Black and White and Read all over...

Well, inconstant reader*, today has been an odd, but wonderful day. It began with an impromptu lie-in (oops, missed church again :() and resumed at about half twelve when I crawled out of bed and began chatting to friends online, including a conversation with the lovelly Fortunata which involved us challening each other with various songs (making up for the lack of a Song Challenges thread now U-O is down) and generally enjoying the kind of mutual randomness I have with all my friends.

Eventually of course I had to get lunch and whilst it cooked and then whilst I ate it I watched the last few episodes of vol. 2 of Last Exile. Since I was a little harsh about it last night, I feel I should now say that the two episodes I watched today were very good, even if the pace is still rather slugg- (or any other terrestrial mollusc) -ish. The imagination is still pretty high and the atmosphere is quite unique. I will have to endeavour to buy the rest of the series soon-ish.

Next on the agenda was, of course, the reading I mentioned yesterday, but wait, something's stopping me from leaving the flat. Is it some malignant force? Am I becoming trapped in a Silent Hill-Esque madman's nightmarish world? Is this all just a metaphor for stage-fright?

The answer to all those questions is a resounding no. The problem was actually quite a simple one. My flatmate, the Other One, had locked me in by accident. You see we have two locks on our front door and in a flagrant abuse of health and safety laws (probably) one of them can only be locked and unlocked from the outside. We usually use this for locking the flat up in a more secure manner when no one is left inside, today however, the Other One absent mindedly (as proven by his later response of "I don't remember doing that") ignored the fact that I was still quite evidently (we share a room - that's room, not bed) fast asleep and on the inside. Of course, havign slept in and thus not tried to go to church and having no other reason to leave the flat until the reading, I only found out about this at the most inopportune moment, with half an hour until I was supposed to be at the pub we were reading in.

Frantic texts were sent and phone calls made ina desperate attempt to get someone to set me free. I even found myself in the rather ridiculous position of kneeling by the letterbox and whimpering pathetic "Hellooo?"s out into the hallway. Anyway, eventually the Other One returned to let me out and I pegged it as fast as I could to pub, somehow arriving only 5 mins late and, rather quizzically, a few minutes before Eruntane, who was suppsoed to have gotten there before me to inform them of my lateness and the amusing reasoning behind it. She only lives 5 minutes from the pub as well, whereas I live a good twenty minutes away if you don't include running as a viable method of getting there on foot (and I usually don't).

The reading went well after that. I read my two short pieces well, with the slight flaw that my legs wouldn't stop shaking from the nervous excitement I had otherwise shed when I stepped up to the mic. Applause sounded genuine and the other writers congratulated me (and, rightly so, each other - we rock!) and then we listened to the Staff Writers do their bit before bitching about a soon to be ex-member of the society (he deleted all his - and notably the only -copies of our Anthology -which would otherwise have earned us much needed money when we made another run of them - and then had the cheek to blame it on other people's supposed pettyness, suffice to say he is Persona Non Grata and shall be referred to as such in future - or perhaps just PNG) and then ehading to McDonalds for food and further conversation, which eventually made it's way to someone's flat and was well watered with tea and coffee before the night was done, which you will find it now as and, on that note, I bid you adieu.

*C.F. Stephen King