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Another weekend, another black eye. My eyelid in particular is the most gorgeous shade of purple, I'd wear makeup more often if I could achieve the same effect with it.
The weekend started Friday afternoon, gave up trying to buy a new TV from Currys, Dixons, and their ilk; I'm apparently 100% incompatible with their salesmen. Instead took myself off to Richer Sounds, emerging shortly afterwards with a good impression, and a DVD player. They even offered to pack things specially to make it easy to carry on the motorbike, hell, I'd have bought the plasma TV and DVD-RW there and then if I'd thought I could've carried them too. They'll definitely be getting that business.
Left Brighton by motorbike, returned later by car to collect DVDs, viewing for the purposes of, tacos, eating for the purposes of, and pipistrelle. Watched various movies in couch-potato mode, including an amusing piss-take of American homophobia - the main message of which appeared to be, the more anti-gay someone is, the more likely they are to be a repressed homosexual. Naturally, by the time the happy ending rolled around, everyone (including the counsellors) had been cured of their aberrant heterosexuality.
I had some therapy of my own scheduled for next day, the retail kind as clare_lydia and pipistrelle were on a mission to the mall. Fortified myself by playing with the squirrels for a bit, then it was off to spend way too much time in slow-moving traffic. By the time we reached Arkham, we were five-strong, Robert and John wearing their best 'hey, it's only shopping, how tough can it be?' expressions.
pipistrelle stomped into Arkham, kicked the Lowlife flyers around the place, and almost bought another Cthulhu. For my part, failed yet again to obtain Psychophile's 'Transition' (sold out, apparently), settled for Deathboy's 'Music to crash cars to', along with yet another VNV remix.
Then...well, pretty much what I expected. The girls performed a detailed survey of the interiors of many, many, clothes shops, we guys trailed in their wake. Was it really Spanki who lost themselves many cool points for Xmas? Red PVC dresses with white fur trim score astonishingly high on the tack-o-meter.
Spent a fair bit of time looking at rocks and crystals, and was quite tempted by a fossil sculpture, two ammonites kissing the stone inside a circle. Very Andy Goldsworthy, decided against it because I didn't fancy weighing myself down with a large chunk of rock before we'd even reached the mall.
The first casualty was Robert...he dropped out of the 'how to shop' course early on, some excuse about being out late the night before. Still, Deadman appeared out of the crowds to restore our party's number.
We lost clare_lydia in Waterstone's, while we browsed the best-seller's list (how come a book about punctuation is in at No. 2?). She wasn't hard to find though, we automatically headed for the fourth floor and the Philosophy section. Gave me an opportunity to get a couple of books I've been after myself, Alan Sokal's 'Intellectual Imposters' and Alain de Botton's 'Consolations' (purely because he was the writer who turned me on to Michel de Montaigne). pipistrelle outdid us all by casually waving around a book written by her parents. And revealing her name in the credits - right next to John Maynard Smith's. Impressed.
Finally, had to confront...The Mall. Not that we got to see all of it, oh no. Mostly we saw the insides of the girly clothes shops (and yes, how we men enjoy particuarly extensive forays into the bra department at Debenham's...). No matter it felt like forever, I think we got let out early for good behaviour - it really can't have gone on for more than an eternity or two.
Found ourselves a restaurant, the name 'Wai Kika Mau Kau' faux-hawaiian but revealed as a pun when we spotted the kicking cow on the menu. Turned out to be vegetarian, pretty good all the same, much Nacho goodness for me.
Back in the carpark, I opened the boot with the intention of slotting 'Music to crash cars to' into the autochanger. Solid upstanding citizens we must have appeared, so much so that suddenly it was 'ello 'ello, do you all belong to this car then? It was the mounted police, a lone cop on a bicycle. I rather suspect he was called in by the watchers of the surveillance cameras, simply because our appearance was incompatible with the car. Another of society's little lessons in conformity, if you're not going to toe to its line you can expect some extra hassle. So there then ensued a very odd conversation, the cop thrown off kilter by the awfully polite responses from the raggedy-haired bloke in the scruffy bike jacket rummaging in the boot of the nice car. Finally got the usual 'we police are nice people really, just doing our job protecting your property' speech (still no argument from me) and off he went, to lurk by the exit and watch to see if I really knew how to drive.
Leaving town this time was quick and easy, seemed we'd outlasted all the other shoppers. Back home via Worthing, swapped car for taxi and headed once more to Brighton, the fourth time in just over a day.
Arriving in Hove for Brighton Rock, pipistrelle boggled at the concrete and neon gloom of the town hall at night, but perked up a bit once we got inside and to the bar. Hit the dancefloor almost immediately, chest rasping like a bugger at first, remants of a cold and some cat exposure leaving the system. Was feeling really quite perky when we scored some really fast Motorhead, the dancefloor was reasonably clear so a few of us totally went for it. Somewhere in there I got a very solid smack in the eye, and one of those uncertain playground moments when you don't know if you're really hurt or not, whether to laugh it off or go cry to Mummy. Being grown-up, I danced till the end of the track, then went off to the bar in search of medicinal vodka. It soon became apparent it was a good thump, because the swelling started to protrude into my field of vision. Still not quite sure how it happened, I fear I may in fact have danced directly into my own kneecap. Clever way to get a black eye, not.
Still, managed to bounce for most of the rest of the night. Loads of friends there even though it wasn't very crowded, met pantheria and boyfriend (though not for long, as I rudely ran off back to the dancefloor). Got nervous when I noticed pipistrelle and lucifien deep in conversation, scheming no doubt. Also introduced myself to Mark at the bar, it's such a rare thing for neither of us to be on the dancefloor it bore commenting on. Turns out he's yet another biker, and with a Harley to boot. Another one hopefully roped into the planned biker takeover of the club, next summer.
Mr. Bump was making his presence felt by the time we left, my eyelid was puffed up enough that it jiggled up and down disturbingly during dancing. Got asked for an explanation at the pub the next day, muttered something shamefaced as pipistrelle and I grabbed ourselves a decent pizza lunch, prior to a lazy afternoon watching movies.
A rather fine weekend, all in all (even if the retail therapy has rather reinforced my aversion to going underwear shopping with girls).