Can you dig it?

Thursday morning I had to get up even earlier than I had on Wednesday.

I got up early on Wednesday to see a job agency in London about a career in media sales. A well-paid, but ultimately soulless job. A job where I have to try and convince them I don't really just want to be a writer. Why do I have to spend so much time in my life trying to convince people I don't just want to be a writer, when that's the opposite of the truth? To even be accepted for my post-grad I had to convince them that although I just wanted to write, and cared about little else, I wasn't just -- in their words -- "a frustrated novelist". I had to tell them, no I want to be a serious and professional journalist.

Now I have to tell prospective employers about walking the streets of some run down Leicester suburb in the cold and the rain and feeling miserable, about how that's what it was like to be a journalist for me. I tell them, it's after midnight on Christmas eve and you have to call a family whose baby just died and get an interview. It's not me.

But when you're not chasing down leads and digging up scoops or rewriting a dull press release about a flower show, I sort of liked it. I would be very happy sitting at my little desk at the newspaper, writing. Maybe I should have just tried harder?

I got up early, because I had an interview with a publishers about selling classified space and I think maybe the interviewer was crazy, I didn't convince him well enough of my ability to "sell" and I might have protested a little bit too much about not wanting to be a journalist.

He asked me at the end what I was doing next, at the end of the interview, and I said merely I would be going home. I didn't. I didn't feel like going home, so I asked Deb if she wanted lunch. Unfortunately, she eats early and said I should have mentioned it earlier. So then I decided what I would do is dig stuff.

Digging stuff is what I did a lot in places like New York and San Francisco, and to a lesser extent on my travels in Portugal, in France and in Ireland. It involves having no real purpose, no sightseeing, no idea of where you are going -- but just digging it. Looking at things, appreciating them, thinking "I wonder what's down that street?".

I wandered around Soho in a sort of big circle, then without any purpose or idea of where I was going I walked to Victoria, via Leicester Square and Buckingham Palace. I know I said it didn't involve sightseeing, but I found it by accident. And it doesn't look very palatial to me. I toyed with the idea of going to a gay bar, or pub, for a drink, but couldn't be bothered any time I saw one. I also got stopped three times by charity muggers in Leicester Square, all for Amnesty International.

The first one was a cute girl, and it seems this is a deliberate tactic on their part -- it's always cute girls. But her charms didn't work on me -- despite pretending to be flirty and asking me my name and what Jay was short for and saying she preferred Jay and me asking her name, and what Jo was short for. I told her I already supported the cause, which is a lie. But I was wearing a smart black suit, there was no way I could try and convince her I dont have the money and I'm really just a bar tender earning minimum wage and don't even work full time hours. That I'm really just a frustrated novelist, and secretly amused that in my suit everyone in London assumes I have a real job. Like them. Apart from the Scottish alcoholics in Kings Cross drinking special brew outside the station, I don't think they have proper jobs either.

My agency keep calling me now. I'm meant to be filling out an application for another job, it amuses me the application asks of my career aspirations for the next 5 to 7 years, leaves space for a few lines and says I can attach more sheets if I need to. Plural, sheets. Like I am going to write pages and pages about where I see myself in media sales.

Maybe I see myself being fantastic at my job earning a lot of money. Moving out, buying an expensive car and Ikea furniture and lots of shiny electrical goods and rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats...you get the idea. Forgetting my idealist youth. Forgetting wanting to see Asia, or travel the world with a notebook and camera. Being consumed with sales targets and quarterly budgets and year on year growth. I can't tell them any of this. And so the application form remains undone, and they keep leaving pointed messages on my voicemail about it.

They want to discuss feedback from the interview -- they use exactly that phrase, give nothing away about potential second interviews maybe because there isn't one. And I want to tell them I've changed my mind. I've registered with other agencies for editorial work, for the work I insisted so much I dont want. Or maybe I can tell them a rival agency found me a job in sales first. Or maybe I should just fill out the forms and go to these interviews and try and get the sales jobs, because any job is surely better than no job.

In my interview the guy mentioned how they had a long training process so they had just the right people for the job, and not someone who would quit after 6 months to go travelling around Asia. I hoped my look of horror gave nothing away.

Sorry is the fool who trades his love for hi-rise rent

I'm tired and slightly hungover and my legs hurt from going to the gym yesterday, so it's probably not the most coherent time for me to try and update. But I will anyway.

Work is just the same as ever, largely uneventful. I don't hate my job, but I know it's time to move on -- and as quickly as I can. I don't know what -- if anything -- will come of my interview with the media sales agency tomorrow. I've heard stories of these places making you take tests, then later claiming not to have any vacancies and being left hanging. But we shall see. I need to make a list of other options, or like in High Fidelity make a list of my ideal jobs. I think I can cross "astronaught" off the list these days.

On a personal level, I'm fine. Not exactly happy with where things are in my life, but they can be a lot worse. I'm just restless and bored. The more observant among you will notice a distinct lack of the name Lyndsay. Since she moved out of her apartment, I haven't heard a peep from her. She warned me she might not have internet while she stayed with friends, and I forget now how long she was staying with them for. This is why previous to her relatively recent reemergence in my life there's not been any mention of her -- she vanishes entirely for months, and with no diary to read or emails or...anything, feelings for her just get shelved. Of course, they're still there in the background, but life just goes on day to day without much thought.

Heard nothing from Expedia, but still hope each day for a letter or a phone call. A woman at work was saying the other day how her daughter is travelling through Thailand and Viet Nam on a moped, or something. It made me think of how I told Expedia the perfect blue sky I'd seen was in Phuket, I've never been to Asia but now I want to travel it on a motorbike. A sort of Asian take on Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's motorcycle diaries... I do fancy myself as a revolutionary, even though I'm about as revolutionary as a carrot.

It bears some thought, though, if you can follow my train of thought -- I've been reading my "Teach Yourself Zen" book lately. On Sunday on my break at work, I went outside and sat in my parked car. It was raining, but I wanted to get out of the pub for just a short while -- so I sat in my car, listening to the radio and the rain and read a chapter about meditation and concentration. Along with a page I recently stumbled upon -- Field Notes on the Compassionate Life -- I'm reminded of Guevara's quote, that the true revolutionary should always be guided by feelings of love. Maybe these things all tie together, in a way.

And entirely of topic, while searching google for today's title I found this instead. I can't decide if this is something I should read, or something I abhor.

Follow the bar room blood

I updated my previous entry on going to Birmingham, but figured I'm still not satisfied and it gets a whole new post. Yesterday morning's post brought me a large, plain brown envelope.

I opened it, unsure of what it could be, and I saw the headed paper of the company. In my haste to get the letter out of the envelope I saw there was a second page, containing some kind of a list.
A list! A list of outlets with job openings! Jobs I could then apply for and get the hell out of here! I was excited.
I read the letter, and frowned with confusion at: "I write to advise that regrettably you have been unsuccessful on this occasion..."
Then what the hell was the second page, I thought?
I didn't bother to read the rest of the letter, instead I went straight to the second page. What I had mistakenly presumed to be a list out vacancies was instead feedback.

It more or less confirmed what I had expected on the day. I scored well on the interview, was criticised in the group assessment for not contributing as much as I could have, and for letting others take control of the group. This annoys me now almost as much as it did on the day. I was pissed off at one guy in particular who dominated the exercise and I was unable to get a word in. I had since hoped he might be considered unfavourably for this -- and who knows, maybe he got feedback telling him to rein in his ego. And I socred poorly on numeracy and the profit & loss accounts, despite my revision.

If we look at the score board, this gives me a total of four rejections for working as an assistant or trainee manager in licensed retail, two of the four coming from the same company. I think I can take the hint now.

Don't let it be said I'm not pro-active though, I have already arranged a job interview for next week to work in media sales. Whether I will like the work if I even get it is a whole other matter, but I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with the badly-paid and unsociable job I have right now either.

Yes, I know it's really annoying

Annoying

I was sent the above link today, and all I can think of when I hear it is how much money it would make if you were to remix it and release it commerically. How would that be for annoying, hearing it everywhere you go... You could live off the royalties after that.

Among all my grumbling about being ripped off on the price of a train ticket I completely forgot to mention something. Or things. I arrived at Birmingham New Street station and it gave me such a strange feeling of deja vu as throughout my first year at university, I had to change trains there every weekend when I visited Fi. To be completely accurate, first I got lost my leaving the station and having no idea where I was meant to be going. So I walked round the block, and found an entrance into the shopping centre -- remembering there was some kind of way to go from one to the other without going outside.

I had planned my journey so I had plenty of time at the station before I needed to be finding where the assessment centre was, so I was in no particular hurry. I found my way back into the station, into the main concourse, and was on my way to find something to eat when a girl said to me: "Travel the world for free?"
"Thanks, I don't mind if I do" I said, and took the leaflet she was holding out to me.

It turns out she was working for Expedia (the travel site), and promoting their competition to find a "blue sky explorer"; someone to travel the world taking pictures and keeping a travel diary, in search of the perfect blue sky. The entry form was tricky, asking you to describe the most inspiring place you've visited -- in 20 words, and about 2 short lines. Or to explain where you feel you have found the perfect blue sky. I was so tempted to write for the second question: "I haven't found it yet, that's why you should pay me to go look for it".

I thought it would be cute, but not likely to impress them. Instead, I described the how on the island of Phuket after a sudden rain shower, the sky opens up before you. I've never been to Thailand, as it happens, but I liked how it sounded. And for the record, my inspiring place was the Moab desert where I once sat and meditated on a rock, and felt a glimpse behind the curtain.

I don't know if anything will come of it, but I felt it could almost have been a sign -- I was meant to be in that station, at that time, in order to pick up a leaflet for this once-in-a-lifetime experience that would be so exactly what I want to do with my life. And nothing to do with the job I went there for. More likely, it is just one of those things -- I expect every single person you stop in the street would love the chance to travel, take pictures and write about it. Some of them might be better photographers, or better writers. But I still think I would be the person for the job.

Short of that, someone help me remix that annoying song...

Swindled (part 2)

Updated: 22/03/10

Nothing more came out of the incident on Tuesday night, but on Thursday morning I was reminded that when it comes to being cheated a lone con artist is nothing at all compared to the companies that rip us off on a daily basis.

On Thursday morning I had to make my way to Birmingham for an assessment day for a company's graduate scheme. From here, Birmingham is a drive of about 3 hours, or you can take the train. I had originally considered driving, just because I can, but because I had to be there for midday and had to work the night before, I figured I would have to either drive late on Wednesday night, or very early Thursday morning. Instead I figured I'd let the train take the strain.

The journey was fairly simple -- one train into London, then another train out of London to Birmingham -- arriving early and giving me plenty of time.

I've been telling friends to guess how much my ticket cost me. "£40?" they might say, figuring that's quite a lot of money to spend on a train ticket. "60 quid, maybe?"

To the first, I tell them "Close, but try multiplying it by three."
In fact, a return ticket to Birmingham cost me £134.

A return flight from London to Barcelona would cost me no more than £50.
For another £50 on what I paid for my train ticket, I could fly to New York.
I could save £50 on my train ticket and get a six-week course of personal training at my gym.
Or for the same money I could buy a brand new pair of boots for my snowboard.

These are all items I would have dismissed as things I can't afford -- things I probably have the money for, but shouldn't spend. But on Thursday morning with the morning's commuters and dressed up in smart black suit I had no other option but to hand over my card.

The assessment day itself was unremarkable. A group exercise, numeracy tests, an individual interview and discussion about my business plan. It could go either way. I might have let myself down in the group exercise, or my numeracy skills might have failed me in the tests. The interview itself I was very happy with. And at the end of the day in a different city with a different set of commuters and snow blowing in the air, there was nothing else to do but get on the train and come back home.

People keep saying to me I should have booked my ticket in advance. Yeah, I say, I realise that now -- but I had no idea the ticket price could possibly be that much, and I didn't know what time I would be returning. I just had better get a job out of this now.

Update: I got my rejection letter today. That didn't take them long.

Swindled

Tonight, as I was working, a man came up to the bar and asked for a pen and paper. Actually to be precise, the man was talking on a mobile phone as he came up to the bar and told the person on the other hand to hang on while he got a pen and paper -- and I found some before he had to ask. He wandered off with them, and I thought no more about it. A few minutes later he came back, and I was a little disturbed that he seemed to be telling me nothing more than he would bring the pen back in a minute -- and he stood in the open hatchway to walk behind the bar. He wasn't behind the bar, but he was almost somewhere he shouldn't have been. I would have asked him to move, had he not walked off again. He returned once more a short time later to return the pen and say thanks, and again I felt uncomfortable with him. But he walked away and I forgot all about him.

I can't remember how much later it was when a customer came up to the bar, looking slightly irritated. I asked how could I help -- after all, that's my job -- and he said something like he wanted to see the bartender who had borrowed the money. I was confused. I told him I was the only bar tender working, when had he lent someone money? The customer then got natually irate when it became clear that whoever he had given money to wasn't a member of staff. It seems that some random man had approached him and his friends, and asked to borrow some money -- 10s and 20s he said. They were under the impression this man was staff, that the money was needed for the till or something. I don't know if he told them he was staff, or if they just presumed it. Either way, they gave him 70 quid and never saw him again.

I told the customer I was sorry to hear about it, but unfortunately there was nothing I could do. I let him look around the bar and the restaurant -- just in case the guy was still around, which he obviously wouldn't be. And wasn't. He went to the pub over the road and checked in there for him, too, with the same success. I explained that I could call the police for him, but that there really wasn't anything I could do. I got the duty manager, explained to her what had happened, and she more or less told him the same thing.

Clearly the man with the pen and paper who I felt uncomfortable with had also been the man they thought was staff. Apparently he was dressed in dark clothes like I was -- although I thought I recalled him in a shirt and tie, a business type -- and obviously was carrying a pen and paper, like he'd been taking orders. Maybe what he'd been writing down was the odds on a horse. Maybe there never was anyone on the other end of the phone. They had also seen him hanging about the bar, probably even talking to me -- so when I was feeling uncomfortable, they were thinking he was a coworker.

We called other pubs locally to warn them, and the customer did call the police -- though how much interest they showed I don't know. He and his friends were upset they'd been conned like that, naturally enough -- though you have to wonder what exactly the guy said to them to encourage them to part with £70 so readily. I like to think if someone came up to me in the pub I wouldn't so much as give them a tenner without some kind of surety.

But it does remind me of several years ago when I was in New York City, alone. One day on the street a dodgy character asked me if I was interested in a fake ID. You can imagine the lightbulb above my head, I was 20 and had just recently bought tickets to see Duncan Sheik, for Angela's birthday. I knew we'd need ID to get in, and I wanted her to be impressed at my foresight in sorting out my own. So I went along with him. I forget now how much he said it would be, $50 or something. Almost as soon as I went anywhere with the guy I was regretting it, I felt intimidated and was hoping for a chance to escape him. The chance didn't come, he took me to a cash machine -- but watched from a safe distance for him while I got the cash out. $100 he had me get out, just in case. He took me to McDonalds or something to check I wasn't a cop. And then we went to wherever it was we were going. He said it was just over the road, and he had to go and sort it all out first. To wait where I was. I did as I was told -- and yes, now I wonder why I did, but maybe I thought at this point I really was going to get the ID. He went off to arrange it, came back a few minutes later and asked for the money. I hesitated slightly before handing it over, he reassured me he wasn't going to steal it or anything. So easily reassured, or just scared of what he might do if I didn't hand it over. I felt at this point I didn't really have a choice.

He told me to pretend to be making a phone call, and he'd return in a minute. I don't know how long I stood there for. And how long it was before I started to think he wasn't coming back. Even when I eventually gave up, I still worried that he might be coming out and looking for me and I'd be gone. I think I noticed a betting shop over the road, just before I walked off.

I found a deli, bought a sandwich, and went to the cinema on my own. I put my feet up on the seats in front and ate my corned beef sandwich in the dark.

I was annoyed with myself, it was such an obvious con -- but I upheld that I probably felt intimidated for a good reason, and going along with it and giving him the money was possibly a wise decision. Once it's gone, it's gone and nothing was bringing it back. This was five years ago, and I don't doubt now that in the same situation I'd tell the guy to go fuck himself when he offered me anything. But just the same, I can't be too hard on what was probably a group of students in the pub for an evening out and thought they were doing someone a favour.

Death, death, death – lunch- death...

...[Hitler] was a mass-murdering fuckhead, as many important historians have said. But there were other mass murderers that got away with it: Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there. Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians; died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that.
"Ah, help yourself," you know? "We've been trying to kill you for ages!"
So kill your own people, right on there. Seems to be… Hitler killed people next door...
"Oh… stupid man!"
After a couple of years, "We won't stand for that, will we?"

Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people. We can't even deal with that! You know, we think if somebody kills someone, that's murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that's what they do. 20 people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can't deal with it. Someone's killed 100,000 people, we're almost going; "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning. I can't even get down the gym! Your diary must look odd: "Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch-death, death, death, death - afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower…"

-- Eddie Izzard, Dress To Kill

I don't often talk about events here outside of my own life, but I thought the - perhaps untimely - demise of Slobodan Milosevic deserves a mention. The Eddie Izzard extract I think makes a fair point about the likes of Milosevic, how can we begin to grasp the killing and displacement of people on that kind of scale? Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has been voted Parade magazine's number 1 worst dictator in the world for the second year in a row, having overtaken Kim Jong-Il of North Korea. Bashir is reported to have killed 180,000 people and displaced a further 2 million from their homes.

Ignore for now that Omar al-Bashir's name doesn't get mentioned in any axis of evil speeches, or that nobody has 'liberated' the people of Sudan unlike Iraq or Afghanistan. How do we even begin to grasp this level of depravity? We have laws on murder, and mass murder, but what do you do with someone like Milosevic? He had been on trial for the past five years, and naturally with an untimely death (that is, one not sanctioned by the state) like this, while the trial is going on, people talk of being denied justice.

How exactly do you give justice to the thousands of people killed, or the thousands more without homes? Exactly what kind of sentence can you give to someone that would be 'justice'? I don't believe in the death penalty, a rant for another day, but I don't think even taking his life -- the life of one 65 year old man -- could in any way balance the scales. As Mr Izzard says, you can't even deal with that.

I don't believe in a thing -- an entity, or a force -- called evil. I don't think there's some timeless bad that influences people to commit random acts of atrocity, from beating your girlfriend to exterminating hundreds or thousands of people. It might explain a lot, but it's an easy answer. At the same time, I don't think it can always come down to bad parenting or social factors. I guess there's just a meanness in this world.

Unexpected phone calls

I got back from the gym yesterday, and had deliberately left my phone at home, charging. When I checked it I noticed I had a missed call. The number displayed was central London, which ruled out anyone I knew. San is still in Leicester, and it wasn't her number. I wondered if it might be Fi, but I don't think she knows my number. I don't return calls if I don't recognise the number, but if I am curious enough I will withhold my number and call them from a landline, to see who answers.

I did this once in Leicester, someone had been calling me and I didn't know who they were, but they seemed persistent. I was paranoid and bordering on agorophobia following my assault, and didn't like it. So I called them, just to see. Some guy I didn't know answered, and I told him, sorry, wrong number. I thought it was as simple as that.
"How do you know?" he asked me.
"What?"
"How do you know you've got the wrong number?" he insisted "You haven't asked for anyone yet."

I thought this was a pretty stupid approach.
"Ok then, are you the hospital?" I asked him
"What?"
"Are you the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary hospital?"
"...no"
"Well then, I do have the wrong number."

Strangely, it shook me up. I didn't like that he seemed aggressive, or that he'd been calling me, and least of all I was no closer to understanding who he was. Fortunately for me, he never called again.

So yesterday, I stood with phone in hand, copying the number from one phone to the other, preparing to call this number, when my phone rang. It caught me off guard and I accidentally answered it. At first I thought I had mistakenly just cut them off, and was going to try and establish who had just called when I heard a voice saying "hello? hello?"

It turned out to be a PR company I applied for an internship with. They asked if I was still interested, very much interested I said. Where do you live, they asked. I told them. That's very far away, they said. Not really, I replied, most people here commute into London every day. I know, they said, but I pay £100 a week and that is all that I will pay. I understand this, I replied, I expect that to pay for my travel. Yes, they said, it might just pay for your travel. Are you free now, they asked.

I've begun to realise that when they ask me this I should tell them "no", whoever they are. Because what follows is usually a telephone interview, and I like to be prepared for it. So now I tell them I am literally just on my way out the door, and arrange a time for them to call me back so I can be ready for them. Get the ball back in my possession.

"No, sorry, I'm just about to go out", I told the woman
She laughed. "I didn't mean right this very minute" she told me "I mean, are you free to start immediately? Can you start Monday?"
"I can't, I need to give two week's notice in my current job" I said
"That's no good to me" she said "I need someone who can start right away. Very well, I will call some others and if nobody is any good I will come back to you."

And that was it. Unfortunately, this is the trouble -- I can probably find a wealth of PR firms more local to me than central London, and save a fortune if they'll take me on. But they are unlikely to be big enough places to have internships, unlike ones in London. I need to call the agencies I sent letters to last week, chase them up, make sure they got the letters. But I think I might be kidding myself.

Better save that. We'll need it for the autopsy.

It's hard to know how to describe how I am feeling right now. I would hazard a guess it was what Alette described as "ennui" and "angst" in response to my last entry -- a kind of frustration at where my life is, rather than any sort of active depression. What Holly Golightly called "the mean reds". Ms Golightly also said you can't give your heart to a wild thing, but that's a discussion for a whole other day, and it would probably involve girls.

I don't need to discuss why I feel frustrated because I went over all of that the other day. I just do feel it.

I didn't sleep well last night. For some reason, if I lie on my right side and face the wall, although I start to fall alseep my mind is too active and I have to wake up, make an effort to empty my mind, and turn onto my right side. Then I fall asleep without a trouble, until around 6am an alarm clock in the room next door plays the William Tell Overture. I haven't established why there is an alarm clock in the spare room where nobody is sleeping.

Last night was the usual routine -- try to sleep on left side, can't stop thinking -- and when I say I can't stop thinking we are talking from the day's events, to something that is bugging me right back to how last night I was feeling annoyed about a counsellor I saw when I was 18 or 19. It got the point where I felt like someone was shouting at me -- probably something left over from the day at work, Sundays are always the busiest day. Needless to say, sleep wasn't going to be easy so I had to open my eyes and sit up to try and take in some of the dark and the quiet. I didn't feel I could even relax then, so I dug out my discman and put on my "mind programming" cd.

I can't be sure if it's ineffective if you fall asleep listening to it, or how deeply asleep I am -- because I always wake up at the end. Not when the cd finishes and it's suddenly quiet, but in the closing seconds. Either way, whether or not I am open to suggestion in my sleep (I don't believe in "sleep learning"), it keeps me calm enough to sleep.

I had a restless night, though. I don't know what I dreamed of, but my covers were all pulled off the bed -- and that only frustrates me when I'm asleep. I sleep best with the sheets tucked tightly in each side so that I can hardly move -- I expect there's a psycholigical explanation for it. It could be that it reminds me of a hospital -- they always seem to tuck the sheets in tightly. But why would I want to be reminded of that? My lengthy hospital stay when I was a kid was hardly a pleasant experience.

I have started going to bed at 12 instead of 1 or later, and am sticking to getting up at 9 and eating breakfast. I even went to the gym today. But I expect time spent online is unlikely to be helping my mood.

Friday night dreams

Last night I had a dream that I went out with a group of my friends for my birthday. The details are all hazy to me now -- in my mind's eye I can see scenes from the dream, but wouldn't know how to start describing them. Friends I had with me happened to include both San, and Fiona. As you might expect, even in a dream, San was furious at having to be around Fiona. Being my usual clueless self -- in my dream at least -- I wasn't able to understand what the problem was.
"But she's my friend," I told San "You don't have a problem with any of my other friends."

Of course it was completely illogical, because it was a dream. I would have more tact I expect than to ever expect San to be in the same place as Fiona -- although ironically, I don't think Fi has any idea San has an irrational hatred of her, and would probably like to meet San -- and I like to think I'd be able to understand why she'd be annoyed. The strange thing is, it's only on waking that it occurs to me San has absoluely no claim over me. Nor would she claim to.

The dream was undoubtedly inspired by an email correspondence with Fi yesterday evening, where we discussed our respective plans for the night. I both encouraged her to go out, and complained about my friends and their inability to do anything but go to the same pub every night. I am desperate to move out, move away. A short while ago I got an email from Fi, saying she didn't go out in the end because the trains were disrupted. She also mentioned next time she's going anywhere she'll invite me and maybe we could meet up...

Without sounding melodramatic, or sixth-form goth, I sometimes feel I have nothing to look forward to in my life. Not in a depressed, my life is bleak way -- but for example, some people work monday to friday and can't wait for the weekend. They live all week for Friday night and two days off. Or I used to work Friday nights, and then be on a train Saturday morning to see San for the day. When I was in Leicester I didn't need to be looking ahead to something, because San was right there.

But I don't feel that now. I don't particularly look forward to my days off -- they're random days in the week when nobody else is around -- and I probably don't make enough of all the spare time I have. I really do need to get a proper job. I should make a list:
Get a proper job
Meet new people
Sort life out.

A bus journey

I arrived in Geneva early afternoon on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. The trouble with me travelling anywhere, is it always feels sort of like a dream -- due to a kind of narcolepsy. Luckily it seems this narcolepsy doesn't affect me when I'm driving, only when I'm a passenger -- but it must be having to be still and unable to read (it makes me travel sick, except on planes when you barely notice you're moving). I left London on a bright but cold morning, and touched down to torrential rain in Switzerland.

To be cautious I had arranged my bus ticket out of Geneva for about two hours after I landed there, and although I remembered that the arrivals side of airports is never as interesting as the departures side, I figured I would find something to do all the same. It turned out that my choice of things to do was limited to a bar. And not even a bar with walls and seats and tables or any of that normal stuff, but instead either a bar you could stand at, or large plastic tables you had to stand at. It would do.

Then I remembered I was in Switzerland and my Euros for France would be no good, so I wandered off and found a cashpoint. The cashpoint offered me a range of denominations, 50, 100, 200, that osrt of thing. How much is a Swiss Franc worth? I had no idea. I remembered that way back when the French Franc was worth about a tenth of the Pound Sterling -- so £10 was about 100F. I selected 100CHF and returned to the bar. I was amused to find the change from my glass of beer came to about 99CHF.

I caught my bus without event, it was still pouring with rain, and I fell asleep fairly quickly into the journey. When I woke up it was dark and still raining, and I had no idea what country I was in or how far I had travelled. I stared out at the dark scenery and glumly wondered how little snow there had to be for there to be piste closures. After a surf holiday with no surf last summer, I thought it would be about right that I'd take a snowboard holiday in February, and have no snow.

I remember clearly going through a long tunnel in a mountain or hillside. I remember it so well as I was watching out the front windows of the bus, and as we emerged out the other side of the tunnel I noticed the rain had changed. Instead it now looked like it was snowing. Maybe we had climbed in altitude, maybe the weather had just naturally changed, but after a short while I was able to be sure that it really was snowing.

And it was still snowing heavily when the bus arrived in Bourg St Maurice, France.

She's got a tattoo of another man around her navel

I wrote once, in a diary, about the idea of our lives being commodities -- our memories, our traumas, our friends -- all being things we can package and sell. Trying to condense down our lives big events into a short, catchy synopsis.

Last night Deb was telling me about her weekend away in Amsterdam. I liked the way she'd tell her story, skipping quickly through the build-up of Saturday; went to a bar, smoked a lot, went for a walk, had dinner, all that sort of thing. Then she slows down for when she's got to the story itself, eating too many 'shrooms, getting completely twisted and going to a live sex show. Sitting through the same show -- of about 6 acts -- twice.

My trouble is, when someone's talking to me, I make mental notes. My eyes remain fixed on theirs, smiling or nodding along with their story I am thinking about what parts to keep, what parts to leave out. Thinking of how to strip it down to the bare bones so I can use the story in my writings, a character's monologue of sorts.