On careers, cats and contentedness

I've been at my new job for a couple of weeks now and am feeling exhausted but happy. My last (and only other)job was such a nightmare staff-wise that my perspective was completely skewed. I had no idea how nice it would be to work with people who are friendly and welcoming. I felt comfortable and unthreatened at the new library within an hour of arriving there and for me, gauche to the point of social retardation, that is nothing short of a miracle. Much to my surprise I'm genuinely enjoying being back at work, having a routine and chatting to the public in the library. I'm sure given time the novelty will wear off and I'll return to my customary state of misanthropy and cynicism, but for now I'm making the most of this unprecedented burst of job-satisfaction.

Another thing that's making me cheerful at the moment is the unintentional acquisition of a new pet. I came home on Sunday to find a tiny kitten in my kitchen eating my cat's food while said oversized tom sat by and watched her in confusion. Over the next couple of days I chucked her out repeatedly, but then the torrential rains started. I just didn't have the heart to put the poor scrawny little thing out in the downpour, so I let her stay. After some quick calls to the RSPCA and the local vet to find out if she'd been reported missing I decided to keep her. Since she's far too young to be out and about I'm keeping her in, and am highly impressed by how quickly she got to grips with the litter tray, even if she does find it rather too entertaining to play with the litter. She's also very affectionate. After a day or two of running away from me and quaking when I cam near her, she now happily curls up with me on the sofa and enthusiastically attempts to wash my fce for me. I've tried to explain to her that I'm perfectly capable of dealing with these issues of personal grooming for myself, but she's quite determined.

On inspiration, intention and inclination

I started writing a list of 101 things to do before I die several months ago, and was inspired by my friend Katie to finally finish the thing. I was delighted to notice on coming back to the half-finished list that I had actually acheived a couple of my goals. Here is the completed list, with asterisks indicating completed goals:

101 Things to do before I die

1. Learn to blow smoke rings
2. Throw a drink over someone
3. See the Aurora Borealis
4. Have dinner at the Fat Duck
5. See a glacier
6. Have my photo taken nude and like the result
7. Finish my book and have it published
8. Give 50 pounds to a busker
9. Go scuba diving
10. Try an oyster*
11. Become fluent in another language
12. Swim with sharks
13. Go to a Pride parade
14. Take a ride in a hot air balloon
15. Write a script*
16. Learn to drive
17. Skydive
18. Genuinely forgive everyone who has hurt me
19. Learn to juggle
20. Go to Torture Garden*
21. Volunteer at Burning Man
22. Accept that I will always need to be on medication
23. Read every book listed in ‘1001 books you must read before you die’
24. Learn sign language
25. Own a bath big enough for two
26. Smash a plate on purpose
27. Send a message in a bottle
28. Have a library room in my house
29. Own a snake
30. Stay in the ice hotel
31. Try caviar*
32. Ask someone on a date
33. Stop having to order enough takeaway that they won’t realize I’m eating alone
34. Learn to knit
35. Fly first class
36. Start a blog*
37. Go a year without forgetting a single friend/relative’s birthday
38. Live in another country for a year
39. Learn to salsa
40. Get a degree
41. Get a masters degree
42. Get a doctorate
43. Adopt a child
44. Make jam
45. Visit the pyramids
46. Give a dinner party
47. Go white water rafting
48. Learn to cry on cue
49. Have a food fight
50. Be debt free
51. See a manatee
52. Go into space (and take my dad with me)
53. Have afternoon tea at the Ritz
54. Work in a job that I love
55. Hold a koala
56. Learn how to take a compliment
57. Go skiing
58. Spend 24 hours solid in a pub
59. Go to the Galapagos islands
60. Mudlark on the banks of the Thames at low tide
61. Get a massage
62. Own a stuffed animal (taxidermy, not a teddy)
63. Go to Mardi Gras
64. Take singing lessons
65. Go to a shop and try on wedding dresses a la Muriel
66. Learn to spin fire poi
67. Celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico
68. Change somebody’s life for the better
69. Hitchhike
70. Think up some really great last words
71. Learn to play poker
72. Go to an airport and get on the next available flight, regardless of destination
73. Stand on the equator
74. Swim with bioluminescent plankton in Puerto Rico
75. Take a holiday on a canal boat with friends
76. Have enough cats to cross the line from ‘cat-lover’ to ‘crazy cat lady’
77. Find the perfect bra
78. Visit the Sistine chapel
79. Do a cartwheel
80. Give somebody flowers for no reason
81. Go to Iceland
82. Learn to ride a motorbike
83. Be kissed under mistletoe
84. Become a regular in a pub and have a ‘usual’
85. Learn the proper use of English grammar
86. Deliver a crushing comeback when insulted instead of gaping in disbelief like a stunned trout
87. Write a love letter
88. See penguins in the wild
89. Run (or more likely walk) the London marathon
90. Take a picture every day for a year
91. Go to Glastonbury festival
92. Take horse riding lessons
93. Organise a grown-up sleepover
94. Put on pyjamas, get into a show bed in a shop and see how long it takes to get chucked out
95. Busk
96. Travel on the Orient Express
97. Live independently for a whole year
98. Couchsurf
99. Get my affairs in order
100. Write my will
101. Watch out for that…! Too late.

On calls, coincidence and caution

Friday came firmly under the heading of A Good Day. It didn't start off good. I'd spent most of the day plowing through some tedious, and unnecessarily complicated, data entry work, before calling my mother for a bit of a bitch about my continuing unemployment and poverty. As I hung up the phone it rang again and I answered it. Ten minutes later I called my mother back and shrieked at her "I just got a job!". I'm so excited and so relieved to finally have something, and the job itself is almost too good to be true. I'm experienced at it, it's good pay and it doesn't clash with my uni classes or Saturday job. Perfect! It's a library assistant position and , perhaps weirdly, I can't wait to be back in a library again. My love of books is a little excessive and I've felt out of touch with new releases over the last year.

That night I went out to a friend's engagement party in Angel. Surprisingly, since that's reasonably far from our homes, I bumped into some other friends there so, when the engagement party started to die down, a couple of us joined them. I had such a wonderful time, what with the combination of job happiness and fun friends, that it was hard to remember I had my Saturday job the next day. I managed to drag myself away however, and headed home. As I waited for the bus at the end of my tube journey a man pulled up in his car and offered me a lift home, saying he didn't like to leave me standing on my own at the bus stop. Now the bus stop is pretty isolated and it was very late at night, so it's possible he was just trying to be helpful, but there was no way I was getting in a car with a stranger. He seemed perfectly pleasant, and didn't press the issue at all when I said no, but it's just not worth the risk. It's a little sad that we have to be so careful. I can't help but wish, not only that I were more trusting, but also that everyone was deserving of my trust. It would be nice to live in a world where I could leave my door unlocked or accept lifts from passing strangers. Sadly it will never happen, so all I can do is try to think of the most polite way possible of rejecting that lift. After all, I wouldn't want to be rude to my potential murderer, now would I?

On schemes and signing

My state of unemployment is lingering on and I find myself getting somewhat concerned by the time I have on my hands. It's all too easy to sink into a somewhat gloomy place in these circumstances. I don't much like being left alone with my thoughts at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. So, in an attempt to counteract this, I'm trying to find productive things to do with my time. It was the main reason I took up writing this blog, but no work = no money = no funding for adventures = little to write about other than daytime television. My new plan for keeping myself busy actually came to me in a dream and stuck around. Given my apparent susceptibility to dream suggestion, I should probably be grateful I didn't dream about joining a cult. Or marrying a pygmy hippo. What I have decided to do is to start learning sign language online. I have no idea when this would possibly come in useful as I don't actually know anybody deaf, but I thought it might be interesting. I've found some online resources, including some very helpful sites with video dictionaries demonstrating the signs, and made a start on my project. Today I've learnt the alphabet and a few key phrases of the 'how are you?', 'my name is...' variety. We'll see how it goes. I'm notorious for giving up on things when I get bored or they become hard, but I'm fairly determined to get somewhere with this.

On beer, burritos and Burning Man baby! (part 3)

When Burning Man finished I made my way to San Francisco. I must now point out that travelling by R.V. is a wonderful experience. We were well underway before I even woke up, and the rest of the journey was spent lounging on the bed with the contents of the fridge within arm's reach. Bliss! Anyway, once I arrived in SF I stayed with a friend. This particular friendship bugs me a lot because I value it really highly, and absolutely adore the girl in question, but only get to see her once or twice a year due to the bloody ocean being in the way. If I could convince her to move to London I'd be a very happy bunny. I'd also be a very drunk bunny with a large bunny beer belly. This year I was introduced to the delicious Death and Taxes beer, and drank more of it than was strictly good for me. Through a straw. Not the best look, but fairly unavoidable when you've just decided to have a man put a stainless steel ring through your bottom lip. This did hamper my ability to eat and drink a little bit but, luckily, I managed before I had it done to get in my First Ever Burrito. Mmmm...that stuff is gooooood.

I broke pretty much all the rules of piercing after-care. I drank, I smoked and (after the first day) kept forgetting to clean it. I also did one thing which isn't on the list of post-piercing no-nos, but bloody well should be. Jello wrestling. I blame the novelty factor. And the beer. But mostly it was the novelty thing. I've never come across jello wrestling before as, as far as I'm aware, it's not something that often happens in the average UK pub. I don't know, maybe I'm just going to the wrong pubs, but I thought 'when am I ever going to get the opportunity to do this again?', and in I went. I got utterly trounced by an adorable, scantily clad little blonde, who got me in a choke hold so tight I thought she was going to kill me. Sporting it was not, but she did help me to hose myself down in the yard afterwards before 'forcing' (subject to exaggeration) me to drink several shots of whisky. Good times!

On beer, burritos and Burning Man baby! (part 2)

I've been putting off writing this post - the main account of my time at Burning Man this year - simply because it's so difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't been. I could write for days and not say anything that made sense. So here is a list of a few of my personal highlights from this year's burn:

- Documenting my trip through Mini-Meg's photo diary. People were starting to get annoyed with it by the end but the photos turned out really nicely..
- The brilliant acts at the Quixote's cabaret. Particularly Miss Pretty Kitty, Trauma Flintstone and the magician who hammered a nail through his nose.
- The stunning steampunk art car that looked like a mobile gothic house. I couldn't believe the effort that had been put in.
- The Flaming Lotus Girls' extraordinary art pieces - fantastical sculptures formed from metal and fire.
- The Nowhere Omnibus. A scheduled routemaster bus service on playa? My fellow Euroburners are nearly as mad as they are wonderful.
- Jaded burners. We took champagne and folding chairs to the Esplanade on burn night and then sat and heckled.
- The way everyone rallied to support us after we were issued a citation for unwittingly serving alcohol to the minor sent in by the police to sting us. Bastards.
- The snake threat level poster:
Green: Low risk of snakes - maintain vigilance
Amber: Moderate snake risk - increase snake awareness
Red: High risk of snakes - Prepare mongoose
Snaaaaaakes: Fucking snakes!
- Beer tasting at Abstininthe
- Jax shoving, mid-flow, the frat boy who thought it was a good idea to piss on our truck even though we were 30 seconds walk from the loos.
- The night-time parachutists who looked like circling meteors.
- Seeing so many of my friends and making some wonderful new ones.
- Emma trying to get me out of my corset. The two phrases which win the 'things you don't want to hear Emma say in this scenario' award are: "Does anyone have a knife?" and "Monty, can you help me".

On beer, burritos and Burning Man baby! (part 1)

Well, I’m back from Burning Man and, bar the jetlag, have returned to the real world. These few weeks after T.T.I.T.D. (That Thing in the Desert) always serve to highlight the sheer dullness of my everyday life. It’s tough to look out of the window at a newsagent, a laundrette and a series of Volkswagens when just last week the view from my ‘home’ was more likely to incorporate the beautiful tented and statued façade of the Ashram Galactica bar, a huge motorised fish and a constant stream of happy people in myriad exotic costumes or complete nudity. Alarm clocks suck when you’ve been woken by the sound of what you think is a propane burner, and emerged from your tent to see a hot air balloon floating, with its basket at head height, down the street outside.

I had a slightly shaky start to my BM experience this year. Having forgotten to print off my early arrivals pass, I had to wait at Will Call while my travelling companion went into the event, picked up a spare copy and sent someone back with it. Being indescribably naive even on my third burn, I cheerfully settled down to wait, forgetting to prepare myself for the ever changeable weather or the potential length of my wait. With immaculate sense of timing, one of the Playa's notorious dust storms sprang up almost as soon as the truck was out of sight. I was now stranded without goggles or dust mask in a flurry of swirling particles of prehistoric fish shit. Luckily another friend passing through Will Call was able to provide me with a hoody to cover my head and, crucially, a couple of cans of lukewarm beer. Feeling a little more cheerful I huddled by the ticket booth and began my tranformation into human sand dune. My mood lifted further when a friendly, chatty guy sat down to keep me company for a while, but was dashed once again when he asked if I'd like to come with him round the back of the rickety little hut and "get busy". The frostily raised eyebrow which greeted this offer was enough to send him scuttling on his way. I waited for over two hours and have rarely been so pleased to see anyone as I was when a friend finally materialised bearing that precious piece of paper. The gate staff kindly took pity on me and allowed us to bypass the queues; letting us in through the side and sending me off to rejoin my beloved campmates...

On lists, laziness and lingering

This time next week I'll be on my way to Reno. Just one day after that I'm heading on to my favourite place in the world...Black Rock City. This will be my third year at Burning Man, and I'm more excited than I can say. I am also, unfortunately, more unprepared than I can say. I came home from the European regional burn, Nowhere, around a month ago, but due to circumstances beyond my control (ok, ok, due to laziness and lack of organisation) my bags are still sitting, full of dirty clothes and dust, in the dining room. Funnily enough, the stuff I need for a week in the Nevada desert is the same stuff I needed for a week in the Spanish desert. All of this is a particularly convoluted way of saying I have a lot of laundry to do. And laundry is just number one on my to-do list; a list which currently comprises 24 tasks of varying length and complexity. Within this list there are three seperate sub-lists, one with a sub-sub-list of its very own. I am the queen of to-do lists. If only I were so good at to-doing.

One thing I have to do is work out my plans for my first night in the US. My flight arrives in San Francisco on Thursday afternoon, but the friend I'm travelling with doesn't arrive until the next day. This leaves me to decide whether to get a hotel room near the airport or to sleep in the arrivals lounge. I have a fairly tight budget for this trip, and the hotels are pretty expensive, but do I really want to spend 24 hours trying to sleep, eat and use the toilet whilst guarding my belongings? Funnily enough I don't, but the $60 saved would buy me quite a lot of beer. It's a tough call. How do you think airport security would feel about me pitching my tent by customs? I could pull out the roll mat and sleeping bag and set up a comfy little camp, with all my bags and gear stowed safely inside. All I'd need is a supply of snacks and a wide-necked bottle and I could stay put for the whole 24 hours.

On infestation, irritation and insecticide

I've lived with at least one cat since I was three years old. The one I have currently, Bob, is lovely; nearly as pretty as he is affectionate, and not quite as affectionate as he is stupid. Over the last few days however, something has occured which I have never experienced before, and which makes me want to lock poor little Bob in the shed for the rest of his life. Fleas. Just typing the word makes me itch, although that could be the dozens of bites I'm covered in. The worst of it is how dirty they make you feel. I know and you know that cleanliness has nothing to do with the issue, that any pet can pick them up and bring them into any house, but it makes me feel slatternly and unhygienic to have this problem in my home. And I don't know how to fix it. I certainly can't afford to have the place fumigated. Do I just treat the cat, keep hoovering every day and hope that it goes away? Or make myself an all-in-one bodysuit out of bin bags and duct tape in an effort to protect my poor, vulnerable skin from attack? Answers on a postcard please...

On picnics, poppets and perfect weekends

For the last few years my birthdays have fallen a bit flat; often marred by tube strikes or torrential rain so that few people were able to join me to celebrate. This year however, tops my list of all time best birthdays. I had a weekend full of fun. We went to Torture Garden on Friday, then I ended up staying at a friend's flat until late Saturday, chatting and barbeque-ing and generally relaxing. On Sunday another friend and I shared a birthday picnic. The weather was glorious and loads of people turned up. We had music, hula-hoops and plenty of wine, and generally had a fantastic time. It's a long time since I've enjoyed a birthday so much, and it was lovely to start my second quarter of a century in such fine style. I feel it bodes well.

I mentioned briefly before that people always want to talk to me when I'm in fancy dress. Well, this weekend I found an even more certain way of starting conversations with strangers: carry a doll. I have a poppet that I made at the Nowhere festival this year, and on Sunday I took her with me to my birthday picnic. On the way home I couldn't fit her back in my bag so I carried her, and the number of people who stopped me to chat about her or ask if they could hold her was unbelievable. When I explained to one lady why Mini-Meg was so grubby (she was born in the desert and has a slightly dusty quality), a gentlemen sitting opposite me started telling me about his home in Saudi Arabia, and how much he misses the desert. I may have to start taking her out more often as I love any excuse to chat to people. Admittedly, hauling her around does make me look like a bit of a lunatic. At Nowhere one of my friends pointed out that those of us who made them looked like those Victorian woman who lost babies and went mad, so were given dolls to nurse in lieu. I don't see anything strange about it though. Mini-Meg and her little friend Cara Muneca had a wondeful time at the picnic. She told me so when I was tucking her in that night after her bottle...