Call me Ms Poppins

My bag hates me

No, really, it does. Not only does it hide my keys/wallet/fan/glasses without even a look of mild remorse, it does it with a regularity that defies belief.

Earlier I was looking for a piece of paper. This piece of paper has been in the back of my filofax for, well, weeks. Gone. Sucked up by the evil bag dwellers that somehow conspire to distort the perception of space and time and make it take me for ever to find everything.

So I emptied by bag out (again, I did it this morning) to reorganise. In it I found...

• Fan (I suffer from hot flushes, okay)
• Purse, several bits of paper, none of which were the one I wanted. I'll not go in to details
• 2 loose receipts, one from Tesco for water filters (£6.70) the other for the grocery shop I did in Lidl the other night (£25.02)
• One cellphone, my faithful Galaxy SII
• A banana (ooh, must finish my lunch!)
• Glass case, no glasses as I need them to read, so, err, wearing them
• One paper hanky. Best not ask.
• One Parker Sonnet fountain pen loaded with majestic purple ink
• One Totes brolly, unusually in its holder thingie
• One pair of very elegant gloves
• One Oyster card in a holder from The Parlour in Canary Wharf
• One pocket Kendal filofax (dark brown) with another Parker Sonnet fountain pen, notes, stamps and my passport
• One glass cloth that had escaped the case above and I've been looking for
• One elasticated ladies belt for those days when I need a little more definition. Also handy as an emergency sling if you come across a cyclops you need to down with a single rock
• One tube of hand cream (applies)
• Two reusable bags, one from Tesco, one from Sainsbury
• One pack of unopened paper tissues
• One plastic box that had my soup for lunch, all inside a ziplock bag incase the box leaked
• One small mirror
• One watch I need to get a battery for *sighs*
• Another receipt from Tesco (morning juice, £2.30)
• Earphones on a handy-dandy cable tidy thing
• The keys for Contrary Towers
• 2 lemsip capsules
• One pack of opened paper tissues
• One spare battery for said lovely Samsung
• One lipfinity lipstick and its friend the gloss
• Two post-it page markers
• One bottle of Sally Hanson Hard As Nails nail polish
• A third of a roll of extra strong mints
• A memory stick
• My banking access fobs (personal and business)
• One copy of The Pinball Effect by James Burke
• And finally, the office keys

So, that's hardly anything. I keep my spare tights, nail file, wipes, spoon in my desk drawer, so not even carrying those. And yet, mysteriously...

Things still get lost.

The Northern Line

Maybe it's because I'm a Northerner, but for some reason I've grown quite attached to the Northern Line (Charing Cross branch) recently. The Northbound platform at Embankment is particularly intriguing, but I can't think what it is. It's almost eerily silent with just occasional drifting voices when the train isn't thundering in to the station.

Weird.

It's also started to inspire me, mostly I think because of the juxtaposition of noise and silence.

Whatevs. It's making me write.

Silence
Waiting
Voices sound
Drifting
Wondering
As steel wheels pound
Hair
A flutter
In rushing air
Seeing
Blanks
In eyes that stare

28 Days Later

4 weeks ago I made a decision. A big one. In a small way. I even started to write about it, but as yet haven't published. Maybe I'll finish the writing and make it the long version of this post.

So yes, a decision. And the world changed. Almost immediately. Mostly this is for the better, though there is one annoying fly in my particular brand of ointment that might become an issue. To be fair I expected it, so not the end of the world.

This morning though, another big moment. My words returned. They tried to last week, as I began to write about new beginnings, but they broke as the gossamer thread of a spider is torn by a cement mixer in a hurry. Or something.

It would appear I'm still, rather annoyingly, rhyming naturally. But it was nice to experience the rush of me having a thought about unnatural and stifling silence on the North bound Embankment Northern Line station this morning...

Northern Line

A stifling silence
A thunderous roar
A rushing train
Please mind the doors
A foetid mist
On phones they play
Awaiting that
Another day

It won't win any prizes, but I don't care, I missed my words.

Musing

It's a peculiar sensation. I've been struggling most of the night to understand it, but only now I've realised what the best analogy is. Quite literally like the light inside has been switched off. No emotion. Nothing.

That's different.

Previously when I've put myself back in a box I've been filled with an emotional terror. But not this time. Interesting.

I do have a new frustration though. I'm having issues with data, it keeps vanishing from my phone, I'm presuming it is an issue with the network, at least the local cell. What I do know is that it's been causing huge issues as I've been closing various accounts, drawing a veil.

Just about there though.

Now all I have to do is find a way to switch the light back on, find a new interest, or re-kindle an old one. I really don't know. I do know I need to find something to talk about, something that's nothing about me. I think it's time to create a new facade.

But first I need to do the weekly shop.

The street

Poverty
Mist
A death
On the street
A child skipping gaily
Running
Hopping.
So sweet


The gutters cleansed
Just a man
With his cart
As the milk
Gently warming
At the afternoon start


The doorsteps gleaming
They are every day
From moments dreaming
That poverty
Won't stay

Inspiration: "London Street, 1951" by Robert Frank

Eyes wide shut

I realised earlier tonight, by earlier I mean around 00:35am, that I'm an idiot. An idiot that should just accept that things have died, and that it should be time to move on. If only that were possible. I also realised just how much of an idiot I was for saying some things in the last few days I really shouldn't have said, I should have listened to my my inner voice that said I should keep my mouth shut. Needless to say I won't write here what the things were, or the context.

Which begs the question of why I'm writing this.

It's simple. I want to mark the moment. I want to remember when I decided to just stop. You see I've realised that hope is corrosive when taken in the blinding light of reality. And given what I see with my eyes wide open, it was also false hope. The glowing deceptive heart of a morphing collection of little white lies that give each other away.

I even understand why the lies are made. But would prefer honesty. Honesty might sting, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't corrode. It saves a lot of trouble. It saves disappointment.

I would like to talk about this. But I won't. It would be one final, pointless, humiliation.

The irony is that we ultimately wanted the same thing, with the same rules and boundaries. Unfortunately, there needs to be mutual interest too.

So what happens now? Well, nothing. No drama, no anything. I simply withdraw and every time I'm tempted otherwise I need to look at these words and remind myself that further humiliation really isn't sensible. A friendship is worth far, far more.

I shall simply accept, exist, place my thoughts in a box.

And keep my eyes wide shut.

Glad to be grey

In 1976 Tom Robinson wrote a song for the London Gay Pride march, it was released in 1978 but I didn't hear it until I was 19, in my sophomore year of University and seeing a girl called Jenny. Complex. Actually I'll not go in to how complex my life was then.

The song was witty, catchy, painful, heart rending and told of the struggle of a section of society that were being suppressed on the basis that they were born that way.

26 years later I have the tune in my head again. This time the words have been twisted, distorted and turned to a new purpose. This time it's about being grey.

I'm trying to find work. Me. I've been working pretty much non-stop since I was 14. All through University I worked, and I don't mean in the bar. That was for social stuff. So not working for, what, six weeks now is as alien as alien can be.

I've had interviews. Four actually. Plus done numerous tests. I want to talk about them. I need to talk about them because the frustration is at boiling point, I've already broken down in tears and I actually found myself calling the nearly-ex because I had to talk to some one.

So the first. With megacorp. Initially I had a telephone interview, for an hour, it was very intense. Twenty minutes later I got the call to ask whether I could go and do a face-to-face. Now I was on the last day with my old client, so not a problem, I said I could and 90 minutes after my initial telephone interview I was in castle-megacorp for a two and a half hour interview. Remember this is unprepared. I've not even been able to change, I am tired, emotional, fired up and on the ball. They had interviewed more than 20 people. When I checked it was down to two. I was one of them...

I didn't get the role. The reason given, which I agreed with, was that they felt my HTML5 wasn't as sharp as it could be, and the other persons was better. But their Javascript was worse. It was a Javascript role. Okay, I will partially accept this. Pity.

Next interview. For a permanent role. Interview time, three hours. I did four tests, I talked a lot, it was seriously intense. I met the CEO and COO. They had seen many people. I was the only one left standing. They decided not to appoint. The reasoning was that as I'd spent the last two years doing freelance and contract work I might not stick around, which I had explained whilst we met. It took a few days to get to this point. I was distraught, but could see their point and, actually, recognised that such an appointment was critical and they had to be sure.

I really am fucking stupid.

Next. Now this splits around number four, so bear with me. First I had the telephone interview (one hour) then was called in for a long interview. Nearly four hours. With three different people. Again, an important position. They have been hunting for the right person for some time. I will admit I was seriously tired, one of the side effects of all this is I am beyond stressed and not sleeping. This on top of the usual nonsense swilling round my head like some foetid cesspit of confusion. One thing I was really aware of was, well, the age of the people interviewing me. The lead in the relevant area had been out of university as long as I've been freelancing in London. Hmm. Not an issue for me, I want to create stuff. The third interviewer made me realise that I was in deep trouble, he asked the innocent question...

"Why would anyone with this much experience want to do a job like this?..."

Oh. Marvellous.

I didn't get the role, they felt I "didn't have the right skills for this role". Hold on to that thought, I'll be coming back to it...

Then we have number three (see what I did there?). Now I liked this, it was a consultancy, it was interesting, I would get to talk with people and write clever stuff. They had seen a lot of people and they said I would hear on Monday. I didn't. I hassled. I didn't. I hassled again and the agent said...

It's down to two people.

And I'm one of them. But there is some inexplicable delay in deciding. Oh. Fucking. Great.

I made platitudes. I hung up. And then I contemplated what I've been doing today. I've been doing formal tests. My average score over the three was 94%. On one I reckon the single answer I got wrong was because they didn't take in to account that a CSS3 supporting version of firefox *only* supports a certain feature in specific versions, I had similar issues with the others, and pointed them out. Stroppy cow? Moi? I should be pleased. The average worldwide is 70%. Not 94% then.

Which goes to prove that I don't have the right skills for a frontend javascript/html5/css3 role.

Oh.

Which I've been doing for multiple clients for the last few years. Plus much more.

At this point, dear reader, I burst in to tears.

Yep, such a girl. Even if I've closed Pandora's box for now I can't just turn my mind in to some automaton. Neither can I remove a large part of 31 years of experience.

So. Here's the problem...

Iz it because I iz northern

Or

Iz it because I iz experienced

Or

Iz it because I iz old

All together now...

Sing if you're glad to be grey
Sing if you're happy that way