2004-07-20..5:06 p.m.

The hot water tap in my flat as gone. Not stolen in the night, but as in the boiler�s not working and this morning�s *shower* was not so much a shower as a yelping high-pitched dance on the tips of my toes trying to avoid the gradually freezing spray, while splashing myself gingerly with a loofah. And then for some reason my entire journey to work this morning was inundated with the scent of freshly spilled urine. Preferred first-morning experience? Preferred first-morning smell? No. You would be right in assuming no. Which is just as well my first-morning experience was a warm heavy arm creeping across my belly, and my first-morning smell was mingled, bleary-eyed Boy.

Speaking of pee (well, I was before I started to get all vomit-inducing with the Luv Thang), why is it your pee smells like overbrewed coffee when you drink too much of it (coffee, I mean)? Why, too, does your pee smell like asparagus after you eat that? It goes a bit greenish too, though only a bit. Like you�re physically ridding yourself of the freshly squeezed remains of the vegetable, peeing stalks. Which I suppose in a way, you are. Why doesn�t it happen with grapefruit? Or cake? Or popcorn? Or does it, and I�m just not connoisseur enough to pick up on it? What else allows one�s urine a delicate bouquet? Why am I worried about this? Enough! No more of the olfactory experience that come with the release of bodily fluids!

In fanfuckingtastic news: SPIDERMAN! Boy and I went last night and gorged gleefully on Cadburys� Buttons and peanut M&Ms (the mere chocolate ones are no fun now that they lost the light brown ones) and got thoroughly excited over Stan Lee�s cameo (he pulled one of the [many many many] screaming blonde girls� out of harms way when Doc Ock nabs Aunt May and starts tearing chucks out of a building as he climbs it.) O the taunting Spidey got in this one. It was excellent. Even better than the last AND they stuck (primarily) to the original story line. I am a complete and utter chickenshit with anything remotely suspenseful (seriously. Buffy? I spend half the time in a foetal position, eyes fast shut, face buried in the hipbone of the person sitting next to me)(I so wish I were kidding), which meant that I spent much of the film clutching Boys arm and trying not to climb into his seat so I could more easily crawl under his arm.

In shitty news: my plans for the Truck Festival have been stoppered. Completely. My ride up there (and donator of tent/camping equipment/etc) has had to bail at the last minute, which means that I can�t go. There is a bus somewhere, but I can�t afford it. This bites. I cannot tell you how much this bites. I�d been planning to go up to the Truck Fest for over a year and to have to pull it is fucking awful and I just feel like going a bit smashy over London. Not the safest or most constructive of therapies, but it as short-term relief it would make me feel a whole fucking lot better. He�s got a good reason too, which makes it worse. But yeah. Trucking is not in the stars for me this year. Which means no Chikinki, no Black Madonnas, no Chantelle Pike, no Guthries. No interviews or reviews or diaries. Nothing. And one of my review CDs for this month is Ruth Millikin. She is ONE OF THE GUTHRIES! I could have done such a cool feature on her!

I�m going to see if I can blag a ride up with someone else. There�s this photographer dude my editor was on about last month that he wanted to hook me up with. Doubtful, but possibly a lead. (Always out for the sunny side is me. Even when it�s shitting all over the place.)(or all over one place, namely my Truck place.)

The jukebox in my mind:

Always (Irving Berlin)