A Lion's Share

I have some free time now, so why not?

At the moment I'm attempting to find some form of job, as my plans for the summer fell through and as a result I am unemployed (and unfunded). Until this happens, I am a man of leisure and am spending time playing bass, reading and learning more Japanese. This is thanks in part to my flatmates, who are super-good at things like muay thai, medicine, philosophology (and of course philosophy), drums and cooking and shit.

I reckon that because a lot of my childhood was gobbled up, my talents and hobbies are slightly stunted as a result, which is a shame but not really an excuse. So I'm gonna take advantage of my surroundings and try to become slightly less useless than I think I am...my first objective is to cook with lentils. I know one recipe that uses lentils, and learning another will create the impression that I am a well-rounded cook with some experience in semi-exotic ingredients. Whereas actually I'll be a man who knows two recipes both of which involve lentils.

Another thing that came with the new house is a nice place to live. As one of my flatmates is the landlord, I didn't need to put down a deposit and everything is clean and works! When compared to my last house, which had minimal structural integrity, a broken shower, an ill-fitting drafty back door and a massive hole in one of the walls, I am greatly pleased. Same rent price too. Boom.

Although a downside to such surroundings are the surroundings proper. I've moved back into Selly Oak which is decidedly rough. My girlfriend and I left the train station the other day and were walking down Heely Road when a one of the guys from the group behind us decided it would be fun to pretend to punch her in the back of the head. I'd forgotten people like that lived nearby...

On a lighter note, the first time she stayed over my other two flatmates walked past my bedroom door at 11am to hear her shrieking "WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT DID YOU DO?!". I was almost asleep at the time, and I can't remember what I did, but it was probably fine. She can't remember it either, but that's probably memory repression. All is well!

So yeah. Things happen and I might write about them if I've little else to do, or am feeling a bit queasy and can't do what I otherwise planned to (such as now). I'm gonna quote a line from a novel I'm reading now, partly because I'm a pretentious airhead and partly because I really like the sentence, but mainly because I can, and if one can then one should. So far it's 400 pages in and very little has happened, but it's poetry like this that has kept me hooked:

"...this was no valley of the wet and verdant type, but a failure in the land where withered creeks went to die and flash floods spent their rage on a supine waste..."