I get up, I work, I sleep.
That’s how my days pan out nowadays. Nothing much in between.
Maybe come the weekend I’ll venture out and explore the world, find a hidden corner of this town that I’ve yet to discover. I’ve yet to try out that bar on Elm Street, heard good things about it. Might be worth a try. Oh, is that an email? Better give it a look…
I get up, I work, I sleep.
Picture a young couple sat on a romantic table for two in the prized window location. Outside, the hum of life acts out its natural course whilst inside the firmly fixed table presents an array of steaming dishes all the colours of the rainbow. But the beautiful pair remain silent. The buzz of life is not as loud as the buzz of technology. Eyes locked on laps the lovers sit in silence, unable to exchange more than a grunt towards each other.
Is this what becomes of love?
Now imagine on the ground below a family. A gathering stood in unity on the very streets which not a week ago cradled their darling as she drifted into a long, deep, sleep. The cracked cement barely clean, the group scroll through comments of condolence and pixelated shouts. The invisible vocals scream for the head of a man they do not know in repayment for a corpse they do not know. Unable to change fate and human emotion, the huddled unit desperately make a plea to the man in the cloud. They beg him to remove their daughter from public memory, but the man says he can’t. What he giveth he cannot taketh away.
Is this what becomes of death?
Take a snapshot of the young woman tottering past the stained tiles in high heels. She joins a group of friends at the town’s third classiest bar on a table laden with overpriced toxic juice. Talk is cheap but photos might equal fame, so they ignore deep conversation in favour of recording every second of this meeting in pictorial form. Every angle in a multitude of colours and effects, it is no wonder that their untouched beverages overflow with melted ice. Who said the world is in a constant state of movement when it can be fixed and recorded in a hundred sepia selfies.
Is this what becomes of life?
Widen the lens and tucked away you find my lone figure in the shadows. The painted ladies momentarily glance in my direction before carrying on as before. Averting my gaze, I shuffle past to an attractive window display at the end of the street, but instead of venturing in I choose to remain external. I photo the object of my desires and walk on before I’m caught in the act. Later I will enable a computer to put another man on the streets from the comfort of my living room sofa. I see you and feel moved to take a secondary snap to share with strangers in Vancouver, Paris and Jerusalem. No model release form needed, I will happily take your pain and use it to claim one second of fame. Anything to get a virtual gratification hit.
Is this what becomes of me?
I was deciding whether to eat rice or pasta this evening (age old dilemma) when I realised that I hadn’t posted anything for a while. So here I am, PJs on, Big Bang Theory on in the background, typing away. Not adventurous, but it was going to be Black Mirror. You’ll be grateful when this post takes a happy tangent as opposed to a dystopian approach where the future is bleak and young people turn into mindless zombies on Instragram. Oh wait…
(FYI, I don’t want this blog to turn into ‘what the office-worker did today at her desk’ or ‘how many cups of tea can Alice drink in a day without overdosing on caffeine’. There are places on the internet that will answer both.)
So, as I recall I left my last post with me getting a job. I’m now 4.5 months through a nine month contract (if not already made obvious, I was hired as maternity cover) and on the whole life is pretty good. There have been ups and downs but name a job that doesn’t have them. All downs and you’re in the wrong job, all ups and something isn’t right (you only need to watch Wolf of Wall Street to know that). Downs include dealing with a new computer system, but ups include my birthday last week. I made cupcakes for the team, and my line manager declared it was ‘wear a hat to work day’ to celebrate my extensive hat collection. Cue team selfie with those in the office…
(Given it was 8:15 in the morning I think we look rather merry. My birthday has that effect on people).
Slight downs, massive ups. Swings and roundabouts. Tea and, urm, cold tea. But without the downs you never fully enjoy the highs. If we wore hats to work and celebrated my birthday everyday life would be rather dull. I’d also be spending a all my time and money baking constantly (don’t give my colleagues ideas).
Don’t assume from that photo that life is all wine and mince pies. Ok, it is bit of that thanks to the food and drink buyer who sits opposite me, but still, life can be tough. While our book buyer has been seconded I’m flicking between handling publishers, new ranges and product reviews alongside tasks set out in my job title dealing with administration, invoices and orders. Depending on how things pan out the two jobs can either create a wonderful Mary Berry-esk trifle, nicely layered, varied, and something you want to want to dive into, or like the one time I attempted to make a fruit loaf. Solid, overcooked and, as a result, can badly bruise one’s foot when dropped (my family dubbed my creation ‘the brick’). Whichever way, both take work and devotion. Some days I get trifle, other days I get brick loaf. So far I’m eating more jelly than carbon so I must be doing something right.
Here seems a good point to stop for now. And as if by magic, I switch over and Master Chef is on my TV (don’t worry, I promise you it won’t stay that way for long). I hope this post has given a little bit more of an insight into what I’m doing in my tangent filled, round about way. My next post will either be about my housemates or linked to the Jack Wills Christmas catalogue (flicking through it is quite an interesting insight into the world of the middle-class hipster.) Now, time to turn off Master Chef and get to work on a true example of a culinary masterpiece, aka…
Nice
(Ps, the holey shoes are now dead, but they still live under my bed. Since the Freeview advert with the singing toys I like to think they belt out classic ballads when I’m at work. Who am I to stop them doing their dayjob? #BonnieBoot
Pps, it’s also because they’re moved to the darkest reaches of the ‘under the bed’ space and I’m too lazy to fish them out, but pretend you didn’t read that…)
My Housemate's a Mermaid 