While visions of Popsicles danced in their heads

On the fourth day of Christmas Vancouver gave to me:

One urine sample
Two x-rays
Three pills to swallow
And some vomit on the pharmacy

Yes, Christmas abroad has reached a new high – I puked on the side of a pharmacy shortly after being given a big nasty pill (muscles, homemade tattoos, switchblade) without being told that it needs to be taken on a full stomach. I guess Popsicles, Benadryl and fruit juice doesn’t constitute food.

Bruce is sick too now and, not one to miss out on the fun, my mother has also come down with a cold. It looks as though Christmas is cancelled for the Films clan, most of us drifting uncomfortably in our own private haze of infirmity.

If we can get better quickly, we may just have enough time to see Vancouver (or the inside of somewhere non-medical at least).

I’m not even sure who I feel worse for right now.

Merry merry

I’m in a lovely, window-full apartment in the middle of Nowhere Canada, sick as a dog. In the next room, Bruce is trying to bring diplomacy to a Christmas tree situation steadily building in hysterics between my father (who wants to take the thing, fully decorated, out of its stand so that he can saw a bit off the base) and my mother (who clearly doesn’t).

Yesterday I ate a small bowl of cereal, a grilled cheese sandwich and a half a grape Popsicle. Today it was apple juice, a small cinnamon bun and a half an orange Popsicle.

Tomorrow we have family coming round for Christmas Eve dinner and festivities, including my niece’s new boyfriend and his parents/grandmother. Given that water is the only food that doesn’t make me feel like I’m dying, though, I can’t see it being a very successful night for me.

I still haven’t bought Bruce a gift because I haven’t been able to get out of bed. We think he may be getting sick too.

This following a long, annoying flight and horrible jetlag – well, you couldn’t make it up, really. Give me a break.

I'm reading American Psycho for the first time.

Just Say No to Bad Touch Anthony

I’m currently working with someone I have to be very abrasive and uncommunicative with. Any friendliness on my part unleashes a torrent of emailed suggestions which, were I to seriously consider any of them, would take me all day to sort out. I think he's just bored.

In other news, my dietary habits are changing again, probably for the worst. Most types of meat make my stomach feel queasy, and lately I approach things like ham, chicken and fish with the same repulsion I imagine a Hasidic Jew would feel were someone to suggest he wear a helmet made of bacon. Or she, let’s not be sexist here.

I haven’t tried pork in a while, so I don’t know how far-reaching my new phobia (or heavy-handed my misguided analogy) might be.

On the other hand, I’ve been eating an alarming volume of chocolate, ice cream, biscuits and various soft and boiled sweets. I have no resistance to sugar it seems, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is the same path my father trod to reach type 1 diabetes. Depression begat alcoholism, alcoholism begat sugar, sugar begat regular visits to the optometrist and the abolishment of sugar altogether, etc.

Meanwhile, Canada grows ever closer (not due to the ‘crunch crunch crunch’ of plate tectonics, as narrated by my first year geography professor, but because we’re flying there in a week, yeah?). My mother asked us to send her a list of what we wanted from big to small, even though we insisted we didn’t want anything. Now she’s making me feel awkward about the list and I can’t think *why.

She’s also sent me an email I’m still trying to reply to. In it she says something about needing to locate the source of a Dadaist image she refers to in her book, Christ knows why, and some bit of lyrical poetry that smacks worryingly of her own invention (though I am a kind and good daughter and will let her continue searching for it in the real world if it makes her feel better).

Is it strange that I’m still looking forward to Christmas?

Or that I desperately want to learn how to speak like my colleague Lenore? When she’s having a personal conversation over the phone, she doesn’t just lower her voice to a whisper – it’s like she can decrease her own volume by turning a radio dial to nearly OFF. It’s incredible, really. That I’ve only ever seen her consume hot water and bowls of cereal suggests to me that she has full control over her faculties.

Most days I have full control over nothing. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit edgy, like anything could happen and that’s a bad thing. Other times, I’m glad there’s little self-continuity, because when I achieve something that requires me to be organised, I feel like I’ve just climbed a mountain.

And my mutability means I’m more susceptible to trends and such, which is important, because I’ve seen girls wearing oversized skinny jeans and I know they missed the point entirely.

Or if I see a girl wearing a winter coat with interesting double-peaked sewn sleeves, I think I could work those sleeves and then probably I would try.




*Because she’s madder than a toy box full of crazy, maybe.

Ri Ruv Rooo!

Oh my god. People pretending to be their own animals on social networking sites = lame. I recall one such member woofing out their message on someone else’s non-animal-related message board to the dismay of, well, probably just me. What is wrong with you people!

Huff, puff, rainbows and unicorns and…okay, where was I.

I’ve come up with some inspirational poster captions for anyone who wants to Photoshop them into an image and pin that above their workspace:

ONE DAY, YOUR IDOLS WILL ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR EXISTANCE MAYBE

DO YOU REALLY NEED THAT SECOND STARBUCKS COOKIE?

IT’S OKAY, NO ONE WILL READ IT ANYWAY

IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST IN DESPERATE NEED OF A NEW iPOD?

NOBODY HAS EVER SAID A BAD WORD ABOUT YOU AND THOSE WHO HAVE ARE SMALL, SAD PEOPLE. EVEN ME. NO, ESPECIALLY ME. (You could put this caption over your mother or Santa Claus or the nosy next door neighbour with smartly dressed kids and a better car, for instance)

It’s getting down to the wire at work, and with only six full days left, I should be more concerned than I am but know what? I am not. Because surely I have recourse to point to the part in my contract that says I’m an underpaid drone with no agency and say WHAT? SORRY, I COULDN'T HEAR YOU - I HAVE A BIT OF BULLSHIT LODGED IN MY EAR! when they tell me I’ve screwed up.

Though I am a little bit concerned, so. G’bye.

That bubble guy

The more you open your eyes in certain situations, the more you realise what a shark tank you’ve landed yourself in. I think I’ve come up with a good philosophy about why we work:

If you’re not in it for the work (-enjoyable work)

If you’re not in it for the people (- good people)

If you’re not in it for the prestige, whatever that means for you (- prestige)

And you’re not even in it for the atmosphere (- atmosphere)

Then surely you must be in it for the money (+ £/$/€, etc.)

If you ever find yourself in this position, then you need to decide what your soul is actually worth. Because once you agree to do a job that offers nothing but a paycheque in return, you can kiss your soul goodbye. So you may as well be raking in the cash!

I’m not raking in the cash yet, though I’m up by 5K this year, provided I hit my targets (*gag*).

Moving along, quickly now

Some days I think that it would only take one person to crack one smile for no reason in order for everyone in the world who is capable of smiling to smile also. And then those people would help those who were incapable of a smile to do the same, and by the time you know it – world happiness! It’s different to world peace, but just barely.

Maybe that smile does exist, but it’s flattened by a heavy concrete building, and it would take the strength of a million people to lift that building off the smile before anyone could see it. And all that exertion would make it difficult for anyone to smile back, so - Fingers and toes! – everyone would give up and let go.

X Factor – an overview

WHATSHISNAME, THE ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HOST
Welcome to another week of X-Factor! You know the drill, and I wouldn’t even be here were it not for the fact that Ms. Minogue needs this small window of opportunity to apply her prosthetic nose and whoa, okay, here come the judges!

SIMON
I hate you all

WHATSHISNAME, THE ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HOST
Louie, why don’t you introduce your act?

LOUIE
Oh why bother, we all know Rhydian is going to win! Fine, here’s Nikki. Remember Nikki? The lunch lady with zero charisma? Yeah? Well she doesn’t need a LION or a CLOWN to prove her worth! She is poor though, so please vote for her.

NIKKI SINGS A B-SIDE TRACK FROM A DEFUNCT 80S BAND AS ONE OVERSIZED BREAST SLOWLY WORKS ITS WAY OUT OF HER UNFLATTERING TOP

STANDING OVATION FROM LOUIE AND THE VISITING PATIENTS FROM PSYCH WARD UNIT 2 WING A17

SIMON
I hate you

DANI
I love me

SHARON
I don’t give a donkey’s, I’m not even in the competition!

LOUIE
Did I mention she is poor and really, really wants to win?

WHATSHISNAME, THE ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HOST
Okay, moving along, it’s the Scottish kid from Scotland, the next Harry Connick Bubble Maker…Leon!

LEON TREMBLES AND MUTTERS SOMETHING INTO THE MIC

SIMON
I hated the beginning, the middle and the end, though I really enjoyed that bit when your dancer bent over backwards and I could see down her top. You’re getting better and better, week on week.

SHARON
I like your shoes! Aw, don’t cry poor boy. Remember, Harry Bubbles Jr. invited you to sing with him in that spot about Harry Bubbles Jr. We didn’t pay him to do that!

LOUIE
Nikki is starving, people, she hasn’t even had lunch today! Why can’t you just vote for her already?!

DANI
I like your shoes also AND I think you’re really great. And so does Michael Bubblehead, whoever that is.

WHATSHISNAME, THE ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HOST
Aw lad, don’t be upset. Remember when Michael Bubbleblower invited you to sing with him onstage? There’s a good boy, buck up now!

LEON
I didn’t do that well this week but I really like jazz and Michael Bubble-lake has been my hero since I was two days younger than I am now and Michael Bubble-lake invited me to sing on stage and Michael Bubble-lake promised I would sell a million records…

GOD STRIKES LEON DEAD, NOT FOR WORSHIPPING FALSE IDOLS AS SUCH BUT FOR BEING SO BLOODY ANNOYING

WHATSHISNAME, THE ‘ATTRACTIVE’ HOST
Well, that’s all the time we have for this week. Tune in for the finale when one of our dancers is sure to do a spin that shows her pants. Goodnight Great Britain!

I guess everybody has their own thing/ That they yell into a well

Why does everything feel like such a big secret? As if anyone would care.

Maybe that’s the fear. Or maybe they would, and that’s scary too.

I forget that I’m still trying to rebuild confidence – in myself and in others. I need to believe that I can do this, whatever this might be. And I need to rely on others, because you can’t do it alone, whatever it is.

I had my performance review at work, and it went really well. The discrepancy between how I thought I was doing and the actual truth was overwhelming, and still is.

And last night I dreamt that I was trying on an unlikely combination of tops and deciding that I probably looked okay, even though I’ve never worn such outlandish clothing. Even though I couldn’t see that I looked okay. I had to trust what I knew about myself, and about clothing.

I’m trying to do all the right things - the things I know I should be doing, versus the things that feel right in the moment but leave a bad taste. Those activities belong to someone else now, and I have to walk the line of this new way.

In nearly two months, I’ve had exactly one glass of wine, which I drank with dinner. I don’t do things in moderation so I guess I’m immoderately sober now. I never say what occurs to me either, hardly ever. Half that stuff doesn’t matter anyway. And you have to pick your moments, for the rest.

What is this? I’m not writing a treatise. I don’t know how others go about their lives, even though I try to imagine it sometimes. This isn’t for you out there somewhere. This is for me in here. Right here.

No matter how far wrong you've gone/ you can always turn around

I don’t remember how to do things anymore, basic things, like take stock of how I’m feeling. Because how I’m feeling ties into what I’m doing, and the nature of that doing is dynamic.

Walking behind a child today, I remembered how intimidating the streets seemed to me at that age. Then you learn that nobody owns the streets, that no one person owns an initiative. We don’t even own our own bodies – hundreds of people tear us to shreds every day; swiping a lock of hair here, a swatch of colour there, the fingertip of your glove as you pass them in the rain.

Most days I ask myself if I’m alright, but not until after the fact. Hindsight is the only reliable measurement because nobody is really in the moment anymore. The moment is a limbo we’re constantly escaping; the moment is always greener on the other side.

Change can wrest all agency and that is a scary bad thing sometimes. Even praise becomes unsettling if it comes to us unexpectedly.

Someone who likes you isn’t necessarily your friend and your friends don’t always think much of you. Could this be true?

So long as the universe is painted onto the inside of our eyelids, I can’t discredit belief.

Just like Brian Wilson

Yesterday they shut off the traffic mains to Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus in order to give free reign to the recent swell of super-charged shoppers on foot. And then out floated the colossal, inflated displays and slow, ethereal air dancers; the silken, chilly-sleeved jesters ambling spider-like on their stilts, galaxies of modern decorations winking on and dimming to pockets of music, live and in stereo, while the blue-faced sky passed out into night.

It was a bit like Mardi Gras, except with more clothes, better manners and fewer beads (so nothing like Mardi Gras, then). Being in London over the holiday season is a little bit like being a child again, because everything is designed to excite your imagination and take your breath away. And then empty your bank account. But wow, what a way to be bamboozled!

We’re doing most of our shopping at Spittalsfield Market, though, and this afternoon I managed to find gifts for the entire Films clan with nary a tear shed or a vacant stare at an incense burner (I always revert to my fifteen-year-old brain in moments of extreme desperation, when meditation balls, alligator-shaped mitts and handmade imports begin to seem like perfectly reasonable gift solutions). I think it helps to know that a gift is neither a help nor a hindrance to familial harmony in my case, and that Bruce is very good at helping me to reach a decision.

Sometimes I need to be gently dislodged from the stall pushing eco-friendly household detergent, or even blocked entirely from an overpriced condiments set nestled cheaply in its wooden gift crate. I don’t care if it’s a pair of day-glo stirrup pants stuffed inside an empty cereal box – I will probably stop to consider it if it’s sitting out on one of the many identical plywood tables you find curtained off in an open-air market. And it is the thought that counts, yeah? I will think long and hard about these wares, if I'm allowed.

But that’s an entire weekend gone, and I honestly don’t know how we’re almost back to Monday again. The only thing that keeps me going is the vague anticipation of landing on terra domus, where we will be greeted with open arms by a merry band of wrinkled servants my parents and a bed I plan to stay in unless there is food, drink or something to unwrap.

Can I get a fo shizzle! No? Alrighty.

Still here! Kinda

In the last week alone, I have

Had two invasive procedures done within quick succession
Watched someone get fired
Seen off two old employees
Welcomed two new employees
Taken on twice my workload
Worked late
Worked early
Worked early then late
Seriously considered quitting all extra-curricular activities
Seriously considered quitting my job
Found out I do not have cancer
Told off my boss
Celebrated our Nan’s 94th
Watched my husband turn into a sci-fi alien (albeit an adorable sci-fi alien)
Cried like a twit
Laughed like a maniac
Dragged my banjo up the Southbank

And I am f*cking exhausted.

More importantly though, how are you?

Another last year

I have a question for you.

If you found out today that you had one year exactly to live, what would you want to do with that year?

Make a list!

Bruce sent me this email the other morning, so I dropped what I was doing (work) and set about making my list. Within a half hour, I had a list that was over 60 items long. I sent it to him as an attachment and he emailed back straight away to say that we would print it out and try and execute as much of it as we could. Then the following year, he’ll write his list and we’ll set about tackling that as well.

The objective is to live each year as though it’s our last, a perspective I’ve been trying to get someone to adopt with me since I was old enough to recognise my own inertia. He thinks we can reasonably manage over half the list (I don’t think I’ll be foisting him onto some other woman in preparation for my impending death, for instance), and I think he’s right. We just need to be proactive about it.

We’ve certainly wasted no time in tackling number 20 (eat things I’m scared of eating because they will make me fat), and last night devoured a whole tub of Haagen-dazs between the two of us. I’m at work now, just back from a meeting that has me wondering if I should promote number 50 (quit my job) to the doable half of my list.

Actually, things could indeed work out in my favour one day, though for the time being it looks like I’ll be starting from the ground up all over again, re-establishing pretty much all my routines. I might as well have been handed a brand new position, since by the time I manage to extricate myself from current familiar responsibilities and immerse myself in strange new ones, I’ll hardly recognise the role.

Wish I could say more, but writing about internet-related work on the internet is like visiting your parents in a MUM, U SUCK t-shirt.

Hmm.

10 things about me, some of which are true

(Thanks for the idea, Lass)






1. Once when I was three, I accidentally grabbed a gay man’s bare scrotum and made him scream.

2. My eyes are actually two different colours, blue and brown, but I wear a brown contact lens because of the stigma (not of the eye variety). When you’re shorter than everyone and plump and talk too much, you can’t afford to be different in any other way. I probably would have chosen blue but back then, they didn’t have that wild colour pixel technology that could make a lighter coloured eye out of a dark-coloured one, and by the time they did, I was already stuck with brown.

3. I saved a napkin used by Tom Cruise at Burger King whilst I was on holidays with my parents in the States, but only because my mother said I should. My dad threw it out by mistake when he was cleaning my room because it looked like any other used paper napkin.

4. I won a story-writing contest when I was thirteen years old but couldn’t collect the prize because the contest was for Best Short Story by a New Writer Over Fifty and I would have had to go to Montana to collect it and my father wouldn’t go on my behalf.

5. I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.

6. I have a phobia about toe-nails which is why I rarely cut mine. It got so bad that I couldn’t even look at my own feet and had to invent ways of wearing black opaque tights at all times, even in summer. I’m planning to work through these issues with a therapist, among other issues I haven’t spoken about to anyone.

7. I’m not a very good liar.

8. I excel at telling tall-tales.

9. Right now, at this very moment, I am writing an entry called “10 things about me, some of which are true” in the bathtub on a tiny laptop Bruce stole from work. It’s perched on my knees, which I’ve carefully dried, and I don’t think I’d get electrocuted if I dropped it in the bath water because a) I wouldn’t be capable of destroying a piece of property that wasn’t mine and b) even if I was, it isn’t plugged in.

10. This bath is hot, I’m getting out now.

Altogether spooky

Did you know that even if you toast a bagel to near-blackness and fill it with sandwichy things and pack it away for later, the moisture generated by its own heat will eventually turn it back into the tough, chewy bagel it was before you toasted it? True story, and an annoying one at that!

I’m thinking I might have to start taking the bus to work, as walking is beginning to turn me into the red-faced, overweight, anger-managementless salesman I most certainly am not (maybe in a past life).

Like today, trapped inside a construction site’s man-made pedestrian path, a woman refused to let me pass her. She not only walked ahead of me in an inhumanly slow fashion but then half-turned to me at the end and grinned so that I knew she’d done it on purpose.

And I said, Nice work you stupid twat, now I’m really going to be late! in my head (because I’m not only a stress-case but a cowardly stress-case).

Earlier, I passed a woman with annoyingly perfect legs painted with an annoyingly cool pair of burgundy tights that were perfectly encased in an annoyingly perfect pair of tall black boots. And then five minutes later she ran past me in order to reclaim the lead, only to slow down again. Annoying!

There is a girl I pass each day who doesn’t annoy me – a school girl whose oddness makes me wonder about her.

Face on, she’s nearly two-dimensional, her green eyes a bit feral, her features likely a perfect replica of her mother’s because they make her look much older than she is. Do her threadbare school socks slouch a bit rebelliously? Perhaps. And does her poker-straight hair evenly match the slightly militaristic black boots she wears with her dark skirt and blazer? Most definitely.

She could be part of the Adam’s family, the real one, or in a few years someone’s pierced Gothic Princess fantasy. I know what you’re thinking boys, but hold your horses! First she has to try her luck with the bland, well-adjusted school boys, probably the one with rough elbows, speckled forearms and hair like a flame – No! Like the flame on a purple candle in a black-painted room that lights the bowl of a homemade bong overflowing with hash!

He’s not the most popular boy in school, but you wouldn’t catch him having his lunch surrounded by any less than two or three other boys of his calibre. He kicks balls so hard that if they hit you in the face, nobody would blame you for crying. He can eat three hotdogs in one go at your pool party. He makes wheelie-popping seem easier than throwing a rock through a neighbour’s window, and he blazes past her on his BMX sometimes, expressly to knock the black beret off her head. Oh well.

Ready or not, here she comes, completely at ease in the strangeness of the figure she cuts, that flat portfolio more than half her size tucked neatly beneath one arm as she whistles past you like a fine knife-blade through water. Her name is likely Deborah and she is gonna rock your world one day maybe.

I dunno, I really think I ought to take the bus from now on.

Sleep thoughts

I was recently invited to participate in a monthly work-related, my-specific-job-related meeting. I wasn’t told anything about it – just that it was the first of a never-ending series and something about blue sky ideas-sharing.

But I was tricked.

I showed up and was basically told that I had to do more work, and not even for me or my manager or my products. Just for the company; just because. Every week. That hardly seems fair.

But anyway, no point in ranting obscurely about it here, at work, on my desktop I’ve seen taken over no less than four times by IT, who surely have my IP address memorised by now. Big Brother needs to take a big leap off a big building, if you ask me.

Last night I woke up sometime in the early hours and figured it was nearly time to get up, so I might as well lie here and think about death. I’m not sure what it is about sleep that pares me down to my basest elements and robs me of all defences. Because it’s sleep I guess.

It’s a horrible thought though, isn’t it? That on a daily basis we face the very real possibility of an eternity of nothingness, of no self. Every moment! The rug and the entire universe just pulled out from under us. It takes my breath away sometimes.

By the end of that thought, I realised it wasn’t anywhere near seven, so I also began compiling a list of things I want to eat/do when I go back to Canada over Christmas:

1. Tim Horton’s coffee/donuts
2. Earl’s hot wings with blue cheese dip and celery
3. Cheese Wiz and pickles on toast (All crap, I know)
4. Breathe fresh air
5. Stare slack-jawed at trees
6. Say things like “cell phone” and “garbage can” and “to-may-toe” and “how’s it going?” and other things we don’t say here
7. Sit in the passenger’s seat of a car at least twice
8. Watch American television
9. Visit the John Fluvog store. And laugh at all the stupid shoes.
10. Make a reservation somewhere. And go there at that time. And eat something then.
11. Dry some clothes in a dryer.
12. Have a shower in a stand-up shower

I dunno, that’s as far as I got. I didn’t fall asleep. I went on to think of how effing strange it is, living here and loving Bruce (well, that’s not strange in itself, but certainly having had the opportunity to meet Bruce in the first place) and wanting things I’ve never wanted before, having things I never thought I’d have (like a Bulgarian cleaner named Sissy).

I don’t usually have time to reflect on things like this, like anything really, but when I do: hoo-boy! It boggles the mind.

If anyone can be bothered to think of some specifically North American-like things to do in North America, please feel free to add to my list. I might not have time to finish it myself and then I’ll be there and home again before I know it.

And darkness and decay and the paper towel dispenser held illimitable dominion over all

By October, the leaves on Bermondsey Street had been mashed into shiny yellow flakes like fish food on the glossy pavement. Then more leaves fell. It’s the end of November now, and the inexhaustible store of continually falling leaves is accompanied by rain and the white puff of your breath as you walk, which is how you know it’s actually winter.

On Friday, we went to see a play called Human Computer at the Battersea Arts Centre. It was happening simultaneous to and directly beneath The Masque of the Red Death – an interactive theatre production which allows patrons to explore the dark world of Poe dressed like complete assholes.

Shortly before our own not-so-conventional but much-less-fussy play was due to start, I went to see a steward about a toilet. She said, “Here, you’ll have to wear one of these and pretend you’re part of the performance,” and handed me a frightening mask that made me look vaguely like batman. Evidently the theatre's only toilet is located squarely within the production of The Masque of the Red Death.

Now a freakish looking cat, the stewardess said, “I’ll take you there, wait for you to come out and then walk you back. Don’t be scared. And don’t say anything.”

She typed in a code and we entered into a dark, smoke-filled Victorian Gothic nightmare. An organ played low, long notes and a bell tolled the hour as we moved cautiously past a stationary figure in a spooky mask and came upon a blue-painted swinging door that bore a white plaque reading:

TOILETS

The carefully construed storybook world of Poe hadn’t made it as far as the loo, which was just as well. The bell tolled one and I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, took a sneaky photo of my masked self and returned to my guide, who delivered me safely back to the land of the living.

I’m quite pleased that I got to have the Masque of the Red Death and Toilets experience for free. Human Computer was pretty good too.

Prior to this, I’d bought myself a pair of these cheeky things, which I probably would have slept in all weekend had Bruce allowed me to.

My second spontaneous but necessary purchase – a fitted red coat - took place only a few hours ago at Spitalfields Market, which, had I known it existed only a short bus ride from home, I would have insited we visit every Sunday for the last year. Which is probably why Bruce waited until now to take me there.

Afterwards, we had the best sausage and mash ever at a cozy, warm diner called S&M, though the only painful part of the experience was realising my plate was empty of sausage and mash. We’ve made a pact to eat there every Sunday, which means I’d better keep up my walks to work unless I want to actually become a sausage.

Back at the ranch, we spent an uncomfortable few hours watching Code Unknown. Were it not for Michael Haneke, I think I’d become far too complacent about life. It’s good to remember that fictional characters much like us suffer, because. Well, why not.

x365: 16 of 365 - Chad

I wasn’t sure who had it worse: you or me. But all our various games had the same objective – a dependable system of punishment and reward we could both live with.

x365: 15 of 365 - Alison

bought her first car at age 16. She’d drive slowly past storefront windows to see herself reflected in her new vehicle. I could see my reflection too, in the passenger’s seat.

Consider yourself one of us

It is my one year anniversary of moving to the UK. I plan to celebrate by working my ass off and then falling down dead probably.

This week has been one of most taxing, at least in terms of business and exhaustion, but I think I’ve managed to keep all my proverbial balls in the air. (The non-proverbial balls are sitting on my bedside table in a glass of water.)

Looking back on things generally, I know I’m in a much, much better place than I was this time last year. My confidence at work has grown exponentially and I’m able to get around on my own now without becoming very lost and/or panicky.

I’ve lost an entire stone (14 lbs for those of you measuring in modern times) and am far less angry and anxious about everything. The self-destructive tendencies I used to possess have all but dissipated, my only remaining vice being a quick (but thorough) nibble on my cuticles.

Most importantly perhaps, I’ve learned that in maintaining happiness, the end often justifies the means, especially if the means involve not giving into those little voices that do their utmost to trip you up. If you can keep on top of the voices, you’ll have much more energy for the fun stuff, like love and cooking and banjo.

I’m not resting on my laurels though - I’ve still got a long way to go. This year I’ll do some of the things that scare the hell out of me, like widening our social circle with some friends of my own and focusing my energies less on television (or something else, maybe…eating?) and more on the things I want to accomplish, big and small.

One day I’ll hit my stride and stop scrutinizing everything and everyone and just settle into life as I would a soft, comfortable armchair. That’s my hope.

Oh, this just in – My Bloody Valentine have reformed and are playing some shows here in June, and Bruce managed to score us two tickets for my birthday. Hot damn! Now we just have to remember to attend.

They’re going to build a ladder/ it’s going to take you forever

Some girls direct their gaze at a distant point and scowl as they pass you, like you’re a tree trunk or a lower specimen of some kind - a child with a snotty nose maybe. I’ve done that before, a number of times, but I promise you - I’m not that girl.

Walking to work, I find that a tear will sometimes come to my eye because of the wind. If I squeeze hard enough, I can feel it on the bridge of my nose. At times like these, I wonder what it is I’m crying about, but then I remember: nothing. Sometimes a tear is just water. Sometimes the worst feelings never resolve into anything like crying.

I think that most people with okay upbringings are really reluctant to imagine the parental paradigm as anything but ultimately exonerated. I know this because there are loads of children with alcoholic mothers and absent fathers and violent grandparents, but anytime I’ve ever told someone I can’t love my mother, they think I’m making stuff up.

But really, it’s as though one day, some random person approached two crazy people (my parents) and handed them a bundle (me) and said to them, “Here, can you look after this for the next eighteen years? I’ve got a few errands to run.”

And my dad went out back to have a smoke and my mother looked into my eyes with her glistening, owlish dead ones and thought, “I need a new pink lipstick.”

If truth becomes creative enough, is it then considered fiction? Or does that only apply to undergrads with too much time on their hands?

Yesterday there was a fire drill at work. They test the system every week and a voice pipes up on the system to tell us it’s only a drill. But yesterday the alarm sounded and it was the wrong day of the week and there was no announcement and everyone got up and put on their coats and filed out into the stairwell.

We were on a high floor and it took a long time to get to the exit. At about the fifth floor, the alarm stopped sounding in short bursts and broke out into an ear-shattering death rattle. Then a voice did come onto the system. And the voice said there was a fire.

Everyone got stuck in the stairwell at that point; the queue stopped moving entirely, I’m not sure why. And I thought, “I’m going to die on the fifth floor of this building.”

But I didn’t, we all made it out, all 1100 of us, including the yellow-jacketed fire marshals, and into the park. Then we turned around and came straight back inside again.

Now that we’ve done that once safely, I know that the next time will be different. Your first run is always successful, your subsequent attempts riddled with mistakes.

I don’t want to be a mistake; I want to be spot on.

Happiness real only when shared

I was sitting at my desk this morning, as usual ignoring the glorious riverside view of a London skyline that’s only ever a glance away, and in a moment of reflection when I finally did look up, I noticed for the first time a massive black mushroom-like cloud that had been steadily making its way across an otherwise clear sky. Before I knew it, my Hollywood education had taken over and I was out of my chair shouting, Jesus Christ, what is that?!

Following this was a floor-wide dash to windows, news pages and mobile phones as everyone tried in various ways to determine whether or not it was something to worry about. As it turns out, a warehouse in Stratford had caught fire, the rubber tyres contained therein responsible for the blackness of the smoke.

The blaze is situated near the site of the 2012 Olympic Games, though there isn’t even anything built there yet, so I suppose the culturally indeterminate among us can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for today.

Everyone was back at their desks before long, but it was an eerie experience for me overall. The entirety of my hometown would have to be aflame in order to make that sort of an impact, visually-speaking. And the fact that everyone around me was initially behaving as though we could be the next potential targets of something much larger didn’t escape my notice either. The summer of 2004 is still imbedded in municipal consciousness I guess.

Bruce and I went to see Into the Wild last evening. I wish I’d have known what everyone else knew, which was that it’s based on a true story and *SPOILER FOR THE UNSPOILT AMONG YOU* he was never gonna make it. Boo. What a gorgeous film though. If I never saw another film again, I think that would definitely top my list. Apparently, Sean Penn nearly ruined the entire thing by casting Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, but then the family backed out and it wasn’t made for another ten years. Whew!

Okay, that’s lunch.

Everyone in the world is an asshole - except for you

On Saturday I stood in a queue at the Royal Mail depot watching an American with a wide, flat bum talk loudly on his mobile phone in spite of a sign asking patrons to PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING YOUR MOBILE PHONE. I did this to pick up a package sent by the inimitable Lass, who drew my name out of a hat for a prize (thank you!). The draw was based on best invented city slogan. Mine was:

London: “Leave Your Vomit in Our Underground!”

You could replace Vomit with just about anything though, up to and including Human Faeces. Ewww.

The prize was a lovely hard-cover book of picture art by Donny Miller, entitled Beautiful People with Beautiful Feelings. It came right on time, as I was feeling altogether much too seriously about myself as per usual. And it’s nice to be jarred out of that and have a bit of a laugh about things once in a while.

Actually, I’ve been enjoying myself immensely these last few months, since letting go of my anxiety a little bit. I’d like to think the cease-booze helped matters but actually I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that for the first time in who knows how long, I have really and truly felt what it feels like to be me, just me as I am. And whereas it’s not the most comfortable feeling always, it is far better than being any other way I’ve tried to be, including very drunk.

I’ve walked a total of five hours this week and yesterday I bought two amazing jumpers that I love with a ferocity most people reserve for their own children. We’re going to see Sean Penn’s new film tonight at Surrey Quays and then we’re coming home to eat steak, watch television and practise our respective crafts (I’m becoming increasingly adept at torturing the banjo).

Good stuff.