Thursday, December 10, 2009

Mythbusters

Anyone living with their head under a rock might not have noticed that there's a climate change conference going on in Copenhagen at the moment. In honour of this fact - or maybe not in honour, but rather coincidentally - my office has sent around an email to explain what the company is doing to improve on our environmental performance.

There were all the usual things you'd expect; changing from the bottled water that used to get delivered weekly to filtered mains water, recycling bins around the office, advice to turn off computers when we leave for extended periods of time and to unplug any chargers left lying around. So far, so ordinary, and easily put into practice. In fact, most of these things, except perhaps the water, have been accepted practice for the entire time I've been at the company. It's the final aspect that has been most difficult to accept.

We have been advised to cut back our printing levels. Just to be clear, the paperless office concept has been around for a long time now. It has never made so much as a dint in the world of architecture though, unless you count the zeal with which young architects throw marked up drawings, criss-crossed with the red pen of their superiors, into the recycle bins bound to be scattered around offices. It only takes a moment to realise that it's not even our fault. While we design buildings that can run off the power of a sneeze, it takes thousands and thousands of trees dying to generate the documentation to get them built. Firstly, we have to supply the authorities with three sets of everything at A3, and often one at full size A1 as well (take your average A4 sheet, double that to get A3, double that to get A2...you get the picture, right?). The client always demands at least one set. Every contractor that tenders for the project gets their own set. There's a copy kept on file. Every time there is a change to a drawing, it has to be sent out again. Then, on the really big projects, there's the mother of all tree killers: the A0 set of drawings. 40 to 50 sheets, enough paper to keep New York's homeless warm and dry for a year. Paperless office? Yeah, we wish. We could issue all of this in electronic format, as PDFs. But twits ask us to print it. In fact, they require it.

The result could be seen as I wandered to the door tonight on my way out. One of the side effects of our new hours is a much closer relationship with the office cleaners. The directors have to lock up themselves, now, instead of employing security staff to do the job for them. So they can get home at a reasonable hour, the cleaners come around bang on our official finishing time. Where before they were faceless smokers outside, chatting to each other in Polish as they waited to come inside, now they are people. We talk to them, we are aware of the way they work. Seeing one woman going around the top floor with a squirty bottle and a rage, trying desperately to find a clear space to be wiped - and failing, for the most part to manage more than one squirt per pod - it occur ed to me to wonder just how much paper was being generated by the climate change conference in Copenhagen, and whether they'd come up with a solution to bureaucratic red tape. Somehow, I doubt it.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Weekend Wreckage

I'm feeling the effects of hosting a party on Saturday night. Sure, there wasn't anything in the flat broken. The guests were better behaved than last time I hosted a dinner, and ended up cleaning up after a wasabi pea fight for a couple of weeks afterwards. Did you have any idea just how far those things can roll? And I'm sure some of them were playing a game with me and jumping out of the bin, back under the couch, because no matter how many times I moved it, there was always at least one pea underneath. In fact, there's probably still one there now. But no, the carnage wreaked wasn't on my flat.

Nor was it on my flatmate. She recovered brilliantly, as far as I'm aware. She was certainly fit enough to be seen in public yesterday, darting around the west end in a frenzy to try and get her Christmas shopping done and so avoid the worst of the seasonal retail binge. I stayed at home, afraid that leaving the house would make small children cry. Because the damage caused was very much a visible problem. And it had nothing to do with a hangover.

I was out on Friday night as well, so I had every right to be feeling the effects of a little partying. At the very least I should have been tired. But I wasn't. Instead, I was ashamed to show myself in public because of a problem I've had from time to time over the years. It seems that not only liver, kidneys, stomach and head are effected by a night of partying. The beautifying process takes a severe toll on my hair as well.

It's trivial, I know. To anyone not blessed with the horrendous mass of fur that grows from my head, it would be nothing. But, after years of attempting - and generally failing - to control my wig, on Saturday I let it have its way. In fact, I encouraged its worst tendencies. I scrunched. I teased. I fluffed. I sprayed with so much hairspray that I had to leave my room or risk suffocation. In short, I worked very hard to get myself into the correct frame of hair for an 80s party, like we were having. Then I made a token gesture at control by tying a leftover piece of my bright yellow t-shirt dress around my head in a big floppy bow.

But now my hair has tasted freedom. It has experienced the thrill of flying free, and it liked it. This morning, even smothering it with a close fitting hat did little to bring it down to earth - or at least to my scalp. Because each individual strand was making a stand, being an individual, and pulling in a slightly different direction to its neighbour. This morning, it was bigger than it was on Saturday night. And where the air went out of it over the course of the party, today, in spite of pins and elastics acting as restraints, its only gotten bigger.

I guess you need to have big hair to appreciate it. My balding brother, for instance, gets a bitter twist to his face every time I bitch about having too much and how hot it gets on my neck if I leave it down. But he's not the one who has to wrestle it under control. I'm like a lion tamer cracking the whip; half an hour with a hair dryer here, 20 minutes with irons there. I can split it into two braids and each of those will still be thicker than the average person's allowance. It's not even curly, so there's no excuse for it. That it's naturally the colour of rope doesn't help. If I grew it longer, I could do a fair Rapunzel. All I'd need is the Prince. Oh, and the tower. And loads of anaesthetic to numb my scalp, given that self-weight of my ponytail can bring on a headache if I club it up too high.

I know, I know. Somewhere out there, people are telling me that the grass is always greener. And it is. After all, I could at least sleep on my soft, billowing cushion of locks and hairspray. One friend would have spent several hours trying to get her hair down from the punkish spikes she was sporting, complete with an entire pot of wax holding it in place. So at least there's that, I guess. Oh who am I kidding. I'd shave it off in a second if I didn't think it was just grow back thicker. And probably curly, just for that extra bit of oomph. I've learned one lesson, though. Never, ever, give it a taste of what it would have been like to be running wild and free in the days of big hair. Because it will takes weeks to recover from the hangover.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Well good, innit

For a city that experiences such vile weather, London is seriously poorly equipped to handle it. Tonight, the rain has come down in sheets, the kind that you wrestle to get into the washing machine and then discover that you don't have enough space to dry them once they're done. Much the same way that the gutters, downpipes, awnings, footpaths and roads can't get rid of the sheer volume of water that has built up in them.

As I dodged the deepest puddles and clung to the furthest point from the cars on the road, which were carelessly offering a free shower to any pedestrians foolish enough to stray near the edge, I wondered why it was, exactly, that I'd decided against "borrowing" one of the golf umbrellas leaning nonchalantly by the desk of the office klepto. Especially given that he wasn't even in the office to keep me by his desk with an entertaining (i.e. nauseating) sound and light display, a combination of his poor eating habits (he's yet to close his mouth once during a meal and offers a comprehensive range of chomping, slurping and gulping noises) and semi-pornographic comic book style illustrations he's done and pinned around his desk, giving it the look of teenage-boy-meets-Hyde-Park-flasher.

As a case study of a Londoner, he's an interesting specimen. He sounds like someone who just stepped off the set of a Guy Ritchie film and would probably lay claim to knowing some of the genuine geezer-types Ritchie loves to bring to life on the screen. He is a proud son of East London, speaks with the classic inflections and drops "innit" onto the end of every second sentence. He turns up to work wearing silky tracksuit pants which announce his arrival long before he appears, the psht-psht noise acting more effectively than an air raid siren to clear whatever space he is approaching. Because once you get trapped by him, there is no escape. Snoopy, as one former colleague dubbed him, knows all the goings on in the office and has few greater pleasures than sharing them with victims - er, an audience. That his stories aren't always true is irrelevant to him. It wasn't so irrelevant to the person who got back from leave last year to find an inbox full of condolences about being made redundant; he hadn't been, but the panic attack almost made him go to the directors and resign instead.

When he's not discussing what may or may not be going on at work, he tells detailed stories about his home life. Mind you, none of us actually know the names of his wife and daughter, even if we do know an infinite number of other details. He always just describes them as "mar wahfe" or "m'dor-er". Read them out loud, it will help you figure it out. Dor-er is about 6, an intelligent pretty little girl who in no way takes after her father; I figure she'll outgrow him by age 10. Wahfe is a quiet Vietnamese woman, arguably married by mail order (or sold into slavery, depending on which version you listen to), who works hard keeping her family together. the only time she has ever been known to speak up was when Snoopy appeared to be straying with Screechy, the man-eating, drug addled office psychopath. Wahfe cornered Screechy and warned her in no uncertain terms to keep away from Snoopy. Unfortunately, the person she should have been talking to was her husband. Not that he would have listened to her, women being, in his mind at least, there for cooking, cleaning and serving.

The time he's been happiest was during and of the redundancy periods. He would loiter by the stairs going into the boardroom, where the meetings were held with the unfortunate ones, and then race to email the latest name around the office. The behaviour was enough to get him a warning from the board, but somehow he's clung to his job. We're all wondering what dirt he has on them, because so many people were let got when he stayed. Of course, the new streamlined office has given him fewer places to hide. Where once the only place you wouldn't find him was at his desk, now he has no excuse for wandering; there's nobody left for him to visit.

This is the man I now sit next to. I think I'll ask if I can go back to being a leper in the back room. The company was better out there.

Monday, November 23, 2009

The Importance of Being Idle

As I sat and waited for the cold that won't die to leave my body - contemplating leaving my body myself, just to escape the bloody thing - I did, well, nothing today. Largely due to the fact that every time I attempted to move, either I suffered from separation anxiety (my tissue box and I are besties at the moment) or I suffered from extreme white-hot rods of pain through my sinuses. Or maybe that was just the anxiety kicking extra hard. Given choice between idleness, anxiety or pain, I chose idleness.

It's amazing what your brain throws up when you have vaguely hypochondriac tendencies and are actually sick. I spent a good half hour this morning wondering what would happen if the sinus infection took the worst case scenario and did actually do what it has threatened before, leaving me bed ridden while it slowly turned my head to mush. I'm not generally given to end-of-world scenarios, so it was amusing to indulge in every little detail, particularly dwelling on the guilt that would afflict Flatmate L when she discovered that her slurs about me pulling a sicky were completely off-base. I was interrupted by a phone call from her, wondering why I wasn't answering my work email address, and being cheered up no end by the observation, "Didn't you have Friday off as well? They're going to sack you." Thank you for the mood enhancer.

So, with my mind back at work, if not my body, I drifted to other thoughts, carefully lying still and watching Top Gear on BBC iPlayer (why does everything have to have an 'i' in it now? Even the electric car that they guys on Top Gear made had an 'i' somewhere in the name they gave it. And why is is always lower case?) And somewhere along the way, I strayed into pondering one of the guys who sits on the floor below mine.

I've had plenty of time to observe him. He started not long after me and, on days when I'm only slightly late, rather than horribly, I follow him into the office and he holds the door for me. We bump into each other in the kitchen sometimes, too. It's not a big office, so it's hardly surprising, really. But what is a little strange is that I've never heard him speak. I'm fairly certain that he can - word would have passed around far more quickly if he was mute, given our office-wide love of talking about each other - he just doesn't. It's only recently that he's even acknowledged that he's holding the door open for another person, giving a gentle smile and looking somewhere in the vicinity of my knees. I don't have great knees. There's no reason to stare at them. Mind you, I have to admit that I find his ankles inordinately fascinating. And it's for no other reason than them being on show so regularly.

He's a tall man, with the stoop of those over six foot who are generally surrounded by shorter people. I always assumed that it was to make it easier to hear what people were saying. I know I always end up bent double with my shorter friends, and I'm not nearly as tall as him. The thinning hair on top of his head suggests that he's kind of outgrown it. It never seems to get any thinner, so I assume that's just the way it's always been. With blond hair, blue eyes and seemingly good dentistry by English standards, he's not a bad looking boy. That's kind of why I noticed him in the first place. He dresses fairly stylishly on casual days. Not being lucky enough to be on my new floor, where they hide the cretins they don't allow the clients to see, he's generally dressed in business clothes. Which are a whole other story to his casual gear.

It must be easy to dress most men for the office. A pair of black trousers which may or may not be part of a suit. A white shirt. A tie to give a bit of variation. There are less rules about what's appropriate for different occasions. Some seem to wear the same basics and just shuffle the ties around to different days. This guy is no exception in that area, but there is one part of his wardrobe that I think someone really needs to sit him down and talk to him about. His trousers.

Have you ever seen the old movies, things where Cary Grant or Walter Matthau had their trousers pulled up around their arm pits? Think the male equivalent of granny-undies, but much more obvious to the world. Combine that look with bad posture and long legs, and you've got something close to what I'm talking about. His ankles must have frozen on snow day earlier this year, but he never thinks to pull the waistband down to sit somewhere near his hips, giving his ankles the coverage I've got no doubt they crave. Sometimes I get a tingling in my hands as I see him, and itch to go and give a good tug to the legs. He's known for it among the girls of the office, who call him Harry-High-Pants and rarely know his actual name. For someone who seems to go to such great lengths to hide themselves away, he draws an awful lot of attention with his trousers.

His jeans, well they seem to fit. It makes me wonder if his mother buys his work clothes, and has never quite gotten used to the idea that her son is all growed up now. He does seem a little like the type to get the final bit of his toothpaste wiped away with the corner of Mum's apron just before he leaves for work, packed lunch in hand. His casual clothes, he picks for himself. He looks far more comfortable in them, that's for sure. I think I've seen him actually talking to someone when he was wearing his jeans and a checked shirt. The change in him was remarkable. Not quite Clarke Kent/Superman, but not far short.

So why have I just written so much about a guy at work who doesn't speak to me, whose mother may still be buying his clothes, and who makes me giggle? Chalk it up to too many fluffy romance books while I've been sick. The winning out of the pain over the tissues is hopefully a sign that I'm on the mend. Or that the antibiotics will be kicking in soon, at any rate. Until then, I'm doomed to schmaltz. I apologise in advance.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Nutty matters

The squirrel sat on the roof of the shed and looked at me, almost daring me to blink. Half asleep, I stared back before shaking myself out of my reverie. I moved to take out some bread. When I looked out the window again, the squirrel had moved. In the seconds I hadn't been looking, he - because it's almost always a he, in my mind - had darted from the shed to the brick fence that separated the two large gardens behind my building. In summer, he'd be camouflaged there but now, in the Autumn, he was still visible. He twitched his tail at me.

I weighed up opening the window and throwing out some of the nuts that we keep on the bench for Charlie and Lottie, our squirrel neighbours, but decided it would take too much time. Instead, I put my bread in the toaster and began to ready my other breakfast things. Yoghurt, juice, Vegemite.

The toast seemed to take forever. I moved back to the window, but the squirrel - Charlie, Lottie, or just a random visitor - had vanished. The toast popped and I sighed as I noticed that, yet again, the toaster had spat it out too soon. Instead of the crisp golden brown, it was white and patchy. That's what you get when you buy the £10 kettle-and-toaster combo, I guess.

The flat was quiet as I sat down at the kitchen table to eat my toast, book in hand. A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. The squirrel was back, playing hide and seek with me, apparently. Either that or statues. As I turned back to my book, I heard childish voices in my head; "What's the time Mr Wolf?" Breakfast time, I answered them, chomping down on a soggy piece of toast and getting absorbed in my book. Twenty minutes later I looked up at the clock in a panic. I was late. Again.

I downed the last of my juice, rinsed my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Standing over the sink, I noticed that the squirrel was back on the roof of the shed, almost at my eye level. He seemed to be laughing at my sudden haste. I made a snap decision. I was already late, so why not?

I wrenched the window open - it's a stretch to make it across the bench and still have enough leverage to manage the large, heavy sash; a stretch too far for the shorter Flatmate C. Opening the bag of nuts, I threw a few out one by one, watching them land in the leaf litter of the courtyard below. The squirrel looked at me and if he'd had eyebrows, he would have cocked one. Clearly, he was not to be bought off with nuts. I shrugged a shoulder and slammed the window closed again before dashing downstairs and into the bathroom for a lightning quick shower.

Later in the morning, I sat at my desk in the misery of a sore throat and ear ache. "Toughen up," came the email from Flatmate L. "It's all a question of mind over matter." Maybe she's right. Then again, maybe she's not. I wonder if the squirrel has eaten the nuts yet. It's tempting to head home and check, but instead I stay at my desk and throw back a couple of paracetamols. The throat and ear improve, but I'm still curious about the squirrel.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Sighting

I think I had an out of blog experience yesterday, and there was a certain amount of coincidence involved. I was even more late than usual. It was Monday, after all, so allowances must be made. I stepped off the tube at Waterloo, intent only on not walking into any of the twits who were blocking the exit pathway. On a side note, why do people stand pressed up against the doors as they wait for them to open? There are people in the train who are waiting to get out; it’s far easier for everyone if you stand back and let them get through first, so why the hell do they insist on trying to be the first into an emptying train? Is it that they’re worried the people who wave the little plastic paddle and declare the train “ready to depart” aren’t going to notice the fifteen people clustered around the door nearest the entrance to the platform, through the yards of empty space further down where two sensible people have already boarded? So as I gracefully pirouetted my way through the ravening hordes like a rhinoceros on the charge, I spotted a vaguely familiar face.

Let me be clear here. I’m not certain that the person I saw was the person I thought it was. There was a resemblance to the photo of what I can only assume is him at the top of his blog, sure. But it was only a glimpse, we were both hurrying, and – have I missed any possible caveats, just in case it wasn’t him? Add them here if I have. I think I had a glimpse of none other than blogger-extraordinaire, Mr London Street.

I’ve never knowingly thought I saw a fellow blogger before. I’m sure, given the vast numbers of them out there, that I’ve passed them all unknowing. And I know, thanks to the lovely Veronica Lake, that I won’t be recognised myself. That and the fact that I have an audience of 5, two of whom I knew before they started reading. But to even think I saw someone I only know from their writing, well it was almost like glimpsing a celebrity. I pretend to be all cool about it – I’m not into celeb worship, I don’t read OK or any of those, I figure they’re just people – but whenever I glimpse someone whose work I’ve admired, whether they be an actor (Jude Law, Sainsburys, Finchley Rd, late last year; Damian Lewis, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, earlier this month) or a writer (well, I’ve never seen any of them in the flesh, to be honest, but I would love to), it gives a little buzz. It’s interesting to compare the reality with the image, if nothing else.

So it was even more interesting that, later the same day, MLS came out with this post, about meeting other bloggers in person. He provided elegant character sketches that give a sense of the people he writes about. I’d love to be able to, but all I can offer is that, if it was actually him, he wasn’t shoving his way into the train before I was out of it – high commendation indeed. It was just the briefest flash of possible recognition. And, in my defence, if it’s not him that I saw, well, his profile pic is quite small. And MLS? If it wasn’t you, I offer a response to this: it’s not the beard, it’s because you have a doppelganger out there somewhere.

Monday, November 16, 2009

The morning tap

This morning I woke up with a tap attached to my face. It was there in place of my nose, and it was dripping. Constantly. When it wasn’t dripping, it was tingling. Well, I suppose you get that when someone replaces your nose with a tap. It’s bound to feel a little funny. In this instance, the funny made me sneeze regularly. The tap has been there for a few mornings, recently. It seems to disappear before lunchtimes. It’s a morning tap, a spigot without an ‘off’ position. It’s visited me before.

During my school days – back before the dawn of time, or of the millennium at the very least – I struggled through mornings just as I do now, a wodge of tissues permanently at the ready and the constant threat that, if I ran out of them, I’d end up looking like a toddler with a cold. Mothers would come up to me, pinch my nose and demand that I ‘blow’. I lived in fear of morning assemblies, daunting ceremonies that always had an uplifting theme, designed to stir us on to ever greater heights, illustrated through stories of inspirational women and uplifting hymns. We were expected to sit silently through these events three times a week, not wriggling too much as we sat on the hard wooden floor, or being caught talking when we were deemed old enough to have a seat in the balcony of the school hall. Most of the girls had their blazer pockets stuffed, one with their hymn book, the other with various coping mechanisms – usually of the sweet, chocolate- or sugar-coated variety. I always carried things that might work well as nose plugs, should the need arise. I’d always assumed that it was something in the hall that triggered my - sorry, this is going be gross – river of snot, but it turns out it wasn’t. It’s the morning generally that does it.

I’m allergic to mornings. By lunchtime, it’s gone. It was always second period at school before I could breathe through my nose, before I could enunciate clearly and not sound like a rugby player who’d just been pinned on the bottom of the scrum by his head. Now, it clears by the time I’m at my desk and have cleared my email inbox – a time that, admittedly, gets later and later every day. And rather than a pocket full of tissues, I have a roll of toilet paper sitting on my desk. I’m all class.

The way I see it, some people are morning people, and some people aren’t. I clearly fall into the latter category. I would love to be able to bounce out of bed in the morning, doing my very best impersonation of Tigger, but I have long resigned myself to being a shambling incarnation of a crime scene photograph when I first arise. The tissue plugs up my nose probably don’t help the appearance.

I’m going to be forced to get my act together, though. Word came down from on high that I am to be at a new desk location by the end of the week. The moment will be put off as long as possible. As much as I want the company of other people, I enjoy the luxury of having nobody nearby to see just how late it is when I first plant my head on my desk and reach for the toilet paper. Sitting with other people, I’ll have to start functioning through the snot. At least there's no mothers handy to offer me a handkerchief.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Ladies who lunch

While I was putting together my cheese and toast sandwich today, I was suddenly hit by a memory. It was a hit, not a gentle reminder or anything so subtle. It was the cheese that did it. Or rather, the foil that the cheese was wrapped in. But in order to understand why foil-wrapped cheese could trigger a moment of vivid recall, I need to start way back in September, during my trip back to Melbourne for a few days.

It was Mum's birthday. I was jet lagged out of my mind, feeling the effects of a horrendous plane trip that had ended at midnight the night before. The flight was awful, not least because somewhere between Singapore and Sydney, or Sydney and Melbourne - I still can't narrow it any further than that - I lost not only the denim jacket that I'd been carrying, but also the scarf that was with it. Beyond that, there were delays, annoying people and a malfunctioning entertainment system. Another day on Qantas, essentially. But I digress.

The jet lag had left me a little silly by the time in the afternoon that we made it to Nana's house for the hello visit. After the usual welcome back conversations ('When will you be back for good?' 'Have you seen Anabelle yet?' 'When do you leave?' 'Have you got a boyfriend yet?' 'You should go on Farmer Wants a Wife.' 'I got served by a lovely boy in the supermarket. So helpful, he was. I thought of you. You should get his number.'), talk shifted to the dinner plans for the night. We were off to the Cross Keys, a local pub that used to have a somewhat seedy reputation but now does a half decent meal and, most importantly, has discount vouchers on the back of supermarket dockets. The gist seemed to be that Nana was all prepared for the dinner already.

It seems that the meal sizes at the Cross Keys aren't to Nana's liking, though. Too big, apparently.

"They give you two enormous pieces of fish," she told me, gesturing with her hands. She could have been the fisherman describing the one that got away, with a piece of fish as large as the one she demonstrated.

"One that size is too much." I agree with her. One piece of fish that large would see me through a week. But Nana, ever-resourceful and always known for such behaviour, went to her handbag and showed us her solution; she had a freezer bag and a couple of pieces of paper towel already stashed, ready and waiting to receive the extra piece of fish and as many chips as she didn't want to eat. She's always been known for loading up on dinner rolls from the table, but it seems she's been picking up bad habits from her friends in the day club. I feel sorry for the bus driver on their outings, a load of senior citizens coming back from some destination, each with a piece of battered fish concealed in a wedge of paper napkins in her handbag. The stench must be mind-numbing by the end of a two hour trip.

"The only trouble," she told me, "is that it all goes a bit pappy by the next day. After ***'s birthday the other week, it was a soggy mess when I pulled it out of the fridge."

You have to remember, I was jet lagged. I was feeling silly, and I was still adjusting to having to conceal my giggles. And I'm always a little bit of a smart arse - er, always helpful. So I offered a suggestion, a hint.

"You should take some foil, keep it crisp."

Her eyes light up like the flashers on a winning pokie machine. It's all she can do to keep from running to the kitchen and stuffing the roll of foil into her bag there and then. She manages to contain her excitement, somehow, and the rest of the visit goes off without a hitch. ('You should be saving.' 'You need to come back and settle down.' 'About as welcome as a red-headed step-child.')

Later that night, clustered around the family dinner table, I heard a rustling from the far end of the table, and suppressed giggles from the cousins and their partners lined up opposite me.

"Was that foil?" demanded the newest addition to the family group, the girlfriend of a cousin. She sounded incredulous. I looked down the length of the table and there sat Nana, forcing the zip of her handbag closed over a clearly bulging foil-wrapped parcel. She looked up at me and beamed. I don't think I've ever made her as happy before in my entire life.

When I saw her again a couple of days later, she was still beaming.

"That was a lovely bit of fish I got from the Cross Keys. It stayed all crispy. I'll have to tell Mary to keep a bit of foil in her bag."

Friday, November 13, 2009

Whatever Anonymous

I have a flatmate in need of an intervention. Maybe both of them do. Either that, or it’s time I got out and got a life. They’re both in extreme states right now, brought about by their own foolish actions. They each have a dependency situation that is coming to a head and will cause them pain in the not too distant future. Their uppers of choice vary, but the result is still the same: they’re both exhausted, and unable to stop themselves from going back for more.

Take L, as the first example. She’s just discovered what I can only call the joys of a night out drinking, at the age of 35. It was never going to end well, really. For 30 years barely a drop of alcohol passed her lips. By all accounts, her mother virtually insisted that she have a drink of some sort at her 21st birthday party; everyone knew better than to expect her to be ‘merry’ by the time her 30th rolled around. Now here we are, five years later, and she has come under the influence of her work friends who are the typical residents of London – verging on liver failure thanks to the lifestyle that is expected of all and sundry in the city and its surrounds. She goes out for dinner during the week, like this week and, because her tolerance is so low and she never learnt the coping tools that the rest of us picked up when we were young enough not to suffer from hang overs, she gets drunk. She never believed me that she was feeling the effects of alcohol, until recently. She still insists, the morning after, that she’s not drunk. She’s just tired, dehydrated, has a headache. But the last couple of sessions have seen her bleary eyed and chugging water. My personal favourite was the night she nearly fell down the stairs, giggling as she saved herself.

Part of the reason it hits her so hard, though, is the reason she needs an intervention. The woman doesn’t sleep. She insists that the smallest thing wakes her up, that it always has. But lately her exhaustion has been so deep that I’ve been able to bang around the flat at 3 a.m. and not disturb her. Her four hours of sleep are deep, but not enough to replenish her. I spent a fortnight of barely sleeping in the lead up to the end of this semester, studying until the wee sma’s, culminating in a memorable night of 2 hours sleep. I still looked more alert and awake than she did. I was the one pulling her back from stepping out in front of cars, in spite of being so exhausted myself that I was mainlining caffeine and hallucinating that walls were rippling. Maybe she has that problem too. Maybe that explains why she walks into the walls to often I've started comparing her to the ball in a pinball machine. I’m tempted to tie her to her bed and force her to sleep, because she won’t stop driving herself and I’m getting the feeling that collapse is imminent.

C has a slightly different problem. Her addiction is to Shoreditch. It’s like a vortex, sucking her in a couple of nights a week. The eye of the storm is her boyfriend, a cheerful Irishman who lives up to the reputation of his countrymen for putting away booze. C, in contrast, is a petite Japanese girl with a lower tolerance for it than even L. I’ve seen her literally legless, before, being carried out of a party with the kind of jelly legs that are usually seen in cartoons when someone has been hit over the head with an anvil. She staggered in at 4 a.m. this morning and woke with red eyes, exhausted. She’s off out again tonight, and probably tomorrow as well. Right now, I think she’s single-handedly keeping Nurofen in business. Just like an alcoholic, she goes to Shoreditch for one or two, planning on hitting just the one bar. She emerges hours later having done the rounds of any number of haunts, but few clear memories of which ones. It’s not even that she’s drinking too much – she’s sworn off mojitos, now – it’s more that she’s also just not sleeping. In her case, the intervention would be removal from her boyfriend, the enabler to end all enablers given that he works in Shoreditch. He leads her into the Twilight Zone of its bars, and they emerge later having lost several hours without knowing where.

Her intervention is coming though, whether she wants it or not. The boy is off to Thailand very soon, and they won’t be seeing each other again until Christmas, when they meet at her family’s place in Indonesia. Her liver will have time to regenerate, if it's given the chance. But December is party month. It won’t have a hope.

And then there’s me. I probably need my own intervention right now. It’s to pry me away from the flat. I’ve got an invitation to the party C will be at tonight. It’s the 30th birthday of a mutual friend. There will be loads of people there, it’s an 80s themed dress up. And I should go. I know I should. But somehow, I just can’t muster the enthusiasm to go and be the sober person in the room. And I can’t bring myself to go and spend my hard earned on booze. I’m becoming a stick in the mud. And what’s worse, I like it. Someone get a crow bar and pry my fingers loose from the door frame. It’s the only way to get me out and about tonight.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

From the Old School House

Imagine an old school house. Lofty ceilings, hard surfaces and a fairly large space that would once have been crammed with grimy little critters of all ages; this is south London, after all, a place where smog and smut would have dominated the air, rather than just the brains and mouths of certain locals. There’s another floor above, where yet more urchins would have been packed literally to the rafters. There are windows letting natural light flood in, but they are too high to allow for any view that doesn’t involve pigeons perched on drain pipes. The birds always seem to be mating; I've stared at them a lot. Through the window, open to negate the stifling central heating, wafts the slightly stomach turning smell of a fish and chip shop that hasn’t changed its oil in far too long.

White painted walls, bars on the windows. It was an institution of learning, but it seems to have a much harsher purpose now. The swearing of the children who like to get up to who knows – or really wants to know – what in the alley beside the building adds to the feeling of being in some netherworld, the kind only seen by many in Guy Ritchie films and the estate sections of The Bill. But it’s not a movie set. It’s my office, the place I spend a depressing amount of time.

At one end, by the door that leads through to the stairs and the toilets, sit two people. In theory they sit there, anyway. In reality, they have their desks there as a base for the moments when they’re not on site, somewhere to put their coats while they have meetings, a phone to store their messages, a computer to write instructions for the builders. They’re not there very often. Then there’s a gap, not quite ten metres, but more than five and feeling like the Sahara desert of office space - vast, unfathomable, uncrossable. It’s been filled over the past few months. Detritus from other people’s desks has made its way down here; empty desks are magnets for this kind of thing in an office still adrift with paper and samples of stone, tiles, carpets, tap fittings. There’s even a broken photocopier in there. It’s wasteland, the car wreckers yard of the office.

I sit on the other side of it, a solitary figure with as much space again behind me. All I have to keep me company, most of the time, is my ipod, my computer, a skeletal dodo and a fluffy flamingo pen left behind by the occupant of the next desk when she was made redundant. And the randy pigeons on the rooftops outside. A telephone list with more names crossed out than not is held to the partition behind the computer screen with a piece of yellowing sticky tape. It’s a lonely old existence, some days. On others, there’s so much foot traffic going from the stairs to the kitchen, which opens off a corridor on my side of the room, or to the print area behind me, that I never get a chance to indulge what I’m doing now. You never know who is going to stop for a chat on their way through, surreptitiously checking your screen to see if you’re working on a juicier project than they are. In a world where two thirds of the people you know have been made redundant, you’re always on the look out for the project that looks like its going to last. You don’t want to be the person left clinging to the wreckage when the client gets the jitters about the state of the market and pulls the rug out from under you. Because you won’t have the wreckage for long before it – and your job – is snatched away from you.

L was bitching the other night about not having had a pay rise in the last six months. She wondered why I nearly bit her head off. She’s not familiar with the empty office, the fear, the boredom of not even being able to afford to buy the postage for your Christmas presents, let alone the presents themselves.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A Little Bit of Something

It happened again this morning. I was running late. That’s not what happened again, it seems to happen pretty much every morning, so I hardly ever comment on it these days. No, it was while I was bustling to the tube that it happened. A short anorexic girl out for a jog went by me and nearly took me out.

I’m not small. In fact, there is no dimension attached to me that could possibly be classed as small, except for my attention span, which is too tiny to measure. I shouldn’t be difficult to see coming. I was wearing a blue coat and a pink/purple/blue striped hat. I have big hair. I should have been clearly visible, especially from behind. I wasn’t walking up the middle of the footpath, but, rather considerately, I thought, was off to one side. There was nobody coming the other way. But still Little Miss These-Lycra-Leggings-Are-Flapping-Loose-At-My-Bum felt it necessary to try to cut between me and the brick wall I was walking beside, and in the process nearly overturned me. And it’s the second day in a row she’s done it. Being bumped into by her is like having a bag of rulers thrown at your back; she’s all sharp angles with, quite literally, no padding. The only reason she didn’t end up on her arse herself was that there was nothing of her to bounce off me. Kind of like a feather doesn’t really bounce off things as it falls to the ground, it just slightly alters its course, she was able to keep her feet.

But aggressive vertically challenged folk have been out in force of late. Last night I had one standing so close behind me on an escalator that her face must have been getting hit by the bag I had slung over my shoulder. Every time she breathed, I could feel some part of her against my thighs. She would have climbed the stairs, I’m sure, but for the stream of other midgets passing on the left. One of these bolted past at such speed that I was nearly sucked into her slipstream as I stepped off the top. I watched her weave through the crowd when I was caught in a lull, waiting for some moron to find their oyster card while they were at the gates. I couldn’t see her, she was too low down, but I could see the ripple of consternation her passing caused like wind through a field of wheat. It was around about then that I put together my theory about why shorter people are often so much more aggressive in crowd situations than taller ones. The taller ones can see the impact their movement has on the people around them. They can often see that by jostling the person next to them, they bump them into another person, and the contact travels like a wave out from the source. Shorties, on the other hand, barrel through hordes of people only able to see the ones they elbow out of the way – and sometimes it seems that they don’t even see them – until somewhere, Ashton Kutcher blacks out or a there's a hurricane in Texas. I think it’s time I tested out my own version of the butterfly effect though; the next stunted excuse for an adult who sideswipes me and nearly knocks me over because they hit me below my centre of gravity? Yeah, I might just land on them. We’ll see what that does to the butterfly.

*Apologies to all my short friends. You know I don’t mean you. None of you have knocked me over yet. But be warned, if you do…

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Dial M for...

I was away from my desk when my mobile rang. I didn't hear it - nobody would, since it's switched to silent during work hours. The only sign of any activity, when I got back to my desk - was the flashing light at the centre of the keypad and a little arrow showing on the screen. There's something about a missed call. Until the caller details come up on the screen, it could be anybody. It's a frisson of excitement in an otherwise mundane and boring day. But not today. Today, the caller details simply say 'Private'. There is no symbol in the top right of the screen to suggest that they, whoever they may have been, left a message. Excitement turns quickly to frustration, annoyance.

Why call at all, if they will not leave a message?

I assume it is a friend whose office number always comes up as private, then go back to work as I wait for a reply to my email asking what she wanted. But when it comes half an hour later, 30 minutes of distraction and futile attempts to keep working, to not pick up my phone and play with the buttons in hopes of finding out who it was, it is a denial; she didn't call me.

I log into various webmail accounts, hoping against hope that whoever it was has simply decided to email me instead. But no. There is no email waiting in either gmail account, nor is hotmail showing any news. Whoever it is, they have not left me a message anywhere.

Which means that it is not the publishing company I applied to for a job last week. It is not somebody wanting my services as a seamstress, giving me the cash to survive this month in a little more comfort. Nobody was actually desperate to contact me. And suddenly, I feel unloved instead of anxious. Melancholy.

It's cold and grey outside today. Meteorologists are forecasting fog overnight. And I'm surrounded by the over-warm fug of central heating, struggling to stay awake. I wish the call had come a few minutes earlier, a few minutes later, when I was sitting beside the phone. Anything to relieve the dull routine, the frustration of unsatisfied curiosity.

Update: I have identified my mystery caller. It was no mystery. It was the mobile phone carrier that I left earlier this year, attempting to win my custom back. They called again this afternoon, having called twice yesterday as well. I almost wish I'd never found out.

Monday, November 09, 2009

The Winter Coat

Winter is definitely upon us. The days are noticeably shorter, with stick figure shadows like children’s drawings attached to our feet by lunchtime. The trees shrugged off their leaves over the course of a couple of days last week, leaving a treacherous, slippery sludge on footpaths after it rained on Friday. Until the rain it looked pretty, tempting me into turning into a six year old again and kicking my way through the drifts for the joy of the sound and colour. I didn’t, but only because, in the grown up land I inhabit, I was perpetually rushing around, always late for whatever my next appointment was.

I had to dig out my longer winter coat today as well. The knee length black number that I bought with the winnings of my one and only soccer bet. Thank you, Tim Cahill, for keeping me warm for three years by being the first to score against Arsenal way back in 2006. I was looking the coat over before putting it on this morning and I noticed that the elbows are looking decidedly worn. I don’t think it’s going to see me through another winter after this. It will be added to the list of things I will be leaving behind when I leave London. And I’ll miss it; it features prominently in my winter travel photos, the few occasions that I have let myself appear in them. There I am, wrapped up against the cold with varying hats, gloves, scarves, and my trusty black, double-breasted, knee-length coat, always looking more stylish than any other coat I’ve managed to find. With the coat will vanish something of my self image.

Of course it saw less wear last winter than before. The second round of Heathrow injection kicked in to make it a little too snug to wear with enough layers underneath it. This year it seems to be more snug, but I’m fairly certain that it’s just me. If it was really any more snug than it was last year, the bottom button wouldn’t do up, rather than just straining ever so slightly. But whatever its fit, whatever the reason, it is gradually inching closer to the charity shop haul at the end of my London life.

It sounds like I have written that as a metaphor for my London life; it’s really not. It’s just an ode to a coat that has seen me through a lot. I could write a similar tribute to my boots, but they can’t handle the pace and need to be re-heeled at the beginning of every winter. The coat, in contrast, something that never truly gets packed away in a place like London, just needs a quick brush and it’s ready for service. It might be poetic to link living in London with a tired, worn out piece of clothing that no longer fits me properly. Hell, I’d think I was pretty darned clever if I could do that and make it work. But at the end of the day? It’s just a coat. There’s a new one in a shop out there waiting for me to have the right combination of time and money to find it. At the moment, it’s going to be waiting until kingdom come, but I know it’s out there somewhere. I just need to get off my butt and find it. In the mean time, my old faithful will have to serve. And do it well, given that we’re headed into the first week of temperature not reaching double figures this week.

I can’t tell if it’s the beginning of Christmas, or then end of the year. Either way, there is a touch of melancholy to the season for me. It’s my last full year in London, my last northern hemisphere winter. There are reasons to look back and reasons to look forward. I think I’ll focus on the forward, today.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

So you think you can...

...Write.
Well yes, actually, there is the occasional day when I'm pretty sure I can write. There are days in between when I'm convinced of my general crapness, certain that I can barely string together a sentence. People who get emails from me will know all about those days, the ones where I take all the words I want to say and just throw them up in the air to see where they land. I like to think of it as free form sentence structure, much the way my word inventions (witness:crapness, found in no dictionary I know of) are driving language forward; purists call it gibberish. One day I'm sure that someone will recognise the almost Joyce-ian genius of it. After all, they thought his novel-without-punctuation idea was pretty kooky at first, too.

The days when I know I can write are the days when I use a lot of adverbs. I like adverbs. In fact, I love them. Lovely, cheerfully, merrily, disgustingly, horrifically, mercifully. It is one of my favourite kinds of words. I've been known to write sentences without a single verb, with barely a noun, but with plenty of adverbs. On days when I feel ten feet tall and invincible, I scatter them with gay abandon - gaily, even - throughout my fiction. But apparently, this is the wrong thing to do. According to the experts, they should be used sparingly - that's their adverb, not mine. So lately, on the days when I believe everything they tell me about how to write, when I don't trust my own instincts, I go through and take them out. I strip ever single word that ads something descriptive to a noun. If it ends in -ly, it gets culled. I'm trying to be ruthless, really I am. And it has its advantages, too. Like at the moment, when I'm trying to do NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Today is day 3 and I'm ahead of the curve, so I'm optimistic about reaching the word count. Part of this is because of just how many more words are involved in saying 'a tone full of doubt' than just a simple 'doubtfully'. But the experts know best, after all.

Or so they would have us believe. Because the experts would get rid of all the fun in language. I know plenty of people who use adverbs when they speak. Are they saying that we should get rid of them in speech as well as writing? And shouldn't writing be all about finding an individual voice? Because if we make everything uniform, it suddenly becomes a whole lot more bland. Instant grey. Why read a book if you could have those thoughts, in that voice, in your own well-ordered mind? Personally, I like something a little more disorderly. Which might explain my liking of fluff-literature, as I consider it; fluff is all about the exuberant over statement.

Besides, if you iron all the quirks out of literature, you lose something delightful. Like the man in the shop I go to for my caffeine supplies at work. He recognises me now and even raises a half smile, no longer the surly morose individual who would barely grunt the total to me after pinging the cash register when he saw me pull yet another bottle of Coke from his drinks fridge. Now, I not only get a hint of smile, a hello, a nod, but once I've given over my money, I get a wonderful little gem of English-as-a-second-language that should never be wiped out: rather than just the ordinary, 'Thanks', he delivers up the delightful, 'Thank you please.' It might sound like I'm patronising his English; I'm not. I have seen him have conversations with people in languages I don't know enough to recognise anything about other than there being more than one of them. I know from experience that my own understanding of languages other than my own is sadly lacking. But I challenge the experts to keep English evolving, keep it going in the way it has for centuries as it steals from other languages, is innovated by people with the strength of will and personality to impose their own speech patterns on those around them. I challenge the experts to keep the intuitively, delightfully unique in the language.

And yes, today I think I can write. Tomorrow? Meh, who can tell?

Sunday, November 01, 2009

More than a tweet, less than a blog

I'm just jumping on to distract myself from what I ought to be doing, which is finishing various writing tasks. Just to give some idea of what I'm up to, here's a couple of stats for you...

Word count on 5000 word essay due in about an hour's time that I've been working on for the last two weeks: 1931
Word count on day one NaNoWriMo novel-in-a-month-insanity: 1862
Phone calls from guy on Match that I swapped numbers with on Thursday: 2, plus a couple of texts.
Face to face meetings with guy from Match that I swapped numbers with on Thursday: 0, although that is likely to change on Wednesday
Level of worry that he may in fact turn out to be less the nice guy he seemed when he first called, more like annoyingly clingy stalker type: Excessively high
Hours of sleep last week, not counting this morning's accidental forget-to-set-alarm debacle: Approximately 14
Statistics I have left to offer: 0
Amount of life I've wasted playing Spider Solitaire instead of writing 5000 word essay due in about an hour: 1879354 hours. Or at least it seems that way when I look at how much work I still have to do.

So, what with the novel-writing insane plan I have running at the moment, and the fact that my life is about to shift into overdrive (yes, I'm allowed out of the house without feeling guilty next week AND I've just been paid...double whammy), I'm thinking the posts might be easing up over the next month. Maybe. Fair warning!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Crush and burn

I'm doing it again. My expectations are getting far ahead of anything there's evidence to support. Somewhere, Hope careered wildly off its leash and ran off into the distance, taking me along for the journey. I can't complain about it too hard now. but what about when the wild ride ends, as it inevitably does, in a crash and burn situation? Well, I reserve the right to bitch and moan then.

But for now, all is sunshine and light. I've been messaging a guy online for about a week. The emails have been flying back and forth, and from the emails I was getting the impression that he was a nice enough guy. But I can usually keep myself in check when it's just emails; I know from bitter experience that a good writer of emails does not necessarily translate into a perfect fit for me. But this guy - let's call him Q - has a good enough writing style, and enough similar interest to me that we haven't struggled with emails.

The bit we have struggled with is finding a time to meet up in person. We're both studying, and both very busy with it right now. So one way or another we're not getting a face to face meeting for a week or two. And for one reason or another, I think he might be thinking along similar lines tome here, because we've exchanged phone numbers - earlier today, no less - and he called me tonight. And, over the phone at least, he seems like a nice normal guy. I know you're not supposed to do this, but he checks boxes. Intelligent enough, bit of a laugh, voice not an irritating whine, likes to read quality books, a bit of a handy-man. The boxes that can be checked without meeting someone have been ticked. And here's the thing. Once again, the anticipation is building. The delay in the face to face bit means that there's more pressure on this than there would otherwise have been. I have more time to create expectations of what he'll be like. And if he doesn't measure up to them, I'll be once again shattered. Or worse. What if I don't measure up to his expectations?

And what happens when my visa is up, if there's no great collapse of one or both of our hopes? Because he's close to his family, has a tight network of friends, from the sound of things. And he's already asked me how I handle being so far from my family. So even if things do go well in the short term, there's longer considerations.

And I'm so far ahead of myself, it's getting ridiculous. I haven't quite booked the church and named the first born, but give me a week or so and I'll be there, I'm sure. I love the buzz it gives you, the complete inability to stop smiling. The sense of crush. But I hate coming down off it and landing back in reality. Here's hoping that this time, there's more crush than crash. The details can sort themselves out.

Eat, drink and be merry

Sitting reading the Guardian online, I came across a story that interested me. Well, there was more than one, actually, but this is the one I was most bemused by. The guy who lives without cash was interesting enough, sure, but the fact that there is an official designation of drinks in the US labelled as "imitation alcohol" was a whole new thing for me. I'd always naively figured that something either was alcoholic, or it wasn't. At less than 0.5%, it's probably got less than a Cherry Ripe, although that too is a contentious subject.

It seems to me that this is a case of over zealous policing, combined with ignorance that old-school bottles used to contain things other than booze. Sometimes they contained laudanum as well. Sometimes, they even held lemonade. The bottle doesn't make it alcoholic. The trace amounts that they mention on the label would come about in almost anything the combines fruit juice and sugar. Hell, leave a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge or in the sun for too long and you could get merrily rolling along fairly quickly. It wouldn't taste too good, but that's why you buy your alcohol from people whose brewing technique is a little more advanced. Actually, if getting alcohol out of schools entirely is what they're after, they may wish to take a look at some of the experiments going on in the science labs. I'm pretty sure I remember doing a more complicated version of the apple juice experiment when I was at school. Of course, they didn't let us drink the stuff, but I'm pretty sure some people would look askance at teaching a room full of 15 year old how to distill liquor. They're probably the same people who would disapprove of Mr P's hilarious exploding milo tin gag as well though, so what do they know?

I'm not going to glorify drinking. There's enough of that goes on elsewhere. I like a drink or five myself, but I'm also the legal age. If I had any alcohol in my system before the legal age, well, that's between me and the idiots who let me into the clubs as a 17 year old without even asking me to produce a fake ID. But seriously, folks. Alcohol is not evil in and of itself. It's been around for centuries. It does have some good properties; think how much more painful and deadly 16th century surgery would have been without alcohol to act as both anaesthetic and antiseptic? Those two people who survived their operations would surely have died. People need to take a little responsibility for their own actions. That kid who went to the principal and reported the problem? Nobody was making him drink it. Personally, the "less than" part would have told me that it was pretty much 0%, which is good enough for me. The people at Fosters, who now feel that their David Boon dolls were a mistake should have been more put off by the amount of beer you needed to buy to get one (from memory it was a slab; 24 cans for those not in Australia) than the fact that he once consumed 52 cans on a flight between Australia and the UK. It wasn't Boonie that was encouraging the drinking, it was Fosters. But who could be surprised? It's the reason for their existence, after all. Much like making non-alcoholic lemonade is the reason for the existence of Fentimans. Call it what it is, people. It's lemonade, made from real lemons, no less, not imitation anything else.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Channelling my mother

Time, they say, waits for no man. No woman, either, if I'm any judge, because it seems I must be getting old. It's been a busy week since my last attack of blogging. Not en eventful week, really, but one that has kept me busy enough that I've barely had a moment to think about what I'd writer here. Bite sized chunks of the day just disappear into nothingness where I have no idea what I've done. I look at the clock and there's half an hour of my life gone, on what I don't know, because I have no memory of anything other than the last time I looked at the clock.

That's not entirely true. This whole time-weariness mood has come out of a few things. Last weekend was a busy Saturday. A date in the afternoon, a leaving party at night, and somewhere in there study, too. The date was unremarkable except for one event, which I'll get to later. the party was fun, in spite of my budgetary constraints, because there were good friends in a nice bar, and everyone was there to have fun. But more about that later too. Back to the date.

I'm not going to dwell on this one. He was nice enough, if a little bland. The place we went to was very nice - must go back there sometime for afternoon tea with the girls. But the main reason I'm even mentioning this comes from something else. I've just passed the three year anniversary of my arrival in London. For that entire time I've lived a fifteen minute walk away from a cousin and never seen her. We don't move in the same circles, we never spoke in Melbourne. We each know the other is there, and that's about the limit of it. Until I saw her coming out of the restaurant as I went in. Three years, not a glimpse, and I see her when I'm on a date and desperately don't want to. The only consolation about this was that it was quite clear she didn't want to see me any more than I wanted to see her. We successfully ignored each other and life resumes its normal course. Ships passing in the night? Not really. She might not have even recognised me - I can't remember the last time we saw each other, but I'm fairly certain I was still a teenager, and a young one at that.

So I moved on, and the party was the perfect antidote to the awkwardness of a mediocre date and a potential glitch with a family member. We had a booth, in the grand tradition of the big party in a central London bar, and were perfectly positioned to watch all the comings and goings of everyone else. Which leads me to another reason why I think I must be getting old. There were plenty of young folk out and about, it being Saturday night. And I found myself turning into my mother. I couldn't believe the outfits the girls were wearing. Were they dresses, or tops that they'd forgotten to put something with? And how could they walk in those shoes, I asked myself. Surely they'd be doing irreparable damage to their feet. I gave a self-satisfied smirk at my knee-high brown biker boots with the sensible block heel, and thought to myself that they'd be sorry later. Then I almost cried at how much like my mother - or worse, my grandmother - that sounded. Yep, I'm getting old.

Which brings me to the other reason why I haven't posted lately. It seems that I can no longer match it with the kiddies in areas other than the ability to wear anything, no matter how uncomfortable or ridiculous, provided it's fashionable. I can't party all night without consequences. Sure, I'm a night owl, always have been. I do my best work by moonlight (which may explain why this post is a little disjointed, and the daytime date was a less than sparkling affair). And I've been burning the midnight oil of late, trying to get my last essay done. And it's hard work. Especially since I keep getting sidetracked by a minor addiction to Spider Solitaire that I seem to have developed. In fact, I've been burning the 3am oil, as well. I remember doing the same thing when I was finishing my architecture degree. Sure, it was tough, but I could cope. One good night of sleep and I was fine again. Now? Even people I work with have noticed that I look exhausted.

Perhaps it's the looming deadline of 30 - not that I'm freaked out about it. It's just that as a milestone, for women it does kind of mark the ending of many things. By the time you're 30, as was pointed out by a friend, you have to concede that you aren't going to suddenly discover a hidden sporting talent. Or almost any hidden talent, really. You're supposed to have reached the end of you carefree irresponsible ways, have settled down with a family; if you haven't, turning 30 starts the clock ticking the countdown to a time when it's no longer an option. 30. It's just a number. But it's a number perilously close to the age at which my mother had me, her third and of course, most perfect child. I look at her life then, settled with two children, on her way owning her home, and I compare it to mine: single, all but homeless, with only a head full of memories to show for all my time. But most of the time, I wouldn't trade it. Sure, there's nothing anyone outside of me can see, but who cares what anyone else thinks? And there lies the real difference between me and those girls in the bar. Because no matter how fashionable it is, I refuse to wear a belt as a skirt and to make myself into a ludicrously tall giant on spike-heeled instruments of torture, simply because some fashion bible tells me to. They'll learn. And by the time I'm in my sixties, where my mother is now? Well, I can already see where I'm heading. It's not a little bit scary, let me tell you. Those orthopedic shoes are just terrible.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

A strongly worded blog of complaint

It always amazes me just how many people out there have absolutely no awareness of how they impact on other people's lives and comfort. I think, living in a fairly large western city, there are few things that can drive you insane quicker than someone with their head firmly planted in the clouds and no concept of your tutting behind them. The person who dawdles up the middle of a busy footpath. The one who re-heats the pungent leftovers in the office kitchen. The loud, raucous horde of teenagers anywhere.

Today's offender was on the tube. She shoved her way into the carriage behind me, in a gross violation of personal space that saw her with her nose pressed against my back for two stops, at which point she made a mad dash for the aisle. Of course, when seating became free, I ended up with her next to me. And on top of me, as it happened, because she was also one of those people who feel it is necessary to not only lean all the way over the armrest (in my opinion, there not for the support of one's arm, but rather to keep one's neighbour at a suitable distance) but also to open their newspaper in a manner which Basil Fawlty would find understated. So, with my book approximately two inches from my nose, and someone else's elbow firmly planted in my side, I was pressed up against the - it has to be noted, out of fairness - rather attractive chap beside me on the other side. So it was that the excess of bodily contact was shared through the entire carriage. Some say the effect of a butterfly flapping its wings can trigger and earthquake. I would ask what the effect of a short round woman ruffling a newspaper would be, in such terms. 

Of course, I have now been here so long, come to act so much like a local, that I don't voice my annoyance with these people. Admittedly, on occasion I have felt it necessary to mutter to whoever was lucky enough to be my companion that day - often days when I have spoken to someone back in Melbourne, when my Australian-ness is at its peak. On a particularly bad day, I might ask the offender if they mind or tell them by all means to take up the entire entryway. But most of the time, I simply act like I did today, when no amount of squirming, wriggling, or exasperated sighing could draw the offenders attention to their transgression. 

I think it's time that something was done. These people must be told, once and for all, that it is unacceptable for them to have a conversation in the doorway of a shop. That one doesn't simply stop and change direction when walking along the street. Action must be taken, for the sake of society at large. Anyone volunteering to do it, then? No? Tut, thought as much.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Insomniac ramblings

Tonight I seem to be dining at the insomnia table. It's a full selection on offer; the eyes are heavy but the merest hint of movement snaps them back open again. The mind won't stop ticking over absolutely useless facts that are of no conceivable interest to anyone - including me, as it happens.

So here I am, stranded far from the land of nod and without any visible sign of transportation to take me there. What else is there for me to do but blog?

I'm sure my sleep exile is self inflicted. The worst insomnia usually is. Stress? Yeah, I've had it. Not this time though. This time, the self-inflicted bout of sleeplessness is caused by an overabundance of the stuff earlier today. I've been off work with a cold, nothing too serious admittedly, but enough that I slept until an unreasonable hour this morning. Slept so deeply that I was already hours late for work when I actually became conscious enough to let them know I wouldn't be in - and that in spite of setting my alarm to wake me around the time the phones start being answered by real people instead of machines.

And now, probably around twelve hours after I first woke up properly today, I'm perched here, desperately wanting to go to sleep, even yawning every so often, but unable to banish my brain from alertness. And as I'm mired here, I can't even retreat to my usual habits. I'm on L's laptop, my own being out of commission for the time being thanks to some incomprehensible technical glitch. Much like the one that won't let me sleep, it won't let any power reach the necessary elements of the computer. So I can't even use the time constructively. And here I am, running circles in the blogosphere, hoping to exhaust myself. Perhaps if I'm boring enough I'll put myself to sleep. I think I've had a fairly good shot at it here. Hoping I haven't cured insomnia in anyone other than myself. 

Friday, October 16, 2009

Bitch and Moan

I should blog. I ought to blog. There should be plenty for me to write about. I am, after all, on leave from work and in a city with so much to offer that I could never tire of it. That's all true, it is. I'm a single girl, with plenty of friends she can call on and no ties to hold her back.

Except that I do have ties. They may not have held me back today, but they're still there. Of course, they're not an excuse I could possibly use for the fact that I'm in the process of following up my busy day of housework with an equally busy day of sitting on my butt. Nor do they excuse the way I've been wondering all day what modern housewives without kids get up to all day - how the hell do they fill their time, given that there's only so much you can give to vacuuming, mopping, washing clothes and dishes, and I've done it all in one day? But they do offer something to explain me using one of my much loved leave days in cleaning the flat (it was my turn, really, given that I hadn't done any housework since before I went home for two weeks. Or even further back, since before I went to Norway).

And it's a much repeated refrain for me. I'm broke. Again. And it's only the middle of the month. My ever shrinking pay packet has shrunk to the point where it doesn't even see me through the first half of the month anymore. In the three years and one day that I've lived in London, I've managed to go backwards. Not just a little backwards; that could be understood, given the amount of travel I do. No, I've raced back to be where I was at before I finished uni. The first time around. In 2001.

But I'm still somehow better off than some. I at least appreciate the opportunities that are out there, and grab them when I can. L announced the other day that she doesn't think she's going to get through her to-do list because she has too much to do at work. I felt like slapping her. Here am I, trying desperately to figure out a way to get to tick off just one more thing on my list but knowing that unless my trend is reversed in a hurry it's not going to happen. There she is, in a secure job that is paid roughly three times better than me - and that's base rate, without allowing for all the extra hours she does - won't get through her want-list because of work? What did she move to the UK for, then? To work? She doesn't understand why it makes me so angry to see her wasting her chances. Clearly, she doesn't empathise with the sense of powerless fury that overtakes me when I hear such a pathetic excuse for putting off your life. If I was in her situation, there's a good chance I'd still be broke. But what a beautiful time I'd be having in the meantime.

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah my foes and oh my friends
It gives a lovely light.
Edna St Vincent Millay

Geek by numbers

I am a self-confessed geek. Notice, I've even got those link things sorted now. Hell, I write a blog on a scarily regular basis. There's no denying it. But now, I'm a geek obsessed with numbers.

There's the stat counter that I run on this blog. I got very excited today, thinking that I'd had a load more visitors than normal. Turns out it was just 2 people discovering me for the first time - thanks for looking, folks. My handy little counter tells me where people have gone on my blog. It also tells me about something called page loads. It was the page load figure that had me excited. Whilst I love that there are people out there who've now read more than the most recent post - and yeah, I adore the idea of having an audience - I wasn't as excited when it turned out to only be two people.

And I'm still paying attention to the world of internet dating. I've hit a point where quantity far outstrips quality. I feel a thrill when I see how many people have read my profile. They haven't necessarily contacted me after they've looked, but the initial hook is enough.

The number of emails I get a day, the number of twitter followers I have...It's all about validation through numbers. And the internet, handy as it is, can tell me just how many people do - or don't, if you take a negative view - pay attention to little old me. I'm not exactly an extrovert in the real world (hell, I was voted person most likely to become a spy by my high school teachers, and that wasn't because of my athleticism or my skill with gadgets). But on the internet? Sure, I crave the attention in what could become a very unhealthy way. Notice, I'm even referencing myself here. 

I could blame the number of accountants I have in my life for the sudden fixation on numbers, but I know it's a lie. So instead, I'm just going to have to hope that the attention keeps up, or I don't know what I'll do. I might even have to make an effort in reality. And we all know that could end badly indeed.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

He who tires of London

I've spent the last couple of days as a London tourist and it's brought home a few things to me. One is the obvious one; I love London, but I hate tourists. I know, I am technically a tourist myself, especially as I stroll around town with L and her guidebook. But I like to think I'm not the sort of tourist who stops in the middle of a crowded footpath to study their map, who stands aimlessly in the best viewing angle of any major attraction, helpfully blocking everyone else's photo opportunity. I like to think that I'm considerate and don't make a mess of the place for other people. That's what I tell myself, anyway, even as I do the kind of stop-and-spin maneuver outside the Tate that drives me insane on Oxford St. 

But I do love London in all its gobsmackingly beautiful corners, its stories, the fact that so many people have lived here and left their mark on the world. We found the street my ancestors lived in in Shoreditch today, on our way to a museum. It's a quaint old street full of warehouses, underneath an overhead train line. I'm pretty sure the train line was put through after my ancestors had made the mad dash for the Victorian goldfields, however, so it wasn't entirely the same. Other addresses I have for other ancestors were helpfully obliterated by the Luftwaffe, like so much of London.

Which brings me to something else I began to appreciate more today; London is old. Luftwaffe, yeah, not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things. The Victorian era building I live in? Also, not terribly old, but getting closer. The oldest shop in London, still trading, built in the sixteenth century, during the reign of Elizabeth I? Yeah, now we're talking. Hidden gems are everywhere in London. And most of the time, you'd never know they were there. I love taking the time to either wander for myself, or do a walking tour and be shown these tidbits, the remnants of a different city. There's something to be said for the first time you turn a corner and find a building that was old before your ancestors were shipped out of their homeland to a new social experiment on the other side of the world. The shock of the distance they travelled and the space they found when they got there must have almost killed them. 

Because for all its grandeur, London is not big. My feet are telling me otherwise at the moment, but I have essentially walked the length of London today, in a not very direct line, then headed back to the centre. From London Bridge to Shoreditch, then back into the centre for Covent Garden and Holborn. That's just today. Yesterday was the circuitous rambles around Hampstead Heath and Highgate cemetery. I've found corners of London that I never saw before. For all that it isn't big geographically, the denseness of the place means that you can never see it all. I doubt anyone ever does get to know every inch it, except perhaps the cabbies who have 'the knowledge'.

I almost envy them the years they spend exploring and memorising the nooks and crannies of the city. It must be an amazing experience to know so much. No wonder there are some who double as tour guides. One day, I'll test them out for myself. Until then, though, I've got to get back to plotting where I'll walk my legs off (hopefully literally, if I keep this up) on tomorrow's outing. Samuel Johnson was right, afterall: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Dateline

In the spirit of helpfulness, I've decided to take my, ahem, valuable experience in the world of internet dating and compile a list of handy hints for the beginner. So, here goes. And don't hold it against me if I've left any out. The list is neither endless nor accurate for everyone.

1. Never meet without a photo. Crucial. Also, find out height if possible, because photos can be misleading. I'm fairly tall, so the idea of turning up find a man who's 5'2, far from ideal. He might be the most lovely man on the face of the earth, but if he's eye level with my boobs, we're both going to be distracted - him for obvious reasons and me wanting to slap him, for the obvious reasons.

2. Always have an escape clause handy. Even if this is just a friend who can call with an "emergency". And double check that your friend understands the emergency smoke signal. You don't want to end up in a situation where you're trapped, and your emergency "Help, I''m about to pass out from sheer boredom, whilst bleeding from the ears because he hasn't stopped talking" message is misunderstood and you're left holding the phone a willing it to ring. If the wires are crossed, it won't.

3. Don't assume that because a guy is great with words in an email that he will be the best conversationalist. Chances are pretty good that he won't, in my experience. Think about it. When writing an email, you can edit, you can take your time, you can have someone else read over it. Hell, you can do what one non-English-speaking girl I've heard about did, and get someone else to WRITE it for you (the translator turning up for the date as well was the giveaway). But in person? There's nowhere to hide when he starts rambling about how great his ex was, or mutters incoherently. Or, worst crime of all, is just plain boring.

4. Arrange to meet somewhere public. Several reasons, here. The most obvious is the safety issue, of course. As much as it might have been nice to get picked up from your parents' house by your date when you were younger - and your parents wanted to check out the reprobate you were spending your time with - it's much safer to meet publicly for most people in the age of stalking. You don't want to let them know where you live until you've had a chance to vet them. But always make sure someone knows where you are. Sometimes, you can even combine this with point 2; a friend coming by to pose as your current boyfriend/girlfriend and dragging you away is a surefire way of making sure the hideous horror across the table from you in the cafe knows never to contact you again. The other advantage of meeting publicly, if your date is either a slow starter or, in case of failure at point 2, never-ending, at least in areas with lots of people you've got something else to do. Eavesdropping, people watching, all valid entertainments. And if your date doesn't notice that they don't have your whole attention? You know they weren't worth the effort anyway.

5. Always have an escape route planned. And I'm not talking about your phone-a-friend or a phantom getaway - although that's another possible option in case point 2 fails and you really can't stand another minute in his or her company. Know your way home, or have the money for a cab to get you there. The last thing you want at the end of a bad date is to be forced into sharing a cab. Not only does that let the other person know where you live (see point 3), but it also means you're trapped in their company for that bit longer. Sure, if it's a good date, sharing a cab is fine - perfect, in fact - but at least prepare for any eventualities.

So there you have it. My 5 rules for internet dating when it comes time to meet up. There are other points out there, I'm sure. Tips and tricks during the email phase, phrasing for the profile, suggestions for venues, for outfits, hell, any step of the process can be analysed. But this is what I've got to offer. The other stuff? Well, I'm sure you can figure it out. I just wish I hadn't needed experience to put together this list. Because for all the good dates - and there have been some - there's been some shockers too. Hard won information above, people. Use it wisely!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Not noteworthy, but needy

I'm still supposed to be doing study so, of course, I'm back cruising the internet. I wandered into the 'blogs of note' section of the blogger site. And it prompted me to ask something. I've been blogging, on and off (more on than off for the past six months or so) since 2006. Three years worth of my thoughts, observations and avoidance issues. And somehow, in all that time, I've never once been even considered, as far as I know, as being a blog of note. Sure, I have readers. there's three of you out there somewhere who come along and read my posts. Well, I know where two of you are but I'm assuming there's a third because there are more visits than can be accounted for by you two (you know who you are). So I get the odd visitor who reads my musings. I've even had a comment or two. Not many, sure, but comments. And I go out there and read other people's things. And what gets me is that those blogs of note? I'm certain some of them aren't as interesting as my collection of angry rants and random neuroses. 

Once, in a similar fit of boredom to what I'm having today, I read some blog advice pages. They suggested that you should have a theme to get people along to your site. I do have a theme. It's me, and all the crap that I think. I know it's crap, it's random, it's often poorly put together (this IS a blog people, it's more like a diary than a newspaper column after all), but it IS about me. All of it. Well, no, not all of it, obviously, there are are some parts which are about people I know. But I'm in there somewhere. That's my theme. 

So how do you do it? How do you get to become a blog of note? I want to be there, on that list of ordinary blogs. Surely 3 and a bit years ought to be enough time? I want my recognition and I want it now.

And if you were picturing a three year old face down on the floor banging fists and feet, you had a fairly close approximation to my state of mind. Apologies for the rant. I've been getting by on four hours of sleep for a week now and I'm not as young as I was when I used to keep this up for a month during my architecture studies. And even then I went slightly batty as a result. Or maybe it's the sugar coursing through my veins to keep me awake. Whatever it is, I'm sure all will be fixed once I finish this essay I'm writing and get back to regular sleeping and diet patterns. That and not feeling guilty every time I leave my desk.

Regular programming will resume shortly.

Must love dogs

As I procrastinate my way to another all-night essay writing session, I've been looking at anything and everything that comes to mind on the internet. At least part of this has involved looking at Match.com. One of the things I have discovered in my forays into the world of internet dating, people are endlessly fascinating, and at the same time infinitely stupid about what will be appealing to the opposite sex. 

On what planet could it possibly be a good thing to put a passport photo of yourself as your profile photo? Especially if, as a passport photo, it's still attached to your passport. And has a stamp across the corner of it so everyone knows it's still attached to your passport. I don't know about you, but I've yet to see a good passport photo of someone. I still marvel that the people at passport control can actually tell that the person standing in front of them is the one looking like they've just been arrested for trafficking in child sex slaves on the passport they hand over. Sure, the passport is a notch above the driver's licence (at least you get to choose which shot of you on a slab at the morgue gets pasted into your passport), but it's still not going to impress anyone. 

Photos aren't supposed to be the be-all-to-end-all, though - personality and interests are supposed to play a part. So it's crucial that you can can write about yourself in a way that is going to set you apart from the crowd a little. I've read a whole load of profiles written by guys who are interested in movies and going to the pub - not clubs - with their friends, who are willing to try new things, who don't take themselves too seriously and are looking for a girl who is the same. Believe me, most girls would describe themselves in similar words. But there are so many who don't even run their text through a spell checker. Come on people, it's not rocket science. Although looking at the photo attached to the man who can neither spell, nor find the key that turns off caps lock (not to mention any of the punctuation), it must seem that way to some people.

I know, I'm harsh, judgemental and sometimes downright nasty. And at the end of the day, I can't look down my nose at these people too much because, just like them, I'm still on the shelf. But dear God, if this is what's left in the singles barrel, sometimes I think I'm better off just staying single.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

It's amazing how combinations of factors can bring out the silliness. I've just spent a couple of hours on the couch with L watching some quality girlie DVDs. Well, one B-Grade chick flick starring Mandy Moore, at any rate, so we could ogle Matthew Goode

L and I have very different styles when we're forced to share a couch (too much washing drying in the living room means limited TV viewing positions). I'm quite happy with the whole each having half a couch in which to do as we please. But that doesn't seem to work for L. She slowly spreads until she occupies every inch of space that isn't taken up by my butt. Sometimes, like tonight, she will angle for this to include my hip, my shoulder, any part of me that is still long enough for her to prop part of her on. Sometimes I'm willing to put up with it, for the sake of peace so I can watch the movie. But tonight, I'd seen the movie before and it was chosen more for its man-candy than it's genius plot line, so I wasn't surrendering without a fight.

Clearly, neither of us has been getting enough sleep, because the silliness was in full flight. At one point I was described as a snuggle point. I'm not sure what that means; I'm not sure I want to, to be honest. But apparently, I'm comfortable as a pillow, as well. Inevitably, I started poking her. It didn't degenerate into some fantasy image for teenage boys, but pillows were thrown at each other. Neither of us was wearing skimpy pyjamas, though, so it's OK. 

It did - strangely - remind me of our last trip together, in Norway. That trip is the reason I was making certain that we were having separate beds when we head to New York. We ended up having to share a double. I know I'm no picnic to share a bed with. I apparently have a habit of rolling over with a dead arm and nearly braining whoever is next to me. Quite a few people have told me this. I've only connected with one person - sorry Lou - but the fear of god has been put into a few others at different times. But I've never done what L did to me. The bed was in an alcove, climbed into from one side and up against walls on the other three. I was soundly sleeping on the wall side, pushed as far against it as I could go thanks to L having similar bed tactics to the ones she employs on the couch. I woke up to find a pair of hands in the small of my back attempting to push me out of bed. Of course, there was nowhere for me to go except into the wall, in spite of my protests and attempts to wake her. It was uncomfortable enough that I'm determined to never be in the same position again - in every sense of that expression.

But I got my own back tonight. L ended up off the couch. So all's fair.

God we need to get a life.