Unless it owns us first...
I am a little late updating this week. Oh don't get me wrong, I have a lot of material. But it is all sitting in draft and waiting for the muse to strike so that it can be expanded upon. Stupid muse appears to be taking a min-break, or is actually on strike in which case a strongly worded letter to the Muses Union may be in order.
However I am cracking on regardless because nature (and blogging) abhors a vacuum, which rather conveniently gives me a reason to put this here.
I was having a chat to my old friend Al the other night. I say "chat" but it was 4.00am and we were drinking whisky so it was more of a sharing of deep and profound insights. Which were very deep and extremely profound because we were sharing them the early hours of the morning accompanied by hard liquor.
Mum always used to tell my brother and I that nothing good happens after 2.00am. But whilst I can see where she was going with that whole "aversion therapy" thing I have to say that some pretty freaking awesome things have happened to me after 2.00am. I just wish I could actually remember more about some of them.
The funny thing is that when you sit up all night talking and drinking the drinking tends to become incidental by 2.00am. The whole "nightcap" concept is really just so you have an excuse to keep talking, you might just as well be drinking herbal tea really. But obviously that is not nearly as cool and Hunter S Thompson-ish as sitting up with a bottle of whisky between you telling stories and then realising that that loud chirping sound in the background means that you have, as Larry Miller would say "beaten the night".
And if you haven't seen his "Five Stages of Drinking" routine please go here immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piPyfqAKf6o
Funny right? I mean also horribly wrong in it's blatant disregard of health and safety by normalising the irresponsible consumption of adult beverages.
But also really funny. And most of us have had a few of those nights. When you and your new BFFs spill out of a bar into the dawn's early light and realise that three hours of DIY Kareoke and sorting out World Peace have exhausted your kebab reserves and they require immediate replenishment.
Of course aging is a bastard and nowadays it feels more as though the night has jumped you in a back alley, beaten you up, and left you lying behind the dustbins where a small furry animal has crawled into your mouth and expired.
I need now require an IV infusion and three days of uninterrupted sleep as opposed to a bacon sandwich and a large trim flat white to feel semi- human again.
It was worth it though. Because Al is a far better writer than I could ever aspire to be and he has a unique and wonderful perspective on the world.
Amongst the mysteries that he was able to clear up for me, the fact that being whelmed is a thing. I have always been puzzled by the underwhelmed, overwhelmed - to which I SO want to add "Wombling free" - scenario.
Wombles here - feel free to sing along - I won't tell anyone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQMMPFtoG4
So back to the whole whelmed thing - you can be under or over so why is no one ever just "whelmed"? As in "that was a really whelming experience" or "I've been really whelmed at work this week"
Turns out that you can be, to be whelmed means to engulf entirely with or as if with water. It's an old nautical term usually applied to a boat that is taking on some water. If the boat is "overwhelmed" then it most likely going to sink. Which means that "underwhelmed" is more of a metaphor for "there is no water in the boat", so basically a neutral situation as opposed to one that leaves us feeling disappointed or let down. But of course we don't use "underwhelmed" like that because the original meaning has been lost in the mists of time - which is another phrase that I must remember to get to the bottom of one of these days.
And Al just knew that off the top of his head, sometimes your friends can whelm you with how clever they are, at 4.00am on a Sunday morning, with whisky.
Luckily Al only comes up here every two years or so.....Al, my liver thanks you.
And this is for you my friend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2-LW45fQH8
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