So here she blows, ye lot:

Let me tell ye the story o’ the Bloody Whale
She’s as bloody as any pirate tale
T’was a dark old tale neath the crossbones flag
that heads did roll and hearts did sag

Yarr,
Yar!

And the mateys say Arr!
and the cap’n says Arr!
and the fishies say Arr!
neath the wild north star
an’ ol’ peg-legg says Arr!
and the first mate says Arr!
in t’ hold drinken rum
is where we are

An they came across a merchantman
and they slit their gullets to a man
T’was a dark old tale wit’ naught but fear
followed that crew fer many a year

Yarr,
Yar!

So there comes the crew o’ the misty isles
who ne’er afraid o’ pirate wiles
T’was a dark old tale that no-one knew
they be lyin’ now ‘neath the ocean blue

Yarr,
Yar!

And the mateys say Arr!
and the cap’n says Arr!
and the fishies say Arr!
neath the wild north star
an’ ol’ peg-legg says Arr!
and the first mate says Arr!
in t’ hold drinken rum
is where we are

When the seas run red and the drowned men float
ye grip yer oars and ye speed yer boat
T’was a dark old age that ruled the seas
When the Bloody Whale ran on the breeze

Yarr,
Yar!

So a yo ho ho an’ be drinken rum
cause this may just be your last one”

Yarr,
Yar!

And the mateys say Arr!
and the cap’n says Arr!
and the fishies say Arr!
neath the wild north star
an’ ol’ peg-legg says Arr!
and the first mate says Arr!
in t’ hold drinken rum
is where we are

suck on it, mastercard

I suppose i wonder to myself why I’m even talking about it. When growing up: I kind of miss it for that hour I could sneak out of the house and let my eyes drink in the pitch black, too far from the city for it’s persistent lights to illuminate the sky, at best a very hazy dim glow on the horizon, backlighting trees: transforming them into motionless, dark brooding sentinels of the night, when everything is mysterious and no longer subject to the rigorous determinisms of people and places that you move around but never touch: You can move freely without effect, nobody to see, or care, no missteps to be made. Elective sensory deprivation: Moving about, only being sure of your steps if you probed around with your feet beforehand or (for shame!) brought a flashlight to light your way. Flashlights! Aside from the occasional local power outage, I haven’t needed to use one of those things in many years (I swear I need to go camping sometime soon.)

A big factor happens to be merely where I live. For example, as I sauntered home this evening at the early [sic] hour of twenty past twelve, despite a clouded and otherwise starless sky, it was a perfectly lit, both from the lights of nearby urban populations reflecting off the bottom of the clouds, to the burning street lamps that light your every step, bright as day. No longer is there an obvious visual factor that tells you if it’s ten, twelve, or three: all are valid guesses. When the city never sleeps, when exactly is that dead hour supposed to fall?

So there is that obvious presence of the wakeful population, streets given to as much traffic at midnight as you would find on a weekday, after the morning rush hour but well before the lunch congestion. Higher populations lend to greater quantities of night owls like myself. Do I feel justified in ignoring this hour because everyone else does? Is there a need for justification? Is it even a relevant concept?

The bigger part of it, though, is just the unfortunate fact that I have grown up, and now regularly stay up well past it and on occasion well into the next day also. There’s nothing mysterious about a very late hour when your current habits make it something of an early hour. What used to be the full stop, the point in time to pull the plug and call it a night, when your eyes grew dim and you faded away… is now nothing more than a hint that you should start packing it up within the next two hours. Maybe. Perhaps then, it boils down to the chronic sleep deprivation i subject myself to: It’s the penultimate excuse to get to bed at a decent hour.

I miss midnight.

Eyes closed, face up, feeling raindrops splash down on your face from some unimaginable place in the sky.

Life is good, enjoy it… If you don’t nobody else will do it for you.

Yes, it’s been a while. Not quite sure why, to be honest. It was at least in part due to me getting a new computer since my laptop died, forgetting my login details, and being too lazy to recover them. Then i started getting mailbox warnings, so i could only assume the spam was piling up, so i got around to cleaning them up tonight. It feels kinda like tearing up weeds in the flowerbeds around the house when i was a kid. You know when the job is done, when all the fragments are gone, and all that’s left is the orderly posts of your peers, admirers, groupies, cohorts, et al.

Hopefully this post at least will start a reversal of the trend that has been my [non] blog the past couple months.

<noise type=”random” source=”camel” />

-Camel out

~25$ (CDN)

Buy in for an evening of drunken Mah Jong

~50$

Riding home in the rain blaring/singing along to Smashing Pumpkins with high school buddies:

Priceless.

I’ll (try to) post again when i get it back up. Until then…

Getting my position at the university has allowed me to mellow out and start to focus on other aspects of life. My contract just got renewed for another three months, which seems to be standard practice before hiring on for a permanent position. This keeps money in the bank account, rent paid, and camel happy.

It’s a nice security to have for the next few months, anyway, since tomorrow is moving day. For pretty much the first time, I’m moving by choice than out of necessity. I’ve got a room now with two good friends, which is closer to campus/work and quicker/easier transit, as well as other conveniences. As it happens, taking time to blog right now is a welcome procrastination from the otherwise onerous task of packing.

Also, by some stroke of unmitigated entropy, I now have a girlfriend. This reconfirms my suspicion that the universe is playing tricks on me. Or telling me to get on with my life.

Back to packing.

-Camel out

Thar be plunder out aplenty
and thar be treasures out aboot
thar be whiskey in the main hold
an’ the rum is takin’ root
an i drink here with me mateys
while the skuppers fill with soot
for it be talken like a pirate day
and gatherin’ of loot

Thar be sharks beneath the high seas
an a whale or two beyond
Thar be plunder ye aplenty
on both sides of the pond
Thar be gold dubloons for one or two
but nay i’ll not obscond
For today be talk like a pirate day
and nary none anon

Thar be ladies in the merchantmen
with soft and silken blouse
there be wenches in the taverns
who love grog and to carouse
but me only love i’ll ever take
the sea she has me nows
an’ ye say a word again her
an’ i’ll slit ye to teh towse

Ye may fear the mighty waves
an ye may fear the beasts below
but i got me grog, me whiskey, rum
I’m sopped down to me toes
And when we go aboarding ha!
it surely come to blows
for me loves to take a landlubber
an’ punch him in the nose

There be mists out on the oceans
an islands in the fogs
There be horrors ye forget about
or drown it in the grogs
an they say that all us pirates
we’re loose one in the cogs
but we’re all be hearty mateys
and blasted scurvey dogs!

We be pirates o’ the younger age
an pirates o’ the old
thar be those who seek the wenches
an’ those who seek the gold
but we band and seek the high seas
above the ocean cold
cause we are the ones who make the tales
of stories yet untold

Thar be plunder out aplenty
and thar be treasures out aboot
thar be whiskey in the main hold
an’ the rum is takin’ root
an i drink here with me mateys
while the skuppers fill with soot
for it be talken like a pirate day
and gatherin’ of loot

Knock back some grog and don’t let ye talk like a pirate day go awasted without having sung a chanty or two!