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"Try one of these", urged the smooth-voiced sales assistant. I obediently popped one into my mouth as I continued to make polite conversation with the corporate hosts at the Harvey Nichols Christmas event (less than ninety days to go). "It's a chocolate-covered ant".
Well, fuck. I'm quite bold in comparison, say, to a person who can't even face down a squid, but even I draw the line somewhere.
Seems I draw the line beyond ants: it had already been munched and gone down. Gulp some wine. Think about something else.
"Welcome to Orange Answerphone. You have *three* new messages".
The number is always a strange computer-voice inserted into the dulcet tones of the girl I imagine is called Margaret. (No, don't ask me why. I have no idea).
The messages all came within five minutes of one another, and were from three unconnected people. Sarah Wilson. Jeremy Wilson. Dave Wilson. What are the chances of that?
Today, rainy, on the Leicester ring-road, filling up at a Shell garage. Kate McCann is at the pump opposite. She looks tired. I smile, she smiles back. A man leaps out of his cab at the HGV pumps, runs up to her. Pushes his mobile phone in her face and takes a photo. Punches the air triumphantly as he goes back to his lorry.
I feel disconnected from the world, a lot of the time.
I wake at 3 or 4am, irrespective of the lengths I might have gone to in an attempt to exhaust myself into a full night's sleep. Long walks up hill and down dale, followed by (quite unbelievably, I know) a run, still can't get me through the night.
But come getting-up time, I struggle to haul myself out. This morning I had arranged myself two things to get up for - if you don't count the school run, which I don't. Push comes to shove, they could go on their own if they had to, these days.
I managed to get up, get washed, get dressed. Yay me.
By 10am both the things I had got up for were postponed to another day. That might be a good reason to get up on Friday, but what's today for, now?
I am spending the rest of the day waiting until it is time to put my head back under the covers and pretend big parts of my life aren't really happening for me. I lie there and think about the parts I like, and try to blank the rest of it.
I did not blog because I had nothing to say. I did not write because I can't be bothered.
Now I have constructed reasons to get up Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That takes me through to a whole new month.
Day by day, isn't it.
Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Stevie Smith.
What I want is so little. So easy.
Go on. Be brave.
Sometimes in the unrelenting slog, life offers you an oasis.
Accept it, take it, seize it: willingly, joyfully. Good friends and simple pleasures are the things that will keep us going.
Dontcha just love the interweb?
MSN in particular poses some really incisive questions. Last month it wondered Is Your Job Making You Fat? Yes, it concluded on balance. Although I suspect lack of exercise and too much wine may also play a contributory part in some way.
Today, in similar vein, it asks Is Your Job Making You Ugly? I like the fact it is based on the core premise that I am ugly, and merely wonders why rather than whether. Thanks for that.
I already know my job makes me ugly in lots of ways, but this article has defined it much more specifically. Working at a screen for long periods can give you Computer Face (frown lines, a wrinkled turkey neck from foreshortened muscles, stressed dry skin). Check.
Working indoors all the time can give you rickets, or at least a vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunshine. However if you sit near the window, the UV can still get you through the glass, and unless you wear sunscreen indoors you will be subject to premature ageing of the skin. Check.
Sitting down for long periods can give you a bad back, and as working at a computer only burns 70-90 calories, apparently (per hour? Per day? Per year?) you can get fat. Check.
I was feeling quite despondent about this. And then I realised that if I gave up my job and devoted myself to writing full time (oh joy!) I would still be subject to all these challenges to my natural radiant beauty.
One good thing about my job is that it enables me to buy luxy skincare and make-up products. I trowelled on stuff from a few pots and I’m already feeling better.
This is good, because I have to do a talk in an hour or so entitled (wait for it) My Brilliant Career. The man upstairs does indeed have a finely-tuned sense of irony.
It'll be a short talk. "My career was brilliant".
