Happy Halloween

This is a very serious issue. I feel very passionately that this is a practise which must be halted immediately. The effects on society are too great for us to waste time pussy-footing around; pandering to people's sensibilities and personal demons.......

Are you ready for it?........

I hereby declare war on lazy pumpkins. If you haven't the dedication to carve your squash properly then just don't bother. Drawing a face on with black marker pen is not an appropriate alternative. Un. Acc. Ceptable. That is all.

Hold Please

I'm becoming quite the expert on the hold music genre. I fail to understand why anybody thinks it's a good idea to traumatise their callers with the dulcet tones of a blarting keyboard labouring away at Greensleeves, or the Moonlight Sonata as played on a child's toy xylophone. Worse still is the Americans, who insist on playing adverts to you while you wait. By the time I actually get to speak to a human being every nerve in my body is shrieking at me to hang up the phone. Perhaps that's the point? On the other hand, it can really brighten my mood if some company decides to play me a little Kings of Leon, as happened a couple of days ago. In reality I'm still sitting quietly at my desk, but in my head I'm having a little boogie. It's very cheering.

With a trowel

I saw a woman on the tube, whose foundation was so thick and orange that a good half-inch at the hairline of her white-blonde barnet had been stained a delicate shade of tango. It left me eyeing her companion and wondering how, in all conscience, she could have allowed her friend to leave the house like that.

Morning has broken me

Today is the first Saturday in over a year when I haven't had to go to work. I sank into my bed last night with a smug little smile, as I flicked the switch on the alarm to 'Off', with a flourish.........

.........fast forward to this morning when, on the dot of 8:00, I sat bolt upright in my bed, convinced I was late for work, my body instantly flooded with so much adrenaline that my chances of getting back to sleep were rendered about as high as the survival prospects of a chocolate bunny at a weightwatchers meeting. It's vastly unfair. Is a Saturday lie-in really so much to ask for after a long week? Oh well. At least the early start gives me plenty of time to get my laundry done and my groceries purchased; that being my main aim for the day.
My goals are pretty humble.

Today I learned...

...that it's not the done thing to get excited about stationery. My exclamation, upon being presented with a box full of shiny new staplers and rulers and things, that it was 'just like Christmas!', was met with the blankest of blank stares from the box-bearer. Judge all you like, stationery lady. Some of us have to get our kicks where we can!

No...you're right...this was much more discreet

Man at train station: Did you just see me looking at your tits?
Me: Er.....no?
Man: Oh, thank god. I thought I'd just been really unsubtle there.

There are no fish in the sea

Back during my previous bout of unemployment - not the one that's just ended, the one before that - I was watching the telly when an advert came on for a certain dating website that declares its ability to find your perfect match through a series of scientific and mathematical formulae. Given that I was single and, more to the point, had far too much time on my hands, I thought I'd check it out. I spent un unfeasibly long time checking boxes to indicate things like how much importance I place on fidelity, and my level of interest in the fauna of Papua New Guinea, and clicked the 'find my matches' button. This was the response:

"Sorry. We currently have no matches for you"

I am officially incompatible with the entire world. This probably isn't surprising given my extreme levels of intolerance for....well....pretty much everything actually, and it leads me to wonder whether it's odd that I would rather be single than date someone who commits such trivial crimes as writing in text speak or disliking cats. I genuinely would though. Apparently I'm incapable of just making do with someone who's not quite perfect. Maybe I've watched too many Disney films, but I find myself unwilling to settle for anything less than the fairytale. This, of course, means that I will end up, to quote from the play I was recently in, "dying alone in a house full of old Argos catalogues and cat food". With any luck the abundance of kitty chow will prevent me being eaten by my feline companions before the smell of my decomposing body alerts my neighbours.

One week in

I've finished my first week at the new job and, while I could cry with the sheer exhaustion of unaccustomed work schedules and unecessarily extreme anxiety, I'm actually really happy about things. Now that the initial feeling of OhgodwhatifIcan'tdoitwhatifImakeafoolofmyselfwhatiftheyallhateme has dissipated somewhat, I'm beginning to think that I could be perfectly content in this job. Everybody's been really friendly and, thus far and as far as I know, I seem to have avoided any graphic displays of gross incompetence or idiocy. It's nice to feel hopeful about the future after months of desperate job-hunting, so here's hoping I make it through the probation period without cocking it all up. I'd be devastated if I had to start over with the endless stream of fruitless applications and daytime television.

In the meantime, I need to acquire some new clothes. At the library they didn't really mind what I wore, so I cheerfully pranced around in my usual array of clownish outfits, piercings and cleavage, but I need to be a bit more appropriately attired now, and lack the resources. Far too many of my clothes are too tatty, low-cut or outlandish for an office environment; even one that seems to be fairly casual. I'm informed that "as long as you don't dress like a bum or a slag you'll be alright", but I suspect that my usual ambition to look like I tumbled into a fancy dress box may be frowned upon too. I can't keep wearing my mother's hand me downs for long, so I suspect that a chunk of my first paycheque will have to be invested in a work wardrobe. Of course I'd much rather spend it on tutus and corsets, but there are times when even I am forced to acknowledge the necessity of behaving like a grown up..

Whistle while you work

I started my new job this week. A quick scroll back through my previous posts reveals to me that I neglected to mention that I'd got a job. It's all rather a huge relief, and a testament to the importance of whinging about your unemployment at every opportunity, especially when at the pub. Sooner or later someone is bound to hear you and say "I've got a job you can have". Possibly just to shut you up.
Anyway, back to the point. I realised that it's been about four years since I last worked full-time, so I anticipate high levels of exhaustion until I get used to it again. Last night I was so knackered that I was in bed by 8:30, which is a little pathetic I admit, but it's 8:43 now and I'm still just about awake, so evidently I'm acclimatising already. Nervousness is surprisingly tiring you know, and I was very nervous indeed. I'm informed that I looked a little less terrified today than I did yesterday, but given that every glimpse I got of my reflection yesterday showed something resembling a small white rabbit that's just realised an entire herd of ressurected mammoths is headed straight at it, that's probably not saying much. In my defence, the job is very new to me, and I challenge anyone not to be a little alarmed by spreadsheets with figures in the hundreds of thousands, when their previous experience of finance runs to "I'm afraid that book's late and there's a fine on it. That'll be 17p please".

Update

Apologies, oh beloved blog readers (all three of you). It's been a busy couple of weeks, starting with performance week of the play I was in. It went fairly well on the whole, despite such minor hitches as the failure of my gun to actually make a gun-like noise at the appropriate time (I'm told by the director that I should have shouted 'bang!'. Really? How naff would that be? Besides, I was too busy laughing to shout anything) and the five minute long blackout that turned the show into a radio play. Funnily enough I was laughing through most of that too, but I like to think that the audience attributed the quaver in my voice to the psychopathic rage of a gun-toting madwoman. Anyway, I'm assured I was mahvellous dahling, mwah! mwah! As if anybody at an amateur dramatics group would say anything else to your face. Your reputation is safe, so long as you never leave the pub while there are still others there to talk about you. The highlight of the performance week was the lovely kitty who came and joined us in the dressing room; coming up the back stairs and then curling up under the dressing tables. Sweeeeet! I bet the tale of a theatre cat would make a lovely children's book.

After the run of the play ended, I took a trip up to Derbyshire to visit my parents. During this trip I was taken still further North to see my grandparents, who took us out for lunch. We drove for miles, past endless lovely looking country pubs, with pretty views over the fields, in order to reach...a Toby Carvery on a busy roundabout. Yum. The rest of my time up there was spent in turning into an old lady. I helped make chutney, started learning to knit socks, and spent an afternoon pottering around the gardens at Chatsworth. It was all very lovely and restful. Less restful, I found, is driving anywhere with my mother. As soon as she folds herself into her little convertible Toyota rollerskate she gets a terrifying gleam in her eye, and any long stretch of straight road seemingly irresistibly draws her foot to the floor of the car. She becomes the veriest picture of a midlife crisis, zipping along narrow country roads, laughing at my strangled entreaties that she please keep at least one hand on the wheel.

On my return to London I was accosted by a charming man, who told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world, before walking into a bench and falling over in a drunken heap. Classy.