The Small Things In Life

I won’t pretend that I’m not sorely disappointed and hurt by the brazen indolence of the three non blogging amigos, because I am. Deeply. Profoundly. Sadly.

But as with many things in life it just is what it is. There will be no recriminations from me. No inquisitions. No bitter words. Just a bleeding, gaping, endlessly hurting empty space where my heart used to be.

But hey ho.

Anyway…I realised the other day that it was the small things which got me in the end. The quiet unobtrusive accumulation of many small things which have won my heart to the Taps.

Let me explain.

Jade lent me The Wire, which I’ve only recently finished watching. Now for all those of you who have seen it you know how totally and utterly addictive it is to such an extent that it actually begins to seep into your life through your language (Motherfucker, please), the way that you think about yourself and which character you identify yourself with, the way that you think about any number of political and moral issues, and the way you think about and categorise other people.

And so for the last month or so I’d been having a constant running dialogue with Jade and Gareth about The Wire whenever I saw them, with regard to wherever I was up to (Spoiler Alerts: they killed Bodie, how could you not tell me they killed Bodie? How badass is Oma, seriously how fucking badassr? McNulty has totally lost it. Rawls is gay?  – And so on and so forth).

And after I’d finished it Jade then lent it to Irena who also became totally obsessed with it, and thus ensued another round of Wire related conversation for the next month (Does Bubbles die? Just tell me does Bubbles die? Does Stringer die? Just tell me does Stringer die? Does Prop Joe die? Just tell me does Prop Joe die? Does Avon die? Just tell me does Avon die…).

Which is all to say that for the last few months we’ve all been watching and talking about The Wire at great length.

Anyway, last Thursday we were in Taps talking about The Wire [for a change] when Aggie (the karaoke man) came to the bar.

Aggie always asks the bar staff if they have any requests for songs they want to be played before the karaoke kicks off, and so now because we’d just been talking about The Wire, someone – and I genuinely can’t remember who it was – in a stroke of genius had the bright idea of having [because Aggie can download any song from the internet] Body of An American  which is the song which is always played at a Detectives funeral in The Wire. And so we sat and stood around the bar and sang along to it (well the chorus….well actually only the bit of the chorus which goes ‘Free born man of the USA’) like we were at an East Baltimore Detective’s funeral.

[Actual Po-lice]

And that was nice. Stupid, but nice.

And so I say again, it’s the small things. The accumulation of those small things which you might think mean nothing. That you might think little or nothing of. That half the time you don’t even remember.

Those small things. Built up over days and years. Piled up one on top of the other and stored in your subconscious. Piles of them. Small and insignificant. Unmemorable and unimportant.

The devil in the detail.