not quite chada

you have to laugh really. stampfer suffered another fit of paternalism and arranged for all us residents of his occult household to have a 'nice sit-down meal together'. i eat. it's unfortunate, as i consider eating a gross misappropriation of my hard(ly) earned money. but a sit-down meal?. i wasn't convinced i could be bothered but nick was really keen on this idea of his and he was bankrolling it so, why not? well, i'll explain why not.

i enjoyed a productive business meeting with wes. alan's been nagging me for more 'putting surface' for ages. the man is smoking like a rastafarian, but it keeps him happy and helps wesley buy those ridiculous baseball caps that he's convinced make him look like a pioneer of cutting edge hip hop.

so, with the help of wes and the good people at Cadbury's, i baked up some glorious muffins with which to unwind before/after nick's thai extravaganza. he's been telling me for some time about his specialist thai cooking skills and i wincingly admit: i was quite looking forward to it.

i wasn't disappointed. his pad thai tasted great, comparable to that from the chada thai restaurant in battersea, where i was asked to never return following a disagreement with the waiter over a mysterious bottle of £26 wine that somehow found its way on to the bill.

however, unlike the ill-fated meal at chada, stampfer's thai cuisine disagreed with my stomach with the same ferocity that i had disagreed with that deluded waiter. curiously enough i was the only member of our party who suffered this horrific food poisoning which, no doubt, led to stampfer suggesting that it might be my wes-infused cakes. i'm not so sure and took a brief respite from writhing in agony to urge him to 'fuck off and die'.

two hours of eternity passed before i felt capable of removing myself from my sweat-drenched bed and abandoning my faithful bucket, which fumed with the odour of poorly digested foodstuff. i decided that the only way to complete my recovery was to get utterly, hopelessly grilled. a special occassion, i removed from the wooden box under my bed a special blend known as 'durban poison' and made my way to the living room where gina and alan were in mid conversation about the merits of having a monarchy. i live with dullards.

crossers beamed with the delight of a deranged paedophile (is there any other kind, you ask?) when he saw what was in my hand and without a word he scampered up the stairs, i assumed to fetch his playstation console.

this was the first chance i'd had to indulge my intrigue since gina arrived. she wasn't massively forthcoming as we exchanged smalltalk, and all the while she looked at me with the same kind of fearful recognition that i'd seen in claire when i met her earlier in the week. not sure what that's all about but who knows the levels of weirdry that exist in the thought processes of the fairer sex. anyway, gina struck me as the sort of person who once thought she'd figured out the direction of her life but later became unsure. she seems to have a lot on her mind and i didn't want to pry, mostly because i don't particularly care and the last thing i need when my constitution has been amended by stampfers evil pad thai is a deluge of boring personal history.

alan returned with his beloved playstation and set about plugging it in to the absurdly large tv that nick had provided. i sparked up, took in, and offered to gina. she cocked her head and looked at the joint like a dog would a hedgehog and told me that she hadn't had any since college but she'd have a go.

her coughing echoed through the house and she fled to the kitchen in a flurry of hands before returning with a glass of water, a smile and eyes so narrow that you couldn't be sure there was anything in her eye sockets at all. she melted back into the seat while alan bogarted the joint.

suddenly the landscape had changed and there was a definite air of relaxation in the room. the three of us exchanged anthropological views. i said how weird i thought it was that, despite our sophistication and intelligence, us humans could not be trusted and had to be policed. gina commented that we were, essentially, still only primates driven by uncontrollable instincts. alan sagely uttered, whilst exhaling a stream of smoke, that we are the people our parents warned us about.

claire and stampfer had long since retired to bed and i decided to do the same, despite crossers' pleas for me to 'have a go on pro evolution soccer'. i was physically drained and mentally enlightened and sleep was definitely the best course of action. besides, i doubt we could've topped that hour-long discussion about the world we live in.

i left gina filing her nails, smiling to herself, and alan running around killing people or driving ferrari's or whatever.

they say you learn something new every day. i guess i learned that, despite being a fairly intelligent sort, nick stampfer is not to be trusted to cook a meal. i don't care if no one else fell ill, that eye-popping sickness can only be attributed to that lunatic's cooking.

if you die before my next posting, then have a nice life. otherwise, maybe i'll see you around.

Lost my shoes. Otherwise, feeling good.

peace and love
end message.
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Nine Rooms updates every Tuesday - Gina - Nick - Claire - Alan - Joey