friends - adam and the ants

a sunday hangover always feels different to the rest of the week. probably because so many other people are hamstrung the same way.

we wake up somewhere between ten and two. headaches, light too bright, colours feel wrong as a jail-rape. we adjust, try to remember, give up. sink back into the pillows and the warm damp trench of bed.

i breathe out. fragments of the night before swirl in my skull like putting soya milk in my coffee by mistake.

eventually, i'll put enough fragments together to make some sort of narrative. who was there. what they were wearing. who i talked to. i'll get enough detail to figure out most of where the night before went.

it's only the sequence that defeats me. like a jigsaw where none of the pieces fit. endless variables and permutations, where all the colours have run.

and then it hits me! back to the grind tomorrow. it's hard to enjoy what's left of the weekend when monday morning's staring you out like a hoody with a pool-cue.

i could text somebody, but i don't bother. most of the people i know, i don't have numbers for anyway. the face in the club; just dead dots on an empty screen now.

thinking about last night, it occurs to me that some people i remember by their online nicks, others by their secret identities. there's no rhyme nor reason; i think of her by the same forename she pays rent 'n' taxes under, her Partner as The Name Of A Coil Song.

when i first meet someone, it's usually their online name i get first. for most of us, part of getting to know someone is sharing the names our parents gave us.

i read somewhere that social-networking sites, as well as robbing us of our attention-span, has altered the core definition of "friendship". made us measure "friends" by different criteria than previous generations.

when we're on facebook, not only are we keeping tabs on our friends, but more commonly, we're seeing how many friends they have. less than us means they're sad bastards who need to get a grip. more than us, they're sad bastards that ought to get a life.

a lot more than us and they're making it up; those aren't real friends; not in the real sense. not like you and me.