what's the realest thing you've ever done?

That may have been the unrealest thing I've ever done.

any near death stuff I've been in or just witnessed really.

Of course, having lived for 50+ years, married and spawned progeny, I have had plenty of time to accumulate a large surplus of 'real' experiences having to do with birth, pain, desire, grief and death. But it seems to me wise and useful to remember that pain, fear, shame and the like, although they can be quite intense experiences, aren't any more 'real' than commuter boredom or a business meeting. If you are dissatisfied with your present reality, it is a signal that you may need to steer your life a bit more attentively.

xpost-hooray! Going to NYC was the most unreal thing I've done, like "Am I actually here? Did we just do that?"

Luckily, at the time, I had a little house to hide in where nobody could find me while I lay around on a futon listening to Massive Attack's "Teardrop" over and over while staring at the scary red walls and not really believing that I was really doing any of this.

Now the boyfriend is Mister Monkey. And Husband Number One has a lovely Wife Number Two. So it all worked out okay.

Same here, but different time obv.

I love how often coming to New York is making this thread. NYC Y U SO REAL?

Being on stage and playing my own music for the first time was surprisingly, comfortably, real. And still makes me feel more alive than anything else I've found, chemical or otherwise.

Again with the NYC. Not moving there, just seeing it for real the first time, from the airport. Like a painting.

Big Ben, now that's real.

Four months after I'd broken up with a cheating, suicidal, GF, and she'd moved 600 miles away, I was woken at 2:30am by the sound of her fist pounding at the front door in 15 degree weather. She begged me to cut her hair all off (I did... down to about a half-inch), and we had really bad sex on the bathroom floor under glimmery-green florescent lights. She cried about her life, about her unrequited love for her cousin (!), shot up in the middle of my floor, confessed she loved me more than life itself and possibly more than her cousin, vomited out my window, and disappeared when I went to get her a towel.

I didn't hear from her again for two years until I received an invite to her (shotgun) wedding.

When the record got shelved, I was so fucking relieved.

In this case it was a single being made on a budget that, by major label standards, was microscopic. There was no advance money - they would simply have put the record out (with a cheap video) and watched it sink or swim. The circumstances that led up to me being flown to Europe were so totally random that the whole thing seemed like a joke. When I got the call about taking the trip, I thought I was being pranked.

I much prefer being the guy behind the mixing desk to being the guy in the vocal booth.

This is the truest thing ever written on this board. Truer than true. Agonisingly true.

There was a point, in the job interview that ended 7 months of unemployment, that I realised that I was going to get the post, that I'd passed the threshold to where it was mine to lose, that I was their hope of calling an end to the hiring process and that they were looking to convince me (and reassure themselves) that if they made the offer I'd take it. That was a rush. (I thought "Jesus, this must be what pulling is like!" :)

i always feel like every time i am riding my bike and i almost get hit by a car, that's REAL. whenever it happens i'm like "FUCK!" but then i want it to happen again and that's bad.

Hahah cripes I hope it wasnt my ex ;P

(yes, I stayed in Rugeley once for a few weeks. Mmm... interesting.)

(xpost)

My mum and dad still live there, we were down last weekend. The surrounding forest, Cannock Chase, is great and we used to go up there lots as kids. The town itself, well, let's say it wasn't much different in 87 when I got the hell out.

That doesn't make much sense. What I mean is: do things just seem normal at the time - then a few hours later, or the next day, you just think: BLOODY HELL!

Wow who woulda thunk Noodle grew up in the only UK town I spent some time in.

Cannock Chase was nice. I saw deer!

Anyway erm back to the topic.

I'm still not telling you what the first was. Last night, though, I went to a BDSM club for the first time.

It seemed entirely normal at the time to be sitting around in a room full of nearly-naked people strapped to complex-looking equipment, with lots of slapping, flogging and screaming noises going on. This morning, though, I'm thinking: wow! that was amazing!

I knew all these veiled hints were BDSM related! [crosses out "murder?" theory from notebook]

then a few months later bought a one-way ticket to beirut - and almost got killed a couple times. well, not 'almost' but remotely almost.

LOL!