The tale of Huckleberry Nipple and the ipod

I turned thirty the other week, an event I had to wait awhile for compared to other Librans (but then I don't mind waiting my turn, as life has a certain chronological fairness to it). I embrace entering a new age group on questionnaires and apropos the ravages of time, my girlfriend loves my stray grey hairs- which become less deserving of the adjective premature as I age. Other than a few follicular clues and a reliance on Body Shop cocoa butter moisturiser, my Gregorian leap in maturity has dated me in only one notable respect: The inexorable slide into cliché has begun already.

An ironic topic to write about or discuss in any form- it becomes a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and I start sounding like a traveler's phrase book. This can of course be passed off hopefully as an ironic double bluff: this is what I intend to do until normal service is resumed.

Even on the "big day", I found myself tossing (the cruder British connotations of this word are apt) out such bon mots as "to think what they can do with technology nowadays" (in response to a beloved little ipod from my lover). OK, two things: firstly, this is not my syntax: a linguistically sensititive soul, I can often detect the hyperbole of those relating a tall tale and misattributing quotes when the syntax is wildly out of sync. I just don't talk like that, or rather I didn't. Secondly, "nowadays" makes me sound like a Huckleberry Finnn character. In fact, in the gender confused swamp of my youth, I always wanted to be Huckleberry, before belated puberty ironically confirmed my androgenous look.

In the same vein, in my newfound state (it makes it sound like I've just found a country, but then I have entered a whole new psychological territory), I have taken to being nostalgic, and telling tales of the past with a golden hue as if groping for some far off Fantasia. In fact, my Huckleberry childhood identity brings to mind a true adventure my beloved and I had when we lived on a bohemian boat moored to an island (cue anecdote fondly refondled)...Once upon a time, one day, we set off, down the river upon which we lived, in a small Victorian raft with planks of wood for paddles. The sun beat down on our heads, water snakes spiraled by, "yours truly" accidentally trod a plank with protruding nail into the base of the raft and then counter-intuitively pulled it out. (The effect is reminiscent of the parable of the c/rudley titled "finger in the dyke"). Well, this fateful day as we padelled along with water rising around our ankles, packets of cigarettes swept away, and the delirious euphoric confusion of sunstroke...we met our alter-egos, namely Huckleberry Nipple and Breast Sawyer.

And so, I shall desist from such digressions and recollections, and "yours truly" is "signing off" to continue to boldly go where no man has gone before.