Surprise!
Just after midnight on Sunday night, my doorbell rang, and I answered it with some trepidation.
Who rings doorbells at that time of night?
My girlfriend, who I was talking to on the phone at the time, and who was pretending to be 40-odd miles away, that's who!
She'd taken Monday and Tuesday off work, and so she'd come down to spend them with me!
I had an amazing time, although I can't tell you a lot of what we did (not because it's not fit for publishing, but because we were just so chilled most of the time). We shopped a little, went to an awesome store called Lush for funky handmade bath products, and just generally poked about town. Then came home, and one thing lead to another until we'd taken my kitchen to pieces, cleaned every surface and thrown out the tons and tons of old, useless and generally out of date things that my kitchen was populated with. When we'd finished my kitchen was unnvervingly clean, and it was also no longer my kitchen, it was ours. This made me happy! Then she cooked us a lovely meal, and we chilled on the futon watching a movie.
Today we were up even later, had a yummy breakfast, and just spent a leisurely day enjoying each others company. This evening she cooked us another wonderful meal, we chilled and watched a movie and then she sadly had to leave!
It probably doesn't sound all that exciting, but that's because I don't think I can adequately describe how perfectly happy and serene I feel, I can't tell you how much I love her smile, or the mischievous sparkle in her eyes, how much her insanely long legs can turn me on, or how much I love to have her snuggled up against me. There's a thousand things I can't describe, and they're all amazing.
I am, I think it's almost needless to say, in love.
She's not goin' to be able to come down this Friday, cos she's promised to take her Mum out on the Saturday, so instead I'm going to drive down to hers and pick her up after she finishes work on Saturday night. Only four days to go! *grin*
In other almost as good news, I got a marketing call today from my bank and for some unknown reason, I didn't tell the guy to leave me alone... and he offered me money. Lots of money. Not for no reason, of course, but as a pre-aprroved loan, and also as an extension to my overdraft. These are Good Things, and I think I'm going to have to look into them. I know I'm looking for work and all, but in a lot of ways my success in that endeavour is not directly influenced by my effort, so its best to have a contingency plan, isn't it?
Hibernation
Man its been cold today. There was a pathetically thin covering of snow over everything this morning when I finally dragged myself out of my lovely comfortable bed, and then I... y'know I don't really know what I did. Just kinda messed about - I know I transferred some more mp3s onto my phone, and that took a while cos I was changing bit rates and id tags, and then building playlists... so it's not like drag'n'drop simple, at least not quite. It would be if I had all the files in the right formats to start with... I'd had these plans of what I was gonna do (I was gonna do some career research, shocking I know), but then Jules called up and wanted to have a chat about our respective weekends (she also did the meet the parents thing, and it freaked her right out!), so I went over and we chatted for pretty much the whole afternoon, then Connor came home and bugged me to stay and play, even though me and Jules had already agreed I'd be out of the house by the time he got back to avoid him giving her grief, then I came back here and watched the Simpsons... and now its now. I don't really seem to have a good handle on Sundays, do I?
Yeah, guess that's about it for me. Its nice to have a day where you just chill out every now and again I guess, I just think I'd prefer voluntary chilling, rather than just loosing my handle on the day...
Pimpin' All Over The World
Been a couple of days I realise, but I've been busy!
Okay, Thursday I went to visit my girl and keep her company before she had an exam. That was a really cool day, although it surely was odd. We met up at a roadside services area, where we basically took over a table with some comfortable chairs, and she sat and tried to finish her course work, then we got into her car and dashed off to the exam, then after that to a pub for a drink with a couple of her classmates, then... yeah, I think then it was a little shopping (cat food!) and then back to her parents house to drop off the cat food, and I got to meet her cat (Archie, who seemed pretty nervous around me), her sister, and both her parents! Then bowling, cos she had some inter-office bowling thing that was committed to, and then FINALLY (about 1 in the morning!) we had some time to ourselves! Then at 8am she was off to work again and I came back home...
Then we did our usual Friday night, except we tried a new pub this time (The Bold Dragoon), which is pretty much my local and a pub I'd always rated, although a certain other person had started to convince me that it really wasn't that nice. But she was wrong, cos me and my girl had a great time in there, its just a decent place, nice atmosphere, no trouble, they serve good food, the guys all looked at her but they didn't touch, it was all good! And they have an extended license, so they didn't kick us out till well after midnight, when we staggered home after she'd got me drunk on champagne!
Today we went into town, and kinda pottered about shopping, until we went into BIAS, which is just an awesome store for unique items from small designers. There was this black dress in there, which cost £485, which looked so good on her you'd almost believe it was made for her. But then there was a kinda bustier/top thing which I'm fairly certain WAS made for her it fit so perfectly... and it was completely unique, a total one off. Its just this gorgeous material that shimmers and... well I can't really explain what it looks like, its just perfect for her. And it was a lot cheaper than the dress. And you know what? She bought it! Which I was actually slightly ashamed of, because if I was any kind of boyfriend, I'd have bought it for her! I really wanted to as well, but foolish as I usually am, even I could see that if I buy the top then I can't pay my rent this month and nobody is gonna be sympathetic! But I'm really glad she's got the top, I mean it looks good on her and she looks great in it! They love each other!
Now I'm sitting about, watching movies, drinking cherry vodka like it's going out of fashion and just generally chilling. The start of another long week, the bit that gets in the way off the fun weekend parts!
Oh yeah, and that title? I'm listenin' to Luda!
Parkinson's Law, or Scientific Proof I'm Not Lazy
The trouble with being unemployed is that, for all of your best intentions, doing ANYTHING seems to take forever, and effect otherwise known as Parkinson's Law. So its not that I'm lazy per se, its just a weird side-effect of human psychology that work expands to fill the time available to do it. Its nice to have an academic tell me I'm not being lazy, cos I sure feel that way... It's not even deliberate, I start each day with fine intentions but somehow before I even get out of bed (normally an hour or so later than I'd planned) its all gone awry... instead of a quick cup of tea I'll take my time, drink it slowly, surf the net a little, read my net comics. Then I'll probably have a quick half hour of gaming, then I'll stick News24 on and see what's goin on in the world... and before you know it, it's lunch time! I need more willpower, or fewer distractions, or maybe both.
I was listening to mp3s on my phone when I wandered to the shops this afternoon, that was fun! And they were ALL soppy ones too, including a certain special song... I will say this though, having finally got a portable mp3 player, I wonder why I thought I needed one when it takes all of six minutes to walk to Tesco from here...
Big Fucking Gun
So, I just watched the Doom movie, and I have to say it didn't suck. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I rather enjoyed it. Sure its a kinda low rent Aliens, but there's violence and gore and monsters and it stays suprisingly faithful to the source material (so, the monsters look right, as do the weapons and locations, there really isn't a lot else to Doom is there?) and it has The Rock in it, which is almost always a good thing - and he's starting to get pretty good at this whole 'acting' thing.
Earlier on today I was kinda scouring the local paper lookin' for jobs I could apply to, and I didn't feel my usual over-whelming feeling of uselessness. It was nice, in fact I'd go so far as to say it was inspiring! Wonder what could possibly have suddenly given me a sense of self-worth eh? Actually I'm not sure it IS a sense of self-worth, more that I should be worthy of her, but it seems to work out the same in practice, so I guess it's okay. She'd tell me I was already worthy of her, but in this case, she'd be very sweet, but incorrect.
This evening I have also been beset by the most terrible case of the munchies. I suspect this is because there is no actual human food in my house, so I've spent the day vaguely subsisting on bits of junk and bags of crisps, neither of which are very satisfying. Clearly anybody with any sense would've been out already and bought real human food, and whilst I may have some sense, I clearly just could not be bothered. And it's really cold outside!
Can Your Phone Stop Boring Conversations?
Ah my new phone came this morning. For anyone of a geeky nature, it's a Sony-Ericsson K750i. Go look that up and see how frighteningly cool it is, then come back.
Now, normally I'm not the sort of person who is going to be impressed by a mobile phone, in fact any of you that know me will be well aware that up until about four months ago, whilst I HAD a mobile phone, I never did anything crazy with it, like turn it on. However things have changed of late, there have been people I wanted to keep in almost constant touch with (you know who you are, and I know you read this!) so I thought that maybe it was about time that I got with the programme and abandoned my stone-age phone technology. Now, admittedly I've only had the thing for a couple of hours, but so far it is impressing the arse off me. Its a phone, obviously, super small and pretty and well designed, with nicely thought out and logical menus. Its a 2 megapixel digital camera too, which is pretty fucking amazing image quality for a phone, much better than you're used to seeing from a camera-phone. It can also act as a digital video camera, an mp3 player (and a pretty cool one too, I've been experimenting with that a little, although there's not too much music you can cram into the stock 64mb duo pro card, but luckily I've ordered a 1gig card for all my mobile music needs...), it has WAP access and pretty much every kind of connectivity you can imagine... and in typical Sony fashion, its all crammed into a piece of kit that you can fit in the palm of your hand. In short, its a sweet piece of kit, and reminds me of my PSP a lot, in so much as it can do exactly what it was built for, and then about a bazillion other things besides!
Now of course, I've wasted pretty much the whole morning (and a little tiny bit of the afternoon) messing about with a mobile phone, and I haven't done a single solitary useful thing at all. So I'd probably better get a move on eh?
Living For The Weekend
The weekends sure fly by eh? And realistically, Friday night and Saturday till about mid-afternoon are the best bits, once she's gone things get a bit... dull. But we had a wonderful time when she was here, so it makes the whole "week" business worthwhile. And we're gonna be seeing each other Thursday AND Friday this week! Woohoo!!!!!!
Saturday after she'd gone I tidied up and put the house straight again, then had a mini horror marathon (really mini, there were only two movies in it - Interview with the Vampire which I hadn't seen in years and really enjoyed, and Jacob's Ladder which is still totally obvious if you know what Jacob's Ladder is, but its still spooky and effective!), and then to bed to sleep. All alone in my big empty bed. Sunday was just a really nice chilled day, loafing about, listening to music and playing videogames. And spending pretty much the whole day chatting with her either via text, yahoo or the phone. *grins*
Today its cold, and apparently gonna get colder as the week progresses, which doesn't seem very fair. At this rate, I'm gonna have to wear more than jeans and t-shirt around the house (I have a cool new hoodie, at least I think it's cool)! Admittedly my house is a bit like living in a refrigerator, in fact when its REALLY cold, my fridge is actually WARMER than the surrounding kitchen, but then I rarely put the heating on (sorry baby, I'll try to warm it up before you get here Friday)!
And so the week begins. I wonder if I'll get anything useful done with it?
New Things!
Last night I finally surrendered and ordered myself a new phone. I'm spending a fortune on credit at the moment, so switching to contract seems like a (potentially) smart move. Also, I get a funky new phone which I'm not going to go on and on about. It looks REALLY cool though! And can do picture messaging! And play mp3s! And stuff!
And then today I started the process of getting some new glasses (finally!). First opticians I went in just bugged the hell out of me. Three staff members huddled round the reception desk, who all ignored me when I went in and carried on with their conversation. I poked about a bit, checking out what sorta frames they had, picking 'em up and trying a few on, making totally obvious buying signals and STILL nothing. Went up to the desk to ask about an appointment for an eye test (god only knows why I was still persisting at this point, its not like they were busy, I was the only person in a store smaller than my front room), and was ignored while they continued their conversation, so I just walked out. Went into town, made an appointment somewhere else, job's a good 'un.
Just a few hours to go now. Luckily I've saved up a few things to do (washing up, having a bath) to fill the time so I don't just sit here staring at the clock...
Can't Get No Sleep
Tired.
That's about the best way to sum up my feelings so far today.
Come to think of it, tired isn't even a feeling is it?
All I know is that waking up this morning has been a real effort, and I'd even fall asleep in between text messages from my special someone. Luckily I was in bed at the time, so that wasn't a major problem, in fact I'd go so far as to say that being in bed was a contributing factor to my sleepiness.
Look! I'm falling asleep typing this! I must be getting old...
Okay, so I still can't get through to the Inland Revenue, although it has to be said that I've not been especially persitent today, I've tried a few times and been left in the queue... They're still not getting any money until I've seen their calculation for myself. I've kinda pottered about in town and up the centre, collecting a few bits and pieces.
The trouble with today is that I just want it to be over, so it can be Friday, because that is a Good Day! Look how many hours of stupid pointless Thursday there are left...
Over Tired, Under Paid
I stayed up waaaaaaaaay too late last night chatting with a certain someone. The thing about staying up late is this: there comes a point at which you've stayed up so ridiculously stupidly late that it suddenly seems pointless to go to sleep, cos the three or four hours sleep you're gonna get aren't going to be enough anyway, so you just keep talking and talking until you realise that actually you're wrong and three hours sleep suddenly seems like a bloody good idea!
I got disturbing post this morning: the Inland Revenue wants me to repay them £1200 that they claim I owe them for overpaid tax credits. Naturally I've already called the Revenue and told them that I dispute their calculations, and they told me to call another line which was accuratley described as "very busy", cos I've not actually been able to get through to anybody on it yet. Reading around on the whole "tax credit overpayment" fiasco, I notice that the Revenue are actually playing this whole thing very close to their chests and not really explaining how they fucked it up so badly, or how often they are letting things slide... The whole thing is of course ridiculous: the whole point of tax credits was to help those on incomes below what the government considers the poverty level to survive, so to be turning round and then asking these same people (like me!) to suddenly pay back a grand or more is insane. Still, we live in a crazy world. I think I have a strong case for not giving them a penny though, and I intend to FIGHT THE POWER!
Life of Leisure
Hmm, today has been a day of quite spectacular dissipation, which is both good and bad. Mainly though, I've just been tired, 'cos for some reason I'm really not sleeping at the weekends. Can't imagine what
that's about.
The downside of all this dissipation of course, is that I haven't done anything even remotely useful today, so I guess I'll have to do something like that in a bit. Probably.
I am however loosing my mind, cos when I went out this morning, I left both my kitchen AND bedroom windows open. Luckily I live in a decent part of town, I reckon almost anywhere else in Northampton the house woulda been cleared out within the hour.
God my brain is stupidly empty today, look:
.
..
...
See? Not a bloody thing in there!
Singin' In The Rain
New song! My Sharona, by The Knack. That works scarily well. Go on, listen to it now. Okay, you see where I'm going with that? good. God I love my life having a soundtrack. I don't know if I've waxed lyrical on this before, but I think that, on balance, life would be awesome if it were a musical. The whole thing too, costumes, singing, everybody breaking into co-ordinated and lavish dance routines whenever I'm feeling particularly happy or sad... so mainly happy. And yes, I get to be the central character for a bit, it's not much to ask to have my own storyline is it? I've been a supporting character in way too many of other people's dramas of late.
*listens to the Mint Royale remix of Singin' In The Rain*
Yep.
Ermmm, so my mind is kind of a blank right now, which is unusual for me.
Okay, what've I done today:
I went out shopping, it rained, I got very wet, it didn't annoy me, although I wasn't too happy about my new boots getting muddy. But then all the rain kinda washed them clean, so it's all swings and roundabouts, isn't it?
What'm I gonna do with the remains of the day (hey, that'd be a great title for a movie... something with a giant ape going crazy in New York City, something like that - has anybody even seen King Kong? I mean obviously bajillions of people all over the world have, it has been moderately popular to say the least, I just don't KNOW anybody who's seen it, although that could be simply because I don't KNOW anybody!):
Have nice relaxing bath, watch a movie (I'm thinking Wolf Creek for tonight, I watched The Island over the weekend and I still like it! I think it was a damn shame it didn't find the audience it deserved and yes I realise I'm defending Michael Bay again, but whaddaya gonna do about it eh? Thought so.), stop writing so many eliptical sentences that rely heavily on the miracle of parenthesis!
That will be all.
There She Goes
Oh boy things are so far beyond looking up that it's ridiculous. Oh yeah, and to the person this is about, I know you read this, so just... look away now. Right now she's just gone after we spent an amazing day together, and I couldn't be happier (well apart from her staying, obviously), and I know for damn certain that I never HAVE been happier. I know its early days yet, and I'd hate to curse things with high expectations, but this is what I always thought a relationship
should be like, having fun, being open, being involved with someone that you like, someone who you actually ENJOY on as many levels as there are, and feeling the same thing in return. I'm not sure that makes a tremendous amount of sense, but if you know how my last relationship went, and how limited and generally fucked up it left me feeling, then you'll kinda see where I'm going. The freakiest thing (at least at this specific moment) is that I've spent years collecting bleak and depressing music and I don't actually have a clue what to play right at this very MINUTE. Which is strange, I'm sure you'll agree.
Hmm, what else?
Ha! Is anything else important? I think not! Okay, here're a few things:
I got a new watch that I really like
And some new boots that look disturbingly awesome
I ate half a prawn, and it was pretty yummy
We went into a bar I've always wanted to go into (NB's on Bridge Street fact fans!) and to be honest it's even more awesome from the inside than I expected it to be from the outside. I mean, you get an idea of the kinda place it is just looking in the windows (as I so often have as I wander past) but once you're in there you notice the gargoyles, the thick velvet drapes and then once you explore a little you find the grotto with the fishtanks and you realise you could be in the coolest place in Northampton. That was happy.
As a follow up to yesterdays gushing PSP rant, I should add that today I received my free Spiderman 2 UMD (y'know, the one you get for registering your PSP). To be honest I wasn't expecting it, I'd kinda got the impression from forum surfing that Sony weren't doing that anymore, but it's nice to be surprised isn't it?
Music choice seems to be Somewhere Else by Razorlight, that works pretty well I think, ooooooooo and I just thought There She Goes by The La's. Not only a great pop song, but suddenly with added topicality! Can't ask for more than that, can you?
Things Are Looking Up!
Well, since my Independance Day things have taken a turn for the interesting. Some people are off the Christmas card list altogether, and things are getting very interesting with another person (and you know I don't talk about that sort of thing here, so don't ask). It's all very exciting and I'm experiencing a peculiar, light-headed sensation, which I believe is called 'happiness'. Also, my face does this weird thing that's like frowning, but its the opposite, and that's apparently called 'smiling' and it makes Jules VERY cross. It's fun, you should try it around your friends and family, see how they react! I've also started to feel actually positive about my life, and to do some things to get it moving, its really rather good. AND my house has been cleaned in ways I don't think it's ever seen before!
Hmmm, ooooooooo I know what I haven't talked about: my PSP. I don't even know if I mentioned this, but I (possibly unwisely) purchased one before Christmas as a nice treat for me (which was good, because nobody else got me a present) and I am, quite frankly, in love with it. I love my GBA as well, don't get me wrong, and as a gaming platform the GBA is amazing, home to so truly enjoyable games. The PSP however is a quantum leap ahead. Okay, right now its game selection isn't really that great (although there are some awesome games there, Ridge Racer & Lumines I'm looking at you) its all the OTHER stuff that makes it such a geeks gadget. Movies (on UMD or off the memory card), mp3 player, digital photo storage... and then there's the online things (which I haven't even had a chance to try out yet, although I'm gonna be getting hold of a wifi hotspot thingummy for it soon I think) - the PSP is a marvel. For some reason I sit here of an evening, TV on half-watching whatever junk is on and playing games, never once thinking to play on a PROPER console or my PC... I don't know if the PSP is REALLY all that good, I've certainly heard a lot of people (although frankly they have all been people who don't have one) slag it off, but once you get one I defy you to believe you can live without it! You realise that once I get it online I'll be doing blog entries from the PSP, sitting in my comfy chair, even though I could and by rights should be over here, typing faster... Still that day has yet to come. However, I do hear the siren call of that marvellous wide screen and Burnout Legends!
They Can Take Our Lives But They Can Never Take Our Freedom!
Today is my third Independance Day, or for those of you slow on the uptake, the third anniversary of my ex-wife and I splitting up. It is a good day, and worthy of celebration, although there are also moments for somber reflection and thought. Truth to tell however I haven't done all that much: Jules was busy dealing with somebody else's crisis, so me and Erin went out for lunch and a bit of a chat. It was fun, we toasted to fucked up relationships, picked fault with ourselves and bitched about people in general. It was a good time.
Now I'm home, I've just ordered pizza (a silly and expensive indulgence, but so what) and I'm gonna eat that (when it arrives) and watch TV, and then a bit (okay a LOT) later there is a hockey game on TV (Yay! Don't know quite why it took half the season to work out some sort of contract, but it's finally done so I no longer have vendetta against the NHL, which I'm sure will please them greatly).
Ahhhhh this morning was my first signing on day of the new year. Joy, I hear you say, and frankly I have to agree. However, it really shouldn't have been a big deal: after all who exactly has been advertising jobs over the holiday period? Nobody, that's who. Unfortunately (for me) the husband of the advisor I got (for we take potluck on such things these days, rather than having continuity of care) had been made redundant on Christmas Eve (I know, I didn't think those things happened outside of Charles Dickens novels either) and she was, shall we say, understandably bitter. And oh boy did she go on about it, and on and on and on and on and what a terrible place Northampton is for employment and its circling round the drain and you can't trust anyone, certainly not employers, there's no trust anymore you give your life to them working everyhourthatgodsendsandwhatthanksdoyougeteh? She really wasn't all that helpful, y'know? It's possible that I have a kind face, that I look like I care, but trust me, looks can be deceptive...
Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!
Well, that's got the holiday season over with, and can I be the first to say "good riddance to bad rubbish". Don't think I'm being a misery guts about it either, I can and do enjoy Christmas and New Year as much as the next man, but things this year have been pretty bad around here. Again I'm not gonna go into the how, what,when, where or why, just take my word for it, okay?
Anyhow, all that said, welcome to 2006. What do you think of it so far? Yeah, me too... they just don't seem to put the effort into New Years like they used to do they? I mean this is just sequel making at its most cynical and lazy, the only thing they've changed is the number on the box.
Okay, I am however gonna make something of a concerted effort to keep up to date with my blogging again, not that it actually makes a blind bit of difference to anybody in the world except me, cos nobody else reads it. To this I say "Oh" in a rather glum way, and then hastily remind myself that I write primarily to please myself anyway... yeah, you keep on believing that baby, you keep right on believing that.
So, I was updating my calendar as I do, transfering all the important dates from the old one to the new, and I came across this one weird notation. ALI. It's been written in small letters in the corner of some dates, just occuring a couple of times throughout the year and I have no idea what it means... I don't even KNOW anybody called Alison, or Ali or anything even a bit like that. Weird, huh? I realise I could probably quite easily find out what this bizarre notation means (just by looking up one of the relevant dates in my blog) but I'm fairly certain that it'd be something disappointingly dull, so I'm content to leave it a mystery.
Three years ago today I was in the midst of what seemed an interminable discussion with my wife of the time, little realising that in just twenty four short hours, the discussion, along with my marriage, would finally be over. Which is a roundabout way of saying that tomorrow is my Third Independance Day!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!
Okay, that'll do for now, there's still a ton of things that need to be tidied up around here and they ain't getting done with me sitting on my arse like this, although I doubt they're gonna be getting done any other way either...
