Sex in the Noughties

Apparently (according to Channel 4), no one is ever going to 'do it' like Girl with a One Track Mind.
Wheel in Zoe Williams (she writes for The Guardian so she must be right) to say that a great number of blogs are just dross.
Then to cap the programme off- which had hitherto disguised itself as a celebration of blogging, the freedom of writing anonymously and a sexual revolution for women in the noughties- 'The Publisher'. 'The Publisher' comes on to tell the viewers that 'The Publishing Industry' has become very cynical about blogging. That bloggers who are hoping for a book deal are going to be sadly disappointed.
No Shit! Writing without profit? How dare they?
The proliferation- more than quadrupling the number of blogs written over the last three years- is presented as an inevitable decline in quality, originality or significance.

I beg to fucking differ.

I'd like to say that blogging is a democratisation of writing, and that every individuals story deserves a space, and that I look forward to the time when more than a privileged few (programme makers, publishers, intelligent press) get to describe the world and their view of it.
I don't want to hear what they have to say. They speak the language of the institution safeguarding itself.

I want to hear your voice.

Men and Buses

Interviews are like men and buses. You get nothing for six months and then two come along at once.
So, i'm sitting here squirming. I have to pull a weird face every time i think of some of the answers i gave yesterday. Lets call this my Big Break Job. It's my Big Break Job because it's in exactly the right environment with exactly the right target group, and although it's only a tiny little bit of work, all the other things going on there are right up my street (if only i can get into the street, by whatever means, i must get parked!). I considered it my job as soon as i saw it. I prepared to the max, as none of the agencies had called me this week so i had no work.
They didn't ask me anything that i had prepared for. So i was left with my on the spot skills.
God only knows if i made any sense at all.
Number Two on Friday. Number Two is one of those jobs that are in the right environment and could lead to really interesting things (if not well paid things).
Then again it might not.
I really need them both.
I guess i'll just have to wait and see now, wont I?

Deliverance

After just over 12 months in my 'new' home, i have finally got round to unpacking my books.
A lack of shelving has been my excuse.
I took them out of their boxes and dusted each one off carefully; then i carried them into the house and put them where the shelving will (sometime) be. After i had unpacked around eight boxes, i realised that the piles were not the size that they should have been. Somewhere beneath all that other stuff there was another box languishing, 'a-mouldrin' in the garage.
I pictured the book that i wanted, it was the one that i had used for my masters dissertation.

I rang the bookshop to see if they had anything by Sophie Calle. The lady said that there was little in print of her work at that time. There was one book that was actually a catalogue from a retrospective at the Museum of Tel-Aviv. Amazingly, a copy had been ordered to this store and had never been picked up by the customer. I convinced her to let me have the copy; it was the most i have ever spent on a book.

After much rearranging of heavy boxes i found the culprit, at the bottom of a large pile. I knew as soon as i opened it- that damp smell, the carcasses of woodlice. The box was sooty and soft and the worst affected volume was my precious museum catalogue. I have rescued it though. The damage is mainly to the cover, so it is still readable.

I can feel a change in the air. A vaguely detectable sense that things are soon going to be different. My eyes feel wider open, my senses sharper, and i feel like i am indeed the sum of all my experiences.

There are 592 search results from Google when i try to make up for the fact that i did not know that Dimitri died on the 19th July 2007.

I cannot report the details of his heart attack on the Moscow underground, nor can i report the wake attended by 50 people including some of the Volna performers group.

I discover that Monday would have been his 67th birthday and i try to think of a story to tell that is not news: a detail from the time i knew him that will record something more than the facts.

I think about the cherry blossom- we both noticed it at the same time- walking down a London street in February. It was truly a joy to see the pink petals above a row of scruffy shops.

I thought it was incredible that i met a Russian artist and his family on a tiny north african island last year.

There are some times when you know that, although you cannot say how, something is going to be an important part of your future.

Food sex food sex food sex

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Nigella Express absolutely fucking obscene?
Don't get me wrong. I really admire Nigella Lawson. She is obviously excellent at what she does, and i think she is incredibly attractive. I just think maybe she's gone all Madonna or Michael Jackson and she can no longer see/hear herself as other people do.
Obviously she is setting out to make food sexy, and to offer an alternative sexy to 'size zero skinny'. This is all very well. but what i have seen over the past couple of weeks on the show, i think, is obscene.
Last night she was making chocolate cookies in order to 'comfort' a friend. Self-referentially she commented that some people might think that the (obscene) amount of chocolate she had used for six cookies a little over the top. She followed this with the unbelievably outrageous comment, "But I don't think you can't put a price on human suffering"
WHAT? What the fuck? She's not talking about alleviating torture in oppressive political regimes. She's not talking about buying fairtrade chocolate because real human beings die on cocoa plantations in conditions which equate to slavery. No. She's talking about one of her fucking posh friends who's been dumped by some bloke!!!
Jesus Christ! It makes me feel naive, in that i forget that there are people out there who are so over- privileged that they can make a comment like that and not be burned by it's glaring misguided irony. This is what i find obscene.
I also object to the glamorisation of night-time bingeing in the programme. I know Nigella makes it look all sexy, and she 'needs' these fixes because she is a 'busy mum', but surely such advice is against some kind of National Health directive? You wake up, you're worrying about stuff, "you should go down to the fridge and pour sugar down your neck".
Last night she was drenching french toast in icing sugar and then covering it in pureed strawberries. Then she went back and ate left over bolognese sauce and bread. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Here is my objection to this. It's okay for upper-middle class (or whatever she is) rich people to eat whatever they want because A. they can afford really good quality food and B because food is their hobby or living. Fuck off! Food is a means of survival- it's the difference between being alive and being dead for some people. The programme justifies western gluttony for those wealthy enough to copy it.
If Nigella can't sleep, i suggest she has some sex -much better for de-stressing and promoting sleep- and failing the presence of her lovely husband: just have a wank love and leave the nations eating habits alone!

i like my air unconditioned

After three weeks, i have become used to the low hiss of the air conditioning.
I no longer have to tip my head slightly to one side in order to check that my brain/personality is not leaking away slowly through my ears.
The air con also makes me sneeze incessantly. I feel like the caged canary that they used to take down the mines. If i expire, then they will knock the building down: declare it unfit for human habitation.
The job i left in April only just covered my living costs. This job doesn't even do that. Another rejection letter hits the mat.
I try to remember who i am, but the thought is lost in the daily mechanics of the next hour. It gets hot in the office and i'm thinking of all the other things i want to do, and about having time to do them, and i have a flashback to those feelings of twelve months ago and the thought crosses my mind that the fear is still tagging the heels of my memory.

London Fashion Week (or I wish i'd paid more attention to what i was doing ten years ago)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a catwalk photographer?
I had never wondered such a thing, but i ended up doing it once.
It was one of those times when a friend says, " hey, i've got this gig, we get paid, we should do it."
So she and i find ourselves in this hangar-like construction in Pall Mall in 1997. We don't have a clue what we're doing, but there's this chalked 'map' on the floor and it has the names of some major publications kind of drawn into a weird shape. The words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS appear in the centre of this glyph.
We're way too early, but slowly photographers begin to arrive and position themselves at the end of the runway. They all know each other and they're talking about the previous show by Hussein Chalayan where the models appeared in full length black veils getting progressively shorter down the line until the final model had only her face covered.
We look kind of awkward, as the bunch assemble themselves around us into this amazing pyramid, where they're all kind of balancing on top of each other and supporting each others huge lenses. An older Italian guy starts shouting at me, "No, no,no! Not a tripod! It's a monopod! Not tripod, no!" I smile and look apologetic, then ask a really tall guy in front of me with big hair if he would mind moving to the left a bit. He gives me a look i can't decipher.
When the show starts, we just make it up as we go along (although we did have a plan to make sure we backed each other up and didn't miss anything). Towards the end we are staring down our lenses at Helena Christensen- she's obviously the star of the show because she waits at the end of the runway for longer than the other models did. I get some really good pictures of her, and then it's all over. The tower dis-assembles and the words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS have been scrubbed out.

A Girl walks into a bar...

and she meets: a US squadie; a Spanish dentist; an Irish graphic designer; a Columbian student and a school-teacher.
And he tells her that she is the most beautiful woman in the room, and he begs her to come and talk to his friends. He asks her if she would like a glass of champagne and when there is only half a glass to pour he goes to the bar and buys another bottle. He tells her that he wants to fuck her and asks her to come to the toilets with him right now. And when she says, "You are a beautiful boy, but i will not go upstairs with you, no." He says, "I will see you again and I will fuck you . I will see you again and I will fuck you."
And she takes his card, but the next day she doesn't even consider what might have happened if she called him. She takes a crumpled piece of paper out of her bag and throws it away without looking at his number or reminding herself of his name.
And when she is alone she wonders why she does those things. But she knows deep down inside (which is where her reactions come from) that he is not there that evening. And so she waits for him, patiently, to come.

Words v Pictures

I don't know how to say this, but i think we might need to have a break. I mean, i know i was all enthusiastic at our one year anniversary and all, but i'm having doubts about our long term prospects.
I mean we used to be doing it twice a week- and now i'm forcing myself to do once a week. On top of that, i've been spending a lot of time with u-tube recently. When we started out, i purposely restricted myself to words only. I wanted that challenge; to build up a picture without providing one for you. But after all, i 'm a visual person. Maybe i need pictures to keep me turned on.
I also feel our relationship is a little one-sided. What with you all blocking your IP addresses and everything. How can i read you if you won't let me? and if you are reading me you're just not prepared to talk about it. I've been trawling through Site-meter and not getting any joy. I can't see you and i'm losing the buzz that made me want to look.
It's all so cloak and dagger with blogger isn't it? that was the thing that attracted me in the beginning, but now it's the thing that drives me crazy.
I mean with u-tube, you just show each other what you've got, you can say if you dig it or not, and than you can go and find out who does and who doesn't. It's a bit more of a level playing field and the numbers are right there in front of you to keep you going.
After all people are more open to images than words aren't they, access to them is not limited by education, language or by the quantity you have consumed?
Well, that's how i feel, let me know what you think. We can talk later.

Brian-top marks for not trying

Add 16. Brian to win and here's why:
1. His assertion that 'women don't do proper poos. They just do little rabbit poo's, don't they?' was the funniest thing i've seen on television in a long time.
2. For telling Amanda that 'there's nothing worse than women worrying about their weight when there was no need to', and managing to say this without coming across as patronising or pervy.
3. Because he genuinely is so unassuming that he can't even bear the thought of winning (when Kara-Louise suggested it he had to go and cry in the toilet).
4. For dancing at any opportunity especially to My Way (which was cringingly copied by Ziggy- who couldn't really join in because he needed to go to the bathroom to do his hair).
5. For asking the Universe and having his three wishes come true (thanks to Noel Edmunds).

And Carole's finally let her hair down! And she's wearing red! And she looks really nice!

Ahhhh. Another year goes by and my application languishes unfilled.....

Hide

It was a funny sort of day. The weather was unpredictable, but she had decided to make the trip anyhow. She was wearing a dark blue wind-cheater and a pair of stout galoshes. At the age of eighty -four she noted that it took her roughly 11 minutes longer to get round the lake than it had last year. The steps of the hide were also quite treacherous, especially as they were currently damp. She held onto the handrail and made her way carefully towards the wooden door where she paused, listening for sounds.
There were none.
Inside the hut her eyes had to adjust to the dark. The slightly damp indoors/outdoors smell was familiar and comforting. She put out her hand to where she knew the wooden catch would be and lifted the plank which made the viewing slat. It clipped into pace and she took her time, sitting first the wrong way around on the bench and then carefully lifting one leg at a time over it. The bench was covered in some old carpet but she needed to be careful nonetheless.
Her favourite part was taking out the binoculars that had been a birthday present fifteen long years before. They fitted into her hands so well, although she had to keep a handkerchief to wipe her eyes, as the combination of the breeze and the closeness of the eyepiece made her eyes water somewhat.
She had been watching quietly for about fifteen minutes when she heard footsteps on the wooden steps outside, accompanied by whispers.
"There's someone in there."
"Shhh"
The latch lifted and a young woman entered behind a small boy who may have been about eight years old. They said hello, which was preferable to silence in such a small and intimate space. She noted that the woman's shoes were completely unsuitable: those very low but narrow heels which would sink straight into an inch of mud. She let them settle, noting that the woman watched for a while and then handed the binoculars to the boy, whispering, did he want to look? Every time she did so, he shook his head and pushed them back toward her in an odd reversal of the parent child roles.
"Can you see the Flycatcher up there in the willow to the left?"
The woman turned her binoculars in that direction, but it was obvious that she had not seen the bird, as her gaze remained unsettled.
"He's just between the branch that forks left and the next tree. Oh, I haven't seen a Flycatcher for many years. See how he swoops, there! Did you see him?"
But the woman seemed distracted.
The boy did not want to look and the woman got up to leave. The boy closed the slat and they left silently.

WANTED: Confidence at crucial moments.

i bumped into my Indian prince again yesterday. This time it was in the shop at the end of Hysteria Lane. I can't work out what it is about these encounters that really freak me out. It could be that he is so astoundingly beautiful. I couldn't even think of anything to say this time apart from, 'Hi, how are you?'
When am i going to grow up and turn into the kind of woman who seizes every opportunity to make herself fabulous and desirable no matter what her intentions toward the male in question?
I'm really annoying myself. At crucial moments i seem to become frozen, my personality drains away through my toes and i am consumed by a ridiculous level of self consciousness. I mean i can sit here now and say i am an intelligent attractive female who's friends enjoy my company, but i'm damned if i don't turn into some goofy 11 year old when i really need to pull it out of the bag.
I'm also past the age where this could come across as cute or endearing. I think it probably just comes across as disinterest or even worse-disdain.
I suffer similar symptoms at job interviews, in fact in many situations where it's absolutely imperative that i perform on the spot.
I suppose, what i really think is (deep down) that if anything is a genuine opportunity, that really could be important in your life, you'll get another shot (or two or three or four).
Am i right?

Heckler

Went to see some live comedy on Saturday night. Now i'm the kind of obtuse person who finds the fact that someone is in front of me actively trying to make me laugh inherently not funny.
However, my sister likes live comedy so off we went. We arrived at the venue just in time to see that every single seat was taken except a nice table for two right in front of the stage which had clearly not been chosen due to it's proximity to the currently empty mic stand. After a short discussion about the likelyhood of being picked on by the comics, we weighed it up, and decided that standing up all the way through would be far more uncomfortable.
The compere lighted on us immediately.
"So, are you two 'together' then?"
Not that old chestnut: two girls together - must be lesbians!
We motioned back and forth between ourselves, "Sisters...."
"Ah, sisters, I see. So where are your fellas then?"
We looked at each other silently understanding that the truth was not an option- Well, she's married and i'm.....well ....SINGLE.
I love it when these kind of complex messages go back and forth between people and yet nothing is said. My sister instinctively knew that i would have no desire to announce my status to this guy (or indeed to the whole audience). I haven't got a boyfriend! Okay, everyone?? Just in case there are any spare drunks hanging around who need someone to talk to ....
Anyway, she said, "They're not with us tonight."
Suitably neutral answer. Not quite lying, not giving too much information away. There was something about the use of the words "with us" that i just couldn't resist adding,
"You know, passed over- gone to the other side...."
We both started laughing hysterically at the comic timing, i mean it just came out- the way it would if we were at home or something. I wasn't meaning to be a heckler- it just came out! The compere just looked at us laughing and i could see him weighing up whether we could possibly be joking about such a thing: should we genuinely have experienced a tragic double bereavement.
He was kind of covering up the awkwardness and doing these quiet, under the breath, nervous filling noises.
After an indeterminable length of time where he admitted "I don't know what to say to that," still thinking that he'd better watch what he said just in case it was true and we were either demented with grief or just really weird, he cracked a gag about us getting mixed up and thinking it was a seance. By this point we were hysterical with laughter, tears rolling down our faces: as were the rest of the audience.
After that he moved onto the table next to us.

Another chance

This Sunday (15th) was our one year anniversary.
Who knew our relationship would make it to this milestone? And the best thing about reaching this point? We can start reminiscing!
So, here we go:
One year ago i wrote my first post. I was stuck in a job which just about paid the bills but ultimately made me miserable. I had no time and no energy to do anything but work and go out (to try and forget about work).
One year on, i'm completely broke, almost maxed out on borrowing power- but happy. Not only have i found an outlet for my thoughts here, but i have brought one of my other projects to stage one of it's life.
At this point, i still have no definite idea about how i am going to earn from now on. But i needed this space.
I'm even talking to people about collaborations! Me! Me who has always worked away on her own and thought that working with other people meant losing that all important control. I'm going to do a project with a friend who is a dancer, choreographer and writer. I'm also talking to a friend who is a DJ about making a film. Watch this space for further details.
It's bizarre. Even though i'm in the least stable position I've been in a long time i feel strangely assured that everything is going to be fine.
I also realised something massive about my emotional/relationship life. I have realised that everything i have done in this area in the last thirteen years has been a form of self-punishment. This seems incredible (how could i have been doing this for so long?)
Thirteen years ago i terminated a pregnancy to a totally unsuitable partner. I absolutely knew i could not have a child with that person. Not a shadow of a doubt, that would have been a disastrous move at that point in my life - just finished university, substituting my first part time teaching job by working in retail. He treated my pregnancy like an occupational hazard. There was no need for debate.
I ditched him, he was angry, it was ugly, but worst of all, i felt as though i had killed someone. Depending which way you look at it, maybe i had. My friends that didn't go to university were getting married and having children. I consequently embarked on a single-minded quest to pursue relationships with men who either could not or would not be with me in any real way.
This revelation, the common factor in my messy history has only come to me in the last month or so.
I want to say, not for anybody else's sake but my my own, that i forgive myself. I forgive myself for the decision i made in those circumstances. That impossible decision that lurks somewhere in women's minds if not directly then through our friends, our mothers, our sisters lives.
I'm not a bad person. The reason i have not manged a relationship in the last thirteen years is because i have forgotten how to be nice to myself. i do remember what it feels like to be loved and i acknowledge that it scares me. I love passionately but most of all i deserve and look forward to being loved in return.

Untold Stories! New- with sound!

Ewww! I've finally got round to putting music with my posts!
The joys of unlimited free time!
This has made my week. I've gone back through all my posts and put in soundtracks for some of them.
Not all the songs that i wanted were available. Nonetheless, i am a happy woman!
If you've got time to scroll back you can hear all kinds of Nina Tunes.
There's one addition in particular that has an important function.
If i haven't mentioned my love-life lately that's because there has been a hiatus. I need to say googdbye to someone and that track is my goodbye. I usually have to force myself to cut off from people when a relationship ends, "Now you really need to stop thinking about x, y, z. It's not going to do any good to think about it any longer." etc.
But this has been different- which is odd considering i just spent the last eighteen months (?) thinking about that situation far too much.
I've just stopped. I have no plan, no strategy in place, it's just gone. It's not even vaguely there in the back of my mind. It pops up now and again, but i don't have the desire to go into it any further.
So, this is it. I did not get a chance to say a lot of the things that i wanted to: so this is my goodbye.

To my future husband:
i know what you're thinking.....
You're thinking, " Is she going to write about me like that? Is our relationship going to be the subject of the love of my life's on-line ramblings?"
Although you will deny it, you are the coolest guy in the universe. Our life/relationship will not be documented here, because it will be swirling and whirling around us; wrapping us up and keeping us warm and happy. It will be too real to be pinned down, consigned to words and then history. It will be now, not then. And when we get together; i will just have to find something else to write about.

A Girl walks into a bar...

and it reeks of toilet cleaner!!!!!!
So, we all had our first outing this weekend in 'Smoke Free Britain". And we've all heard what smokers think about it. But what about those of us who don't smoke (anymore). I mean, i've always known i've been inhaling carcinogens every time i enter a bar (whether first or second-hand) but i didn't realise i was also inhaling noxious industrial strength toilet cleaner. It's revolting! I much prefer the smell of smoke! A couple of bars were burning incense but good lord, as if that's going to mask whatever it is they use to do whatever they have to do to clean up after us. I found it most disturbing/off-putting- i certainly wouldn't eat in a place that smelled like that....
And then, you're standing there having the usual backward and forward mixture of gossip, stupidness and lahdy lah lah when suddenly your companions all look at each other and say, "Okay, we going outside then?"
Not only is this inevitably at some crucial point in the conversation, but then to cap it all, the non-smoker has to 'look after the drinks!!!!!' I need a strategy here otherwise i'm going to be doomed to be drinks-looker-afterer for ever more. i think i need to make a badge that says, As a non-smoker i abdicate all responsibility for any drinks or their contents, whether known to me or otherwise tampered with, left in my (drunken) charge.
Although this is clearly weather dependent, the conversations outside take far too long for my liking. Of course, they're all standing there talking to other smokers about how awful it is!
So the smokers are out there making 'new friends' while the non-smoker is guarding the bloody drinks.
I even went with them on the fifth or sixth trip out.
There's only one thing for it.
I'll have to start smoking again.

For Fifi

I didn't go back to show that woman my portfolio for the photography job. I figure that the only reason she would be so unbelievably disdainful towards another woman whom she had never met, would be because she was in love with the previous post-holder.
I bet he was a man in his forties (or maybe a bit older) but who seemed fairly hot to a woman in her fifties (or maybe a bit older). I can see him in his leather jacket- probably brown- one of those weather-beaten ones that looks like it's been everywhere with you "and boy, have i been everywhere". I bet he was the kind of guy who made women attracted to him, not because he was especially attractive or even a good person to be with, but just because he believed himself to have that power.
A communal darkroom is a space that is bursting with awkward moments that lend themselves to interpretation. That red or amber light that you work under, the silence of people concentrating on their own calculations, the repeated and rhythmic movements from enlarger to chemicals. The swish swish of the liquids and the tapping of the prints at the ends of the tray.
His pupils will have admired him- such a contrast to their suburban experience. He hints of previous lives that involve travelling, dedicating himself to his work and make for interesting anecdotes during the class.
But she had a different relationship with him. As centre manager, it was she who gave him the work. She was impressed by his confidence, and with the stories that were attached to his photographs of places he had visited and of the things he had chosen to record. Of course she said he would be perfect for the job. He made jokes with her and made her feel as though she were not as angry as she usually was. She looked forward to Tuesday evenings more than she should. She found herself thinking about what she was wearing on those days, and undoubtedly making a little more effort. Just a touch more make-up, an extra piece of jewellery.
At closing-up time there was always something in the air. There was a hesitation when it came to leaving that she felt was mutual. It would be unprofessional of her to initiate anything, but if he were to ask her: that would be a completely different matter. She tried to communicate this with her voice, her manner and her actions but perhaps she was being too subtle. In the two years that he worked for her, she came to be attached to this ritual. It was comfortingly familiar and she never ceased to give up hope that one day he would ask her.
Then he announced the news that he had been offered a full time post in one of the colleges. It was as though the desk behind which she sat had lurched backward straight into her stomach. He was pacing around in obvious excitement and it took all she could muster to think of an appropriate response. She couldn't even remember what she had said afterwards, but it was of no consequence to him, such was his triumph that he had finally received his just desserts. She would have liked to have stood and shook his hand, but she could not.
When he finally left the room to begin the lesson, she was numb. She was at once numb and destroyed. She could not narrate her feelings, but knew that without this there was only a huge gaping hole. The only way that she could fill this hole, was to begin, angrily and immediately, to advertise the vacant post.

WANTED: Gig Buddy

Being at home during the day has it's advantages.
I got to listen to the White Stripes do their live tracks on radio 1 this lunchtime.
Downside is, i can't afford to go and see them on Friday. Also, none of my friends want to go! I've got a bone to pick with Icky Thump though: it's 'Ecky Thump' (as in 'Eck' being short for 'Heck'); being a comedy Yorkshire exclamation. Unless they have some reason for changing it to an 'I'. If anyone has an explanation I'd be glad to hear it.
We went to see Massive Attack last year. There was a moment during Unfinished Sympathy where we all looked at each other and said, "Soundtrack of our lives".
Bit of a corporate affair that festival though. Lots of big fancy cars and couples in matching denim outfits wearing expensive jewellry. As soon as they went off stage, everyone piled out. No vibe there (man).

Communing with Yorkshire

We went camping and i turned into a kind of nature-driven maniac. We camped at the base of Goredale Scar. The sides of the Scar rise up above the site and naturally you'd want to run up there, wouldn't you?
In fact, i was the only person who wanted to run up there. The sun went down behind the top and i realised that there would be a fantastic sunset up there. Having failed to convince my fellow campers, i strode off at a pace (in case the sun beat me to it). It was harder going than i thought. About a third of the way up my heart was pounding so much that i felt slightly sick. i turned round to sit down and the drop /view of the bottom made me glad i was not standing. I waited till my heart rate slowed a bit and breathed through it, tried to enjoy it rather than be scared. The rest of the way was pretty much a hands and knees kind of scramble. I reached the peak that was the highest point visible from the ground, and lo and behold, this was not the top!
I thought about going back down (because i would not be visible from this point on). The sun was creeping further down. I tried to imagine where explorers get that desire to keep going and then thought how disappointing it would be if i didn't see the sun set. What if there was another bit after this one?
There wasn't. I reached the top and a limestone shelf spread out before me. The sun was about ten minutes away from setting and i sat down and watched it drop gradually. I thought about masturbating but didn't.
Later on, after i got back down (which was equally scary) i had a really bad attack of the giggles. I was crying with laughter. Every time someone said something i thought of something else which was vaguely connected but ridiculously funny - to me anyway.
One of my friends said, "God help the next man that you have sex with."