Monday 1 June 2009

It’s the beginning of the week and right on cue this morning I wake up early again due to the blazing sun coming in my bedroom from through the window and outside. Mark said I should be closing my curtains. Yes, that might help.

As ever the alarm clock sounds at 6AM and as ever it tickles me that my window is wide open and that this noise will at least awaken a couple of people. I guess this is revenge for the guy that used to leave for work at 5.45 every morning alerting me to the fact/reality that I only have fifteen minutes before my day gets ruined.

It’s June! A new month so a new set of resolutions. I used to be big on this a number of years ago but over the past few life has just been too busy to arrange anything so regimented. Even now I have tentative plans to begin some kind of fitness kick today/this month but it just ain’t gonna happen, I’m too busy and this makes me too miserable to pick myself up and make sacrifices and compromises.

Susan Boyle is the number one news story with her apparent trip/visit to The Priory. Thank you GMTV but THIS IS NOT NEWS!

Really though, what did the world expect of a shut in? Having been a teenager growing up watching the way Kurt Cobain responded to fame and the sudden unwanted intrusion into his life that came with it, how could a woman that has done next to nothing with her life suddenly be expected to cope with a world suddenly looking at her and intruding her existence. You suspect her lack of life to date has been the result of an inability to function in the mainstream world, one that probably rejected her until only a month or two and now it seems to be gravitating towards her in some kind of plastic magnetism. The woman must think she is tripping. It certainly sounds like she is bugging. Alas though, THIS IS NOT NEWS!

After a relatively painless journey from home to the car park to the station eventually my morning train pulls into Liverpool Street at 7.59 and I am truly/genuinely shocked but not in awe. Now why on earth cannot this company do this every day of the week? It used to be able to.

Likewise the tube ride to St Johns Wood (via Baker Street) is nondescript and I wind up getting into the restaurant at 8.40 very comfortably. All signs appear positive this morning.

The optimism ends there as I notice a text message from The Girl saying that she won’t be in. I would have fucking put money on her not coming in today, it was a beautiful weekend which has now followed through into a beautiful Monday and beginning of the week and I even I really wanted to stay at home and laugh the day off myself this morning:

“Hi, sorry jason but somethings come up and ive got to go to Reading, so i wont be in today. Will be back tomorrow hopefully.”

“What a surprise”

“Jason i really dont need ur sarcastic remarks. If i say i have family issues then thats what i have, im sorry but if my family needs me then they come before everything including my job!”

“Yeah but it seems to happen a bit often”

“Often, i never have time off because of my family. Look im driving so whatever!”

“Don’t crash”

“Bit hard when your sat in traffic.”

After these words I head into the toilet to discover a floater. This literally shits on my day. There was also a floater in the toilet last week a couple of times, someone here has worries.

Ultimately today is a pottering day. I prepare a list of things to do beforehand but it is with the knowledge that the consultant will be along soon at some point to fuck it all up.

Today is the day I finally decide to ditch kickboxing as I find myself getting into minor words with their admin person emailing from South Africa. When she suggests that if I hand in my “resignation” by person today instead of posting it and it arriving tomorrow apparently this slips between two time periods and two sets of £42 monthly payments. How ridiculous is this? When I suggest the lady is being anal I know I am overstepping the mark but regardless of I deliver the letter in person or post it it is unlikely to reach their office before tomorrow anyway. The reality is that my last lesson was on 4 March and today marks the third month running that I have paid £42 for nothing, talk about money for jam. As our communication goes silent I receive a letter from the big lady of the KB Kickboxing organisation, whose initials it is named after. She accuses me of being rude but as a gesture of goodwill allows today’s payment to be one of the three exit payments. Six months ago I would have argued that the three payments since March that have gone for nothing represent these but since then my spirit has been somewhat broken. Getting what I want, kind of via some kind of disagreement, I thank her and apologise for my apparent rudeness (“it was not intended”). It all leaves a bad taste.

All in all it would appear that I am upsetting people left right and centre today. As a result of this I decide that communicating by pointing is the most successful method for me.

At lunchtime I have penne with chicken. These heavy carbs are making me a heavy carb. This is coupled with the day being so hot and so uncomfortable.

Eventually I get through the day, snagging a nice little conversation with the not so new lady now. She has been such a breath of fresh air, I suspect we could interview a hundred candidates and still not find anyone as good and well rounded as her. With a work ethic and personality, she should be stuffed and mounted as an endangered species.

Ultimately it turns out to be a relatively quick day and of my list of seven things to do I only manage to accomplish two.

Tonight on the tube from St Johns Wood to Baker Street I see a grown man with Harry Potter glasses. Not a good look. He might as well have a bag of sweets in one hand and a puppy in the other to entice followers.

The tube is a sweatbox this evening. This weather makes my bones ache (particular my left leg for some reason) and my mind disintegrate. And we have another three months of this shit ahead.

My train home is sluggish and lacklustre and just past 7PM the inevitable occurs as it grinds to a halt. I’m not sure where we have beached but at that point I don’t remember having gone through Witham.

The inevitable announcement comes through from Information Jimmy five minutes later and a train has broken down at Witham. The way this train has completely ceased life worryingly recalls and reminds me of Kelvedon a month ago.

Fortunately this is not to be as the train begins rolling once more and according to Information Jimmy we are only ten minutes late although this would appear to be a statement that is a bit optimistic.

As ever back in Colchester and on the way home I pop into the olds at Balkerne Heights and I find myself once more getting suckered into Eastenders. Tonight Nasty Nick Cotton is trying to persuade Dottie into poisoning/killing Dot. What a storyline!

I finally get home at 8.45 and there is still no sign of my Vice Magazine subscription. Sadness accrues.

This evening I force myself to write and I do manage to squeeze some stuff out, so all is not lost.

Eventually I hit the Luke Haines book (Bad Vibes) again and yet again it delivers massively.

The night ends as I fall asleep watching the repeat of Have I Got News For You before I re-awaken with the TV still on to the sight of Be Cool and Harvey Keitel screaming his head off. Nightmarish.