny.

Should have given him a drag off it at least.