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Stipend
26 June 2005
For those of you keeping score: I haven’t thrown up all day. Which is a good thing, but it leaves me a little adrift. If I’m not being ill, what am I doing? Well, I’m not going to my good friend Val’s ever-so-slightly-more-than-49 party, which is where I was meant to be. I may not be throwing up, but I haven’t actually eaten anything for three days or so, and this is not the time to start chucking alcohol into my poor abused stomach, and lovely as I am, I don’t believe I could actually get through a party without drinking. Never done it, never tried it, never want to. As well go to dinner and not eat...
So, in my newly pure and cleansed state, I have been taking advantage of this uncorrupted palate and testing all the various waters I have in the house, from bottled mineral to freshly filtered tap. Interestingly, I have come to the same conclusion I’ve been working on for years, in my utterly impure, unclean and thoroughly corrupt state: which is that filter it as you will, tap water is still dull and flat and tasteless, while Volvic remains my bottle of choice.
Having asserted this, I set about improving the tapwater with heat, honey and lemon: which felt bold, but had no ill effects. No whisky, please note: the boy is seldom a good boy, but he is not entirely stupid.
The other thing I did - in tribute to Val’s party, because I promised that I would, in my absence - I shaved my head. Been thinking about it for years; never been sick enough to do it before. This time, if people laugh I can blame delirium. Not that it’s that dramatic, next to the deeply-short haircuts I’ve been favouring anyway. Just a lot cheaper, really, given that you can do it yourself. Tho’ I may have to buy a razor of some kind, if I’m going to make a habit of this. When I say ‘shaved’, what I actually did was run the beard-trimmer over it, which leaves me with a close stubble. Having come this far, I find I am curious to know what it would be like entirely smooth. Me and Jacob, it’s a brother thing...
© Chaz Brenchley 2005
Reproduced here by permission of Chaz Brenchley, who asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.