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Tuesday 3 August 1999
Ayp! Only eight days left before I turn eighteen! Roe phoned yesterday, asking if I had any idea how to celebrate. I don't. Ni. I found twenty eight pounds the other day that I should have paid into the Young Enterprise bank account over a year ago. Shows how often I tidy my room. Wednesday 4 August 1999 Will came round yesterday. He doesn't know how to celebrate my birthday either. He said, "We could go to some city . . . but we'd probably just end up going to the cinema. Still, it would be a *different* cinema!" Oh dear. He does get excited by these things . . . Friday 6 August 1999 A few days ago, my Dad and half brother Alex were moving a piano (for that is one of the things they do for a living). Alex found himself lying under it. "You know, if I drop this, it'll kill you," Dad said. "Yes," Alex said. "Right," Dad said. "Now tell me what you did with my punk records!" Terrified, Alex gave Dad "The Best Punk Album In The World Ever!" on tape in an attempt to make amends. Naturally, he failed, since Dad doesn't listen to tapes. CDs he can cope with, but really, it has to be vinyl. So I've been listening to it instead. It has The Stranglers on it, but how can you take an album that contains "2-4-6-8 Motorway" seriously? Saturday 7 August 1999 I spent yesterday playing ping pong, sitting in the living room throwing biscuits at Noj, and watched "Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" (another peace offering from Alex) for the second time in as many days. It was better the second time round. In the evening, I carried on making my list of potential baby names. It's now about 200 names long, which is slightly scary considering I don't intend to have any children whatsoever. Nah, it's for my characters' benefit, since I always struggle to name them. Then I phoned Chris. He was of little assistance in Operation: Zed's Birthday, and cut the conversation short to watch "Not The Nine O'Clock News". Through lack of anything better to do, I did the same. (Romantique!) My mother remarked, "This is how the yoof of today spends their Friday nights. How sad." And it was sad. I watched TV for two hours (more than I've watched in the last six months) and it was abysmal. 269234234 channels (we have Digital TV) and nothing on. Thursday 12 August 1999 If I was asked the question "What are the ten most interesting things that have happened to you in the last 72 hours?", under normal circumstances, my answer would be something like this:
1. I had some weird dreams.
However, today, my answer varies slightly: 1. I observed my friends Smill and Chris sleeping together. Ok, so not quite like *that*, just in the same room at the same time. But I'm still jealous. Of both of them, that is: I couldn't sleep at all. 2. I bought two CDs ("The Hit Men" by The Stranglers and the soundtrack to "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels"), some Love Hearts, a Yorkie Bar and several streets, houses and hotels in London (well, a few pieces of cardboard and some bent pieces of plastic, to be strictly accurate). 3. I had a wild night out with Smillennium, Good Will Hunting, Roe3p-o and Beeping Aevil Geen Of Tallness. (Or Smill, Will, Roe and Chris, if you want to be boring.) We went to a restaurant, the cinema (where we saw "Austin Powers 2" - groovy, baby), two pubs and a chip shop (where a drunken stranger accused me of being a compulsive gambler, just because I told Smill I was drawn to the fruit machine). 4. After standing on street corners for a while (sadly, but not too surprisingly, customers were not in evidence), we went back to my house, where we started trippin' on ICQ and watched a porno movie on a video labelled "Zed's Plaything". It was supposed to be this play type thing I'd written six years earlier, acted out by the girls in my school year. Unfortunately, everyone believed it was the *right* video . . . 5. I watched "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels". Again. I couldn't bear to abandon my lack of life completely, see. For that matter, I had some weird dreams, I went on the computer (which was a bleendog), I listened to the LS+2SB soundtrack, I started reading "Marabou Stork Nightmares" by Irvine Welsh, I played ping pong with Noj, I spoke to some of my acquaintances on the phone, I wrote a bit but it was pants, and I ate, slept and breathed. As well as going for a walk at 5am with Will and Roe and winning at Monopoly. Although admittedly it doesn't really compare to what happened after Smill, Roe and Will had left. No, never mind what Zed and Chris got up to, think of Smill and Roe in a car together! Woo! 6. I turned eighteen. I can now buy solvents (yay!), place ads in personal columns (double yay!) and have gay sex (excellent!)
7. I received some presents. They included a provisional
phone (for when I go to university), a provisional student
railcard (ditto), a CD-carrying case, a backpack, a hairdryer,
money (one portion in the form of an anorexic Eastern European -
well, a fifty pound 8. I got a phone call from my friend Katrina, who moved to New Zealand on 15 August 1996! It was the first time I'd spoken to her since and her accent had gone completely New Zealand-ish. Twigilet (rsergrrl, literally) also phoned, and we spoke for rather too long. 9. I watched the solar eclipse, on TV and a piece of card. Will and I considered doing so together, as it would be Romantique, but 1. Chris would get jealous (he really fancies Will) and 2. Will had to work. 10. I left the house on three further occasions. I visited my aunt and grandparents, saw "Star Wars Episode Einz" with my parents, and went to the dentist's and the bank. However, don't worry. I haven't suddenly acquired a life, only borrowed one, and I have to take it back to the library today. In due course, I'll return to quoting "Everyman" and exclaiming over my favourite song of the mo- I'm currently listening to "Liar Liar" by The Castaways. It's FUNCHIE! See? No manner of danger. Wednesday 18 August 1999 Barclays Bank Must Die! Initially they wrote and said, "In due course, we will send you some bumph about Barclay Cards. Be prepared." "Oh no!" I cried. "I'm so scared!" But the warning turned out to be justified. A few days later, they sent me an application form. That was ok; I just threw it away. Then, yesterday, they sent me another application form. "Time's running out!" it yelled. "Apply now or die!" That too was just about forgivable. It was unlikely but possible that the first form had gone missing in the post / been eaten by the fish, although you would have thought that if I was so desperate for a Barclay Card, I'd have made my own enquiries. But what comes in the post today? Yet another application form, telling me that the deadline for applying has been extended. "AAAAAAAAGH!" I screamed upon the sight of it. So loudly that I woke up Noj. What pleasure do they get out sending mass junk mail? If they hadn't wasted so much money on it, they could have reduced the cost of Barclay Cards, and I might have even applied for one. But as it is, I'm never giving in! Tuesday 24 August 1999 I got my A Level results on Thursday. I suppose I should tell you what I got. If I really have to. I know it's taken me a while, but I did write an entry about it last Thursday. I just decided against posting since it consisted almost entirely of "yoj!"s. So we can say they're good. Indeed. Disgusting, actually. 5 'A's, if I have to be honest. The only thing that consoled me was visiting a few websites belonging to folk already at Churchill College, where some have even ickier grades. At least one of my 'A's was in General Studies, which I did no work for, besides spending about hour before the first exam reading the encyclopaedia and talking to Chris, definitive source of all useless knowledge. Anyway, there were several knock-on effects of my grades. 1. When I arrived at school, the headmaster said he wanted to talk to me. It turned out that the Cumberland News had phoned to say they wanted to take my picture (and smack my bitch up while they were at it). However, they told me to call them back at 10.30am, so to pass the time my mother took me to Virgin, where she bought me a reward. I found "Lovestruck" by Madness and there was a special offer where you could get five albums for thirty pounds, so she got me "Generation Terrorists" by The Manics, "Attack Of The Grey Lantern" by Mansun, "Version 2.0" by Garbage, "Paranoid And Sunburnt" by Skunk Anansie and "The Best Of The Undertones" by, surprisingly enough, The Undertones. 2. I called the Cumberland News at 10.30, and they said they'd be in touch within the next hour. Mum couldn't be bothered hanging around, so she abandoned me on the streets. I spent the next hour wandering around the shops, buying "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" by J.K. Rowling, "Megan²" by Mary Hooper and "Suspects" by David Belbin. At 11.35, I couldn't be bothered sticking around any longer, so I was about to purchase "The Queen And I" by Sue Townsend then leave, when the mobile phone rang. By that time they already had someone's photo, but they wanted to interview me. They had interviewed me two years earlier when I got disgustingly disgusting GCSE results, but because there was no story attached - I was happy and surprised and I didn't know what I wanted to do the following year, nothing interesting - all I ended up with was half a sentence on the front page. So this time I should have known to give them a story. Such as: "Our only car got stolen just before the exams and I'm allergic to public transport and don't own a bike, so I had to walk twelve miles to school in order to get each exam." Unfortunately, I'd already told them I intended to get the bus home later. Or: "My mother died the day before every exam." Unfortunately, this seemed a bit unlikely, since they knew she'd been with me earlier. Or: "I'm really a refugee from Kosovo and didn't a word of English until I came to England in early 1999." Unfortunately, they probably knew I'd taken one exam last year. So I told them the truth. I did at least get a sentence to myself this time - "'Zed' got five grade 'A's and will take Computing at Cambridge University" (and I was one of the few people in the article to get their chosen specialised subject mentioned) - but it was on the slightly more dubious page three. 3. While I was on the phone, who should enter the shop but Chris, the fourth out of five people in my (former) school year I met in the town centre that morning. He gave me a lift home, and we visited Will on the way. Will's house was the first of three that I entered for the first time that day. A record! (In addition to all the CDs I'd acquired.) 4. In the evening, the majority of my school year (the majority of the A Level students in the area, in fact, and then some) stayed at home and watched "You've Got Your Results. What Now?" programmes on TV. Not! I arrived in Carlisle at seven thirty and got into a taxi to defrost myself eight hours later. If that was supposed to be August, I'm not going out in January! It was 5.30am before I went to bed. Smill and I slept together (she's a right slapper). At 9.30am I got up, after little slumber, and watched cricket (!) until my mother picked me up from Liz's house, where I'd stayed. As well as buying my first alcoholic drink (it was 70p! what a rip off!), I had my first real "Heech! I Don't Have Any ID!" scare that night. Luckily, I didn't need it, but it was silly, since I was finally old enough to get into clubs, but still couldn't prove it. 5. When I got home, I had more post than I've had in ages, although I have been getting a fairly steady stream of it for the last fortnight. A postcard from my penpal / online friend Jen, a birthday card from Katrina, three congratulations cards (containing money, yippee!) and a letter from Cambridge. Cambridge sent me this form to fill in about accomodation. Up until then, I'd been hoping for "A Room" but I shouldn't have even dreamed of such a ridiculous notion. Firstly I had to specify what sort of room I wanted or how much I was willing to pay for a room. That was fair enough. Then it asked what floor I wanted to be on, whether I wanted to be on a non-smoking staircase or not, whether I wanted a room that looked in or out and which way I wanted my room to face, and I had to list my preferred features in order! 6. It'll be another month before I leave for university, but I'm on the excited side, so I keep making lists of Things To Take With Me. Luckily, my Dad recently acquired an enormous van that can easily contain a few upright pianos, so there might be just enough to space in that to take all my possessions south. My parents have suddenly lapsed into ultra-generous mood (as opposed to ultra geenerous mode). Not only have they ordered me a mobile phone, but I'm apparently getting a normal phone, an exercise bike that works and a toaster. I'm also - with a bit of luck - getting a computer. Yes, I know I already have one, and I love it dearly, but I have to face the facts. It's a ten-year-old Archimedes 310 with a luxurious forty nine megabyte hard drive (with 1572K unused) which is probably not the best machine for a Computer Science student. Saturday 28 August 1999
Zed's light has blown, there's no one home,
It is safe for Zed to say
Normally, poems I wouldn't have written
* Our ghost. We've had him since at least October.
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