i've been meaning to write something for days, but the thoughts in my head were a jumbled mess of crap so anything i wrote would have been worse. on monday i was going to write about despair, but i realised i needed to harden up and quit whinging. yesterday i was going to write about being irritated, but i realised i was irritated by the most trivial bullshit and was being ridiculously unreasonable. things are going well... or well enough that i need to be looking forward, not down. tonight i figured i should say SOMETHING, so i set myself the time limit of a rapidly dying battery and sat down to at least say what i've been up to.
the weekend was fun. after my Argos Experience i met up with the Internationals for coffee. Moonbug came along with a new arrival from Perth - another Paul i'd met years ago in Perth but never got to know very well. we wound up with Australians on one half of the table, and Other Internationals on the other, with me sitting in the middle trying to keep track of both sides. a contingent moved to a nearby pub and i hung around there for a pint until i decided that i was feeling just too crappy to stay out and left. i spent the rest of the evening eating chinese food and talking to people on Skype and cruising the net. a thought struck me the other day and i'd grabbed a piece of cardboard that was lying around and started sketching some ideas for another tattoo. i keep picking it up, adding to it, changing it, remodelling it then throwing it away again. i'm starting to get the elements the way i want them in my head, even if the final details are still a little fuzzy, so i worked on that for a bit.
Sunday came and i was feeling much better after having a comfortable night's sleep. after having fun with my new poi i met up with Laura for tea which was pleasant - shooting the breeze while eating cheap vegan buffet before wandering aimlessly the streets around Piccadilly Circus, winding up in Leicester Square in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Kate Winslett when she showed up for the premiere of her latest movie. i ditched the Canadian at 7ish and headed for Charing Cross Station to meet up with Adnan, Marti and Alice (a French girl i'd not met previously) and we cafe-hopped, drinking coffee and discussing arthouse cinema until 10ish. well caffeinated and with a spring in my step. we dropped Alice at Trafalgar Square, before walking across the river where i parted company and walked back to base-camp for no better reason than that i was in the mood to walk.
i swung into Leicester Square on Monday to find out that there was now a betting pool on who was going to be next to get a job. after inputting my stats into the formula i came out with 170-7 odds - the words odds in the room, and thereby the one everyone's put their 5p on. me, i put the penny i found in the street on the way in on Daniel if for no better reason than that betting on me was a sure-fire way to jinx myself. i have the 2nd-round interview for the permanent job i've been working on for the last few weeks tomorrow. the phone interview i had for it last thursday went well - the feedback was excellent. tomorrow's the do-or-die and i'm throwing everything i've got into it - every dirty trick, any coaching i could get from the pimp, any pre-planning and fore-thought i can do. a lot's riding on me getting it, and i'm not talking about the betting pool. if i don't get it i'm going to quit job hunting for the next week or two and go travelling - Scotland for a start, then... who knows? i figure i'll wander and go where the wind blows. it's liberating to Give Up.
Giving Up has been weighing on my mind. the approach i've been taking to a lot of things has been Not Working, which means that it's time to Give Up on a lot of my ideas, plans and pre-conceived notions. if your strategy is failing then it's time to rethink your strategy and if there's one thing i'm getting pissed off at it's the constant stench of Failure. it's been so long since i've Failed in anything near this Epic scale and i've not dealt with it as well as i'd have liked so it's time to Give Up on what i thought i wanted and focus instead on what i Need. it's time to pull a Descartes: erase my framework and rebuild it anew. the way i've been playing things has not been making me happy, so why the fuck am i persisting with it? why not just pack a bag and go somewhere - book a train ticket there and work out how i'm getting back later. the idea sits well with me and i'm more than happy to trust my instincts and go with it. my instincts have usually served me well over the years so when they're screaming at me i'll listen.
i left Leicester Square today with Hilltop Hoods playing in my ears and a spring in my step. i'd applied for a couple more jobs, but my heart wasn't in it, so i didn't put too much thought into it - i just bummed around drinking coffee and chatting with the other job-hopefuls until it hit 5 and i got bored enough to get out. talking back past Trafalgar Square with my coat flowing in the breeze and a spring in my step for no reason other than it felt right... for 5 minutes i remembered what it was like to feel Untouchable. i'll see how tomorrow goes - i should know the result by friday which means that this weekend i'll either be celebrating or commiserating, but at least i have a direction for what comes next one way or the other...
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