coxy's blog

My shoulder is really hurting... well, less my shoulder and more the whole side of my body. I think I pulled a muscle in my sleep - hardcore, I know - but that's how it is. Pain, and a good start to the day.

The working day turned to a half-day when Emily and Tor split up and I spent the remainder of the afternoon with Emily. Later, Tor. Hannah Eacock called me and then I found myself in the Cornerhouse cinema watching Me and Orson Welles.

Today was the first time I entered a cinema with someone and left on my own. Odd. I enjoyed the film though; that boy can act.

So, Emily and Tor are back from their holiday in South Africa. They were away for ages and I missed them so much - it's really good to have them back. I've spent so much time with them since they've been back in Manchester, it's been excellent. I bought them some nice flowers on their return to go in their brand new inner-city apartment.

Whilst they were away, I remembered what Emily had said months back about wanting to go to a football game - so, as a surprise, I took the chance to get some tickets to the Friendly match at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Valencia CF.

The stadium is just under two and a half miles away from my house - so not that far - yet I've not really been to too many games there. In fact, I've probably been to Maine Road more - even though I'm not a Manchester City supporter, so it was good to go again.

We both enjoyed the game and I think Emily is planning to become a hardcore football hooligan.

See the Photos from the night.

Hm, right now I feel like I've got nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Nobody to be with. I have no commitments aside from the house - I have to clean it. Today is Sunday.

I've been spending a lot of time with my friends recently; primarily Emily and Tor, Maria too. I've had a good week and a good weekend; pretty much every night has been spent with either, both or all of these friends. I think. My memory is pretty bad, but I know I've been happy and the days enjoyable.

Now I'm alone, back home, with nothing to do specifically - I feel like something is missing; I feel like I have nothing. It's weird. I thrive on human company, people being around me and conversation. Today I have none of these.

This morning has mostly been consumed by sleeping. Pulling an all-nighter on Friday night and then only sleeping around four hours on Saturday was fine at the time - I had a nice day with Tor on Saturday whilst Emily and her friend Pam slept the day away. Now I'm pretty tired. It was worth it.

I'm sure you realise how much I love Emily and Tor already. I like their housemates; and that they don't mind me staying over and hanging around so much. Maria is awesome too; who I met thanks to Emily and Tor. Anyway, I digress...

I can't shake this 'cold' that I have. I've been coughing for what feels like months now and the passed few weeks have gotten worse; breathing has become noticably more difficult, but clearly not life-threatening, and this comes combined with a blocked nose. Fluids. They are the future. I should drink more.

I think I'm going to go to Stretford Arndale, get some supplies, come home and do some cleaning. It's nice outside.

The morning of Sunday 21st December, I woke up in Hannah Eacock's caravan after the hottest night sleep I've ever had. Well, I say that we woke up Sunday morning, but we'd probably slept until about 1pm. We didn't see the morning. In the middle of winter, in a caravan I was expecting it to be absolutely freezing, but there wasn't even need for a duvet - electric heating works wonders.

Although we didn't go anywhere, the day that followed was amazing and it all started with Hannah bringing me breakfast in bed - again. I think the first time I'd ever been to Hannah's place was the first time I'd ever received breakfast in bed, and it tasted so good. I don't expect such luxuries when I go there now, but it is awesome.

Later on we made biscuits in all manner of shapes - cats, snowmen, stars, trees, hedgehog, rabbits... and very few of them looked like what they were meant to when they came out the oven. They tasted okay though.

The day also held some interesting and exciting propositions; the first of which I don't feel comfortable blogging about right now - so you're just going to have to wait until next year and maybe all will be revealed! The second of which was that Emily and Tor invited me along on their 6 week trip to South Africa!! I said yes to both; so this means 2009 could be an amazing year!

I feel really honoured that Emily and Tor have extended their invite to South Africa. I know this is an important thing for them, something that they've been planning and looking forward to - and to share the experience with me... well, thanks guys. I'm looking forward to it so much; I've got to start saving.

After all the exciting news, Hannah and I settled down and watched the movie Stardust. Well, I watched the movie, Hannah fell asleep again until the movie was over and it was time for me to rush to the train station.

It turned out there was no need for rushing because my train was cancelled and I had to wait over an hour for the next one. I got home about midnight. Long weekend.

Tonight I had one of the more stranger social experiences of my life. My friend Emily works in the Digital Store, a local Apple reseller, and so I was hanging around the shop waiting for her to finish her shift when the gent pictured above entered the store.

He was eating a bag of Doritos and approached Emily and asked what the store was and does. After she'd answered, he proceeded to tell of how he previously worked for IBM in Italy. The story sounded like it was going to be interesting, but he got distracted when he dropped a crisp on the floor.

"So you see, I may have entered this... what it this place? A Boutique? ...and dropped a crisp on the floor. But what you may have failed to realise is that this is merely data," he said, as his foot began to hover over the crisp he'd just dropped. The foot stomped down on the crisp, crushing it into tiny peices as he continued "but I am breaking down and passing on this data."

This was just the start of a long trail of conversations discussing the most random of subjects; including him talking about robotic humanoid DJs in the future whilst questioning how many arms they had, asking the BBC where you can acquire an original TARDIS or alternate time machine, general time-travel, The Fonz, how we haven't seen the wooden floor being manufactured but we can tell by the rings of 'data' the history of how old it is and where it came from, Steve Palandri and Joe de Luca, whether the shop floor manager was the captain of Klingon ship, and many, many other bizarre subjects.

Just before he left, he handed me two flyers for a R'n'B clubnight in Manchester that were designed to look like money, stating that it would be rude not to pay us. I noticed his wallet was full of these 'notes'. As he was leaving, he questioned about whether we'd make him walk back through the security barriers on the door if he walked around them; also asking if you could kill someone with one of the security barriers.

He was a real character and it was amazing to talk to him; I have no idea if his real name was 'Peter Hallam' or not. But yeah, proper strange.

After this, Emily and I went back to her house to see Tor. We had Christmas early and exchanged presents - except I didn't give anything to Emily because it hasn't been delivered yet. Oh no! It was all cool though, she'll love it when she receives it, and it's made me real happy that I got to share Christmas with them. Their friend Maria came over too, and she was lovely!

I ended up staying at theirs until maybe 1am and had to pay £15 for a taxi home. I could've stayed at Emily and Tor's but I needed to feed and let out the cats this morning, or else I would've had to keep them locked in a room for near to 2 days without food. Oops.