view from the 53 to Whitehall...

at going-to-work o'clock in the morning, sitting on the 53 to Whitehall and the greyness has covered the world in a mottled featurelessness which is probably as much to do with my continued lack of sleep as it has to do with the decorating. when i arrived with pre-made dough for scones in my bag i had 28 Days and Cog playing in my ears. this morning it's Something About Airplanes by Death Cab For Cutie, the peaceful melancholy of Champagne From A Paper Cup complementing my mood nicely while i sit here with my Eee surrounded by salary-men and school-children with the windows fogged up. the bus takes an hour or so to get to Elephant & Castle, where i'll change for one of the 4 different buses that'll drop me right in front of base-camp.

i spent the night in Woolwich after a do at SiJ's place because, with nothing to do the next day and an hour-plus door-to-door trip back to base i decided that i just couldn't be bothered leaving at 10 to catch the train and crashed out instead (SiJ has a spare room set up for guests). of course, that isn't to mean that i got particularly much more sleep than normal but then today that doesn't matter much. i completed another contract yesterday - 3 days running around again for Louis Vuitton. i'll not complain in either direction: i'm glad for the work, but at the same time i'm glad it's over. getting up at work-appropriate hours hasn't helped my sleeping patterns any, so i'll let them go completely and at least get some sleep in the next few days, even if it is at entirely the wrong times of day.

last night was really very nice - sitting around chatting until far too late. i'd made the dough for scones the night before, trialling a method which exchanges milk and sugar for lemonade, the dairy-free margarine making it vegan in accordance with the audience. the vegans have been feeding me a lot so it was nice to take a bring-and-share with me. spending the night out seems to help to break my time up and keep things interesting so i'm going to be more open to the idea in future (i usually prefer the familiarity of my own bed if it's reachable since there is a comfort in familariy).

my intended trip to Bristol is off for the time being. spending my days working and getting back wrecked every day led me to forget to actually organise anything, and by the time i thought of it again the timing had slipped again. i've made plans to hang around with the Internationals on Saturday and maybe Sunday which should keep me appropriately entertained and i'll look at wandering more seriously in a couple of weeks. there's an additional bonus to that particular plan, which is that there's every likelihood that louise will be out of a job then and will be keen to go wandering and while short trips on my own would be good, if i'm going to head to Scotland for a week and a half i think i'd prefer to have the company. in the meantime i'll be back on the job hunt... just not today because today i completely and totally Can't Be Fucked. i'm going back and i'm sleeping and lying around and maybe doing some more writing if the thought occurs. my motivation's slipped but since i've just had a bit of work i think i can afford to let it go for a day as a reward for hard work. i'll head back to Leicester Square tomorrow and be productive again.

by special request (this one's for you, Shadow)...

London after the rain is a filthy bitch. as you'd expect - the scum floats to the top and the grime sinks to the bottom, leaving the murky middle for the rest of us to move through.

walking to work along Regent Street in the rain is generally pleasant until you look down. my big, waterproof boots protect me from all but the worst of what i could walk through, which is good when the puddles are broad and black - black from the dust shed from bus tyres, the grit from the centuries-old stones gently rubbing together through thermal expansion and traffic, gradually wearing themselves down like an octogenarian's teeth, soot from the fires and exhaust we use to get around, keep warm and cook our food... it all pools in the depressions in the road and the gaps between bitumen and pavement. London after the rain is like a socialite after a big night - tired, ragged, lip gloss worn off, perfume washed away and mascara run, underwear soiled or lost, miserable and desperate for a bit of cash to get home. forget the cold which is crisp and soul-destroying, but a perfect reminder that you are in fact alive, ignore the gloom where you can better see the lights and slide comfortably through the shadow. walking the streets when the rain's gone and the puddles are drying is when this place is at its most depressing.

but when it rains... when it rains the city gains a lustre you'd never have anticipated. there's a feeling of life from the movement of water... the city's having a shower and it's singing while the scum washes down the plug hole and into the Thames. i love it when it rains around here. it's so completely unlike the downpours and storms and violence you get back home. Perth gets its semi-annual thunderstorm in January. from what i'm hearing i just missed this year's one. Canberra has its Spring and Autumn rains where the drainage ditches fill with water for those brief days, then dry up again for the rest of the year. here the rain's gentle. sometimes it's heavy, but even then it doesn't feel like it's battering you down. usually it's a caress that barely leaves you moist and even though you know it's full of the dust and detritus that you'll soon be stepping over in the street i never find myself getting upset when i'm caught out and it feels clean, not dirty.

i've been having one of those odd weeks where inconsequential things take on the strangest meanings. i had one of those "American Beauty" moments when i got back to base one night - the thick frost on the skips along the street glittering like a million tiny diamonds and i had to get a photo because for 3 seconds it was The Most Beautiful Thing i'd Ever Seen. grey buildings under a grey sky over grey people walking grey streets: a comforting backdrop to my stark black attire. the pebbles on the beach shifting under my feet while i stood in the freezing cold wind of night watching the waves lap the shore: a charming moment in time that could never be captured in a photograph.

i wonder sometimes how clearly i really see the world, but i can't help but enjoy the view sometimes. one of the benefits of having louise around is that i can gauge just how far i am off the deep end by how seeing how confused she gets by me. not that i let her reaction change things. i like it here - both the town i'm in and the mental overlay i can't help but give it...

this is a test of the emergency broadcast system...

tei'm not entirely sure i'm happy with this - starting up a fresh blog, hiding it from the world. the entire point of starting an OPEN blog was to share. creating a hidden one (or even more amusingly, one that i'm pretty sure people will be able to find but not access) means that there are things that i have to hide. no, that's a silly train of thought. i have plenty to hide... it's just that i have this insane urge to write it down for some reason. there've been far too many times i've gone to say something here and had to stop, think, and rewrite, obscure, hide, obfuscate, obliterate, ignore, destroy, erase. the problem with honesty is that at some point you're going to piss someone off and it's hard to play politics if you're constantly pissing people off willy nilly. i'm also self-aware enough that there are some things that i feel i just have to tell SOMEONE, and that too is contrary to best-practice.

i've been thinking about this for a while - ever since i wrote a heavily-veiled Phase Shifting entry a couple of weeks ago. i had to say something... remaining silent was driving me to distraction, so i turned writing into a game it so that i could say what i want but i'm pretty sure no one knew what i was on about... and if they worked it out then what the hell. half the fun of the game is leaving clues for people to find and seeing if anyone pieces them together. i'd originally intended on creating a new account from scratch - an unrelated email address, a different name, nothing connected to anything anything anyone knows about or can trace (unless they manage to track my IP's), but i thought about it this evening and figured... why go to all the effort? sure, it would have been a fun game to make it difficult but at the same time possible to find this thing, but then eventually word gets out and there i am censoring myself again. there are only two and a half people on the "allow" list for it at the moment, although neither of them know it yet.

the best benefit i can see so far is that if i do bash something out in Futility i can always modify it and double-post it, thereby doubling my effective output. sure it's cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.

at some point soon i'll start writing shit down, but right now i'm going to sleep. louise just got back from Spain and is busily passing out, and i was only staying up so that she wouldn't wake me when she came in. i have work in the morning. yay. boo. whatever. goodnight.

Snippets #8: on on multiculturalism (why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends)...

since i came here 3 months ago i've been making friends with people from all over the world. so far some of my best friends here include a Pakistani, a Dutch Canadian, a Korean Australian, a couple of Germans (one of whom was born in Bulgaria), a number of Australians and football team's worth of Brits. when the Randoms group last met up there was a French woman, a Danish lad, a Scot and an Irishman. over the weekend i've hung with all of these, plus a couple of Turkish and American girls. a lot of the conversations we have winds up being "Comparing Notes" - i'm interested in hearing about different parts of the worlds and who better to ask than someone who came from there? sometimes the conversations move on from that and sometimes they don't but somehow no one gives a crap about nationality. i've never seen anyone get narky - prime example: Greece and Turkey have been getting pissed off at each other for centuries. today i was drinking coffee with Adnan (Pakistani) and Marti (Turkish) and mentioned that my grandparents were from Greece. not a blink, not a frown, nothing.

Australia prides itself loudly on how it's an open, multicultural society but it seems that most people who move there keep to their own community groups, and they seem to bring a lot of their rivalries along with them. not that it's perfect here - the fighting in Gaza has caused protests here in London, complete with fights between pro- and anti-Israeli groups. my flatmates are Chinese and Malay and two of them haven't even bothered to learn any English. they have no interest in integration, which personally shits me to tears. for the same reason that i didn't want to move into a house full of Australians. i meet plenty of them around the place without trying and i'm as happy to hang with them as i am with anyone else who's good value.

the greatest joy of being in a different country is getting into the swing of the local culture and colour, even when a lot of that comes from a fuckload of other people who aren't from here. hell - it's one of the unexpected benefits of being here. it's proof, too, that if people see past the logo on the passport and deal with the person in front of them that we can all get along. that person may be a complete saint, a total cunt or anything in between, but you'll never know that if you judge by the accent...

let's go to Brighton on the weekend...

i'm sitting on the train for London Bridge with The Cure playing in my ears for the first time in longer than i can remember and in the best mood i've been in for ages, waiting at the platform in Brighton and it's been a huge day.

i didn't get back to base last night until 3AM on the dot. the day had been spent doing the regular job-search thing, looking for new jobs to apply for while the rejections rolled in from the interviews that had come before. i booted myself out and trolled through the 2nd-hand book stores on Tottenham Court Rd and managed to find a cheap copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra which i took to a nearby cafe and started reading while i waited for the 8PM meetup. the random group of internationals i've been hanging with on and off was meeting to see Waltz With Bashir near Leicester Square and i didn't want to head back to base just to come in again and regardless: louise was supposed to be getting some sleep so it wasn't worth disturbing her.

the movie was attended by some of the usuals - Adnan, Laura, Paul, plus a few newbies from parts various. the movie itself was artfully done, but left everyone emotionally drained and we hit the pub afterwards (The Crooked Surgeon, where louise and i had gone on NYE) for a couple of pints. louise joined us there with her luggage and we sat around until we got kicked out, then found a cafe in Soho and drank coffee as the remainder became 4 became 3 became me and louise sinking coffee and killing time. at a little before 2AM we headed for Victoria Station where her train was leaving for Gatwick, grabbing a pastie once we arrived - the first i'd eaten since the night before. by 2:30AM i was done - wretched and tired and ready to fall asleep where i stood so i got on a bus for home where i ready my book a little and crashed out... or at least tried to: i don't think i got to sleep until close to 5 after tossing and turning for an hour or so.

the clock hit 9:01AM and my laptop woke up and screamed In Flames at me. i'd hoped to get up a little early so that i could hit Brighton before the vegans and get a bit of a solo look around, but that didn't happen, so i jumped a bus and headed for London Bridge where i'd thought the rest of them were leaving from... only to find out that they were meeting at Victoria and taking a separate service. oh well. no matter. i picked up a return ticket, hopped on the train and off i went, screaming south-bound into the cold. it's only an hour to Brighton from London Bridge - a couple of stops in London before running express the rest of the way. i'd planned on reading my book for most of the trip, but then i saw the scenery and put the book away. as we got out of the city it seemed to get colder. frost covered the ground and the trees - pure white crystals clinging to brown branches, patches of white on the ground and the rooftops. just a light dusting in the stillness of the mist, cold and calm and enchanting.

it was just as cold in Brighton as London had been when i'd left, but cleaner, crisper, fresher. i beat the rest of them by no more than 5 minutes - some of the same old faces, plus John who's some sort of lighting engineer, Patrick who's in medicine and Eve - another Googler. Eve and i got chatting and i immediately comitted a faux pas by asking if she was Canadian. No, Seattle, i found out. crap. oh well, you TRY to be polite... we headed down streets with more personality than a schizophrenic while we all chatted, got the vegans booked into their hostel, then wandered the streets looking for lunch then the beach.

pebbles. smooth, round rocks. a variety of volanic types i can't specify past their origin forming a steep slope down into the water which was lapping calmly against them. as is my habit, i wandered down and dipped (in this case, a boot-clad) toe into it so that i could add the English Channel to the list of other bodies of water i've done this in (i misjudged the inbound wave and got wet half-way to my knees. i was incredibly glad i'd worn my waterproof boots because my feet were never anything but perfectly warm afterwards...) and we wandered around taking photos of each other, laughing and joking, enjoying being full of good food, out of London and having absolutely nowhere else to be. i was loving that i only barely knew where i was and was more than happy to follow one group or another around the place. people seemed to know where they were going, so i didn't have to and really: just how lost could i get?

Brighton is an odd assortment of things - sprawling, civilised seaside town, permissive hippie/vegan/alternative-sexuality hangout, playground for the wealthy and the uninspired, with tiny two-abreast alleyways, interconnected pedestrian malls (or at least streets which are treated as malls) full of music and book shops, arts and crafts, loudly advertised vegetarian cafes, pubs, restaurants and so on - anything someone on holiday might want to amuse themselves. it's referred to as "London-by-the-Sea", which is true only in the same ways as Bateman's Bay is thought of as being a far-flung suburb of Canberra. being only an hour away from London CBD it's commutable, and there are people who do it daily. it's also a quick, easy and pleasant place to get away for a weekend or longer, without the hastle of having to really plan too far ahead. i could have crashed the night there without a problem and still been back in town tomorrow for anything i might want to do with my day. i didn't... as much temptation as there was (and there was much), but that's beside the point. it's nothing like anywhere in London i've been to so far - it's happier (even in the cold), friendlier and cuter - the perkier younger sister to London's matronly spinster. it's a place that seems to takes itself only as seriously as absolutely necessary so as not to slide into the ocean, and it has an infectious vibe that gets into you and says "relax. no, seriously. have a pint, take a load off, forget your troubles, forget monday and just... chill."

wandering up the beach we hit the Pier and wandered around the rollercoasters and other rides and the air was full of laughter and frivolity. no arguments, no irritations, nothing to bother us, just good times and friendly faces. a group of us split off for coffee, i joined the group for the pub and wound up talking about art with SiJ, John and Patrick (sending a quiet prayer of thanks to Rapunzel for giving me a grounding back in early 2008 without which i'd have been lost), although they lost me completely when they moved into discussing Bacon which to me is something delicious and commonly associated with grilling rather than paintings. after a pint or two the groups joined and split and joined and split again, people heading off to various pubs and restaurants in the area.

i wound up in The Eagle (we were led by Fluf - a Brighton local who knew the best places to go), a dim place with a warm vibe and a tank full of tropical fish where i had another pint and the "Roast beef and horseraddish hash cake with greens and red wine gravy and a poached egg" which was just insanely awesome before SiJ grabbed me by the arm and declared that she wanted to go for more beach. what the hell? i thought to myself and after asking directions a couple of times we were standing back on the pebbles watching the waves lap on the shore, each time followed by the rattling sound of a thousand tiny firecrackers as the waves pushed the rocks up and down. we stood there for a while, arms around for warmth, chatting away and enjoying the lights on the Pier and the quiet, peacefulness of the scene. soon enough we fetched back back up in The George (a vegetarian pub) where we'd been earlier. by the time my party returned it seemed we'd missed a couple of drinks because Eve was pretty far gone, and the lads weren't far behind her. sadly, time was ticking away and in order to make sure i got a train out i said my goodbyes, declined the 7th, 8th and 9th offers of crashing space and legged it up the road to the train station and was in a seat 10 minutes later with one of my favorite old Cure albums playing - getting to finish listening to "In Between Days" which had been playing in The George when i left.

words can't express how much i needed today. interpretive dance would lack the subtleties and song would need to use two languages at once. maybe an extended, pacing, yelling rant would cover it, but that's hard to project into a keyboard. once again i'm wrecked, but i don't feel as directionless or hopeless as i did 24 hours ago. sure, i still have my sleeping problems that aren't going away any time soon, but it's been care- and stress-free and completely fabulous. i don't even mind the train ride back into town because at least it's given me the time to do some writing so that i can try to get to sleep an hour or so earlier. of course, i don't really need see the two russians who are drinking from a bottle of wine and making out like poorly paid amatuer porn stars across the aisle from me, but APART FROM THAT and the pressure above my eyes i'm the closest i've come to relaxed in far too long. thankyou Moonbug and thankyou Vegans. today was completely and inexpressibly lovely.

with no regard for health and safety...

by the time i staggered into basecamp i was destroyed. it took me a couple of minutes to fumble myself free of all the odds and ends i've found myself wearing or carrying on a daily basis, most of which i managed to do before i fell into bed, although this didn't make me feel much better. i'd got about 3 hours of sleep the night before after sitting around until past 6 in the morning waiting to get tired, then being awoken by my phone ringing again and again and again starting at about 9. it didn't stop ringing or beeping or buzzing until just before 6 that evening. somehow wednesday was the day that half the pimps in London woke up, looked at their calendars and decided that today was the day they'd finally get me a job, or drive me to the brink of exhaustion trying. by the end of it i had 2 interviews lined up for today, plus a phone hookup and a TBA potentially later in the afternoon. good news, except that they all to call at the same bloody time, getting more and more insistent that i forsake all others in favor of them and their pet underpaying client.

finally i had it all straightened out and headed back to base where louise and i had planned on grabbing tea down at the nearby bar/restaurant, a semi-swish little place called the Oval Lounge. i was about half-way there when my phone beeped again, but this time it was a Canadian, not a pimp:

"Grab a drink?"
where and when?
"Dunno... Any ideas?"

i gave her a call rather than bounce messages back and forth and we agreed on Euston which was easy enough for us both to get to. since i needed to catch the tube up there i maintained my base-ward course anyway to let louise know i was going to ditch her for the evening, threw my book in my bag for the train ride and bolted. she was nice enough to lend me her Oyster upon which is aTtravelcard: pay a fee, get free travel for the time period, which saved me a stack in fares for the evening.

by the time i hit Euston Laura had already done a recon and decreed that there was nothing much in the immediate area, so we headed for Kings Cross instead where we found a nifty little place called The Big Chill with groovy music and comfortable wing-back chairs by the heater. i was still running on adrenaline - i'd been banned from speaking for 2 minutes back at Euston because i wasn't making any sense, but my cider and a nice sit down calmed me nicely.

we wound up sitting around there having an odd, but interesting chat over a couple of pints - my job opportunities, her trip to Amsterdam and so on, although at one point we were discussing personality profiling and i was accused of being "too smart for [my] own good", and knowing it. this is the second time my relative intelligence has come up in conversation (the word "genius" was used the first time, which i loudly refuted), and it's made me a little uncomfortable both times. i can't help but feel that she's either winding me up, or buttering me up, i'm just not understanding the motivation. certainly, i'm unsure as to the relevance. i know i'm brighter than the average monkey and i'm partial to keeping similar company. Sandra used to remark that i have no time for fools and with this i wholeheartedly agree, but going into it smells too much of the arrogance that i generally try (although often fail) to avoid. i get the feeling that there's something i'm supposed to prove, i just haven't worked out for sure what that is. still, it was good company in a nice pub and i'm finding her to be great value... although still something of an enigma.

i hadn't eaten in some time and i really needed to get back to base before i fell asleep somewhere inconvenient, so we ducked out, grabbed a quick bite to eat and yawned farewells as we hit our respective train lines, soon after which i can afoul of Oval Station's 10:30PM closing time and wound up walking back from Stockwell. now, you'd anticipate that i'd make use of the Travelcard and catch a bus, but i was in no mood for this so i legged it instead, enjoying the crisp feeling of the wind blowing off the wet streets, letting it clear my head a little while my legs threatened revolt.

this is where a sensible person would talk about how they fell into bed and went straight to sleep, but then i've proven time and again that i'm not, which is why i wound up reading my book until 1AM or a little past. suddenly it was 8AM and louise was yelling at me to wake up while i opened my eyes and tried to breathe mattress. i'd looked up the maps for where i had to be today the night before, so i took the time to memorise the turns i needed to take and write down the directions in my notebook before i jumped through the shower (literally - i get about 2 minutes of warmth from the thing most mornings before it's spent), got dressed up in my interview-best and hit the street. it took about an hour to get to Woolwich Arsenal for the first one, which went as well as i could expect, then another to get to Green Park for the second which went almost as nicely, grabbing a tax-deductible lunch and coffee at the station while i waited for the train. the serious work of the day done, i fetched up at my usual haunt in Leicester Square and talked tech with Daniel and a new bloke from Melbourne.

the afternoon passed slowly while i chased down my contacts and waited for feedback that never came while my ephemeral energy waned, and i was back in comfortable, around-the-house attire at a little past 5. most of the evening was spent chatting online while re-watching half of the first season of Dexter. i wasn't in the mood to pay too much attention - i just wanted something on in the background and after reading the books i was keen to remind myself of what they changed for TV. now it's nearly 2 and i really should be sleeping. i know, however, that i won't wind up sleeping until after the clock strikes 3 so i figured i'd waste some of the time blogging. i'm getting through my book too fast and when it's done i'll just need to get another one, so the longer i can draw it out the better. i might try my luck at he 2nd-hand bookshops down Tottenham Court Road though. there's some Camus i've been meaning to read (especially his anti-nihilist essays), and i should probably wrap my brain about Thus Spoke Zarathustra at some point before i die. i might be able to get some of that cheap...

i'm very much looking forward to the coming weekend - tomorrow night's movie should be good and there are plans to grab a coffee or a beer afterwards, then Brighton on Saturday. i'm still sketchy on what i'll get up to on Sunday, but i have do have some ideas in mind so we'll just have to see how they pan out. at some point i should sleep, and try to do so about 3 hours earlier than normal. the tireder i get the less i concentrate, and the poorer my decision-making becomes. i was lucky today that i've got most of my responses to interview questions well-rehearsed, so i was able to come across as bright, enthusiastic and confident but i know i can't keep up the pretense forever. of course, i completely refuse to schedule in sensible sleep when my body point-blank refuses to play the game so we'll just have to keep punishing each other until one of us submits. there's always the possibility of sleeping through half of Sunday, but i'll be damned if i do that when i could be out having fun elsewhere. i'll sort something out. i usually do in the end... or, you know, i fall in a screaming heap and have it forced upon me. one way or the other i'll get some sort of resolution, i'm sure...

getting out of town (with mixed success)...

a week or so i hatched a plan to head up to Scotland for... well, around nowish, actually. as evidenced by the fact that i'm sitting in the kitchen of my flat while louise tries to get to sleep and not in a backpacker's in Edinburgh would indicate how well that worked. it's not a big thing - the timing was wrong anyway. soon afterwards i was reminded that she was headed to Spain this weekend to meet up with some friends from home and so, realising that sitting around London on my own for a weekend would leave me somewhat miserable i hatched an idea for a long-weekender over in Bristol, including a day-trip to Bath (which is nearby), leaving Friday and returning late on Sunday. while i was umming and ahhing about it louise mentioned that she was hoping that i'd hang around the city with her on friday night since she has to be on a train to Gatwick at 3AM for her flight out at 7ish and so, being a good doormat i figured i'd shift things back a day and leave on Saturday instead, returning Monday. ok. no problem. easy done.

spin forward to today when i was planning on booking my buses and a hostel bed for the time i'd be away and i get a phone call. the guys at Louis Vuitton want me back next week - asked for me specifically - to do a big move they've got planned from Monday through to Thursday of next week, and of course i'd be an idiot not to take it. the cash isn't great. hell - it's barely even good, but then 4 days at £15/hour is better than nothing so off i go again. that means that a trip to the West Country is out of the question now until at least the weekend after.

fortunately for me, Moonbug and her happy vegan gang are headed to Brighton this weekend: they're planning on doing an overnighter and i've received an invite. i'm honestly not really in the mood to spend 2 days in Brighton, but there's always the option of getting down there (it's only an hour by train and they leave regularly through the day) and coming back at night on the last service at about 11:30PM, which is what i'm planning on doing. they're a fun crowd - it's the same lot as i spend xmas with, plus a party last Saturday, so i know i'll be well entertained in their company.

in other positive news, Adnan's back from his trip to the States and has been running around like mad organising events for the Meetup group. this week it's a trip to see Waltz With Bashir on Friday night, so i'll go catch that. louise is going to grab some sleep in the evening and catch us up in Soho after the movie, so i'll cover that responsibility before heading back to base, catching some sleep, and trying for an early run into Brighton on Saturday morning so that i can explore for a bit before meeting Moonbug's crew when they arrive at 12:30PMish. of course, i'm not sure how early i'll make it but i'll give it a shot. all i need to do now is find something to entertain me for Sunday and there's my weekend all sewn up.

once the week's gone, i can always do my Bristol run on the Friday, spend the following weekend in town and organise some sort of Australia Day bash, then look at tackling Scotland with louise once her contract's over at the end of January. see how that all works out? of course, it won't wind up being anyway near what i'm planning, but at least i Have A Plan and right now that's enough.

i really need to get a change of scenery. after 3 months in London i'm starting to wonder where the whole idea of "go travelling" went, and how instead it turned into "pick up, go somewhere else and sit around with my thumb up my arse". having some cash coming in soon means that i can relax a little on the job-front. this extra 4 days is of course a bonus, and it means that i can take time out here and there without so much of the financial-guilt that was stopping me from wandering further afield in November/December. i'm not particularly worried about getting to the continent just yet since that's a) more expensive and b) more effort to organise. just getting out to see more of the UK is more than enough to keep me entertained at the moment.

since new year's i've been sitting around in a bit of a daze. i'm spending half my time sitting around feeling like my head's full of cotton wool, and the rest wanting to sleep. i'm craving sleep like a uni student craves Fruity Lexia, and like many students i've met i've been getting arguably far too much of it - often in the realm of 10-11 hours a night - and it's getting in the way of more productive activities. perhaps this is a side-effect of my habits in the last couple of weeks of December, but either way you look at it i've been getting annoyed. hell - today i woke up at 2:30PM, looked at the time, thought well, fuck it, and bummed around the house for what little was left of the day, fixing some niggling bugs on my Eee and finishing the last of Stargate: Atlantis before louise came home and we cooked tea. i'm hoping that getting out of town, even if just for a day, will help to clear my head.

in other news, it's gone freezing fucking cold here, although i'm pleased to say that i'm finally equipped for it. on top of my lovely jacket i've been wearing the woolen cap i picked up ages ago, the scarves louise thoughtfully gave me for xmas, and yesterday i lucked upon some cheap (£3), warm gloves. i'm officially loaded for bear... although i'm guessing that i'd still die if i wound up in Finland or Iceland (to especially cold places on my hit-list). i'll just have to leave them until the spring. it finally hit home when i was in town yesterday, hopped off the bus and found myself being snowed on, then noticed that the fountains in Trafalgar Square were full of ice. it's going to be a long, cold winter, but walking in the snow for 10 minutes made it worthwhile - it was the best i'd felt in days.

the next couple of days are likely to involve a resumption of my job-hunting. a couple of days here and there getting underpaid to do monkey-work aren't really going to cut it in the long-run. i really need a nice solid 3-month contract doing real work before i'll be feeling adequately human (not to mention financially secure) again. i also, desperately, need to get out of my own head for a bit and i'm hoping that a couple of weekends' fun and games, with some solid work in the middle, should help with that.

at least louise and i have been getting along a whole lot better since NYE. we hit the town after i got nicely pre-drunk and had an absolute ball... from what i remember of it, anyway. one minute we're making tracks from a bar near Liecester Square, then the next thing i remember is waking up in bed with with a sore knee and no idea how i'd injured it. from what i was told later, there was a crowd-surge after the fireworks which pushed us against a barricade the police had set up. somewhere in there i got knocked down and did myself some damage, and louise managed to get me home safe through the crowds. without much further mishap. this has renewed my faith in her more than a little and i'm glad of it. i hate to say it, but things seem to be looking up in a concrete way for the first time in... well, a while. we'll just have to see how it goes, i guess...

Snippets #7: on pointless trains of thought...

join me, if you will (and if you won't you're welcome to fuck right off) in a quasi-rhetorical question.

say you're engaged in a Game in which you Play a Role where there are no save points so you can never revert to a previous instance. in this game there are many NPC's (Non-Player Characters). some are important to the plot and some spew irrelevant banter, but you don't know which is which until you talk to them. after talking to one of the Names (irrelevant NPC's don't have names) for a while you come to an optional conversation topic - a Side Quest we'll call it. you don't have to take this Side Quest - the plot will move along quite happily without it. through interraction and intuition (the game designers went for a high level of conversational realism) you know that regardless of how you direct the flow of the conversation it's always going to end in exactly the same way, so do you bother to actually initiate the Side Quest?

ok, now what if you happen to know that the game designers were canny devils who hate to see their hard work ignored like this and they designed the game such that if you DON'T take the Side Quest your character will take a permanent hit to their Constitution stat which will only be recovered once you complete the Quest, but if you DO you'll lose the use of the NPC in future missions? the Achievement awarded is the same either way because you let the Game trap you in this sinister little fork, so you know you're going to end up with the "You Fucking Wombat" Achievement (worth 10 Gamer Points and the derision of your peers) whatever you do.

if you say "Don't" i'm curious as to your reasoning, if you say "Do" then fuck you - what do you know? and if you say "Quit the Game before you get the Achievement so you can at least avoid the black mark on your Gamer Tag" can you please tell me when the fuck is Deux Ex 3 coming out? Invisible War was borderline-craptastic and last year's teaser trailer left me more excited than a 16 year old sneaking into his first strip-show...

a chaotic slant to my sleep patterns...

i'm sitting at work again on the last day of my contract and the last day of the year. i'd be excited if i wasn't borderline exhausted. being here at 8:30AM has been more than a little taxing and i don't think i could have kept it up much longer, not with they way i've been sleeping... or haven't been sleeping. last night it was about 4 hours. the night before it was 3 from 9:20 to 12:20, then another 3 from 4:00 to 7:00. sunday night gave me... 3 hours. on saturday night i slept from 4 until 1 in the afternoon. friday was more like 5AM until 12:30 after a half-hour nap at 2ish, then thursday went from about 3:30 until 11AM.

see, i've been all over the place. odd hours, naps, interrupted sleep... somehow i've managed to remain fairly lucid through the days, then being completely and totally awake the moment the church across the road tolls out 11PM.

at least i can sleep in tomorrow, and believe me: i intend to. i'll head home after i knock off from work and get a couple of hours of nap into me, then tonight louise and i are heading into town to bar-hop and get nicely slaughtered. we made an agreement... no, i tell a lie: i imposed an agreement. since she's been getting drunk and making my life hell of late, tonight's my turn.

one way or another i'm going to have a good time tonight, even if i don't remember much of it and regret it tomorrow. so, in what i can only assume will be my last blog posting for this year, here's to the end of Year Fail. Fuck you 2008. Fuck you, you skull-fucked, gangrenous headwound of a year. for every moment of joy (and there were, i'll admit, more than a few) i put up with hours of arse-rape, all with your name in the date. with any luck i'll wake up with selective amnesia tomorrow morning which will whittle my memories of you down from 12 months down to 4.

fuck you, fuck off and good night.

and to anyone who ISN'T 2008, Happy Fucking New Year. if you're reading this you're probably not one of the people i want to set on fire, infect with necrotising faciitis and kick into the nearest cesspit so many thanks and i'll see you (figuratively if not literally) in 2009.

time out in the 'burbs...

i woke up on xmas morning when Moonbug burst into the room to tell us that the taxi was due in an hour. Cam, who's heavy breathing and muttering in the night had woken me up at least once was up in a flash. Alex and i were less quick. somehow i managed to snag the queen-size bed in the spare room while the 2 guys i shared it with took up station on couch-cushions on the floor, and so i slept in a bed i could stretch out in for the first time in nearly 3 months.

there were 8 people crashing at Moonbug's house in Brockley on xmas-eve, of which 7 were Australians (more or less randomly). we'd eaten tofurkey and roast vegies and enjoyed a few drinks over the evening, then found places to sleep in advance of a mass-migration to SiJ's place in Woolwich the next day.

SiJ lives in an ex-council estate flat in a somewhat rough looking area, and while it looks like you'd pretty much expect an estate to look after watching a couple of seasons of The Bill, she's made it incredibly pleasant inside and somehow managed to squeeze 13 people in there for the day. this was impressive enough, but she'd also gone and cooked enough to feed most of us (other folk did the bring-and-share thing), as well as 5 different desserts to top it off. the table was covered in party poppers and streamers and place settings and when the food came it was completely fucking insane.

i should probably explain at this point that i was one of... um... 2 non-vegans in the room? i think the numbers were around there. as such all the food was vegan. not that this is a bad thing, and the food was awesome. Cam made a nutloaf-and-stuffing pie which was absurdly good, there was cous-cous, steamed carrots with soy sauce, stewed tomato and onions and roast vegies. we ate like vegan kings while i drank the beers i'd left out on the balcony to stay cold (who needs a fridge when it's 2degrees outside?).

it was a cruisy day all told. we got there at about 12:30 and commenced the time-honoured tradition of "bumming around". i retreated off into the spare room (the Groovy Chick Room, named because it had been painted lavendar and covered on Groovy Chick decals) at 2ish with my book for some timeout and curled up in a bed so soft it seemed to have been made from marshmallow clouds, stuffed into the thighs of virgins, whereupon i promptly passed out while the rest of the party took photos of me (something i didn't find out about until later and which didn't really bother me overly - at least i didn't wake up with my hand in a bowl of tepid water). after we finished stuffing outself full i surveyed the scene in the kitchen and since i hadn't actually contributed diddly-squat to the event apart from my empty stomach, i decided to start washing the dishes. there were a lot of them. i think i'd been going for the best part of an hour with various people drying up as i went before i was kicked out and ordered to eat trifle, after which i came back and kept at it. try running xmas lunch/dinner for 13 people with 8 or so dishes, with entre plates, mains plates, snack bowls, cups, glasses, mugs, cutlery, pots, pans, frying pans, serving dishes, serving trays and... well, you get the idea. the worst thing is that in two rounds i still didn't get through everything, but wasn't allowed to continue.

the tables were packed up by the time i came back into the main room - the TV had been switched to BBC-Whatever and i caught the end of the Queen's Xmas Message before the Dr Who Xmas Special played. Moonbug was particularly excited by this, and went on to gloat to various people around the world by SMS that she'd got to see it "live", so to speak. once this was done i checked my email and read my book while everyone else played party games. i have only the most minor interest in such things - i prefer to watch, generally. i wound up chatting on facebook for an hour or so until i noticed a book on the floor (not a book's natural habitat) called "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey which advertised itself as an honest recounting of an ex-junkie's rehabilitation, so i picked that up and got through a hundred or so pages.

it was 4 in the morning before we got out of there, following a long and protracted discussion about who was crashing there, who was going back to Moonbug's place and how it was all to happen. by lucky circumstance there was a guy there with a car who was going more or less in the direction of my place, and so at a bit past 4:30 i hopped out on the side of Brixton Road near my house and wandered back to base and my cold, empty room.

louise was out - spending the 24th-26th with family, and i'd left a couple of hours after her so the room was as i'd left it. by 5AM i'd settled down and hit a deep, dreamless sleep.

1PM and i was awake and moving again... well, moving's such a relative term. i suppose i could have gone out and done something, instead i enjoyed having the room to myself for a while, alternating between watching episodes of Stargate Atlantis, playing games and reading my book. another great joy of being on my own is that i eat when i want, which is usually early. for this reason, i was on facebook again at 6ish to find a message from Laura. we've been chatting a fair bit of late. neither of us really knows a lot of people around and we've been playing mind-games via SMS and IM when we're bored. as such, many of our conversations are convoluted, but the gist of it went:

"What are you up to?"
nothing much. lying around, watching Stargate Atlantis. why do you ask?
"Wanna come over mine and watch a movie?"

i responded in a roundabout way that i would, got some directions, got dressed and an hour later i was knocking on her door out near Manor House. she's sharing with a couple in a modern, bright townhouse down the road from Greenlanes, 8 or 10 minutes walk from the tube. i was way fucking jealous - it's damn sight nicer than my place, and she has a queen-size bed in a room to herself - but then i didn't ask what she paid for the place either. with the housemates away for the time being, she has the run of the place and was baking Dutch cookies (which were delicious). come 3AM we were sitting on the couch having managed to not actually turn on the TV, but killed the hours chatting instead which i prefer and i was pondering how the hell i was going to get home, and which bus to catch.

"You can crash of you want."
you sure? that'd work really nicely - cheers. the couch feels pretty comfy.
"Well, you're not sleeping with me."
no worries there - couch is fine.

half an hour later i'd warmed up the blanket and i was lying there listening to the sound of... nothing. no flatmates having late night showers, no car noise, no sirens, no louise snoring, no Cam muttering... nothing. next thing i knew it was 1PM and Laura was standing in the doorway waking me up.

the rest of that day was completely and totally slothful and exceeded only in its laziness by how goddamned pleasant it was. we got through Run Fatboy Run and Mr & Mrs Smith before rotting our brains with House M.D. reruns on Sky, wishing death upon the advertising executives who decided to barrage us with the same ads for antacid, cold&flu remedies and mouth-ulcer ointment. oh, and whoever decided to make an ad consisting of 50 seconds of women screaming in agony to promote SIDS? fuck you, sir. fuck you right in the fucking mangina. i didn't need that and you may kindly burn in each circle of hades in turn.

in the end i set a timer to make sure that i got out the door by 11, in time to get the tube home, and at a little past midnight i wandered into the room with a burger and chips from Oval Kebab. i found out a little bit later that louise had messaged me while i was on the tube asking where i was. of course, if i'd really wanted her to know i would have told her or left a message, but no matter. i was back at base now and obviously in one piece so i left her to talk on Skype while i made my tea disappear.

"Where have you been?"
out.
"sorry I just was worried..."
i'm not sure why that would be.

i got on Skype so that i could return a call from Sandra that i'd had to cut short because my mobile's battery was near dead. it rang again at 4:50AM - Ondine calling to touch base and say hi. i was well and truly asleep, but it was good to touch base even if briefly.

today's been more of the same. lying around, playing around online, playing games, watching tv repeats, burning through my book with me and louise generally ignoring each other. tomorrow i'm back at work for the last 3 days of my contract, and i need to pay the rent. at this rate it looks like i'll be doing exactly that for NYE and i'm not so sure i care, but maybe something'll come up - who can say?

because you asked me politely...

i hadn't intended on writing tonight... in fact, it was far from being anywhere near the top of my list of things to do but the bathroom's busy which prevents me from a tidy wrist-slitting and i was asked nicely so i figured fuck it, strapped my headphones on and cranked some Fallout Boy for variety - i've had speed-metal on high rotation lately so it was time for a change. what i will do, however, is avoid talking about what's really worrying me at the monent and simply hope that when Lou wakes up with a hangover tomorrow she doesn't regret whoever she did or didn't do tonight.

i'm being pulled in too many different directions at the moment to make any sense - tired but not able to sleep regularly, depressed beyond tears but cheered mightily by a long chat on IM earlier this evening, employed for the moment but pay-day's a long way away, horny enough to climb the walls using my teeth and nails but... um... actually, there's no mitigation for that one. shit. i'm so far from my centre that my only hope at the moment is to spin faster and try to keep all the different forces balanced so i don't wobble myself off the table and smash on the tiles.

why is this? well, i've been doing a lot of soul-searching of late - i've spent enough time alone and undisturbed in the last week or so that there's been little else to distract me - and i've come up with a number of answers. the problem here is that now i know that there are people reading this thing it gets a little hard to work out how to say enough to give an impression without giving it all away. i don't keep a whole lot of secrets to myself, but right now there's shit floating around the septic-tank of my brain that you couldn't get out with a crowbar and a flame-thrower. this, also, can make it difficult to say anything of interest. instead, i've been spending a huge amount of my mental energy trying to run like fuckery from the monkey on my back because every time i turn and look behind me he smiles, waves, and bites another chunk of my face off. one thing's for sure, i've jumping at any and every distraction that stops me from putting forehead-shaped dents in the plaster.

one thing that hasn't been classified "Sex & Travel" (aka "Fuck Off") is that i can't shake the feeling that i've turned into a fucking doormat of late, greeting visitors with an invitation of "Welcome! Please use my nose to wipe that shit off your boots and remember to take some of my dignity as you leave!" maybe it's a desire to not rock the boat, i don't know, but somehow it feels like i've been letting a mate dump me with baby-sitting his kids, then asking if he'd like to borrow my girlfriend for the threeway she'd never agree to have with me while i do it. sure i get to enjoy the moral high-ground, but i'm still coming home to the smell of someone else's Old Spice and cold post-orgy pizza. i'm not sure how this happened - have i always had "thankyou, please come again" tattooed on my arse-cheeks or is this new? i'm pretty sure i wasn't always a whiny loser... no... wait, that's not true... i was just better paid back then and i had a bike i could escape on when i had to get the fuck out. my self-loathing's getting to the point that when i self-combust the smoking glass crater will stretch to Vauxhall - all i need to do is embrace the hatred then watch it all burn.

otherwise i can't complain... or at least i shouldn't. Moonbug's managed to score me an invite to entertainment for the 24th/25th, so i might actually be able to have something of and anti-xmas party after all... even if it's just me sitting outside with a grouchy look on my face while the rest of them eat tofurkey inside where it's warm. seriously though, the London Vegan/Animal Lib mob has invited me, an admitted omnivore, to join them for their version of an Xmas-orphans bash and i'm grateful for it. they're a good, friendly mob, and it means that i'll not drink alone for those days... although on New Year's Eve it's increasingly likely that i'll wind up sitting alone on the steps at Trafalgar Square drinking bad scotch out of a bottle in a brown paper bag while people who are in better moods step over and around me and i wish a plague upon them and their happy optimism. we'll see - something might come up. i might get hit by a bus and spend the evening in hospital instead. the world's looking brighter already!

last saturday i spent most of my waking hours talking to people - i must have been on Skype with Sandra for 2 hours, then another half an hour or so with my mum. Yunyu caught me on IM from Singapore late in the evening, after i'd already spoken to Simon who's in Perth. i spent a while talking to Laura in there somewhere, there were emails, and on Sunday morning my mobile rang with Shadow on the other end of it - the only good fucking thing that happened to me that day and no, i'm not kidding. it was nice though - reaching out through my dodgy broadband connection and touching with ethereal fingertips the well-missed voices of my old life and while i know full-well that it's not gone anywhere it's great to be reminded of it sometimes.

meanwhile, i've got myself a couple of new books to read so i'm going to do what i can to lose myself in them while other angry-young-men-who-say-fuck-a-lot whisper screams in my ear and i consider my options in the cold, sober light shining through an empty pint-glass while i try to remember what it was like when i was carved from granite and nothing could touch me so that i can get back to hardening the fuck up. odds are that my liver and i will survive the next week and the trail of destruction will be minor, but as with all things due to happen more than 5 seconds from right now we'll just have to see.

you know know this won't be perfect, even when it's feeling right...

by the time i staggered in the door i was destroyed, demolished and drained. Lou was already in bed doing her guppy impersonation - lying back with her mouth open- the song on my PSD was on its 9th repitition and the clothes i'd put on over 17 hours ago felt like they were hanging off me, as if i'd somehow shrunk over the course of the day and could no longer fill them. my head was full of beers and distant thoughts as i tripped towards my bed and got undressed, hanging my work-gear in the cupboard so that the creases could fall out over the weekend. i changed into an old pair of tracksuit pants and a tshirt and felt no better for it, the drawstring was the only thing holding the pants over my hips, the shirt feeling two sizes too big, the song coming through my earphones on its 10th time past. i headed down to the kitchen and got a drink of water before slumping into a chair while it played through to number 11. eventually i headed upstairs and fell into bed, staring at the wall in the diffused light of my bedside lamp.

i'd spent an hour sitting in Piccadilly Circus drunkenly talking philosophy with Laura, the Canadian. we'd left the pub and wandered semi-aimlessly through the amusement-park currently in Leicester Square after i'd decided that it was time to leave lest i drink any more. i needed to sober up before i lost all coherence and possibly said something i'd rather not, and we wound up sitting on the some steps overlooking the madness of people coming and going and taking photos, the manic exuberance of people out on the town on a Friday night while we exchanged stories. somehow i'd started discussing my view of the world while she picked holes in it, keeping me on my toes. earlier in the evening we'd tested our abilities at profiling by explaining how the other had come to be the way they were and seemed surprisingly accurate, and this spurred an explaination which went on longer than i'd anticipated but which was none-the-less entertaining. come midnight she made her move, catching the tube home and i walked down to my usual bus stop past Trafalgar Square, turning my PSD on and starting the song by Inhale Exhale that had become stuck in my head the night before, feeling satisfied but somewhat depressed.

Lou took her leave at the pub, pissed as a fart, but fizzing with happy energy having organised a date for Sunday. Laura had showed up well after the three of us had got established with a table and some chairs, and i switched seats with Lou because she and Daniel were talking loudly and excitedly, leaving Laura out of the conversation. dividing the four of us into two pairs, Laura and i watched them as they moved closer and closer over the course of a bottle of wine, their body-language screaming of potential while we sunk pints and critiqued. i explained how i'd set the wheels in motion with a couple of choice comments here and there earlier in the evening and then left them to themselves and we chatted and watched them in our peripheral vision, running a constant commentary while they flirted, keeping each other appraised as to their progress since subtlety robbed us both of a decent view. she asked why i'd set this up and i explained that Lou needed to have some fun, so i'd kicked them off when i saw that they were attracted although i knew that i'd wear it from her later. we tried to predict the outcome while they danced around each other and i used the analogy that in particle physics you can either know the location of a particle or its direction, not both at once - a simplication of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. she argued this, more because she felt that it was required than because she disagreed, accusing me of having an unhealthy interest in semi-irrelevant minutia. me, i was of the opinion that it was the perfect way to describe our observations of what was happening on the other side of the table. as the bottle neared its end Lou and Dan disappeared for the toilets in a suspicious fashion, whereupon i attempted, in an increasingly drunken state to explain Schrodinger's Paradox, that while the situation is not observed it exists in a state of neither zero nor one, but that the observation of said inadvertantly changes its state from indefinite to definite. by request, i changed the cat to a rat, but pushed the point. Daniel reappeared shortly thereafter, and when he sat back down i said to him:
Schrodinger's cat is dead.
he replied after a pause, saying "Schrodinger's cat is alive!" and i gave him a high-five while Laura looked confused. Lou reappeared and proved his position by kissing him, and i turned to Laura looking more than slightly smug. Daniel left shortly thereafter to meet up with some people at Ministry of Sound and when i got back from the toilet Lou was in full form - a wingman with an itchy trigger, explaining at great length how Laura should sleep with me because i was desperate and apparently deserving of a sympathy fuck. i sat back and watched while this went on, generally feeling uncomfortable, and Lou finished her drink and announced that she was heading home, seemingly of the idea that if she left us to it we'd get on in the same way she and Daniel had. i tried to disuade her, saying that if she waited a minute or 5 i'd finish my drink and accompany with her but she was adamant and bolted for the door. Laura asked if i wanted to follow, but Lou knew at least 2 ways home so i figured she'd be fine. she obviously thought she was doing me a favour and i wasn't in the mood to deal with her any more - my patience had finally worn thin. Laura turned to me and said

"I see what you mean about you wearing it..."

Daniel and i had arrived at the pub after finishing up our afternoon of job-hunting at Bite. i'd organised an after-work drinks meetup on the Facebook group in the Bear & Staff downstairs, with the promise that i'd go a round for whoever was there when i showed up, starting at 6PM. getting there a little before 5 meant that my round consisted of me and Daniel. cunning plan, or selfish subterfuge? regardless, he was feeling a bit sick so i got him a Guinness citing the health benefits and after loitering around we managed to score a table before finding out that we couldn't get any food downstairs and headed up for the dining area where we ate fish and chips and discussed Australian politics for an hour before heading downstairs, running into Lou as she arrived. a pint of Guinness and a plate of great fish and chips had perked him up and out of his flu. we miraculously found a table without trying this time, and while Lou went off to get a drink i explained to Daniel briefly that she was still pining over her ex, but looking for distraction. we sat, sinking drinks and chatting until Laura found us, grabbing a beer and taking the seat next to Lou, opposite Daniel.

i knocked off work at 1:30, as instructed. i've taken a temp role providing IT support for a small Islamic Investment Bank during the xmas-holidays, but they only wanted me there from 8:30AM until 1:30. having nothing better to do and no desire to head home before being at the pub by 6, i headed into Leicester Square so that i could kill the rest of the day updating my CV and applying for a few more jobs. Daniel was already there - a British/Australian lad i'd met a week or so beforehand who, like i, had grown up in Perth. i'd shown him around a little and we were getting along nicely so on Tuesday i'd suggested that we grab some beers at the pub on Friday. i published my plans on the Facebook group i've been meeting up with since i'd promised to organise an event or two. there was very little happening on the job boards, so not long before 5 we headed down and grabbed a couple of pints. he had to head off to get to a gig at Ministry of Sound at 9:30, but we had plenty of time for a few drinks beforehand. Lou was due to meet us up at 6, with the likelihood of some of the Facebook crowd showing up as well, so we stood around near the bar and waited for someone to vacate a table...

back in the game...

i stepped out into the cold light of morning this morning dressed rather unusually... for me, anyway. dress shoes hit the pavement as i walked to the Tube station, pinstriped trousers brushing my legs, tie hanging over one of my nicer shirts while my coat fluttered in the breeze, keeping the cold at bay. it was 8AM and i was on my way to work - my second First Day in two days. yesterday i was headed off to a freelance assignment to spend a day working for Moet Hennesey Louis Vuitton - something of a prestige client. by the time i got home i was exhausted - it was fairly simple desktop-support work, moving and installing equipment around one of their London design studios. today i was on my way to a bank.

this seems to be one of those things you do in London - the financial district (situated around Bank Tube station which is named for the Bank of England located opposite) is huge. the big names operate out of this area - HSBC, NatWest and so on, and so do many of the other global financial powerhouses. when Lehman Bros shed its staff, it's the east-end that was awash with unemployed Hedge Fund Managers trying to offload their Aston Martins, handing out business cards in the streets in the desperate hope of finding a new source of income before their Margin Calls came in.

the offices are... impressive. an enormous foyer greets you when you walk up the steps and in the door - all marble, pillars and hardwoods, open and empty and austere. the offices, on the other hand are modern, if quiet. my job here is to Keep An Eye On Things while the two local staff are away. this means running the daily checklist, then sitting and Being Available should anything fall over. bearing in mind the lack of activity going on i'm expecting this to be somewhat unlikely. still, it's a job and it's paying good money for the 6 half-days i've been employed to cover between now and the end of the year.

if you're wondering where this came from, and why there was no excited "i've got me a job" posting, it's because i only got these two little roles on Wednesday. the consulting company i've been operating from got the call and pretty much asked me when i walked in the door whether i could cover, the answer to which was, of course, "hells yes!" it's not like i've got anything better to do, and they cash that'll come in from 7 days of work will keep me fed and the rent paid for 2 months at my current rate of expenditure. of course, i'll probably go and spend a bit of it on some new work-clothes, and maybe some retail therapy, but hey: it's keeping occupied, and my skills current.

one thing i've noticed in the last month or so is how much my brain's been shutting down. i don't need to use most of it for day-to-day life. keeping my laptops running doesn't exactly cause a lot of mental stress, and the rest of the time i've been chilling out, reading, watching movies, playing games. forcing myself to think and act professionally again is like powering up the mainframe after a shutdown. lights flash, drives hum, systems that have lain dormant come back to life and run their self-checks. i've been feeling my skills atrophying and it's great to give them a bit of a workout. also of the good is that now i've got some UK work on my CV it's going to find the next role easier to get. having a bank at the top of the list will open the doors i'd expected to stay closed to me, and having the afternoons off will mean that i don't have to curtail my job-search at all, and tonight i'll be sitting around a pub in Leicester Square sinking beers with an air of self-satisfaction, enjoying the fact that i do look rather presentable.

the only downside i can see at the moment is that i need to be here at 8:30AM. i shouldn't complain too much - it's a really quick tube ride in to work, then i can catch the bus home in the afternoon to conserve a little cash. i needed to get in this habit anyway and it's always been a hard one to maintain. i'm not, by nature, a morning person. most of my friends over the years have had to forgive me for my inability to be anywhere before 10. i'm fortunate in that Lou's far better at mornings than i am, and entirely willing to kick me if i'm not up and moving, thus preventing me from rolling over and hitting the snooze button. i now have 4 different alarms at my disposal too - my phone, a vibrating watch which i've strapped to my bed frame and makes the entire thing buzz, and my laptops which i've set to start playing music. when i set these off in a cascade it's pretty difficult to turn them all off and not wake up, although i know from experience that i've done so a few times in the last few weeks.

regardless of all that, i'm in work. i'm earning (quite good) cash, and the world is looking brighter... even as the days grow shorter and colder. no matter - i have this nice warm coat to wear : )