Niall’s virtual diary archives – August 2000

Tuesday 8th August 2000: 3.40am. I can't believe a whole month has just flown away. Summer's nearly over already. Christ, it's madness! I only have around four weeks before Spain ...

Spanish is going okay actually. By the time I get there I should have some basic spanish, and by the time I return again in October it should be fairly capable. Pronto sere en espana con mi vida nueva. Yo espero tambien que ve pronto mi amiga de siempre, Ruth. Hola Ruth, que piensas en mi espanol?

Anyway, spanish madness aside, I was wanting to talk a little about the entry of the 29th. Since then, things have become better as time has progressed, but I still have bad days. I was walking down Queen's Road a bit ago coming back from a friend's where I had been doing pipes of indian charas, a very strong hashish. Anyway, I was having one of those paranoiac episodes which can sometimes accompany states of extreme stonedness ("I bet I look so wasted any copper could tell I need arresting as soon as he/she looks at me") when I heard a bang like an air-rifle from my left. I looked left, saw nothing (it was dusk) but then was overcome by this pain on the left side of my head. I put my hand to my head, then looked at my hand and thought "I've been shot". My pulse by this stage must have been approaching 150-200bpm, and as my head swam from the confusion, stonedness and blood pressure I managed to make it home, half-running, half-totally lost it. Once home I realised I hadn't been shot, and what a fool I must have made of myself just after the incident. I spent the rest of the night quivering in fear within my home, totally incapable of leaving the house.

Now I don't mind as much things like this happening when you're taking class A's regularly, but I'm not. I think this is the longest stretch without them since my enforced abstinence of last summer in Canada, so it's been relatively quite a while. But this hasn't been the only incident, and there have been days in the past month where going outside required so much focus, only to feel constant paralysing fear of being in a place you can't control.

This constant stress is definitely working bad things upon me. It's hard to sleep, making getting up timely to go into uni to learn spanish hard. The sleeping pills I was taking aren't working anymore, tolerance I guess. I feel constantly tired and moody, and recently I've been getting people's names wrong a lot - I've also been mishearing words a lot. It could be I've got CJD or some other weird brain illness, and these are the initial signs? Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Anyway, it's getting late so I'm off to watch the last lot of Dawson's Creek and have a bedtime spliff. I'll hopefully get in another entry before I go home to Ireland which will be sometime before the end of the month, so until then be happy, and see you all again soon!

Sunday 27th August 2000: 9.00pm. Wow, it's the august bank holiday weekend again. Time of Notting Hill Carnival. Indeed, this time last year I had just returned from Canada ...

Anyway, I am very pressed for time, so I can't take long. I leave for Ireland, home, tomorrow morning until next weekend and I have about three weeks from the present moment until I fly to Madrid for a reconnaissance mission which lasts a week. Then I have two, maybe three weeks left in the UK - that will be party time almost certainly.

But before all that, I have to pack up all my stuff as I'm pending eviction again, go to a birthday party and indeed get to Enigma (dance club) sometime as well. Fun all round!

Okay, cool, I'm off to get started. Be happy, see you soon!