Woe (times are changing)

I’m in a deep, dark, emo funk. It’s bad. It’s a blend of recession blues, personal dissatisfaction and general disgust for humanity.

The recession may see me joining the ranks of the boomerang generation I fought so hard to avoid (oh who am I kidding? I sat pretty and was glad of my lucky escape) and moving back to my parents house. This would only be tolerable if I could keep my job and work online.

I am personally dissatisfied with my person. The blues have been killing the delicate orchid of my motivation and every act is becoming a chore. If left to my own devices, with no watchers or responsibilities, I am certain I would be living in a pile of fetid blankets, reading book after book, eating from a can and refusing to shower so I didn’t have to go outside.

This is actually a pretty good mentality for me to start my novel redrafting. A little drop of self-loathing is good for my creative process; stops me getting too distracted.

General disgust for humanity is not something I like to feel but it’s almost always there. There always seems to be something: like the latest reports on the insanely high level of domestic violence, or overhearing people talk about the criteria they simply must have for their second car. Or their beach holiday (hmm, Mauritius or Dubai?).  And that thing about the Brazilian girl (age 9) who really shouldn’t have had an abortion (of twins) because now God won’t love her.

Anyway…

I went to see Watchmen at the weekend. My favourite part was the opening montage, soundtracked by “the Times, They are a-Changing” where they all started so young and happy and full of pride, optimism and self-belief and gradually got torn apart. Despite having read the comic and knowing all their fates I still had a tear in my eye when I saw Silhouette and her girlfriend murdered. That montage was a high-calorie viewing experience in itself.

Sometimes I look at people and think they’re hurting. It’s not true though; they’re just waiting for someone to talk to.

Fails and Wins

So I have failed to blog for a long time. That’s quite a big fail. Did you miss me blog? I missed you.

I’ve been busy with NaNoWriMo. Ultimately that was a Win, both because I actually won the challenge and because it made me write a whole book-length piece of book that I was kind of afraid to do. I miseried my way through the month, moaning incoherantly at the laptop and refusing to enjoy the beauty of creating life. I also failed at life for the whole of November and let my partner do all the cooking and chores. I owe him. When it looked like I might bail out at the 95% mark he threatened to burn my most treasured possesions – I love him.

I’m a little bit excited about my novel. There is a huge amount of work to be done on it. But it does exist. No novel written by Gwendolyn B Virginia existed before. This pleases me. I am planning to spend six months editing and revising it to make it a little more beautiful. Then I’ll stand back and see what I’ve got.

In the mean time I just survived the second round of redundancies at work. Which is cool for two reasons: a) I’m not out of work right before xmas and b) it means despite being the least experienced I’m one of if not the best on my team (from a dozen it’s now been whittled down to three). It also sucks for two reasons: a) I now have no one to sit next to on the train and b) I have to work reception one day next week. This has been stressful and I am now going to be even more careful with my money. I’m sure that will be a piece of piss during the most expensive month of the year…

Poverty Post

*WO-OOP WO-OOP WO-OOP* the povvo alarm is wooping loud and clear at the moment, and I doubt I’m the only one who can hear it. After a year of extravagent indulgance I find that despite being salaried I am not actually rich. It’s a shock that comes to many in their first real grown-up jobs when the lustre of regular payment wears off to reveal the truth of the matter.

This month I’ve given up my personal luxuries. Recently I’ve been a bit lazy/naughty/indulgent and bought a few lunches – that’s definitely off the menu. I’ve switched from sexy muesli to bran flakes. Co-op has again earned my love for creating their own smoothies which are not only almost half the price of Innocent but also fair trade. I’ve decided to forgo buying new trousers to replace the ones that aggravate my eczema.

Partner and I have also reached a “it’s time to regain control over our eating habits and cook properly” stage again. It happens about once every three months. He made the most beautiful cottage pie. Tonight I’m going to try to recreate it.

Other poverty prevension ideas I’ve had include: hand-making a christmas present for my mum, never leaving my house ever again, writing stories for magazines. Finding it difficult to do the writing part but I think something is forming in my mind.

Rampant consumerism

You know things are bad when Rammstein is lulling you toward a desknap. Time for a caffeinated beverage – and not one of the gross fizzy variety…

My tickets for the upcoming Amanda Palmer gig arrived. This pleases me. I expect other postal prizes too. All is well, apart from my bank balance.

I should write out a thousand lines saying: I must not be a consumer whore.

Do events come under that catagory? Seeing a smallish gig by a punky non-conformist musician/performance artist can’t be that bad for my ethical centre*, can it?

*We’ll not use the word “soul” while in adult company.

Is this real or am I still delusional?

First of all: did autumn happen yesterday? Did I miss it? It’s just sort of here now, all sharp and chill in the air (thank god no more mugginess).

Second: I take a few days off work and what happens? Major changes are in force: there are going to be reshufflings including “finding people different roles” ie giving them jobs they hate so they’ll quit without having to be fired. They also changed the doorcode so I couldn’t get in this morning o.0

In all fairness we have been coasting along with too little to do for too long. I guess I was hoping/expecting they’d just find more work for us, like they kept saying they would, rather than laying people off, which they’ve assured us won’t happen. I’m pretty sure I’m safe, it’s a good thing I’m actually better at working than I am at slacking, it’s just all so serious all of a sudden. And I can’t afford to lose my job.

Times they are up heaving

Changes have been happening. Housefolk Femme has gone, leaving babycat with a hole in her heart. I have moved my things into my partner’s room, so that after two years of squatting it is finally my room too. We took a bus ride to the end of the line and saw the border of Worcestershire. I saw an old friend and finally realised that our differences didn’t mean my inferiority.

It’s been intense. More than the run-of-the-mill bank holiday. And now I’m flat broke.

I do worry about money. Old Friend was telling us her mother likes her boyfriend because in ten years he’s set to be earning half a million. To me that is an inconceivable amount of money. After tax that’s still more than my yearly salary per month. I’ll just have to convince myself that my lifestyle is romantic and that I’m a starving artist. The only way to justify this of course is to apply myself to my art so look out for more extracts in the coming weeks and you’ll know I’m making good on it.

I could just make peace with being poor. In fact I don’t mind my lack of money most of the time, I probably just need to manage what I’ve got more effectively (damn jargon word). But in saying these things I’m letting myself off the hook for not writing. And I must write, otherwise I’m wasting everything I’ve achieved so far and using it simply to coast, and while you can coast at work you shouldn’t coast through life.

A terrible accident

Something awful happened yesterday. I was meeting one of my significants in town he called to ask where he could find me – on the spot I answered Borders. He arrived just ten minutes later but it was already too late and I had picked up a massive stack of books. It is the first time I have used a basket in a bookshop it was that bad. I purchased:

1. The Watchmen graphic novel (that I tried to get last year but is now suddenly available since the movie trailers started showing)
2. The Gothic and Lolita Bible (I had no idea that non-goth lolita was so popular. Also included bonus sewing patterns)
3. Red Seas under Red Skies (the sequel to the Lies of Locke Lamora)
4. An economics book (for the education of my brain)
5. That GMTV Penny Smith book for my mum
6. A gift for my partner to calm him down before his job interview

This is what happens when I decide to not spend money for a bit. And now my book pile is mountainous and will probably fall on me causing me to die horribly of crushing injuries and papercuts. If I should die with books unread I will ensure a clause in my will forces someone to read them all.

Let’s play a game

Last night I had a more pleasant dream; quite literally about fluffy kittens. My cat’s kitten had a kitten of her own, more of a furball than an animal, tabby and adorable. I woke up thinking “aah” and then “weird that cat looks can skip a generation” and then “my cats have been fixed and I’m clearly developing catlady variant CJD” and then when I opened my eyes “omfg there is cat arse on my face”

Yesterday was a sad day. First because I had to go to the bank. Second because I hadn’t realised my standing order for rent had expired and despite fixing it and everything being ok now I don’t like to inconvenience my landlord. Not only because I like to pretend that my finances are in order but also because he’s a genuinely nice guy and not technically a landlord at all, just a person who happens to own a house. Third because of the whole British Gas thing(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7533389.stm) I’ve had to cancel half of my charity subscriptions so that I’ll be able to pay the bill next quarter. Fourth because I got rained on on the way back to the office.

Apparently the efficiency of my office stands at 52 per cent, a statistic our lady and mistress has been ordered not to repeat (I heard it as a dirty rumour and will assume from the glumness in that area of the room that it is true). This is not to say that we are all slackers, we work when we get assignments but we’re only given projects half the time. This probably stems from our content requestors being slow, apathetic or useless. Now though our low productivity is being secretly, gossiply blamed for the summer BBQ being cancelled and the lack of a pay review. Oh well. At least I have a job and time to spam the blogosphere.

I have invented a new game. It’s called Daily Fail Bingo. In each day’s publishings you must look out for the following:

• A photo of a woman in a Bikini
• A photo of a woman in a Bikini with no negative references to her weight/cellulite
• A negative reference to abortion
• An article about RealMenz/how womenz are destroying teh menz
• An article about an aspect of womanhood that puts you in mind of the fifties
• A lament by a femail journalist on how feminism has betrayed her
• A positive view of motherhood and family values
• A pseudo-science article about gender

I imagine you should be able to tick these off every day, the only real challenge being the second one – helpfully covered this week by Helen Mirren.

I suppose this is actually quite a bad idea as I shouldn’t be encouraging their web traffic, I just find is fascinating that there are so many sly attacks on women in virtually every article.

Shallow, moi?

What’s that word, the one you would use to describe the feeling of reassurance you get from seeing others not do too well at things? It’s not shallow, it’s not really cruel as you don’t wish it on the other person nor are you glad that it’s happening to them – just glad it’s not happening to you. If only there was a thesaurus of vagueness I could use to look it up.

At present I am reassured that although I don’t think I’m doing very well with my money I am at least ticking over and standing still, unlike certain people of my acquaintance. It is always unfortunate when a rent cheque bounces but in this case the person will be able to cover it with a little rejigging of accounts. The idea of not having my rent makes me very sad in a nauseous way, and I hope it does not become a concern in the future when budgeting for a higher rent in the new house may be tricky.

What I find highly irritating in terms of financial failures is Housefolk Epsilon’s failure to pay the bills. All the other housefolks gave him the money a month ago, when the bill came, and now we are getting red letters. He said he was waiting until he got paid, but I think he already has been. And now he’s gone home – presumably to beg the money from his mum. Because he spent his on more computers. I kind of hope we get cut off – even though it will cause huge disruptions and loss to all of us – so I can justify my anger towards him for this, for putting us all at risk and impacting all our credit histories and being so drastically irresponsible. I even wonder if he spent our bill money, if maybe that is the reason he needs to beg a buy out.

An Adventuresome Weekend

Is what I have just finished having. I am quite sad it’s over, it was going well for a while there and the discovery of elderflower liqueur was a great one. The other great discovery was that there is a reason for the new series of Gladiators: it makes a fantastic drinking game. The rules were to drink when someone strikes a pose, says something cheesy or fails utterly. It was phenomenal.

I have not seen the Hulk movie that came out a few years back because I was busy inhaling paint thinner but did tag along with the gang to see this new one. I think you would get a similar experience if you went to see a cage fight while listening to a premium rate chat line. The movie is literally all fight/chase/fight scenes interspersed with moments of breathy dialoge from Liv Tyler who sounds like she’s been bricked in the face. As much as she sounded like a retard it also bugged me that soldiers were constantly moving her round calling her ‘miss’ when as daughter of the general they would all have known that her name was DR Ross. Nothing like respect in the army…

After the weekend’s overly full house (in which I was seventh in line for the throne, godsdamnit) we are now down to a more reasonable number, in exchange for a guest we have lost one of the housefolks who has run away to join the army. Whether he’ll come back in one piece or not is unknown – I’m not sure if he is adequately prepared for the rigours of the marines’ fitness test so I hope he doesn’t die. Before he left he played me a recording of a poem called ‘You can’t’ by someone who I think spells her name Salena Duggens. It’s a fantastic poem expressing distain for the widespread apathy infecting the nation. I loved it muchly but I don’t know where it came from and my very basic websearches have yielded nothing.

I am feeling poor at the moment. I must do things to improve my situation – all I’ve managed in the last year is to take about 700 off my overdraft which isn’t very much and it is almost the birthingsday of significant other and in order to make a fitting tribute I may have to dent that again. I hate to have to be concerned with money. The lowest point of my poverty when I was a student without loan money and hadn’t landed a summer job yet (which had to start in april I was that poor) was when I realised I had almost worn through the ass of my trousers and it was really cold (too cold for skirts, of which I had two) but couldn’t afford to buy new trousers, even primark trousers, because I had only just enough money for modest food. It sounds daft, oh no, no trousers for me today, I was hardly homeless or without support if I’d needed it, but the first time you look at your budget and think wow, I do kinda need this but if I got it I can’t have food, it really freaks you out and gives you a little taste of what it’s like to really be poor. Now I know I spend a little too much on what I like, particularly in the supermarket, because I hated the feeling of restriction. I could be creating savings but instead I am eating my money as a reassurance that I can afford that luxury. It’s probably time I got over that feeling, at least to make my use of food more efficient.