Quandry

One of the friend's of the family's daughter is becoming quite a looker. We get along quite well. She's 11 years younger than me. Is that a problem, her being 21? Ask any randy mid-life crisis man that question and you'd get a unanimous response.

It's weird as I've known her on and off for years. She was always the curly haired little 9 year old that, while attractive in that "she's going to be a looker one day" way, you'd never do anything about... that's just illegal. As time goes by, the age gap becomes more manageable (c'mon 21 and 32 are slightly less illegal than 9 and 20) and you begin to reassess things in an adult light.

Last time I saw her was two years ago and a party my parents held and we got along famously there (having a burgeoning English accent helped, as did the shifting of 50-off pounds from my previously hefty frame). I've been told that she talked about me endlessly to her mum afterwards.

Of course, friends of families kinda frown on 11 year gaps in anything, so nada came of it.

Tonight at this Boxing Day evening was weird, having not seen her for two years, but being told of this alleged spark. I've come to it over the last couple of years as a sort of solace. "I still got it," in the parlance of the Fonz.

Thus, it was with a sense of trepidation that I entered into conversation this evening. Being 32, two years is nothing (how sad that that is really really true). Being 21, two years can be a period of intense upheaval. So, things (read this as "feelings") that were there two years ago could easily not be there now, and my snatch of solace could so easily be so easily go up in a puff of smoke. I could look back on the "I had it and lost it" phase of my Fonzie emulation.

I have to say, my fears - from my side anyway - were all for nought. The conversation was easy and "bippy" and I don't think I told any stories that will come back to haunt me (I've shelved the "I pissed purple" University exam-period story... girls don't dig it). I dread the quiet periods where the other side of the conversation will realise I have nothing to say. Thankfully, there's always the "so, how's school/work/etc." or "what's the plan for new years" or what have you to fall back on at this time of year.

The convo was actually going really well and I felt a sense of lament as she left prior to dinner, and hope to see her again before the next two years is up. She's finishing up college and seems to have her whole life ahead of her, funny what a decade can do... it's hard to remember that I felt like that once.

If only I lived in Canada. I keep telling myself that. I AM ... an idiot.

Eatsville = Weight Gain

I gotta really curb the crap intake. Everyone still says I look thinner than ever, but i feel all fat and bloated trying to survive the Christmas season. Too much of everything - bread, booze, chocolate, meat, you name it and not enough exercise.

Still, with over 35 cm of snow outside, the last thing anyone wants to do is walk.... trust me, I've tried. Slush on the trousers isn't fun and a head full of snow isn't cool either.

I've just gotta my intake and coast until I get back to a more controlled environment. Tonight we were out at a Boxing Day evening shin dig and I really had trouble getting me freshly washed trousers to fit. NEVER a good sign...

Boxing Day

Went shopping today with the bro, as is the boxing day tradition. Not even blizzard like conditions can stop those determined to part with hard earned cash. At the end of the day, you end up buying stuff you might not care to really own, just to take part in the impulse buying of "door crasher specials" and "Boxing Day only" sales.

I have to say that since I inherited the "do i really need this?" voice at the back of my head, it's been harder to do much of anything on impulse.

Years back I would have spent first and asked questions later. Now, I'm asking questions first and not spending money later. Sometimes, however, it's nice to have a sanity holiday and I think a couple of my Boxing Day purchases will bear that out.

On a lighter note, it's bloody cold here in central Canada. I'm sitting in the basement on my parents' PC and I can barely type for "chattery" hands. You'd think we could get some heating in here.

Winter is coming!

Not for the first, but for the first time in a few years, it looks a dead cert that we're going to have a white christmas.

Today, the flurried began. At first it resembled that Hollywood snow you see in movies that are shot in places that NEVER get snow.... all powdery and fake. Then the hard stuff began to fall. The weather hacks reckon we'll receive around a foot of the white stuff tonight and there's no way it's leaving us anytime before Saturday, so HURRAH!

Currently, we're sitting pretty at -2C which is ample temperature to keep the stuff from turning into a wet puddly mess. I'm really looking forward to sitting out in the hot tub, with the snow falling down as I suck down a couple of cold ones. THIS is what winter's all about!

Yahoo!

Today I awoke at 7am. It's a holiday, so why, I hear you ask, did I put myself though such a work-day non-holiday thing?

Well, I had a phone interview at 8am with Yahoo! back in London town. Thankfully, it was more of a meet'n'greet and only lasted about 10 minutes, but I had to prep myself mentally and all that and subsequently had a rather unrestful sleep.

The phoner (as we used to call them in the journalism trade) went well and I've been invited back for a second interview, this time face to face. Again, I'm not too sure if I want the job, but I know that where I work right now is quickly, QUICKLY losing its appeal. Loads more cash usually helps!

UPDATE

I have a follow up interview on Thursday, 13 January, 2005 at 4pm. So, when I get back from Canada I have to buy myself a new suit and attempt to shift some Christmas weight and wear an air of respectibility and knowledge. All steep requests. Will I do it? Doubtful. Will I be successful? Doubtful.

Made it

Well, I'm back in the great white north and it's definitely living up to its name. It's white, and very cold and windy.

Flight was a long slog - almost nine hours, but I've made it and I'm glad to not have to see an airport for another few weeks. My mate G went to the airport with me, and for that I'm more grateful than I think he'll ever know. Travelling can be a rather lonely experience and to have a friendly face see you off is worth more than anything.

My face

Dunno if it's due to age, but my face feels like I've been vigourously scrubbing with sand paper and I really put it down to the wintery weather here. I did live 20 years with these conditions, so it must be age, or I'm just getting so doddery I don't remember.

Faker

As much as I look forward to my visits back to Canada, there's something rather fake about the whole existence here. London is becoming a depressing hovel, but there's an overwhelming sense of fakery about being here... like someone's going to yell cut at any time, or the backdrop will fall away and show real life at some point. It's hard to contextualise, but it doesn't seem real.

Aside from that, it's great seeing friends and family. It's rather crap, however, realising that as friends start to have families, I'll only ever be that weird guy that's around a couple of days a year, and not an integral "uncle" figure.

As they say, I made my bed and now I have to lie in it. I'm also increasingly aware that I need to be careful for what I wish for.

PSB Christmas!

Further to my post months back about the PSBs doing Battleship Potemkin at Trafalgar Square, today my annual PSB Chrimbo card arrived in the post.

Not so much a Christmas card for the mantle, it's a DVD of highlights from the Trafalgar Square performance. I haven't watched it yet, but I hope for the best.

It's going to Canada with me, so hopefully I'll be able to watch it there and let my mates see what I got to stand in the rain to see in person.

Elation!

I have to admit to a certain sense of elation these past few days and weeks. On Friday, I begin a three week festive holiday back in Canada and I have to admit I'm really looking forward to it.

England, London in particular, has become a den of Chavs, fuelled by beer and cheap women who'll do anything to appear on the cover of Nuts or similar low-rent lads mags.

Getting away from that is going to be a definite breath of fresh air.

With most holidays, I find the best period is the anticipatory pre-holiday time, when you wind down, and let that sense of elation overwhelm you. When it's Christmas, it's even better as there's work parties, lunches and drinks with friends to get you there. I don't feel my holiday starts on Friday, I feel it started over a week ago, what with all the celebrations.

My holiday proper, however, will commence when I reach Paddington Station and check my bags in at the Air Canada counter. After that, I get my Caffe Nero coffee and Heathrow Express ticket and we're officially "On Holiday".

Of course, the run up is also full of manic running around, and if you're me manic MP3 recording for friends. I realise that all my prepping will be for nought as I sit with my case open in my parents' front room remembering that vital present is still sitting on my bed and hastily go out and re-purchase a similar item in time for Christmas. But, I feel, that is all part and parcel of the holidays.

This period of the year is grand and I can't wait to see all my old school mates and friends and mates.

Growing old gracefully

Will there ever come a day when I'm happy and content with getting old? Doubtful.

It's funny, growing up all I wanted was to be older. I wanted my body to fit into the 17 or 18 year old mind that I was adamant I possessed. I was the oldest 12 year old you ever met. Now that I'm early-30s I want to be 18 again. I think deep down, everyone does.

An age of innocence, experiementation and no responsibilities. All you had to do was pass exams and make enough pocket money at McDonald's to afford your CDs and concert tickets.

Even though I'm not comfortable being almost double my ideal age, I am happy that I'm a child of the 70s. I was young enough that I didn't need to deal with the whole flares situation or brown and orange furniture (and they say the 80s is the decade that taste forgot??), yet I was old enough to live through the 80s pretty aware of what was going on around me.

I think the 80s were the last innocent decade before big business got their claws into everything and financially proving yourself was the buzzword... whether it be in music, movies, work, life, etc. The rot probably set in in the late 80s as the me-decade overspilled into the corporate UPC barcode decade.

So, while I envy the 18 year olds for all the things I used to have, I don't envy them the era they're 18, and I can only see it getting worse for the next generation. At least the current crop will be able to remember a time before "the threat of terror", similar to my generation and the "time before AIDS".

Today's the day!

I'm applying for a new job in the company that I really don't think I'll get. Having said that, I've done the application process - doctored the CV to make me look better than I ever was, written the appalling cover letter to espouse said "credentials". Now all I have to do is send it all off, have the interviews and be told that someone has got the job.

This would suck.

Why?

Because basically, I'm currently doing the job that I'm going for. Well, at least part of it. As an extension of my current daily duties, I've taken on a certain role that will be covered by this new position, and it's more interesting than my actual day to day.

So... when I don't get the new job and new blokey is installed in the position, the interesting part of my job will disappear along with my hopes. To make matters worse, I'll probably be asked to come in and help train the new person. Talk about a double whammy and adding insult to injury.

Do I wanna work myself up to this world of pain? Why not. It's the third internal job I've gone for, and I'm becoming good at the masichist stuff.

Missing the white stuff?

No. Not the stuff in the middle of an oreo.

I was at a preview screening of Alfie this past weekend, and for some reason, the winter scenes really hit me. I think I miss snow. Mainly the fun aspects of it, as I still recall all too well being sprayed with slush standing at street corners on my way to work.

There's the whole trekking through the woods after a snowfall, making snow angels, just the whole winter wonderland aspect that a white coating brings to an otherwise drab existence.

Here in London, we DO get snow. For about 24 hours. It's literally a flying visit, as most of it is blown away a day after it arrives, as the temperature creeps up.

Now if you stick around, you might hear me lament the changing of the autumn colours!

Whaddya say?

So, I'm on the train this morning and there's this really REALLY fit blonde girl who's obviously looking at me. I know this, cuz she's doing the stuff I do when I spot a tasty lady I can't keep my eyes off. I can feel her looking at me as I read the paper, and as I look up at her, she darts her eyes away. Too funny.

I was worried to start with that I was disfigured in some way - something on my face? Bovril smear or toothpaste in the corner of my face? You see, I don't get "the eye", so I'm not used to it. The "stink eye" maybe.

Having told this to a co-worker today (you have to if it doesn't happen to you that often!), I was asked why I didn't approach this girl on the train.

Call it shyness, call it what you want, but I wouldn't really know what to say or how to begin a cold conversation like that. I'm sure a silk-tongued smoothie would have no trouble and I guess that's why I'm single.

Flattered that I was eyed up by a tall fit blonde, but God... do I lose my bottle quick or what.

What defines us?

Sitting here in a rather tired and morose mood, I'm getting to wondering what makes us "us"? What is that indefinable something that, if you took it away, would make us not be us anymore?
I ask this as my pursuit of physical tangible good gets ever further out of control. What is the use of downloading every song ever, if you're never going to listen to it? Or downloading video games, only to spend the time you'd normally spend playing it on downloading the next game.

But I digress.

Am I me, because of my CD or DVD collection, or because I can remember asinine quotes from The Simpsons or Star Wars?

Does the inner me show through because I have A Bout De Souffle and Twin Peaks among my collection? Or am I slightly more inferior because I gave into my teenage whims and bought Def Leppard on DVD?

They say a person is defined by environmental variables. I'll buy that to a certain degree. My childhood was exceptional. Nothing that happens to me in the future can change that, and that's about the only thing I can be sure of these days.

Having watched an episode of Six Feet Under where one of the main characters is carjacked and almost dies, it did make me wonder what in this world makes us different, makes us "us".

As we search for another person to share an "our" with (as in "our life together"), it just gets more and more difficult to tell what or who we really are.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

Pet Shop Boy Potemkin

Wow.

Just got back from Trafalgar Square and the screening of Battleship Potemkin. The new score by Pet Shop Boys is amazing and really brought the black and white silent film back up to date, musically.

The addition of drizzle and loads of people just added to the atmosphere.

Wow. Again.

My heart starts missing a beat...

...everytime.

Anyway, enough Pet Shop Boys lyrics.

Today I received the usual "Hey do any of these names look familiar" email from Classmates.com (a way more expensive version of FriendsReunited). Low and behold, one of the names I did recognize - a long lost ex-girlfriend I've been wanting to contact for years and years and could never find.

Now I may have the means, I'm wondering whether I should. My life in Canada feels a lifetime ago, and seeing her was a lifetime before that.

Oh the quandries.

It really sucks being me.

Depression recession agression

Made the mistake of trolling job sites today.

In the 3+ years I've been in my current role, the world's sped by leaving me on the pavement. Even though in the last few months I've decided on a new path in my life, I'm still behind the 8-ball skillset wise.

Makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to leave the Company (scarier still if I get let go - who would hire me??)

So, the new question is should I continue of this course of developing a new skill set or opt for something easier?

In the back of my head, apart from the sound of Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat is the thought of calling it a day on my English adventure and heading back for the more open, cleaner, less drug-riddled climes of Canada.

I'll keep you posted.

Insane? I hope not.

I keep having recurring dreams. Usually, people have them about dalliances with exotic princesses or winning the lottery. Me? I keep thinking I've killed someone.

Great. Wonderful.

What a top dream to keep having. Very relaxing, I can say. I'm sure Freud would have a field day with that one.

My psyche, not happy to torture my unconscious with just that little doozy, has now added a new recurring dream. My car has become a picked-over shell. Yeah, up on blocks, no tyres or headlamps, etc.

I really, really look forward to nodding off these days to see what hideous nightmare I'll sleep through.

Ain't life grand?

Who loves ya?

Having tried to forge a few conversation this past weekend with co-workers (and failing), I do have to wonder whether I am actually liked by anyone. Not that it matters, but as I haven't lived in the UK for ages, I haven't built up the "school friend"/"other job" gang of mates that most of the people I know have.

If I'm out for a social evening with work people, that's it. I don't have the 30 other mates I have to go see at the end of it. I don't know if I ever did, even in the heyday of my large group of school mates days.

I guess I'm not really a people person, could explain why I'm single (I'm sure there's lots of reasons to explain that).

Just got me down last night is all. Wasn't feeling to well and any conversations I tried to start (barring a few good guys) were shot down quicker than a clay pigeon.

As Homer Simpson said: "the lesson is never try".

Bright town?

Spent the day and evening this weekend in Brighton on a work do. We had accomodation at the venerable Grand hotel, the same one the IRA bombed back in the 80s during a Tory conference.

Gotta say, if the overall impression the IRA got back then was the same I had from this weekend, the fact that the Tories were there had nothing to do with the bombing - the place sucks. I dunno who gives out the star ratings to hotels, but I can't help thinking that a real Five Star hotel wouldn't let any of their rooms have the view of an alleyway or forget to install some sort of aircon/fan system.

Apart from that the food we were served was terrible.

Crappy accom aside, couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend to be down by the sea. It was very very very warm. Walked the pier, was serenaded by Journey out of the speaker system as I watched people eat overfried fish and overpriced iced lollies. Also wandered the Lanes shopping area and wondered how those placed could survive the off season (the "student friendly" places seemed to partly answer my query).

Glad I went? Partly. Glad I'm home? Not sure. Brighton is a much more compact place than London and has a much nicer core area.

Does this place REALLY suck?

On my way home from class this afternoon, I was thinking about things and this fat man with dirty hands and a box of greasy chicken crossed my path. Unlike black cats, there's no superstition about someone like that... but there should be.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about why this country would be the destination of anyone? Has it ever really been great? Truly great?

Thinking back to Canada I might poo-poo the extremes of weather, but there's also space and cleanliness and I don't recall the high numbers of 14 year old Croydon-facelifted mothers as I see around here. I also don't recall the hideous drug problem. Maybe that's the sign of another time and Canada is just as bad now, who knows.

I do think that this country is far from being great though.

Take North America. It was mainly built post-automobile, so many roads and areas are designed to be wide and dispersed and big. The houses are big, the roads are big, the space is big.

I find sometimes the only think England has going for it is history - and is that really all that great? The Romans didn't have double glazing, indoor plumbing or electricity... why would I want to live in a Grade II listed house where I can't install any of that for fear of something.

I know I have some hard thinking ahead of me over the next few years regarding what I want to do with my life and where, but I can guarantee whatever or wherever I do it, it won't be in the US. That's the only constant right now in this world of variables.

Chat Up Line?

On my most laborious trek home this evening, there was this attractive woman/girl/whathaveyou sitting on the tube, then the bus (it was one of those multiple-transport nights).

Anyway, it got me to thinking: how on earth would you (or I) approach someone like that without looking like a psycho? If there's something that London breeds in most of us, it's fear - fear of other people, fear of being mugged, fear of being involved in a conversation that's duller than dishwater.

Maybe it's my empathy showing through, but I could tell as she was reading her book that the last thing she needed or wanted was some stumbling attempt at conversation from me. Is there anything I could have said to woo her away from those pages? Methinks not. Mealsothinks a lot of things, so I could be wrong... but I'm not a psycho.

Spreading it out a bit

Like most of my colleagues, I too am looking for alternate work. The words "rat" and "sinking ship" keep coming together in not a very nice way.

Anyway, even though I've forced my circular journalistic peg through the square hole of technical production guy lately, there was a music editor position that came up through one of the papers.

I do realise that once it hits the papers, it's as good as given to the person who really deserves it, as opposed to the lucky schmo who was there at the right time (hint, the second one's probably closer to me).

Still, with my CV top heavy with XML and PHP and all that jazz that just screams "I'm all about the content", I at least hope to get to the first interview stage.

Then I can really impress them.... enough to hire the other guy.

Getting it!

After weeks of beating my head against a wall trying to come to grips with PHP and mySQL and loads of other tedious TLAs, I can finally say "I'm not an idiot after all!"

Today I started a course - a rather expensive course - learning the intricacies of XSL templating for XML and it's a piece of piss. Sometimes you have to take the small, confidence boosting victories for what they are - confidence boosting. Now I'm getting this, I feel a renewed vigor to kick some major PHP ass.

Hope the momentum lasts!

Another crap point

In the short list of things I could desperately hold onto to prove that my move back to Blighty was justified has been the weather. Canadian summers have always been so unforgivingly dreadful - hot hot hot and humid as hell - that I could happily, and somewhat smugly sit back and think, "yes, I really did make the right decision".

It's quite easy to justify things to myself sometimes.

So, upon hearing about how mild and wonderful the Canadian summer has been this summer, my smug demeanour has fallen like a house of cards. My reasons for moving back to Blighty have just been reduced by one.

The pro and con list to my life gets more and more even every day, which is a worry.

A Bunch of Friggin' Idiots?

You'd think the cradle of the industrial revolution could get their collective heads around something as mind-blowingly difficult as remembering a four-digit number. Apparently not.

The changeover to Chip and PIN for debit cards is apparently set to cause major chaos in the UK this Christmas. In a recent report it's been claimed, "unless people were more familiar with the new chip and PIN cards there were likely to be long queues at tills in the run up to Christmas and during the January sales."

IT'S A FOUR DIGIT NUMBER PEOPLE!

This is the same system I've ALWAYS used in Canada and I've had debit account since the late 80s. France, as well, has used this system for almost a decade. How hard is it to remember four numbers? 1234? Wow that was hard.

Brain like a sieve

Why is it I can compose brilliant entries and observations while I'm walking to and from lunch but as soon as sit in front of my PC, I zone out Peter Gibbons-style. Oh well. Another intellectual post losts to the heavily eroding synapses of my mind.

Ugh. I DON'T feel happy

I don't like oppressive heat. That's official. While today's been "a scorcher" by British standards, it was made all the more worse by a non-existent air con system in the office. The two elements together make for a rather laxadasical cocktail of fuddy headedness and apathy.

Now that I'm home, all I want is to nod off in front of the telly OR enjoy a nice summery drink, like Pimms or some such. I thought summer was supposed to be a time when the nation played... drinks in piazzas, dancing through sprinklers, making the most of the summer sun and long evenings. I'm shattered, absolutely exhausted... and my fragile state is hampered by the knowledge that tomorrow will be, if anything, worse.

That... and when you're in a mood like I am, you start thinking about things and compartmentalising and dwelling, which is never a good thing. I'll leave it there as I am too tired to go on.

Some drugs are good

I've been thinking lately... had to happen sometimes, didn't it.

I really miss those inspiring friends and the chats we used to have. You know the ones... the  long meaningful conversations, putting the world to rights, where you dredge up tidbits of knowledge from your deep psyche that you'd forgotten were there, and actually give your mind a workout.

You go from day to day, stuck with your head in the sand as you go about your daily routine and you forget that your brain is actually there to do more than tell you not cross the road into oncoming traffic.

In my day to day contact, I have to say the amount of stimulating conversation I take part in is very minimal, and that makes me sad.

 

In Lieu

In lieu of an actual relationship, I'm trying to learn to re-relate to women by hanging out with female friends ... which have been hard to forge.

Whoever said that men and women can't be friends is right... guys will wanna sleep with just about anyone that of the opposite sex (unless you're gay). Having said that, when you get to know someone, whether from being in a relationship or not, you do begin to see them in a slightly different way.

Unfortunately, as a single guy, I still see every woman as "a potential". I guess it's from too many of those "I may have already met/bumped into/etc." my future wife. The romantic part of me that's been quashed and killed and replaced by the cynic likes to think that fate is shining on the chosen and that I'm one of the chosen. The cynic ALSO likes to think that fate shines on the chosen and that I'm not one of them. Judging by my single status at 32, I'd have to side with the cynic. It's not getting much easier out there.

Having been to the cinema this evening to see Before Sunset, it reminded me of how hopeful and eager I was earlier in life. A lot of the feeling of the film resonated true - especially the feeling that you can take a person out of their circumstances and they're still the same person. Sometimes I think that I moved back to England, not only to rediscover my heritage, but to remake myself as something I could never be in Canada. After about six months, I was still the same person, only in a large unfriendly city, with no friends and no job. I definitely acheived something I couldn't in Canada - abject isolation.

Not exactly the forward trajectory I envisioned for myself when I threw everything away I knew in Canada for a life unknown.

Sure, my family was... is.. here, but they're miles away on the south coast, and I don't see them that much, and my mate in Southampton I saw more when I was in Canada.

Still, I guess we always want what we don't have, or the grass would never be greener on the other side. I think it's just trying to escape being in a rut, by entering into a new one. Take me, for example. I wanted to get out of a lonely large Canadian city, so I moved to a lonely English city. I know about the same number of people, I've had about the same number of relationships, and the television's worse.

Do I wanna move back to Canada? I don't know. Canada Day in London really phased me. There are a load of meat heads in Canada that I'm glad I'm away from. I know... Football Hooligan. Everywhere has it's problems. My only concern is that I see Canada through rose tinted glasses sometimes. I had a good life there. Maybe it's just this period of my life that's crap... anywhere. I don't wanna keep hopping from country to country thinking it'll solve something, when I gotta look inside me to find what's wrong.

Is it a mid-life crisis? I don't think so. I had one of those when I was 20. Which I hope isn't prophetic in any way.

In the film, they talked about getting older. I AM 32, but I don't feel it. I keep thinking it's how old you FEEL, not how old you ARE. Having said that, do I think I'm a more together person today than I was when i was 22? 18? I don't think so. I still have my same hangups, my same problems, my same singleness. I am the same person after all, just in a different environment.

And I guess there IS something wrong with that.

Do we not remember the 80s?

Wow.. there's so many reports out right now about the sex disease timebomb that's about to hit. It's like the 80s/90s never happened.

When we were growing up the shift of public hysteria swung quicker than a revolving door. There was the threat of nuclear annihilation for the better part of the 80s, then the focus shifted to the destruction of the environment, then to the AIDS epidemic.

In the last few years, it seems that folk have forgotten that being a slag is a one way ticket to a painful disease-ridden death. Makes me scared crap-less being a single guy in London trying to get "a bit of it" as they say.

Minefields come in many flavours I guess.

The walls come tumbling down

Sometimes I feel I'm on tenterhooks, mentally. It had all been going swimmingly the last couple of days. I was hanging out with M, a job in the music dept had come up and C came out with us for a drink. 

Today, I feel like none of that "on a roll" stuff happened. I got round to talking to who I needed to for the music job and found out it's a monkey entry level thing with hardly any creative input. WHACK. There goes that bubble.

Haven't talked to M in a couple of days either. I never know how a friendship is supposed to evolve. There's the "I talk to you cuz I have to" thing with co-workers, but as you spend loads of time with them, it's natural to become more than co-workers... isn't it? I can never tell. Sometimes, all they're looking for is someone to talk to on the way home. I dunno.

So, I sit here on a Friday night, exhausted and pretty much back at lonely square one.

Well, that went ok

Man alive. Today was a stresser. Not so much in that I actually had to do work, but all this stuff was thrown at me all at once. It can be quite a minefield trying to sort out priorities while actually doing some of the stuff.

Went out for some MUCH NEEDED muscle relaxant tonight at the local pub. Had four pints and didn't even feel it. Normally four pints would send me into a verbal tailspin that would take weeks of grovelling and apologising to get me out of. I guess I was really stressed and the muscles that needed relaxing got it...

C from the office came out with us, which was wicked. She's a great girl and my mates seemed to concur. She's one of those people that everyone in the office knows and really likes; the kind of girl that the gay guys say things like, "I could turn for her". The States have Everyone Loves Raymond, we have Everyone Loves C.

She came back here after the pub with us as we tried in vein to watch some TV shows I'd downloaded. Something about my PC really likes to show me up as a dolt sometimes and it didn't fail this evening. Damn thing.

Happiness IS an option

Well, today I felt something I didn't think I'd feel again - happiness.

Why? Well, a fellow co-worker told me was leaving. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not dancing on his grave. He mentioned to me in an IM and suggested I should apply for his job. It's in the Music Channel, and part of me feels like the spy who came in from the cold, being stuck out in the mobile wilderness for far too long.

Another part of me is concerned that that part of my life is behind me. 

My love, however obsessive, has always been music. As with my heritage, I have to embrace what I am, not try and hide parts of me.

Anyway, when he told me the news (and good luck to him in his new position), I really was on cloud nine. We work to such a crushing routine sometimes that it's hard to illicit any emotion. I came home tonight from seeing Spider-man 2 and I really had a strange sensation. Some emotions, like happiness and love (maybe they ARE the same thing), I just don't expect to really feel again. It was a shocker alrighty.

Well. I wanna sleep now. That's all really.

Cleaners. The Ugnaughts of Big Business?

It's struck me that not a lot of positive energy is thrust towards those people that keep our workplace clean and tidy - the Cleaners.
 
I think by many, they are seen as the Ugnaughts of the workplace, that is they work in the background and we take the fruits of their labour for granted.
 
When one is seen in the cold light of day, it's difficult to discern the appropriate response. Do we greet them the same we would a fellow worker, or do we ignore them and hope they'll escape back to the bowels of cloud city?
 
Generally, "The Cleaner" has been used as the butt of many jokes in sitcoms, usually in some sexual manner and usually as an ethnic minority. Seinfeld, for instance, sees George getting fired for having sex on his desk with the office cleaner, while in Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Andy gets Windex in the eye because he didn't call "Consuela".

I find the fact that many office cleaners don't speak English to be a huge stumbling block to fruitful communication, as they must find my lack of Spanish, Portuguese, or whatever non-English language they speak. 
 
Still, I have to say, I'm glad someone else cleans this place, I'd hate the monumental task of cleaning my workpod left up to me, it's messy enough as it is.

While my music blog has been featured on the US AOL service, I was told that I shouldn't be using my work screen name to post a journal, as what I say could reflect badly on AOL. I guess in a week where an ex-colleague managed to sell 92m screen names to a spammer, they don't need someone shitting on the music industry to add more fuel to the fire (as if).

I'm going to try and post more of my stuff here, as the music industry needs to be accountable to some of the crap they get up to. I also want the 2 people who read that journal to know of any successes that need to be celebrated.

Rock Bottom?

I seem to have hit rock bottom today. I've spent most of the day posting my CV on job sites to try and get a position back in Toronto.

I don't really know why.

Might be that I'm fed up with London and that Toronto is safe for me, mentally. I didn't leave in 2000 under a cloud of animosity, and I still enjoy going back. Who knows. If I was offered a job that was decent, I'd go back.

While I love England, I don't know whether I love living here. Too much of the bad things in life are prospering here.