No sooner had I thrown myself onto the sweet chilli sauce bandwagon, I’ve been disgustingly thrown off it again. Or rather after realising a few short months ago how much I actually like throwing the stuff all over every kind of food imaginable, I’ve been put off from it after throwing the stuff up.
Let’s backtrack to last year, i.e. last week. I was visited by two youngsters. Don’t worry, I know them well, they’re my niece and nephew and it was that blurred time period between Christmas and New Year. A time when all days are the same, nothing monumental happens, more time is spent in pyjamas than actual daywear and family visits happen. Same old.
Upon their arrival, one of the kids had a stomach bug and felt poorly. You say “poorly” when referring a child because it sounds a little cuter than “full of sick and drained of energy”. The day and night came and went, the child got better. Soon after, the other one felt poorly because, again, “ravaged by sickness, tiredness and mild delirium” doesn’t quite sit right. The day and night came and went, the other child got better.
On the eve of the year – an excuse to socialise and drink things – I attended a small gathering of friends, which also included takeaway food and nowhere near as much drinking as one might anticipate on the last day of December. For my portion of grease-laden stodge, I opted to drizzle sweet chilli sauce everywhere, because let’s face it, it’s all sweet and no chilli really. It’s essentially syrup with red bits in to make it look fancy. It’s the Goldschläger of Oriental cuisine.
Anyway, midnight happened, glass of Prosecco, Auld Lang Syne, hugs and shit.
Having retired to my sleeping quarters, i.e. the couch, about 2am I tried to make myself comfortable. Perhaps an hour or two later, I awoke dry-throated and with cramping in the midriff. ‘Well it is a small couch, but it’s only tonight. Get a glass of water, go back to sleep, you’ll be fine. Or actually, go the loo first. I think you might need it.’ Go the loo I did, internal monologue, but before I could decide whether I needed to stand or sit for this toilet visit, my knees made the decision for me. Shortly followed by my mouth.
‘Well that’s strange, me, I didn’t drink that much. Sure I got a bit merry but nothing special. And hey, how come it’s not all liquid like a drunken toilet scream usually is? How come I’m looking at bits of partially dissolved food and red flecks sticking to the bowl?’
‘How disgusting,’ came my internal monologue’s reply. ‘Why would you broadcast such a graphic account of this online?’
‘Ack, well, doesn’t really matter now. A purge of this nature is usually the body’s way of making itself better. Therefore, I’m now much better. Back to bed (couch) I go.’
Another couple of hours later, repeat the last couple of paragraphs.
Following a painful walking journey home, I then spent the majority of the next two days in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, sipping water, not eating and keeling in pain at any normal movement, such as sitting up or rolling over. Safe to say I was… whatever the grown-up version of “poorly” is.
I suppose I could’ve summed this up by alluding to that (I assume) psychological phenomenon where one can no longer consume what it was that made them spew. For me, in the past, it’s been Jägermeister. One night of oh so many rendered me immobilised with pain and dizziness that now just the smell of that medicinal crap makes me crave fresh air. Now sweet chilli sauce (and I suppose donner meat) has found its way onto what is now a list. Seriously, even typing the words “sweet chilli sauce” have been enough to make my cheeks bulk out and lose colour.
It’s amazing how brains can do such things to us on levels we don’t necessarily comprehend. It’s like how we’re all egotists but our brains shield ourselves from the embarrassment of realising how obnoxious we really are. For this experiment, take your own Facebook feed and compare that with any one person’s posting activity. While browsing the general feed, you can scroll through a rich tapestry of anecdotes, inspirational quotes, baby photos, personal shoutouts, back-handed digs and shared videos you can’t stop playing even if you try. But take one particular person and you’ll notice that their own activity is a self-absorbed mess of how every inspirational quote is about “me”, and how every anecdotes is about “me”, and how every back-hander is about “people who aren’t me”.
‘Hush now, inner monologue. You’re not supposed to say things like that. We smile nicely and not whip away the veil that shields people from realising how much everyone’s just a walking ego, screaming into a sea of other screaming, trying to be heard, only really being heard by themselves and (at most) three or four others and feeling proud of themselves thinking “that’ll do”.’
‘Oh, you mean how you just didn’t?’
‘Bitch please, I know I’m an egomaniacal wreck. I’m having a heated conversation with myself.’
For this reason, I’m not exactly an exception to the Facebook posting rule; I just tend to go with anecdotes though. Well, that, and links to stories about times when I vomit.
To give myself a little extra incentive to keep putting stuff here and not piss away real life money on virtual real estate, I’ve decided to include musical outros. I like music. I’ve liked it even more over the last year or so. I was even considering sharing some of my favourite modern musical bits over the last week of the year, because that’s when everyone does top countdown review lists of stuff and shit. Ultimately, I didn’t. Mainly because I couldn’t be bothered, but also because of the fear of a bruised ego when nobody would respond to the somewhat alternative selection of songs I’d come out with and each video would just be another thing everyone would scroll past.
Anyway, I’m provisionally attempting to do 50 of these things over the course of the year, therefore forcing me to go every week. Yes, I know there are 52 weeks to the year, but 50’s a nice round number and it leaves the final two weeks of the year free because that’s the time when (a) no one can be bothered any more, and (b) everyone does the aforementioned review countdown list things. Yes, pipe dream, I know, but that’s the only way I’ve known how to live up to this point so far, do you really think I’m going to arbitrarily stop that now?
So view/listen to/idly scroll past the following video, containing a song I’ve not become bored of throughout 2015, despite the fact that it originates from early 2014. Would I call it my “favourite song” of the last twelve (eighteen) months? Of course not, there can’t be one definitive “favourite” amongst such a wide open field spanning multiple genres. Would I call it my “favourite song performed by a man with a somewhat predatory stare, legs stolen from a jellied stick-insect and intermittent growling putting me in a quandary where I don’t know whether the whole thing is insane or genius”? Of course I would.
Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting On You)
Jamie Walsh 
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