Say yes more

I keep thinking I need to update more, but then I think I need more things to update about and I hate writing my disjointed "here's everything that's going on" posts.

I've been reading "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace, the book that people are always saying changed their life. In a way, not unlike The Dice Man, but without the rape and the murder and stuff -- it's a lot funnier, a lot more positive, and actually true. He just follows the advice of a wise stranger on a bus who tells him to "say yes more".

Parts of it strike me as slightly dumb -- when he's saying yes to everything it seems like it could get really out of hand. Sometimes you can't walk down the high street without being stopped by several different charity muggers, and who has the money to say yes to them all? Every day? And every time they ring you up and ask for a one-off donation or to increase your payments, you say yes? And that's nothing compared to when he gets emails from Sultans needing his bank details... But there is something positive coming out of it, and taking his lead I am trying to say yes more. I won't say yes indiscriminately, and won't say yes to things I can't afford -- expensive foreign holidays, charity muggers, more credit cards -- but I want to be open to more things.

Speaking of being open to more things, I agreed with Jon to go out on Friday night. I gave some thought to things we could do that didn't involve just going to the pub, because I knew if I said I didn't want to go he'd ask what else there was. So I was prepared, and suggested a few other things -- an indie night in London, or a random night in one town or another locally. All too expensive, he said, and not enough people were out. So it was never going to be anything else. The really funny thing was I had asked San the night before if it was the first Friday of the month that was the club night we liked. She had replied yes, and then decided it was worth having an argument over. Apparently, she thought that by asking her about such things, I was rubbing in her face that I was going out and having fun without her and trying to make her jealous. I didn't bring up our conversation earlier in the week about her confused feelings for my replacement and the fun things they do together.

For a week or more, San's attitude to me has been noticeably shit. Or else she has just been in a bad mood generally. She sent me a message the other day to ask if I thought she shouldn't go on holiday. I replied with something like "What the fuck? You're starting an argument about something we talked about yesterday?" but yeah she was. Then later in the week -- when she responded to a message I sent -- I made a comment like I didn't think she was talking to me. Apparently, this was a bad thing to say because if she didn't think I was talking to her then she would be bothered enough to find out why.

I think I more or less managed to defuse both disagreements, or whatever they were. And continue to try and keep her at a distance -- which is never easy because if she doesn't hear from me then she takes offence and doesn't talk to me, and then if I mention that she's been quiet then I'm bad for not caring enough to ask why. But she's got an interview for some thing teaching English in Japan. I asked her if there's something about this time of year that makes her hate me and want to leave the country, since it was this time two years ago she was a bitch to me, broke up with me, then went to college in Maryland. It wasn't personal at the time, and it probably isn't now, either.

So I'm browsing the usual places like Gumtree and Craigslist looking for volunteer work for some good karma credit ratings, and something to keep me out of trouble here and there if nobody is going to give me any actual, paid work. It's not quite the same as saying Yes more, but it's close. I might volunteer my time for all sorts of things -- teaching a Colombian girl English, in exchange for learning Spanish; or volunteering my services to hospital radio in East London, or doing DIY work for a charity despite having no previous DIY skills at all. Actually, the Colombian girl has got me thinking -- I could try something like "Wanted: hot foreign girl who wants to learn English in exchange for being my hot foreign girlfriend"...