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.