Dear Universe

I would like to feel properly well, please. Properly well. Not this half way between well and unwell, with a slight advantage to the unwell.

Useless Information - nearly SIX years later

I thought this might amuse my handful of readers. This was a blogpost I made on October 05, 2006. (I'm as surprised as anyone, by the way, that I'm still blogging after six years)

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Useless Information

I was tagged by Marissa to write down 20 random facts about myself, so here they are. I'm going to tag Kristy (so that she'll update) and anybody else who's keen. - Kris doesn't blog anymore and Marissa (AKA The Dude) is waiting for me to finish A Visit from the Goon Squad before she'll blog again. One of us is being held hostage, but it's unclear who...

1) I once almost chopped my left middle finger off with an axe. - Still true. I was about to say I haven't chopped anything off since, but in fact I sliced off the end of my left index finger off in an ill-conceived bread and butter pudding incident in 2009, so there's progress. I guess.
2) I sometimes sing to myself before going to sleep. - Not so much anymore. Singing used to help my insomnia as I vainly tried to fall asleep. Now I don't bother, and just stay up. Although I don't get insomnia nearly as much as I used to. My vastly reduced anxieties prefer to visit me in the daytime nowadays, and don't haunt me at night.
3) I like skipping and hopping down passages. - Still do this, but English houses aren't really big enough for a proper hop or skip.
4) I like to imagine my funeral, and regularly write my eulogies. - I've stopped writing my own and am now writing my friends'.
5) I have flat feet and can go through a pair of shoes in less than six months. - Three months, in the case of Sainsbury's black pumps.
6) I practice what I'm going to say before I speak on the phone, because otherwise I get tongue-tied. A great bonus for a journalist. - I still practise what I'm going to say before picking up the phone, but I'm no longer a journalist.
7)The first dream I remember having was when I was four. I was trapped in a house full of white statues and their arms kept falling off. - This dream still has the power to freak me out, 26 years later.
8) I have a little sniffle everytime I look at a picture or video of my nephew. - Both of them, now.
9) I've always wanted to play the piano. - I'm a little closer to this, as I found out you can use the practice rooms on campus for free if you prebook the space.
10) I like slogan tshirts and want an entire collection. - I've added two to the collection in the last six years. My cajungas are not conducive to slogan wearing, but I love them all the same.
11) I can't do Embrace the tiger, Return to the mountain in taichi without falling over. - I can't do any tai chi, anymore, without falling over.
12) Berg winds make me grumpy and aggro. - I haven't felt a berg wind in nearly five years, but I think they still have the potential to piss me off.
13) I have fake eardrums. - Still true
14) I bruise like a peach. - True, true, true.
15) I enjoy telling really bad jokes because they get a great reaction. - I don't tell as many anymore, because I don't remember them. When did that happen?
16) I really love making an entire room of people laugh. - I still enjoy it when this happens, but I hope - hope - that the desperate edge to my desire to do this has faded. I think the last time was at New Year, when I had dinner with Margaret's interesting family, and I could feel myself saying more and more stupid and awkward things. I collected myself and then it went better by the end of the evening. But thankfully that doesn't happen ALL THE TIME anymore. Aaah, age.
17) I often feel that my entire life is a dream and I will be waking up at any second. - I don't want to wake up from my life anymore; if this is a dream, it's an awesome one.
18) I have a birthmark that stretches around my middle. - Birthmark is still in place.
19) I try not to cry in movies because I'm afraid people will laugh. - Now I just cry...but I do it ironically. Cough.
20) I like going to movies on my own. - Thankfully, still true.

PATTOTE: Better living through information you can now use against me. - Ah, PATTOTE. It's been a while.

Permanency

When I was at Homebase and loathing my job, my friend PA told me that since I was interested in publishing, and looking about for something new, maybe I should check out the OU. The OU? said I. Hmmmm. I started to do a bit of investigating, and it did look pretty good, but no job vacancies to be had. Then, after six months of penance in Retail Hell, the agency called and said that a short-term contract had come up at "a distance learning university". My chance, I thought, it's come!

It's weird that the only two risks I've ever taken in my life have been work related. Risk number one was not taking back my notice at Inside Housing, when the perfect job in Birmingham went under. That was largely motivated by pride, to be honest. I could not face asking for my much loathed job back. And, too my surprise, The Parents backed me up. Maybe they knew how unhappy I had been at work, I don't know. Unemployment didn't exactly last (two days), and then Homebase came up.

My second risk was taking the job at the OU at all. Three months is nothing, really. I had a feeling that if I took the contract and it ended, chances were good that Homebase would take me back. But thankfully, it was extended to six months. And then it was extended to a year. And then for another year. Since my very first day here I've known that I want to stay here. The potential for growth is just so amazing, and the opportunities for doing interesting things just keep coming up. Even when I was in my relatively boring business school role, I knew that I wanted to stick with the OU, and make it work for the long-term.

And now I have it, my lovely permanent job. I feel relief in every fibre of my being. Knowing that I won't need to go out there and find another job, because I've found my niche? That's just priceless.

Postcards

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.
Margaret Atwood