The ten year retrospective

Yeesh. It's been way too long since I last updated -- I've had a couple of close-calls, sitting down, intending to write something, and then not quite managing to get started.  Would you believe that before my 30th birthday way back at the start of February I had every intention of writing a kind of retrospective of the last 10 years?  What happened to that, I don't know. 

I started to write this post a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.  Somehow, it all just seemed to be about work -- what meaningless career was taking up my time.  The real substance seemed to be missing.  What books did I read that year?  What authors did I read for the first time, what poetry did I rate highly?  What bands did I see that year, what albums did I buy, what artists did I listen to for the first time?  What friends did I make, what friends did I meet, what friends did I lose?  All of these things are what make our lives important -- and yet these details I can't remember.

In 2001, I turned 20 living in student dorms at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City USA.  

In the intervening years since then I have moved back in with my parents, moved to Leicester to train as a journalist, failed to become a journalist, and moved to London.  I've seen more bands than obviously I can remember, I have started writing and performing poetry again regularly for the first time in over a decade, I have travelled to far-flung places and raised money for charity trekking the Inca Trail.

I have started trying to work my out of my depression -- which was sort of the original point of this blog's latest incarnation, and I now firmly believe that when it comes to earning a living the only solution is going to be to forge a career for myself, that I will never be truly satisfied working for someone else.  It's a matter of trying to find out what that involves.

In 2011, I turned 30 living in London's Docklands with the girl.  I took the day off work and went to Greenwich, just to wander around.  Sometimes it feels like the last 10 years belong to someone else.

Things fall into place

Image source: http://tinyurl.com/2353vye

Things today have felt a bit like they are falling into place.

I mentioned in a previous post about Marianne Cantwell's Escape Your Corporate Cage career course that I had enrolled on, after things failed to take off for me with the similar Screw Work, Let's Play programme.  This Tuesday will be the second teleclass of the program, and I have been working on my accompanying worksheets.

The first set had me start with imagining my dream life -- not so hard to do, it involved things like writing and living near the sea and working from home.  I came a little unstuck around having to come up with a kind of project the first week -- I just drew a blank.  Like with Screw Work, Let's Play and the book's "Play Wednesdays", it should be something that's fun to do and you enjoy and would ideally form a part of your ideal life.  It's pretty sad when you can't think of anything.

To try and make some progress, and because it comes highly recommended by Ms Cantwell and John Williams, I took the Wealth Dynamics test.  I voiced some reservations at first.  In some ways it isn't too dissimilar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator -- that I took last year when I was out of work, and has no scientific validity its profiling.  While I wasn't assured of any kind of scientific validity to it, I was told that it would help with supporting me on the course if I did know what my WD profile is.

I wasn't exactly surprised when -- $100 later -- of the 8 personality profiles, I turned up the "creator".  I'd read that most people guess their profiles wrong before they take the test, but I would have been very surprised had mine turned up anything other than that.  Recently at work we were giving interviewees psychometric tests, to rate their scores in various aspects, such as creativity and organisation.  I scored off the chart for creativity.

Considering I score so highly for creativity, I was a little disheartened that my muse was absent when I wanted to think of something to do.  I could think of my plans and free range career options, just not some little thing I could do for a taste of it.

Fortunately, today that has all changed.  I have worked through my worksheets for week 2, and was required to outline 3 or 4 ideas for my free range career.  My ideas were as follows:

1. Writing childrens books, in particular books about a naughty zebra who won't do things like have a bath or get ready for bed.  Why a zebra?  I just like them, and while I like things like Bongos and Zedonks more, they are a little obscure for childrens books.

2. An adventure sport company that benefits local communities.  It's an idea I have written on here about before, and it's a fairly simple concept.

3. Feature writer.  Essentially, I write about what I am passionate about.  In this case, I plan to talk to passionate and inspiring people and write about them.

I was then required to eventually narrow down my ideas to just one I am going to pursue for now.  It was hard. It was extremely bloody hard.  I wasn't worried so much about choosing the wrong thing, but I didn't want to not pursue something I was excited about.  In the end, I have decided that my third option gives me all of the elements I want most for my free range lifestyle, and can work other parts into it.

Starting immediately I am going to make contact with people I want to interview for my features.  Since I promised this year I would contact Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, they can be the start -- and my meeting now will be less "Can we have tea?" but more "I'd like to talk to you about your work".

I am excited and enthused to be starting on this -- the Zebra books can wait a little while.  I'm so excited I am ignoring that I have to go to work tomorrow, because this is really what my life is about...

Heading to warmer climes

Fremantle, Western Australia -- 2009.

On Friday, the girl and I will be cutting out of work early and heading for the airport.

While the English summer is drawing to a close and the nights are creeping in, we are taking a last-gasp attempt to drag it out a little more -- escaping to the warmer climes of Western Australia, before heading to a friend's wedding in Bali.

First when we were invited informally to the wedding we commented to each other how nice it would be to go, but that it would just cost far too much.  We didn't think much more about it, other than the occasional wistful sigh.  Then we got the beautiful and elaborate invitation in the post, and we said to each other "Let's just look into it... we'll just have a look and maybe it can be done".

And so it was, after a visit to a travel agent, some head-scratching and some number-crunching, we decided that opportunities like this don't come up very often -- so while we are both employed (which can never be taken for granted these days) and not tied down by kids or mortgages, we'd throw caution to the wind and just go.  Some great friends are going to be there, and we think it will also mean a lot to the bride and groom who took the time to invite us in the first place.

It's only a few days away now -- and final preparations are being made.  Tourist visas sorted, passports dug out, travel items bought, clothes sorted and counted and packed (even though they will end up being re-packed several times).  The girl has recently splashed out on a new DSLR which will be put to good use during the trip, while I'll be trying my best to avoid appearing in her photos.

With Australia heading into Spring as England heads into Autumn, it will be interesting to see the effect it has on people's attitudes -- if people are more cheerful and optimistic in London, or if that just describes Australians generally.

It strikes me that there is room to make this holiday into a kind of journey I can learn from -- what I will learn, I don't yet know, but with plans to hike up a volcano at dawn among the activities planned, there's got to be room for something life-changing out there.

Do anything you wanna do

"Tired of doing day jobs
With no thanks for what I do
I'm sure I must be someone
Now I'm gonna find out who"
Eddie & The Hot Rods "Do Anything You Wanna Do" (1977)

I've been here before, you know.  Wanting change, but not really knowing how to effect it -- dissatisfied with where I am, but not making any progress.  Except now, I am beginning to feel like I have some tools to work with.

In my last post, I mentioned John Williams' book Screw Work, Let's Play, and listed all the things I'd do if I could whatever I liked for a whole year.   The only trouble is, there's so many ideas and it's not necessarily possible to do all of them if you only have one year -- so instead you get to imagine that you have infinite opportunities, or for the sake of brevity in this case, seven.

 

This is my list of what careers I would follow over my now-various years of play.  There isn't actually seven of them in my case, but it might expand later -- I figure it can only help to add more as I think of them.

Year One: Adventure

Pro-surfer, snowboarder, rock climber -- you name the adventure, I'm on it.  As a side-note, my interest in adventure sports is pretty funny -- at school, I sucked at PE, and was the despair of many teachers who found that I didn't measure up to my athlete older brother.  It turns out since then that I don't hate sports at all, I just have to discover them in my own time -- and if lessons at school had involved more adventure and less ball games, perhaps things would have been different...

Year Two: Super Hero.

Save the animals. Help the people. Save the world.  I'd rescue sea turtles of central America and the beautiful Bongo Antelope in the mountains of Kenya.  I'd do aid work in disaster zones, build schools in developing countries.  I'd spend a season as a fire-lookout in a national forest, helping spot forest fires before they start.  I probably wouldn't actually have any super-powers though.

Year Three: Artist.

Poet, writer, sculptor, painter.  My days would be spent learning, doing, and expressing.

Year Four: Traveller.

Seeing the world, taking pictures, taking notes, dreaming. Always moving on.

Year Five: Buddhist.

Spend a year in a monastery -- studying zen, eating rice.

I feel like I am making just the tiniest, little bit of progress here.  It might not seem like it to an outsider -- it could seem I have a lot of dreams but no practical ideas on making any of them into how to get paid to do what I love.  But the first step is I have to work out what I enjoy, and what I would want to do.

In my current sales role, despite doing well against my own targets -- for the moment, at least --  there's not a moment's doubt that this isn't what I want to be doing, especially not here, and especially when they start kicking us for not meeting the weekly sales targets.  The sooner I figure out where to be, the better.

How to whip up a frothy frog nest

Another week.  I apologise unreservedly for the lack of updates here recently and the lack of comments on sll my favourite must-reads -- I don't often get the chance to read or post from work, and by the end of the day I rarely want to spend more time at the computer.  Rest assured, I am still around and grabbing my reading while i can.

So, what's new?  Work continues to suck and blow in equal measure.  I am hitting somewhere around 50% of my sales targets currently, and while I have days of lucidity where it will occur to me that if I work really, really hard then there is almost no limit to my earning potential, I quickly get disillusioned and would rather do something I enjoy for a decent wage.  But hey, at least I have a job -- that's a step in the right direction.  I recently interviewed elsewhere for a marketing role, and though I got on famously with the interviewer who was very senior in the company, their client didn't want to meet me and that was the end of it.  I am choosing to think this was maybe a blessing in disguise, since the location was horrible.

Speaking of locations, the girl and I have been looking online for places to live in London.  Reluctantly, we are having to admit that Greenwich in all its bohemian and center-of-the-earth wonder isn't going to happen, and that we can get more bang for our buck elsewhere.  Somewhere with easy access to rock climbing as well as central London and road links to where my parents live are all top of the list -- and with reasonable property prices, it is Canary Wharf that is looking the most attractive.

I feel bad, though.  I'm not particularly great at my job, and so my earnings are still quite low, and in turn this is causing us problems in finding somewhere in London -- the girl doesn't make bad money, but my half isn't quite measuring up; so sometimes I feel like I'm holding us both back.  All isn't lost though.  It's a quiet period in business almost everywhere so I can reasonably expect things to pick up there, and to get better at my job -- I can only get better at my job, right?  Not least because we are being sent on a sales training course.

Sometimes in ym work I feel like I have a toolbox, filled with various useful things, and yet all I am using out of it most of the time is one screwdriver.

In other news, my beginner's climbing course is complete, so once I have taken an official safety test I will be free to climb without an instructor.  I joined a rock climbing group on Meetup.com, but it seems their preferred venues at the moment are London's biggest and most popular indoor climbing centres.  I might just try and find people to climb with at the wall where I've been going -- it's quieter, though obviously much smaller, but also open to the air.  In time, once I've got the practice and gradually bought some equipment, I'll start finding outdoor excursions -- but one step at a time.

Maybe that idea isn't so unlike work?

And on an entirely unrelated option, I was thinking to myself early Facebook needs a "hell no" option as a response.  "Do you want to be friends with this person?" Let's see, you never liked them when you were at school together and that was something like 15 years ago -- this isn't just a "yes" or "no" decision, it's a "hell no".  Do you want to join the group for a Big Brother Reunion in Australia?  Hell, no.  So let me ask you -- what options would you like to see?  Or maybe you would like to make the real world more like social networking, making it easier to hide or ignore people who annoy you, or just maybe you would like to live in the Ukraine with an adopted penguin, as I have been wondering this week?  I encourage everyone to read Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, one of the most darkly brilliant books I have read in a while.

Macaroni art

I will return to my regularly-scheduled "Inca Trail" scribblings after this brief segue.

Things have been tough for the girl and I in recent months.

Losing my job to redundancy in July was unfortunate, but I immediately started claiming "job seeker's allowance" to try and keep the wolves from the door when it came to rent and bills. The fight to get housing benefit out of the local council has sometimes felt like an uphill struggle, however -- particularly when we were told the girl earned too much for us to claim benefits.

The girl had to return home to Western Australia several days earlier than she had planned, missing out on a trip to Paris with her Mum, when her grandfather died. Even at that time, we hoped that her work visa would come through in no time, and it would only be a short time before the girl would return to merry old England.

We hoped the setbacks would only be very temporary, but it's October and I haven't yet found gainful employment, and the girl's company still don't have their licence to sponsor her, so she is in unpaid limbo on the other side of the world.

Next month we don't know if we will be able to pay the rent. I have already borrowed sums of money from my parents to help make ends meet in previous months, but we are now getting the housing benefits we were previously denied so I hope to be able to hold the fort a little while longer.

On the positive side, the logic would follow that every day that passes without the girl hearing news on her company's licence we must also be one day closer to her joyful return. I also have some promising leads on jobs that I am interviewing for.

I don't spend a lot of time in the house I share with the girl now that she's not here. It makes sense to visit my parents more and take advantage of their hospitality to keep the running costs of our house down, but most of all it doesn't much feel like "our" house when I'm there alone.

I won't lie, emotionally I've had a bad time since I lost my job. Never having been the most stable of people in the past, losing the security and income of a job I (mostly) enjoyed set me adrift a little.

In a dramatic break with tradition, however, things have taken a turn for the better there -- and it might even seem in years to come that being made redundant was a good thing to happen. For a start, if you're out of work you can access government-funded training. And I'm not talking about basic maths or literacy, but more or less anything you want.

Granted, I am still trying to get someone to commit to the details, but in theory at least there are options open to me if I want to learn things like digital marketing, graphic design, web design because it will make me more employable -- those three could all help me make a move into roles like web content editor.

Not directly related to work, but sort of related to government funding, I have been in therapy, which was probably overdue. I think because of the recession, money has been freed up for what is being called "talk therapy", a combination of counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy. While it hasn't exactly set my world ablaze, it has helped me to recognise and address some errors in my thinking. Which neatly leads me onto the next point.

Personal Development. A local college is currently a 10 week personal development course for people a bit like me -- it's not solely for those out of work, but being held twice a week on weekdays probably means it's not very accessible for anyone in fulltime employment. The course is led by a certified Psychotherapist who also makes a decent living in areas like Hypnotherapy, as well as coaching and training.

It's all making for a good combination -- the course provides me with something to do other than look for work, I can tell employers about it when I go for interviews, and it is giving me useful tools for managing my own thoughts and behaviour. Mixing that with my cognitive behavioural therapy I have recently learned to treat myself better and be more objective, feel more positive, and have identified some goals and objectives. I won't go into details of the techniques I have learned today, but it's enough that it is doing me some good.

I visited the girl for a few weeks in August and September, which should have been longer if only we'd known there was not going to be work waiting for me on my return, and no firm return date for the girl in sight. But that's how these things go. I will be blogging about those adventures -- under the title of "Tales of Girls, Boys and Marsupials" (something I have considered renaming my blog on occasion) -- when I have exhausted my "I trekked Peru, yo" posts.

We aren't too clear where we go from here right now, except that today is one day closer to the girl's return and another day closer to finding a new, incredibly awesome job for me. And people will probably be getting macaroni pictures as Christmas presents this year.

Peru

I leave for Peru today. After a week where as expected I did lose the cat without really getting to say goodbye properly) and get made redundant, I then fell down the stairs and injured myself. I'm lucky not to have broken or fractured anything, I am still walking with a noticeable limp.

If you'd like to follow my progress, you can with the day by day itinerary, but naturally there'll be no blog, email, Facebook or Twitter for about 10 days. I'll make up for it with pictures and journal extracts when I return.

This is it.

After months of planning and fundraising and training, today I set off to hike the Inca Trail.

One foot in front of the other is an acceptable plan

I guess there's no other way to put it, other than "work continues to suck". I am today exactly one week away from my second consultation, where I will find out if I am "matched" to a position, "pooled" with a number of other candidates for one particular job, or simply made redundant. In my first consultation, I told them I considered myself at the level of "PR and Marketing manager" rather than Markting assistant. I also told them I wouldn't be willing to take a pay cut -- even though what I earn is good money outside of London, I don't see why I should consent to have them cut it, I should be looking to do better, not worse. I also told them that relocating wouldn't be an option if it made life more difficult or expensive for the girl getting to work in London every day. But that if they wanted me to relocate to London that would be ideal.

We have mixed feelings about living where we do. On one hand, it would be nice if the girl didn't have an hour's journey to work every day on packed commuter trains and tubes. It would be good if we could live in London and do all the wonderful things there are in this most amazing of cities, or could get home at night after doing these things. I know the girl didn't move clear across the world to live in the home counties. On the other hand, where we live is nice. It's pretty quiet, we have a big green in front of the house, trees in blossom and cats lying on sunny window ledges. Some people in London can pay more for a room or a small flat what we pay for a two bedroomed house, and the girl knows for her half of the rent in London she would probably see a room in a shared house.

I think if we really had the choice, there's other cities where we would rather live than London -- we'd live somewhere by the sea, like Bristol or Portsmouth or Southampton or Brighton. Or most of Australia. Sometimes it feels like some part of me is calling out to live by the water.

In other news, all else failed. The cat is dying. It wasn't his arthritis. It wasn't his teeth and it wasn't his gums. He wasn't depressed or upset that my parents had been away. He is just dying. A couple of weeks ago he had his dental appointment, and I was told his gums were inflamed. My parents fought with him to get his little cat antibiotics down him. He was also given shots of steroids.

When I met Mum for lunch last week she told me he was doing much better, but it seems her reports of his eating and getting out more were apparently exaggerated to make me happy. Hope has faded, and he has gone rapidly downhill.

When I last saw him he was all but refusing all food. He struggles to stand on his own or to walk, and spends most of the day and night just lying on his side. If you talk to him he's happy enough and purrs, but the vet says she thinks he has leukemia and there is nothing that can be done, other than more shots of steroids and vitamins. This is about where I started with his first visit, so I can't say I haven't been prepared. I asked Dad how much longer the vet gives the cat, because I don't want to come back from Peru to find the cat gone. He doesn't expect the cat to last until I leave, and I leave in just over a week from now.

The girl and I visited my parents for tea, mainly so they could see her cute new haircut but also so we could see them and see the cat. It's so sad to see him this close to the end, it's almost painful.

Next week could turn out to be a double-shot of fun if I lose my job and lose my cat. But I leave for Peru next Friday, and as with all things I have to be brave. If my knees are hurting so bad I can barely walk, I just have to keep going -- one foot in front of the other is an acceptable plan, and that can apply to many things. I just have to put my head down and keep going, sometimes, even if it is hard.

Jupiter in space agencies' sights

I've been teh suck and not updated nearly enough recently.

I can report that my recent foray into not taking medication has ended. That is, after relying instead on vigorous exercise and strength of character, I have given and gone back. I was beginning to feel decidedly shit and unable to cope at times, so I decided enough was enough. Since I have restarted I still have my moments: short spells of despair, almost sickening bouts of worry and anxiety, but overall I am much better off. We have to admit that there is "something wrong" with me, and really there's no getting around it. It's a little depressing in itself to have to admit it. It might well be a brain 'chemical' thing -- some people are diabetic, or anaemic, and reliant on certain supplements of whatever kind. Perhaps I have a defective brain in a similar sort of way. For the record, I have begun to wonder when I am not taking my medication if previous medical professional diagnoses of bipolar disorder might not have been too wide of the mark. But either way, it doesn't matter.

Also in the news here this week is that despite every intention of leaving my body to medical science -- albeit while I am still very much alive and kicking -- has also met with failure. I was invited to attend a screening for a trial that would have paid me about two grand for my time, trialling a drug for Alzheimer's and ADD. But the time they wanted was about two weeks, and there was no way I could take it off work. This week I discovered that I have no holiday left whatsoever to take this tax year, and only have 13 days available to me to take between April and October. This means most likely that the time I spend in Peru I am going to have to take as unpaid leave -- I can consider that my own charitable contribution.

The obvious drawback of not being able to take part in a clinical drug trial is it is going to be a lot harder to earn money quickly. Possibly less unpleasant, maybe even safer, but more difficult.

I'm still resentful of my car needing £700+ worth of repairs at Christmas. It's no use crying over spilled milk, but I would never have chosen to spend that money frivolously -- not that keeping my car on the road is frivolous. But sometimes I think "I could have bought a great big television with that money, but I wouldn't have" or I think how I could fly to Barcelona and back like 6 times for that amount. Sometimes I go into a record shop just to browse, and I will pause over a CD -- I don't buy myself things often, I'll think. But then the idea of spending the money for no reason makes me feel ill, and I put it back. Like I say -- crying over it (like I did at the time, to my shame) doesn't change a thing, and the girl and I need a car for a whole host of reasons, so it was important. But that doesn't stop me resenting it. Stupid to resent an inanimate object, I know.

Speaking of work and earning money... Dedicated readers who have read my old posts, or longer term followers who have been with me for longer, may remember a post last October when I gleefully announced having got a job. I opened the champagne for dinner with the girl -- a special bottle I had been saving for when I got what I considered a "proper" job, a job that I wanted and wasn't just a stopgap, and that I felt was advancing my career. It was a year's contract, but a bloody good opportunity just the same. We remember? Good.

On Tuesday a notice went out on email to all office staff that there would be a briefing from the MD at 1430 in the conference room. Nobody was sure what it was about, but we were under no illusions: it wasn't going to be good news. I did speculate that perhaps with all the budget cuts and general "credit crunch" doom and gloom they would be announcing that in order to try and cheer up staff and raise morale they would be buying us an office kitten. Shockingly, this was not what the announcement was. In the minutes before the meeting, word got out that there was to be a merger. Nobody was quite sure whether to believe it, or what the details were. I then got blind-copied into an emailed press release from my head of PR. The release was going out to all trade press, announcing the merging of my company and a neighbouring region's.

There was lots of words like cost savings and efficiencies and stream linings, but the important thing to those of us in the office -- and presumably the other region's offices -- is that there are going to be job losses. We expect a lot of the job losses will be higher up -- there will be duplication of various positions, but nobody feels they are safe. We don't know when cuts will be, and we don't even know where this new amalgamated company will be based.

I feel particularly unsettled as my position was only "interim" to begin with. I've had the uncertainty that if the girl whose job I am doing wants to come back after maternity leave, then I would have to find my own way. Now it's impossible to know what will happen to me or to my job, cue random bouts of despair and almost sickening spells of anxiety and worry. I felt very fortunate to get this job, I felt so many times I had been passed over or fallen at the last hurdle when applying for jobs I could do so well -- this to me represented so much. Now I'm afraid it's all going to disappear again.

Up until now, I hadn't been directly or personally too affected by the now-official recession. Fuel costs have fallen by 25%; this meant I had more spare money. VAT was cut: again, more money for me. I was still getting paid the same. But of course it couldn't last forever. I was never unaffected, for months my older brother has been on the brink of bankruptcy -- to the point where my parents have given him all of their savings and more to keep him afloat. Finally he has had to give up ownership of his business, but luckily has escaped bankruptcy. So I was never completely unaffected -- just the same, when it's suddenly your own company, and you and your own colleagues looking at possible redundancy, you feel the impact.

I don't know why I thought I would get away unscathed. I've friends who have been made redundant two or three times in recent years, my own Mum has been made redundant at least twice -- although she usually manages to come back brighter. Which isn't bad for someone with a history of depression themselves.

Anyway. Without ending the post with thoughts of doom, gloom or the like I am pleased to report that having the girl's love and support makes a world of difference, and the next post should really be about valentine's day...

P.S. You haven't missed anything, this post doesn't have anything to do with Jupiter. I was just stuck for a title so I used a news headline.

I want to live my life not survive my existence

So here we are, 2009.

It's time to take stock of where I am and where I'm going, but hopefully not so much of the looking back over where I have been.

I start this new year living with an amazing and wonderful girl, in our very own (rented) house -- the first time I have lived away from home since I was a student. I've curbed my impulses to try and turn the house into a mini art gallery of my photography, with the philosophy that less is more and all that -- plus nobody wants to see you endlessly stroking your ego, in the living room.

The house has its good points and bad points, but most important is that it is our space, where we can shut the door and escape the world.

In 2008 I had a bunch of goals -- rather than resolutions, it's what all the cool kids are doing these days. I aimed to get a new job, to move out of home, to travel to Spain and learn to speak Spanish, and I think to learn to snowboard properly. I own my own board, and I can't even turn properly -- so I can carve up a storm downhill and look damn cool with it, but I am in trouble with corners, with bends. That one never happened. I tried to sell the board, and failed -- this happens every year.

I started the new year working in a book shop, and enjoying it -- I loved recommending books and authors to people, enjoyed literally running off up the stairs to find something, and lived for the occasions when someone would ask me for the poetry section. But the money was bad, there weren't enough hours, and it being only a seasonal job I hadn't learned how the novelty would wear off. Furthermore, there was nowhere to "go" with it.

When they called me one day and offered me a permanent job -- incidentally, the day of my aunt's funeral -- I turned them down. Mostly because the hours were bad. But part of me must have hoped for more. So I got that "new job" in fairly rapid order -- I went to see a recruiter, told her to find me a job, any job, went to an interview the following morning and started work right away. I was taken on for a 6 month contract, and was still working there 10 months later. I went four countless interviews for something better, and in the end didn't go any further than the other side of the office -- swapping a dull job in Purchasing for a more creative and interesting one in Marketing & PR.

I think we can safely say I beat that goal into submission.

I tried to learn Spanish, but motivation was lacking and I ended up with a Latin American Spanish course. I write this one off as a half, since I am able to order food and drink in Spanish, say "I speak/understand Spanish" very well, or a little, and the usual greetings and farewells. Needless to say I also went to Spain. The girl and I are regular customers here of the local tapas restaurant, and I long to take her to Spain.

And as mentioned at the start, I did move out of home. It took a new job, a tax rebate and a wonderful girl to help me do it -- but we did it together.

Where do we go from here? 2009 is a year of adventure. Anyone that's been here before or spoken to me for more than a couple of minutes should remember I am going to be hiking the Inca trail in Peru in June, raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support. A couple of years back, I talked to a friend about doing it and doing it for charity -- but they said why bother, just raise the money and go on your own steam. I am glad that I decided to do it for charity after all -- but that's probably because I'm an attention-seeker. I am being healthily sponsored by my company, and have in turn been generating the publicity for them. But the Inca Trail isn't a goal -- it's happening, even if I have to be carried on the back of a llama, stinking of piss. That's either the llama, or me.

But what is a goal is to get fit for it. Properly fit. The fitter I can be for it, the more fun it will be -- completing it just isn't enough for me. If I can look great in a t-shirt while I do it, even better. I've rejoined the gym, and as of time of writing I am still in pain from my personal training session yesterday. My next is Friday morning, and I fear I am going to become one of those crazy people who hits the gym before going to work in the morning.

Speaking the language would be helpful, so I may also have to get that Latin American Spanish course again -- although apparently if you speak Castilian Spanish they understand it just fine, but think you sound all posh like a news-reader.

There is also adventures to be had in Australia, since the girl returns home to apply for a new visa this year -- and I will be joining her out there for fun times, before the two of us return, shivering, to England. Again, something I already plan to do can hardly be a goal, can it? But saving the £700+ for the airfare should be. I also plan to try and wheedle my way into an upgrade, but we shall see how that works out.

I've only been in this job since October, so it's too soon to be considering getting another -- although I am only contracted until October of this year, so I might not have a choice in it.

A year without any incidences of self harm would be good, as I can't remember a year since I was in my mid-teens or younger that there hasn't been an incident or two, though in more recent years it has got a lot better -- to be able to start 2010 saying I didn't deliberately, physically hurt myself the previous year would be good, although a little sad. Perhaps a goal should be to treat myself better? No doubt having rigorous exercise regimes and goals like Peru will certainly help, not to mention the love and support of the people around me.

And in closing, ladies and jellyspoons, my goal in 09 is to be more creative. Last year saw me take up painting -- if only for the one picture. But to conceive of and create a dramatic picture on a canvas, and then to have it exhibited as part of an art show, was a real achievement -- but my creativity is seriously lacking this year. I haven't done open mike poetry in years, let alone written anything new, and that epic zombie apocalypse masterpiece isn't going to write itself. But generally, I need to be more... Actually, no -- that's it, I just need to be more.
I want to live my life, not survive my existence.

I've got a girl who makes me feel sea-sick

Yass, yass, I know. I suck. I promise more updates then don't deliver. Must try harder.

Anyway, I was thinking the other day. A year ago, I was 26, unemployed (or barely employed in the book store), single, and living at home with my parents.
I was seeing a therapist almost every week, who felt that I needed therapy so desperately that he was willing to see me pro-bono, rather than see me stop our sessions.

It's now a year later. I am 27, gainfully employed in a well paid corporate PR & marketing role, am with a beautiful girl and we are about to move in to a rented place of our own. I haven't had therapy since December, although it's open to debate if I need it.

I have raised several thousand pounds so far for Macmillan Cancer Support, to undertake the trip of a lifetime next year, hiking the Inca trail in Peru.

I was trying to work out one idle day a few weeks ago if I had cosmic ordered the girl into my life, back when that was the kind of thing I was into. I can't remember what I specified for my 'order', nor the timeframe, so I can't be sure -- but either way, I feel very fortunate.

I also considered if I had 'ordered' this good job -- but I think not. I remember the order for that was for a job to come up in June or July time and involve travelling to or living in another country. Just the same, I am pretty pleased with the job I have got. It's got prospects, lots of writing and creativity, and I'm the other side of the office to the colleague who used to annoy me.
Though I can still hear her, so it's not all good.

The girl and I have been talking for a while about finding a place together, but it has always been dependant on my work. I needed a new job before I could really afford to go anywhere, and we needed to know where the job would be before we started looking for places to rent.

I think we were both a little disappointed that we weren't going to get to move into London when I took this job, but Chelmsford has better transport links than where we are now, and much lower rent than London. After completing my tax return showed me that not only did I not owe the tax department any of my savings, but they actually owed me money, we felt there was no need to hesitate any longer in looking at places to live -- so we set to work, looking at them online.

A week ago I saw a couple I liked online and left messages for letting agents to take a look at them. A week later, I have viewed four properties (the girl didn't see the first one, but didn't need to, we didn't want somewhere completely unfurnished) -- and have dismissed two out of hand. Out of the two remaining there was a difference of £100 a month, and have decided to go ahead with the more expensive of the two -- just because it's bigger, closer to town and a nicer area. We've paid our administration fee and completed the reference forms -- now we wait to see if everything goes according to plan.

If everything goes well, we could start moving as soon as next weekend.

Making a promise

Ack! It's been over a month since my last post. I'm a bad, bad blogger -- but as of today, I promise to do better. If the girl can commit to posting every other day (or every few days) then so can I, dammit. Even if I don't have internet access in work, it just means I'll have to draft posts out in notepad.

I don't know where I left off with my last post or with regular scheduled programming, but I will try and pick things up and move on as best as I can.

I've been going to Reading Festival nearly every year since I was about 17, so for the last 10 years. I don't go religiously, there have been years I've missed -- like the summer I returned from Utah, and the year when I had to finish my dissertation. I think The Pixies headlined that year, so I remain unconvinced I made the wise decision. Anyway. I didn't go this year. I went in 2005, 2006, 2007 (I don't know about '04) but this year, the lineup just wasn't doing a lot for me. There were a few bands I'd watch, but nobody that made me go weak at the knees for. So I resolved to sell my ticket. I thought at the time the money I made from the ticket I put towards a holiday, maybe a week's surfing down in Newquay or the like. Then somewhere along the line, I changed my mind.

Instead, I decided I was going to go to Peru. Not this summer, of course, but next year -- and I would scale the Peruvian peaks in aid of a cancer charity. My first idea was to do it for cancer research, but they didn't seem to have a trip organised specifically -- however, Macmillan Cancer Support did. It wasn't like Macmillan were my second choice, part of the motivation behind the trip is in memory of my aunt who died of cancer late last year -- and the Macmillan nurses were like saints to her. It seemed fitting. So instead of a new television or something shiny, or a week surfing and drinking, I paid £300 registration to trek the Inca Trail next March.

I have already made my "old" blog my dedicated Peru scribblings, it's as much a writing exercise as anything else -- the tone of the writing is intended to be less casual than this one, and more informative. We shall see how it works out. It's also to keep me motivated, and for anyone who wants to follow my progress. The progress itself I would describe right now as "steady". Fundraising is underway, although it seems to be languishing somewhat at under £300 -- when I have to raise £3,300 minimum. I feel a little bit lazy as I haven't really done anything in the way of fundraising so far, other than set up a JustGiving page online. I've emailed all my address book (which got a total of one response, from someone asking how they knew me, as they couldn't remember), I've set up a Facebook group and I've had a few donations. The only reason I'm not freaking out is I know that I have technically already raised at least half of my target, even if the money hasn't been officially donated yet. I asked the MD at work for money, he agreed, and in one fell swoop almost half the target has been promised to me. I feel a tiny bit guilty that I'm selling out or cheating, but if Macmillan get the money, does it matter where it came from? It all feels a bit like Major Barbara, the play by George Bernard Shaw where about weapons manufacturer who donates money to the Salvation Army, of which his daughter is the Major of the title.

I don't want to talk too much about the Peru stuff since that's what the Peru blog is for, but here at least I can write about all the non-official stuff. I got a reassessment at the gym, and have had a training program designed for me specifically for the Inca Trail. As the girl rightly pointed out to me early on, the fitter I can be when I do it, the more I will enjoy it -- and it is very important to me that I should enjoy it. My bodyfat has reassuringly decreased slightly since the last time it was measured, which is mostly due to drinking less alcohol during the week, trying to drink "zero" soft drinks if I have to at all, and eating less chocolate and sugary snacks. But now I am all motivated and stuff by this tangible goal -- not just "I want a flatter stomach" or "I want to look good in a t-shirt" or even the usual things of having more muscle, less fat and lower blood pressure. Now I can focus all on Peru. So I have a cardio-intensive program with lots of stepping and walking and climbing and that's good. It feels like progress.

I've been going for interviews for jobs, like, a lot. To the point where I had almost one every week. Some were good, some where horrible. Most were good but just didn't lead anywhere. I got my hopes up for an IT/marketing job in Shoreditch, but it didn't happen, then I had some interviews for a financial services PR job way the hell out in Richmond -- and that seemed promising, too. I got on well with the MD who interviewed me, started reading the Financial Times and money magazines, and thought it could go my way. Unfortunately, it didn't -- another candidate had more direct experience, so I was out of luck. My year of freelancing and no proper job also didn't help me, and I think not working in PR since was hardly a bonus for me. On the plus side, though, I did get some very useful feedback and a lot of reassurance about the strength of my writing skills -- as well as the suggestion that I should focus far more on these. I've registered on Elance, not expecting to make any sort of real money out of it, but hoping to have more commissioned work to include in my portfolio.

The most important progress was made in being offered a job. The rest of that, I guess, deserves its own post...

Anyway, I promise to try and update at least a couple of times a week now. I need to rediscover my blogging mojo, and it seems a shame to waste my writing on work emails.

More adventures delivering meals

Sunday being one of the hottest days of the year so far, it seemed an appropriate time for me to deliver meals in London again.

To be fair, I knew perfectly well what the weather would be like -- but the sick and needy of east London don't all suddenly get better because the weather is nice. So I set out in my car without air conditioning, and unable to roll my window down very far through fear of getting one sunburned arm. It wasn't pleasant, but the incredibly-awesome mix CD I had made the day before helped a great deal.

Each time, I hope secretly for a hottie for a navigator. Instead this time I got a guy named Andy, whom I've shared the route with on a number of other occasions. He's a very amiable sort of chap, he wants to be a teacher but works in factories from what I can gather -- when he is working at all. He's very bright, and knows a lot about science, but he struggles with telling left from right. It gets to the point where we now have a code between us; he says "turn left" and I have to ask "left-your-side or left-my-side?" -- it's quicker than him holding his hands up in front of him to check.

We had many interesting conversations, like the one about mirages in the desert. He remarked on noticing the heat haze -- like you get in the desert, he said -- and I wondered out loud if people in the desert see mirages of ice cream vans. I concluded that probably not everyone in the desert would, since I expect there are many people -- Bedouin and such like -- that have probably never seen an ice cream van. This prompted us to discuss what it would be like if you had hallucinations of things you had never seen before. I think perhaps we were a little delirious with the heat ourselves.

Another quirk of Andy's is that he has always just assumed I must be gay, perhaps because he is himself, or maybe because The Food Chain is a very gay-friendly charity. He was actually quite surprised -- first confused, then surprised -- when he found out this week I'm not. I told him that for the most part I don't much talk about these things as I don't think it's anyone else's business who I sleep with, but also that people can get a bit funny about it when they find out you're batting for both teams. Which is why most of my best friends don't know.

I wheeled out the old story of the girl in a gay bar telling me I just "hadn't met the right man yet", and how I wonder if I would have got out of there alive should I have suggested the same thing to her.

We went on to have a particular fascinating conversation about sexuality and pubs. We were slightly lost at one point -- as a navigator he's usually pretty good, but he has his poorer moments and doesn't do very well concentrating in warm weather -- and I asked him if he recognised any pubs. Usually, he comments on various pubs we pass, perhaps that they have amateur pole dancing competitions or if they're just places he knows. This time, no such luck -- he said he wasn't really familiar with "straight pubs".

Apparently, for some time he thought on Eastenders the Queen Vic pub was meant to be some kind of "theme" pub, perhaps in the style of some grotty, bygone age. Then he went to a straight pub and found that no, that's actually quite common an atmosphere. I laughed and said, yeah, I've been to pubs like that -- but there's lots of nice "straight" pubs, too. I also shared my opinion that of the gay venues I have visited, I am yet to find one with what I would call a decent jukebox. A good jukebox is very important to me -- the right selection of music can see me spending more on the tunes than on beer of an evening. He conceded that he does get sick of hearing "Dancing Queen" every over song. When I spent time with the LGB group at university it was the first time I'd ever been to gay pubs, but I wished we could meet in my favourite "straight" places where the music was good.

Despite taking longer than we would have liked -- due in part to my slightly concentration-impaired navigator -- the deliveries themselves went without a hitch, with all the "service users" being home and waiting for their meals. A word of warning though, to anyone driving in central London on a hot Sunday afternoon. Do not attempt to go anywhere near Columbia Road flower market.

I was going to end by saying that the next time I sign up for a shift, I am looking at who the navigators are first... but thinking back over navigators I have known, a disturbing number of them struggled with left and right, one had to be gently shown how best to hold a map, and one guy whom I have remained friends with had a very unfortunate stutter when trying to give directions... so maybe it's best to just take pot luck, and hope for a hottie. Or a benevolent and independently wealthy millionaire art collector...

Spamusement

Do you ever look at your spam emails? I think there's something very weird going on in there.

Generally speaking, as a rule, it's a good idea not to open any spam emails. Often they can contain scripts to alert the sender they have been opened, and that your account is active: giving them the big green GO sign to send more. Not to mention they could contain potentially various other nastiness, and the fact that you probably don't want to enlarge your penis or buy dodgy Viagra.

There was a time when I noticed text hidden in spam emails. If you opened the emails in a normal web-browser, all appeared normal -- but if you tried to view them in something that didn't support html, you saw something completely different. It seems that in an effort to subvert spam filters, these emails would contain large blocks of text -- extracts from Moby Dick, random, rambling sentences repeating themselves like a surrealist poem. I think somewhere in the dungeons of my blog here I've talked about it before, and posted extracts. Go take a look now, I'll wait for you here.

Back? Good. These days I don't open the emails -- and largely give no more thought to it than telling Gmail to delete all messages, without more than a cursory glance to check that a long-lost love has contacted me and been mistaken for a spammer. The other day, though, I was bored waiting for a train, and took the time to read down the list of senders and subjects.

What I am wondering is if these emails are targeted directly at me, if they have somehow found their way to me though other sites I have frequented, or if they are just following traditional themes of humanity. What I am wondering is if spam is controlled by the eddying currents of the universe?

I'm particularly interested that today when I look at my spam folder there is an email entitled "top notch gift ideas here". How did they know it's my Mum's birthday coming up and I was stuck for gift ideas? For that matter, my Dad and brother are reportedly also not exactly brimming with ideas. Perhaps it's just a safe bet, a bit like with horoscopes -- if you mention that you are trying to think of gift ideas, even if you weren't before you start wondering if you should be. Even if there's not a birthday, perhaps Mother's Day is coming up (if you're a silly country who has it on a different date to England), or it could be Father's Day, or a birthday, or a maybe a friend needs cheering up, or you are reminded that you haven't bought a gift for your partner in a while and it would be a nice surprise. Can anyone here say that there is nothing in their foreseeable future that might require a gift?

As for sex and dating, that's probably a given. You might be in a happy relationship, spending many nights (or days) putting into practice the yoga positions you have learned -- but there's nothing like sowing a little doubt in minds of men. "This will allow you have more happy nights with your girls!" reads one email subject, while others use the only phrase men fear more than "long term commitment" -- erectile dysfunction. It could be that you are in the absolute prime of your health, you get plenty of sleep, don't eat too much red meat or saturated fat, you exercise regularly (be it bedroom gymnastics, police dog training or just something more mundane) and you are happy, content and relaxed. Why would you ever need to worry about erectile dysfunction? But the doubt is there now. You might. You're not getting any younger... And of course, a worry itself can be a cause just as much as anything else. Even if you had never thought about it before, you might do now that it's been brought up.

If you aren't in a relationship (in whatever context you deem necessary) then there's plenty for you, ranging from <3 <3 <3 <3 Get A Date! <3 <3 and Meet Your Soulmate!, for those who might be actively looking but not finding, to the more insidious "You REALLY need to find someone special. Seriously." which I think almost shames you into admitting you aren't happy. It's like if someone said "You REALLY need to brush your teeth. Seriously" even if you had never given it any thought before, you will now be asking yourself what's wrong with your gnashers.

Other than that, of course there are dozens of emails offering money; "Get rich quick!" screams one email, while another I don't understand instructs me to "Turn GOLD into CASH". Surely if I had gold bars lying about, cluttering up the place, I wouldn't be too concerned about turning them into cash? And I don't think the chunky gold-plated jewellery from Argos that chavs so adore is what they're talking about.

But again, the job emails are like dating and sex -- they make you stop. They tell you that nurses are in demand, ask if you've thought of becoming a cop? Maybe these don't appeal to you, so there's lots of "work from home!" suggestions, along with more off the wall ideas that might appeal to people who read spam emails -- things like "massage therapist" or a career in culinary arts. Doesn't that sound more interesting than what you are doing? There's jobs for people who like to wear uniforms, jobs for people who don't like to leave the house and even jobs for people who like getting their hands dirty.

If the universe was really trying to tell me something, I'd expect less emails like "Lose weight without trying" (which sounds like having dysentery if you ask me) and in their place emails that would say "Sell your art without having to be any good!" or "Become a musical genius overnight!". Emails that simply say ____________cars_________ in the subject don't do a lot for me. Although, now you mention it, I would like a new car, with power steering, and air conditioning, and a CD player that doesn't skip.....Maybe I had better read that email.

Tired of doing day jobs with no thanks for what I do

Work is a bit up in the air at the moment, which is never a feeling I enjoy.

More attentive readers might remember that I took this current job on a six-month contract. It bears no resemblance to anything I would like to do with my life, and doesn't seem to involve many things I enjoy. It was just there when I needed a job, and having seen relatives recently I had their pitying looks and the words "You're still looking for something interesting" in my head. So I took a job that wasn't interesting -- but was instead a steady, secure job and quite unlike last year's PR freelancing.

The fact that it was a six month contract was a blessing and a curse -- it meant that I could hold something down for a nice steady length of time instead of a month here and six weeks there. But it worried me slightly that the job might be intolerable and I'd be stuck in it. As it turned out, the job is dull but perfectly tolerable. They're very happy with my work (although I only ever hear this through my temp agency, they never express it personally to me) but there's a cloud on the horizon.

A couple of people in my life suggested to me when I started the job that this six month contract might not really be exactly what it says on the tin -- that a lot of employers state the job is that, so they can kick you out after six months if you're useless and be free of any reprisals. I hoped this would hold true of my job.

Last week I was having a discussion about work with my colleague Matt. Matt is a nice guy, only ever takes anything resembling an interest in me or my life when there's nobody else around. If I should happen to be in the bathroom at the same time as him, he'll strike up a conversation, or if we're the only two members of the purchasing department in that day. He's not unfriendly by any means, but it seems he's not much one for small talk, and I'm not the kind of guy who likes to talk -- or talk about himself. That's what the blog is for. So, Matt and I were talking and he was asking me about the contract and if I had any thoughts about work here or other plans. I said I hoped to convince them to let me stay longer, not because the job is great but because I need it on my CV for the time being. I said it didn't seem to me like at the end of six months I simply wouldn't be needed any more -- it feels like there is a job for me to do, and an arbitrary date on the calendar wouldn't make my work disappear.

That's when he explained that the manual reordering system we are trying to convince our bus depots to use for the ordering of the engineering parts they need is designed to effectively do away with my job. The only parts that would need to be physically phoned through to suppliers would be the urgent orders, and between them the department (which effectively would just be him and Annette) would be able to handle that.

Of course, there's more to my job than just the ordering of the parts -- I have made very certain of that. Any time something needs to be done, I'm happy to take it on. I incorporate more and more things into my daily routines, with an eye to making it difficult to get rid of me. Sometimes it backfires -- I did this on my PR internship, and even had a personal meeting with the MD where I told her that the job I was doing unpaid as an intern needed someone to be doing it permanently. So they created a job, interviewed me for it, then gave it to someone else and put me out on the street.

We had a new member of staff join our department perhaps six weeks ago, and she lasted all of about a month. She claimed she was lied to by her agency who recruited her and lied to in interview about the job -- what was true we don't know, but apparently now she has left there are legal proceedings looming. The company are interviewing all over again for someone else to come in and do that job, but in the meantime are hiring another temp. They keep reassuring me that this person is no threat to me, will only be here for a few weeks, but that they will be taking over a lot of what I do. There was an oblique reference to more or bigger things for me to do when this happens, but it's hard to see what will happen.

My boss asked me, not unlike Matt, about my plans. I spoke of wanting to perhaps stay and he explained that it wasn't just the automatic computerised ordering system, but that they had to justify to the powers that be everyone's place. He told me how he had been asked to send a list of employees working under him (all three of us, then -- perhaps four if you count the guy who works at a different office) and being a temp the powers that be might axe me. He said he hoped to sneak me in under the radar for as long as possible, but there's a possibility that even if I try to make myself indispensable, the people who decide on budgets for staff won't know or care.

I try to remain positive. I think if it does look likely to finish at six months or shortly after, I will look again for permanent work in London -- with a view to moving there. All the cool kids are doing it, and I think it was meeting Fiona a few months back that made me realise it is not impossibly expensive to live in London without an amazing job. If this job does finish I could look at doing something I enjoy or that actually stimulates me... Or I could look for jobs like this one but in London instead...

Like most areas of my life, I swing between thinking that I have failed at everything I have ever tried, and that if anything ever changes it goes from bad to worse and feeling confident and optimistic about what the future holds. I know logically that whether I think I can or think I can't I will be right, but that doesn't help.

The universe should be my supermarket -- so why isn't it?

I read a book on Cosmic Ordering last week. The concept of it seems quite simple -- to ask the universe clearly and politely for what you want, give it a time frame for the delivery, and then away it goes. Apparently, you don't even have to necessarily believe the universe will deliver -- the author of the book I read said she placed her first "order" as a sceptic, to settle an argument with a friend who believed it. It also says that being tempted to reconfirm your orders or give them an extra "push" of energy from time to time is counter-productive. I'm not sure if these two ideas contradict one another -- the latter suggests you lack confidence in your order, but what does it matter if you don't even have to believe it?

I started out with a couple of small orders at first. I ordered "some interesting post" to arrive by the end of the week. I thought that was ambiguous enough -- it could be a surprise from a friend or a postcard or a letter or any number of things. I also requested an email from a particular friend within 24 hours.

At first, I thought it hadn't come through -- I went to bed without the email I had ordered. But the next morning, there it was waiting for me -- it had been delivered while I slept, so it still came through within the time period I specified. This left the interesting post. A day or two went past with nothing, but I had said by the end of the week -- and before the week was out, not one but two unexpected postcards from postcrossing arrived (I'll scan them another day for postcard porn).

Now, both of these could be considered a coincidence. I was owed an email by my friend, it wasn't completely out of the blue. I also probably was owed postcards from Postcrossing, too, since one I sent had just arrived -- although I can never work out Postcrossing, sometimes I am about five cards in credit compared to what I have sent, and sometimes it goes the other way. It rarely seems to be exactly equal -- like how with two cards turning up on exactly the same day. The book had an amusing analogy about thinking these things are coincidence -- imagine you order a sweater by mail order. The sweater arrives. You then call the mail order company and tell them that you don't believe the sweater you have received is the one you ordered and is in fact a sweater you already had -- furthermore you also believe that they still owe you the one you ordered. So I could choose to believe I ordered these things and they arrived, or I could believe they would have arrived anyway. One way makes you happy, the other doesn't.

Unfortunately my positive tales of orders received seems to end there. I have tried ordering a parking space I want at work -- but it never comes. I don't understand why. The other day I also wanted a pound coin for the coke machine, since I didn't have one. That didn't come either. I wasn't asking for a large sum of cash to magically appear, it seemed perfectly reasonable to find a pound coin just lying on the floor somewhere, or in a forgotten pocket. Why the hell did these things not work? I didn't put any more or less emphasis on them than my other options -- my consistent lack of the parking space I want doesn't ruin my day. So why one thing and not another?

I have asked the universe for the right job. I don't want to leave my current job quite yet, but it would be good if the universe could at least show me where I should go, so I can know what I am aiming towards. The trouble is, I don't know if the random ideas I get should be entertained or if it just seems like the grass is greener. Work is a blog post for another day right now. I've also thought it can't hurt to ask the universe to deliver the right person into my life. Like with the interesting post request, I trust the universe to know what is best for me -- better than I can. But I am also confident there that if this mystical bag of wonderful doesn't materialise out of thin air -- or better yet be a person already actively in my life in whatever way -- it's because I am not ready for it.

I am unsure about the mechanics of this ordering business. As I've said, I spend long afternoons pondering how it works if you can 'order' something without believing in it -- since this can't be the reason for not getting the things I order. I am almost certain that the power of positive thinking doesn't create some kind of magnet, rather you subconsciously create what you require and notice what is already around you. I like being thankful for the things in my life, but sometimes it feels just a little bit too much like I've gone full circle, and am back to praying and believing the things in my life have been given to me by some invisible, mystical force.

I don't accept that the universe doesn't deliver to me the things I secretly don't think I deserve -- while that might apply to work, girls, even success, it doesn't adequately cover why I don't get the trivial, little things either. I need to read more, I need to read around the subject perhaps -- I need to read it as it appears as Neural-Linguistic Programming, as well as in such contexts as Comsic Ordering, The Secret and Conversations With God -- all of which I believe talk about the same sort of intention-manifestation idea. I also clearly need to get right back to basics and return to my reading of the 20 Greatest Philosophy Books (helpfully contained in one, small, easy-to-read book).

In the meantime, I'd like to place a cosmic order for more money -- best of all in the form of a steady flow of people wanting to buy my artwork for a small profit.
Then, later on, monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Shavian wonderings and the air force

"Your pious mob fills up ballot papers and imagines it is governing its masters; but the ballot paper that really governs is the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it.... when you vote you only change the names of the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments, inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new." George Bernard Shaw Major Barbara

I have my first "formal" interview for the Air Force on Monday, and I'm now wondering if the whole thing is a stupid idea. I remain sure that the discipline and structure would probably do a lot for me, and for how I view myself. I also think the role I would be carrying out as an officer would stimulate and challenge me, and that I could do the job very well.

So why the doubts?

I know people around me think it's an extraordinarily bad idea, or that I am just not suited to it at all. I get told that I'm a dreamer or that I'm too gentle (which feels a lot like being told I am effeminate) and that I couldn't handle it. It's no secret between me and my friends that I don't know if I could kill someone -- and surely that's quite important if you're looking to join the armed forces. There has also been doubts cast on if I would be able to handle emotionally people close to me dying.

I do have issues with being able to separate myself. It's funny, in a way -- sometimes I can be so detached from things, and sometimes I really don't feel like I attach to other people very well at all. But in other ways I can't put that distance there when I need to. As a journalist, I hated sitting in court hearings -- assaults, murders, abuse cases, I couldn't leave it at the door.

I should be preparing for this interview, and yet I feel incredibly uneasy when I am researching various air craft and read about their weapons capabilities. Maverick infrared missiles, cluster munitions, general purpose free-fall bombs... Does war determine who is right, or only who is left? There is certainly no room for doubt or intellectual debate within the armed forces.

I list among my reasons for wanting to join wanting to grow up and get out of the stupid, childish minsdet that the universe should revolve around me -- my whole life has been me!me!me!me!me!. I want to be part of something bigger than myself, I want to give myself to a simple cause. But ironically, isn't this reason still a very egocentric position? It's still all about poor, tortured Jay, trying to find out who is and where he should be.

I know I have to try or I will spend my whole life wondering, and the more people cast their doubts the more stubborn I am in wanting to prove them wrong. But I am still unsure if I am doing the right thing.

UPDATE: None of it really matters now -- I got my rejection letter today. But I am welcome to reapply in twelve months.

In a heap round their breakfasts in yesterday's clothes

This has to be the worst-timed post ever. I spend all day bored out of my mind, but it's only when I want to have been asleep half an hour ago that I actually get around to writing an update. I might not have internet access or the time to blog at work, but I'm in one of those annoying places where sitting in front of a computer when I get home from work isn't so appealing.

It's no surprise that I miss working in the bookshop. In fairness, I don't think I did the job for anywhere near long enough to appreciate how mind numbing it would get -- I wasn't full time, and didn't stay more than a couple of months, I think 40 hours a week and working weekends (as would inevitably have happened) would have done much to take the shine off it. But right now, I can dream and reminisce about recommending books to customers and talking to cute girls who wanted to know what books of Robert Frost's poetry we had. I don't miss dusting the shelves, or being restricted to only one 20 minute break a day.

I've been avoiding updating lately because my frame of mind or emotional well being took a distinct turn for the worst. I made reference a few weeks back to a shaky state of affairs and despite some occasional patches of sullen sun, things deteriorated. I don't much like talking about how I'm feeling, and so was shutting people out emotionally and writing about it felt just a tiny bit too much like talking about it. Much better to remain quiet with my thoughts of self harm. My powers of hypocrisy know no bounds, it would seem.

It took Dune to make me realise what a complete arse I was being. She gave me a good talking to and told me in no uncertain terms to sort myself out, which got me to pull myself together a bit. It's not like someone has waved a magic wand and made everything all better, but it's got me to stop being so self pitying and actually try and feel a bit more alive. I know perfectly well that the power to be happy is well within my grasp, and that I expend huge emotional effort on feeling shit, and so for the time being I am trying to make an effort to the contrary. It has also been brought to my attention that if I want to move out, I need to make it happen -- rather than sitting around and waiting for my friends to want to move out with me, and if I actually took the time to work out a budget it's more than feasible.

In other news, Dune and I go to Seville on Thursday evening for the long Easter weekend -- to check out the 'Santa Semana', or Holy Week, festival. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if she was trying to save my soul, since this is the same girl who invited me to go on a pilgrimage last year. Really, I think it's the appeal of Spain and the history and the idea of doing something different. This also means that I am taking half day at work on Thursday, and am making up for it (or making it up in my wages) by starting an hour earlier every day.

The whole issue of work is a particularly sore spot for me right now. Today I was training my newest colleague -- who started just over a week ago and is already looking to leave as soon as she possibly can -- and I noticed on her desk a copy of What Colour Is Your Parachute?, a multi-bestselling guide to job hunting and career changes. I flicked through it a bit, and on noticing some parts on finding out what jobs suit your personality, my colleague mentioned to me the idea that what job one might do could, possibly, not be the best fit. I laughed and said I had little illusions that what I do is something I am well suited to -- it requires no creativity and offers no intellectual stimulation at all, and one of the few things that keeps from insanity is the opportunity to talk to various suppliers on the phone. However, I recognise that 99% of the population of the planet feel the same way about what they do. "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar."

I struggle between feeling like I have sold out, that I have given up, that I am one of the people who would have liked to be a writer or an artist or whatever -- but gave up on it, rather than one of the people didn't stop believing and made it happen. If nothing else, at least I have the temperament of the artist.

Adventures continue in London with Dune. We met up with Jiminy and Non-Blondie again, and took again in the sights and smells of East London -- wandering down Brick Lane, before ending up again in the local pub we like, and playing darts. The darts game was made more exciting when Non-Blondie's celebration dance looked like it might send her through the trapdoor into the cellar, but although I would have liked to have won, I don't think that would have been the way to achieve it. And perhaps it was made abundantly clear to all involved that I am not kidding about my coordination or spatial awareness, but I think they were fortunate that nobody accidentally got a dart in the side of the head.

Last weekend, Jon and I returned to Camden with Dune -- and made it further than the pub this time, exploring Camden Lock market, having lunch in a Mexican place in Covent Garden and ending the evening in a pub in Charing Cross. There also as a result of that evening needs to be a whole post now devoted to film and cinema, as it has become a subject so weighty it needs its own space to breathe.

All in all, I've pulled my head out my arse a bit, work sucks, bites and blows -- and never in any good ways, but I have started looking for a new place to live. I stress only started at this point. Oh and I can now speak very rudimentary Spanish -- albeit Latin American Spanish (since it was the only short course the library had left), and with a charming Essex accent.

I am thinking of changing the name of my blog to "Hey man, now you're really living" after the Eels song that makes me happy...

Tell a tall tale

I was very cheekily forwarded an email promoting the latest chick-lit release. It was a cheeky email, since it was sent to everyone on the First Time Club mailing list without first having asked permission from the admin, and that just wasn't on. Anyway, the book sounds like the usual dull and uninteresting tripe that is aimed at people who don't like to read or have no imaginations. But what was interesting was how they are promoting it. With a PR background, the promoting of a product interests me more than the product itself a lot of the time.

To promote the book, a competition is being run to win a weekend away -- the prize going to the person who submits the best story of a lie they have told.

I submitted a true story dating back to the Christmas of 2006, when some friends and I were at a very bad Christmas disco held at a boat club in the middle of nowhere and DJ'd by the half-deaf and slightly retarded older brother of a guy we had gone to school with and didn't really like. Sounds like the recipe for a great night, doesn't it?

The main point of my story -- both here where I first told and on the entry from -- was fairly simple, At the party I had got talking to a woman who was the Mum of a girl I had gone to school with. Her daughter was now a successful lawyer, living in LA. I thought what did I do for a living? I worked in a call centre and felt like a loser.

That's more or less where the real story parts ways with the version I submitted. Like the charming British Government's reports on WMD in Iraq, I wanted to sex it up a bit. In my submitted version of the story, I decided I should have told the woman I was an artist/sculptor (I don't think she ever asked), what's more that I was flirting with this girl's Mum, and that at the end of the night I gave her my phone number on the pretence of her giving it to her daughter but knowing she'd keep it.

One story wasn't enough though. So from a different email address I submitted the story of my imaginary girlfriend -- but again it wasn't quite good enough, so I tacked onto the end of the story being offered the job, but later breaking up with my imaginary girlfriend while she was teaching English abroad.

I think I should get extra credit for not only telling (to my mind) entertaining stories about lies I told, but actually lying about it.

Interestingly, the website for the book and the competition no longer loads, so I wonder if someone got into trouble for the spamming of the link...

My room, in 9 points or less

1. "Kryptonite" clock, I like the old, 1950's Americana style. I did briefly move the clock to a different wall and replace it with a ceramic Aztec sun, but I couldn't get used to looking there for the time, and moved it back.

2. "Fingeroo" my Kangaroo finger puppet and phone charm that were among my birthday presents from San this year. Anyone else would probably think it was odd and random, but it's exactly my sense of humour.

3. "Nighthawks: 1942" by Edward Hopper. As longer term readers might remember, I am a big fan of Edward Hopper's work. His paintings in turn are an influence on my photography.

4. My snowboard. Unused for another season, it's annoying living in England where although it's freezing cold it rarely snows, and there's no mountains anyway. No time or funds for a European snow break this year, I hope instead to buy some new boots and take some lessons in time for the season next year. I've tried several times when my funds were at their lowest to sell the board, but it won't go.

5. "Frank" my snake plant. A plant native to the Arizona desert, he didn't really thrive in my bedroom until we got double glazing. I periodically move him around the house depending on how much light/heat I think he needs.

6. A wine bottle carafe -- now being used to collect 1p and 2p coins. Until recently, it also collected 5p coins, until I found the coke machine at work that only ever takes exact change accepted 5p coins, and tipped them all out.

7. "L'Eau D'Issey Pour Homme" eau de toilette. A little known fact is that I prefer eau de toilette to aftershave lotion, but of all fragrances tried, sampled and worn Issey Miyake remains my favourite.

8. My British passport. Still lying on the desk because I had to rummage it out recently when booking flights to Seville for Easter, it seems the Spanish authorities now need passport details for everyone travelling.

9. One, single, solitary glow-in-the-dark star. Until quite recently, I had various stars on my ceiling and walls -- then I read DownHomeGirl's comments on the Sunday Times list of "Reasons Why You're Single". Right there, at number 8 -- "[you] have glow in the dark stars above your bed". This is probably one that was previously gracing the front of my monitor, though looking around the room I can see a couple of others I have missed. The eagle-eyed among you will notice there is still one stuck to my clock.

Edit: Jiminy Cricket has suggested I make this a meme. So I shall. It is the "My room in 9 points" meme, and along with him I also tag to do the same Mez, Zero Sum, Treespotter and Moaky. As mentioned in the comments, the rules are simple: take a picture of your room, then tag 9 random items in the picture. And you are not allowed to deliberately place items in the picture.