This is it.

Do you want to know something really great?

I’m going to tell you anyway: I’ve almost completed my degree. I’ve done so in a slapdash and shabby and laissez-faire manner, but completed it nonetheless. I’m beyond caring.

Anyway, I was wonderfully squiffy last night. My spleen was drunk. My face was drunk. The inexplicable freckle on the palm of my left hand was drunk. Even my little toe was slurring its words. I also may have sat on a car for a while.

Upon awakening, I was blissfully unaware for about forty seconds. I really didn’t know a thing. I was alive, but that was about all. People attempt to achieve this level of inner peace by spending all their savings on trips to stay with Buddhist monks in Nepal where they have to sleep on stone slabs and purge themselves three times a day.

Save yourself a tenner or two and just drink a socially unacceptable amount of vodka once in a while. I still feel delightfully numb.

I think that thinking is overrated.

The most horrific aspect of the morning was discovering evidence suggesting that I may have eaten half a Swiss roll in the same way that one would eat a chocolate bar. I don’t even know where it came from. Oh god, it’s truly awful. I’m just going to pretend it never happened. And now I’m drinking Sanguine Orange-favoured Orangina and wishing that I’d just gone for the regular variety because this one is quite reminiscent of acetone and feels as though it’s damaging me in at least three different ways. I did actually drink nail varnish remover once, but that’s an altogether separate story. Perhaps I’ll write about it here sometime.

P.S. I’m plucking up the courage to go next door and ask them if I could possibly collect my stool from their garden. I imagine that they’ll have a bemused face.

About two weeks ago when the weather was real and not just a bad headache, I was on the roof of my kitchen and sitting on a silly little white plastic stool. Unfortunately I forgot about all about it and the wind, or possibly a cheeky sparrow, has transported it to the back yard of my next-door neighbour. I hope they think it’s been raining seating or that it’s a sacred gift from the heavens.

I’m never going to get it back.


P.P.S. I’ve just written a great deal about my drunkenness. Please don’t think that I’m a hellraiser. I actively repel hell.

Laundering

Please note: After writing this post I realise that I sound a bit like I’m on some form of narcotic. I can assure you that I’m not. The most potent substance I’ve taken today is salad cream.

Washing clothes is an intensely cathartic process. There’s something wonderful lurking amid the whirr of the tumble dryers, the smell of warm fabric softener and the uniformly bland décor.

It’s quite possible that these visits to the launderette are the only time that I ever really think about anything of any importance. My normal life is cluttered. Profound thoughts occasionally pass through my brain, but they do so in a fleeting manner as they try and dodge the timetables, bank statements and other boring life-detritus.

Tonight I sat for five minutes and stared intently at the graze on my thumb; the result of an unfortunate incident with a cheese grater. It’s not going to be there for very long. There won’t even be a scar. In a month, I won’t even remember its existence. In fifteen years’ time, I won’t be able to recall anything about this week. Nothing marks this period of seven days as any different from the (hopefully) hundreds that will ensue. Everything about youth is so transient and fickle. Most of my waking day is shaped by the feeling that there’s a gaping hole my life. It follows me around and looms over me when I’m trying my hardest to have a good time. I’m not a fan of this gaping hole. Halfway through the spin cycle, it occurred to me that what’s missing is The Future. I’m craving something that doesn’t even exist yet. I’m aimless. I’m feckless. And after June, I have no plans. This frightens me intensely. I, like the millions of others in exactly the same boat, need to find a purpose. It’s easier said than done.

If I manage to remember these worries when I’m old and grey, I’ll laugh my head off.

The philosophical magic of the launderette only extends to a four-metre radius. I’m now back home and safe in the company of menial, mind-numbing tasks and a laptop.

I might put a plaster on my thumb.