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What were you doing when you heard, and what are you doing now?

Today I am at work.

In 2001 I was in bed, dozing when I heard, having just worked the night shift before. I got a text message from my ex saying "Have you heard the news?". I thought nothing of it (assuming it was related to someone in our social circle) and went back to bed, only to receive another text 20 minutes later from someone in another social group. At that point I saw my computer screen and had left it logged in to a talker. The message posting rate had skyrocketed, so I started reading and found out that way.

The past few weekends have been busy: UNaXcess meet XIII, Bi Activist weekend here in Manchester and the weekend before that was conflux's birthday bash. The weekend before that there was a weather warning, and the same thing happened on the weekend just gone. As such I've not been flying for ages, and I'm missing it heaps.

To add even more delay, I'm planning to be in London next weekend for BiFest so there'll be a 7 week gap between lessons.

Updated:
Speaking of which, does anyone en route to London from Manchester want a lift on Friday evening?
I'm working in Sussex so will not be coming from Manchester. Well, unless by any fluke I complete the work in one day rather than the two which have been booked.

mrk has offered to put me up for Friday night; can I blag accommodation from anyone for Saturday night? Am happy to go out clubbing if this fits in with a host's plans. I'm not yet sure where I'll be on Friday for work, but I'll update this post tomorrow once I do know.

Last weekend was the UA meet. UA, for those who don't know, is a BBS that I hang around on, and often the place from where I get the strange links I may send you in IM conversations ;-)

Friday night (after an exciting* after-work trip - I'll write more about that in a few days) we met in the Bull's Head (next to the station) and awaited people to arrive in dribs and drabs.

On Saturday I was working, but the meet was in the Kro Bar a few minutes from work, so I was able to pop in briefly for lunch. Naturally people were still there when I had finished work, so I returned. Each mmet (or each year - I forget) we have a series of Oscars - awards for user-nominated categories. I didn't get one this time around, not even for the amount of crude and crass links that I inflict on the users. I shall have to try harder ;-)

Around 9pm we wandered off to Rusholme for a curry and slighly alarmed the door staff of one place when about 20 of us turned up. I'd dearly like to learn how to cook a decent curry as I so enjoy the food.

Earlier in the week I'd arranged to go for drinks in Grand Central for a pre-clubbing social. Got there around 10 and saw a load of familiar faces. Shortly before we left I see my ex house mate Helen. This put me on a high for the rest of the evening. Since she moved out I'd kind of lost contact with her, which disappoints me, but we had arranged to meet on Monday (yesterday, at the time of writing), and I'll update about then shortly.

In the club... Poptastic in my mind has gone seriously down hill. It's still overfilled, though admittedly wasn't as bad as it has been in the past, but my main gripe is that the music policy has changed such that it's no longer in tune with my taste. I saw a couple of old friends there though, and they recommended Rock Kitchen, so I'll be trying there instead.

On Sunday I didn't get out of bed until midday or so, but that turned out to be convenient because the pub we met at (The Footage and Firkin - an old cinema) didn't open until late. For lunch I had a scream burger. (Cow, pig, bread, cheese. Yum)

Later in the afternoon I went to a BBQ where I continued to eat burgers :-) Total count by the end of the day was, I think, 6. There were a lot of people I'd not met before, but I'm becoming better at meeting large groups of new people so I didn't recluse. The evening finished around midnihgt and then I got lift home.

I was spodding in easyEverything after my shift finished when a girl behind me collapsed. She looked about 20 years old. She'd overdosed on paracetamol - about 20 or so. We could'nt get any form of repsonse from her, not even a murmur. We looked through her things to find a name.

I put her things in a bag, keeping the pills separate to make it easier for the medics to see the packaging.

The ambulanced was called and her breathing got more and more shallow. She started trembling just as the paramedic walked in. It felt like an hour waiting for him to appear.

SHe started to recover quite quicklly - she puked it all up and cried a bit, but still wouldn't open her eyes. Eventually another paramedic arrived with a stretcher and she was carried off.

Here's a quote from UNaXcess (a talker system I'm on)

Message: Here-And-Now/469769+ (55th/57) at 08:28, Tue 02/10
From: nayfnu to lunar
Subject: easySpod
In-Reply-To: 469767, 469766, 469763
All-Replies: 2

Hope you're OK...
--
Replied-to-by: lunar (469773)

B201:44 [Here-And-Now]: N

Message: Here-And-Now/469773+ (56th/57) at 08:30, Tue 02/10
From: lunar to nayfnu
Subject: easySpod
In-Reply-To: 469769, 469767, 469766... (1 more)
All-Replies: 1

Worried. Shocked. Unobservant (for not seeing about 6 packs of paracetamol on the counter next to me).
--
Replied-to-by: nayfnu (469774)

B201:44 [Here-And-Now]: N

Message: Here-And-Now/469774+ (57th/57) at 08:31, Tue 02/10
From: nayfnu to lunar
Subject: easySpod
In-Reply-To: 469773, 469769, 469767... (2 more)

*hug*

> Unobservant

Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. There was prolly nothing you could have done. Make sure you take things easy for a bit.

B201:44 [Here-And-Now]: N

Thanks, nayfnu.
(I'm lunar btw, in case it wasn't obvious ;-)

I'm still shaking, though part of that will be the excess of caffeine I've consumed over the past few hours :-/