» Will you go out with me?

my first date was a disaster,
and i'm bloody lucky that mrs. monk hung on in there.
i'd met her while interviewing her for a job she didn't get (because i fancied her, and figured it would be a conflict of interest if i employed her)
i was scheduled to meet her after work for a few drinks and dinner, but had been held up by a friend's photography project i was helping on that day.
my role in said project turned out to involve 'mutilating' and 'raping' a poor young girl in her prom dress. think torn garters, exposed boobs, big knives and lots of ketchup. whilst this was all tremendous fun, it didn't make a particularly good ice-breaker when i arrived an hour late.
we then went for impossibly spicy korean barbecue, and me being in single (and already drunk mode), neglected to pick up the bill, leaving it for poor mrs monk-to-be. for shame. i'm still taunted about this, 3 years later.

but wait! on top of all this, i then had the audacity to take her to a party hosted by my ex.

we're getting married next year.
(Thu 28th Aug 2008, 21:34, More)

» Cringe!

when i first moved to london
i had a wonderfully cramped little shithole of a flat in oval. it was the first floor of a townhouse, with a columbian family above us and newlyweds with child beneath.
thankfully there was absolutely no sound insulation in the place so it went down a treat when i used my entire student loan on a pair of decks and a big fuckoff amplifier.
my pride and joy took pride of place in our tiny living room, set up on a dining table where you could effectively play to the living room, with your back to the living room window.

about this window. it was plastered by foliage. if you so much as opened it, you'd get half a tree, replete with blackbirds, squirrels and half a billion aphids right in the mush. as it stood, i couldn't see out onto the street very well. nor could you see in, if you went down onto the street to check.

and so it came to be that a young monk learnt his dj chops, usually from about 9:30am onwards. monk sleeps naked. monk wakes naked after housemate has left. monk clambers behind decks every morning. butt naked.

fast forward three years of blissful, drunken, loud shenanigans later. i'm at AKA above The End, and am skullfucking myself with absinthe when a beautiful young thing saunters right up to me, a playful smile on her face.

'Don't I know you?' says she.
'I'm sure you may...' fap.
'I think you live on Offley Road, in Oval, don't you?'
'Number 33, that's me!' fap fap.
'I watch you dj every morning from my window across the street. you always look like you're having a lot of fun.'
no fap.
cringe.
(Mon 1st Dec 2008, 15:28, More)

» Family codes and rituals

my dad
i can be watching any movie: star wars, harry potter, eraserhead, you name it. If he walks in the room during any movie, he'll look at the screen for two seconds, then announce 'True story, this.'
(Fri 21st Nov 2008, 17:18, More)

» I'm going to Hell...

i was about twelve at the time
when a friend came round to stay the night. AOL had just launched, and was all the rage amongst those who didn't know better. being impressionable twelve year olds, with a dwindling stash of dumpster porn, we decided that the internet would be an excellent way of finding new pictures of nudey ladies to look at.
being twelve, and being on AOL (which didn't really give you access to the internet without installing an external browser), we scoured the chatrooms in the hope of finding someone with an equal interest in onanistic material (not that we even really knew what to do with it at the time).
within minutes we had been approached by someone asking if we wanted to exchange pictures. having nothing of our own, our kindly benefactor agreed to furnish us with some of his to get started.
as the .gif slowly loaded, each line appearing slowly enough to heighten our already feverish anticipation, we realised that we were, in fact, looking at a naked twelve year old girl. and another. and another.
being twelve, this didn't really register as being anything wrong. it seemed perfectly reasonable to fantasise about the girls in your class, so we happily carried on scouring chatrooms, and amassing as much of this as is possible on a 14k modem in a single night (about 15 pictures, all told).
i have no recollection of the people who we contacted that night, but within a week or so, we had both agreed that something very, very wrong had occurred, and agreed to never speak of it again.
in which case, i'm going to hell for breaking our pact of silence. fuck.
(Thu 11th Dec 2008, 19:32, More)

» Cringe!

i am the absolute king of putting my foot in it
and whilst i have many stories for this particular post, i'm still a little haunted by a gaffe t'other week.
me and the missus had stopped in a pub (on the way home from another pub) in a desperate search for food / more booze. despite being quite the worse for wear, we struck up a few immediate friendships, and our drinks were all paid for by one kindly benefactor who insisted on plenty of shots of whiskey. who am i to turn down a free dram?
anyway, i wander up to the bar, and see the bartender is shaking a little, and his balance is off. i heartily pronounce 'jesus christ son, you're all over the place. you must be pissed as a fart!'

'no i'm not,' came the reply, 'i have cerebral palsy'.
(Fri 28th Nov 2008, 12:37, More)