Drunk vs dRuNcK
I don't mind when K and I get drunk; or between tipsy and drunk I actually mean. When we've eaten supper and are curled up in front of a film or are reading books or playing computer games, and the liquor in the bottle goes down at a companionable, leisurely, measured rate.
I don't like it when neither of us have eaten supper and he goes at the bottle like it's inconsequential, refilling his glass once or sometimes twice before I've finished my first. This on top of the fact I am usually on my first or second beer/seltzer and he has long since finished his fourth.
At this point, he will suddenly become super talkative - about history, politics, mental health, sex, relationships, morals, religion... Y'know, all those discussions that are best had sober because of the strong opinions involved.
For example, there's the time he told me the IRA bombing campaign in England was a collaborative conspiracy between MI5 and the BBC. (Having also told me previously he thought the Beeb was trustworthy and decent.) I know one person who died when his car was blown up. To add insult to murder, the IRA had targeted the wrong car - it wasn't even him they wanted to kill. Also L and her mother were in the bombing at Harrods. They experienced the blast. Please don't tell me it's some stupid conspiracy. (In fact, go - go tell your genius truth to L or her mother - I dare you.)
You think the IRA were totally justified in their bombings. Bombings which could at times be targeted, at times indiscriminate, and at other times an utter fuckup. You call them freedom fighters. I call them terrorists. I don't think either of us are gonna budge much on that.
But at the same time, I also think the British government were a bunch of cowards and bastards for not voting on (and for) 'Irish Home Rule' as they called it back in 1914 (I think that was the year). Had they done that - voted in Irish Home Rule - none of the Troubles would have ever happened. England's relationship with all of Ireland would be more akin as how it is with Scotland and Wales. ie they think, You historically murdering bastards. We don't like you much, but at least we can get along these days and not have all out war... Plus even if you're not your own completely independent single country, you can have different laws and a governing body that isn't Westminster. (As with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament.) That would have been undeniably better than all the violence that was inflicted instead by and upon both sides.
Don't @ me about the fact historically the English invaded - then the places they stole took umbrage - oh, and then the English slaughtered them. *engages sarcasm mode* Because ObViOuSly NO ONE in the history of the world had ever done THAT before. Invasion, historically, whether into the next village or the next country has been common practice throughout history.
Anyone with strong fighters/weapons/horses and a hunger for land, riches, or just an annoyance with another religion, was playing that shitty game back in the day. FFS, both the Welsh and the Irish have revenge story ballads about all the times they stole stuff or slaughtered one another or 'took young wives' (Yes, very poetic - Ed.) from forever before the 'English' turned up. I guess the thing is no matter the time they arrived and no matter the historical reason (they were varied but that's no bloody excuse) the English did seek to stamp out and subsume the Welsh, Scots and Irish culture in a way. Does that make it Colonialism?
(Def: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.)
Hmm. But must of it was done before 'colonialism' was a thing. I'd say it was invasion and occupation with an eye to naturalisation in the same way that the kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Essex, Sussex and Kent etc became what is known as the first Kingdom of England.
You love to forget, the English were neither the first nor the best colonialist bastards in history. We were just the most recent. (While we're on that subject, perhaps I could remind you that the colonists who now proudly call themselves American - keepers and purveyors of freedom the world over whether the world asked them to or not - all but wiped out the indigenous population of the country they stole and even today likes to keep them on specific pieces of land without functioning amenities? And I'm not demanding you wring your hands in shame, wishing anyone in history had behaved better. I'm asking why does the American government still behave like this? Why do so many communities not have a hospital, or store, or even piped sanitation and water?)
The O'Sullivan march to the south was an atrocity - I agree. But don't try to make me complicit in an act that happened 400years before my birth. If it comes to that, I have more Scots and Irish ancestry than you do. If we're going to try to portion blame in the here and now via who's grandma or great grandpa was oppressed by the English, I win. But you don't catch me banging on about 18thC dockers' strikes broken up violently by cavalry, or the fate of the Morrisons due to the Macaulays. Honestly I'm troubled that you are so passionate about a 400year old wound that cannot be healed but you don't turn that passion instead to present activism for minorities when there is still hope of doing good. It's easy to shout at someone about something historical that wasn't their fault and that they cannot fix - no doubt it makes one feel heroic and vindicated in some way.
Stop making up these imaginary hero's journeys in your head where you shame my hypothetical ancestors via ranting at me because 'I' slaughtered your clan. (My goodness that must have been one busy busy past existence of mine.)
Stop imagining quite what you will do if I am beaten up, or raped, or murdered. I'm not a plot point to you becoming a shabby Batman knockoff.
In short, please stop shaming me for things I didn't do and cannot fix, and also imagining that gross violence done to my person is some sort of hero/revenge origin story. (Or at least if you're going to, use it to write or draw or work out to - let it be to a purpose? Not just bloody revenge to a thing that hasn't even happened and I hope you wouldn't be happy about it if you did?)
Please take that passion/anger of yours and point it at the modern governments, the modern warmongers, the modern fascists. (And no, unless they're a fascist I don't mean heroically punch them or rant about how you would heroically punch them given a dark night and 30seconds down a dark alleyway. That helps your ego and perhaps your anger but no one and nothing else.)
Here in this time and reality is where the change can be made. Please don't tell me about fixing the world via time travel as if you were serious. That's not a thought experiment, that can't be treated any better than whimsy, especially since you are convinced only the changes you meant to change the future would do so, and that no form of Butterfly Effect would dare interfere.
To conclude: I like conversations with you - yes, even the one where you earnestly tell me I snore like a pig choking on a chainsaw.
But I don't like the conversations when you repeat yourself twice (not counting the three times you've ranted to me about this exact topic on other occasions) or mumble your words so badly I can't tell what you're saying, or thread five thoughts together - articulate 1&4 - then demand my opinion on thoughts 1 through 5 despite the fact 1&4 were a non sequitur and I have no clue what on earth you were talking about let alone how to field the question.
You asked me this evening to say something I didn't like about you or your habits. I demurred as I try to do on most topics when you haven't slept enough, haven't eaten enough and have drunk an amount rather quickly.
I shall put it here. I don't mind at all when you are drunk. But I dislike when you are dRuNcK. (If you require clarification about the difference between the two, please reread the first two paragraphs.)
Also on an entirely different note, that's it. I have to somehow fix my bank accounts. Because you swear at Mercy like she is yours (yes, you swear at tech, but the more you use her the more you swear at her and treat her as yours). Also this is the fourth time you've said categorically Mercy is your computer. Despite you buying her and giving her to me as a gift.
Lockdown and having to share a computer is a strange thing - I don't like it any more than I feel comfortable with a shared bank account. Which I believe I have used once. Then you texted me about it ten minutes later and I personally vowed never to use funds from a joint account again unless I was dying.
Ah, this is why I never made a background nor customised her.
Because I know she's not mine.