A quiet day

Yesterday evening I picked my daughter A up from her mother's and we drove upto my home town in Yorkshire. We got there pretty late, so I had time once I arrived to have a cup of tea and hit the sack.

I was woken up in the nicest possible way by A sneakily climbing into my bed and cuddling up to me until I couldn't breathe. Ahhh, kids, you've gotta love 'em.

We got up (I used my anti SAD box for the first time) and then we headed off to the Lancashire coast to look at my parent's new place. They are in the process of buying a house to retire to on the coast. The place they are buying has the nicest sea view ever, and the town they are buying the place in is really quite horrid, but they live up the coast well away from the nasty end of town, so it is not too bad. I'm looking forward to visiting in the summer, when I am a skate demon and I can skate up and down the promenade, looking really tasty for the chicks. Ha ha.

I bought a couple of presents for people while I was there, you know how it is, you have to get people stuff when you got to the sea side right?

One thing I did notice during the day, was that I was very quiet, normally when I am in company, I am not necessarily the life and soul of the party, but I'm usually chatty and communicative. Today I was much more introspected, I thought about a lot of things, but mostly I just enjoyed walking up the sea front.

My father thought I was having another depressive episode, and I had to assure him that I was fine several times. It was nice of him to notice though.

Anyway, we then headed back to our base in Yorkshire.

A quick tea (yes that's what we call dinner up in Yorkshire) and I headed off down the pub to see some friends I haven't seen in a while.

D and E got married just at the time I was separating from S, so I felt it best to keep my distance from them, I guessed that they wouldn't like a bitter separee around while they were in their honeymoon period.

As I was making my way to the pub, I saw them walking in the same direction, so I jumped out of the car (well I asked my dad to stop first, then I jumped out) and intercepted them a couple of hundred yards short of the pub. The strange thing is that E is quite one of the most physical people I know, and the first thing she did was loop her arm through mine as we continued the walk. Strange that I should note such a moment, but what little human contact I get is so fleeting and rare, that I take great pleasure in such close contact and as such it become memorable.

Anyway, I got to see them for a few hours this evening, and it was all cool, we spoke about previous times and the future, and swapped shit stories, it was good to see them, I should make more of an effort.

After I had spent a couple of hours with D & E, I headed on to another pub to be with my dad for a few. This is man time, it is usually me, dad and his mate K, but K has recently acquired a lady friend, so he was not in attendance. Good luck to him, not bad for a guy in his late fifties, a man who I might add was quite convinced he had missed his chance a couple of years ago.

Dad and I talked about the nature of obsession, my previous post had really got me thinking about me and my psychological foibles. I also got onto the subject of neediness, and although I know I am needy, I'm starting to feel that this is no bad thing, most of us as humans are needy, but a lot of us put a face on, to give us some aloofness, to pretend we don't need. And it usually when the face slips and we show our true selves that relationships fail.

Yay, I'm going to be a totally needy fuck to all the future women in my life, if they can take it from day one, they will have no excuse to sack me at a a later date. Yeah right!

Rolled in home late from the pub and here I sit typing this. It had been an odd day for me, and I think I need to think about it some more before I understand what I am coming to terms with, but on the whole I feel better for having lived today.

Right in a minute I'm going to hit the sack.

But on careful thought, I'm going to wait until tomorrow before I publish this. A new rule has entered my head, never hit the publish button when you are drunk, it can only spell disaster.

What to do while I'm not working

It may come to pass that I don't have any work to do for a couple of weeks while I'm between contracts... I'm wondering what to take my time up with.

Obviously, I should take up my golf lessons again and make a bit of an effort, frankly I haven't picked up my clubs since I got back of my holidays five or six weeks ago. (Remember the post on being a serial obsessive? Golf was an obsession for a while.)

But as an aside, V suggested that we should go ice skating and that got me thinking about skating in general... I'm considering getting some inline skates and learning to skate while I'm not working.

This is the tragedy of contract work, you earn money and end up with weeks spare. You can either go insane sat at home applying for every job (been there done that, too stressful, not doing it again), or you invent hobbies to take up your time with.

Skating could turn out be a quite cool, I may even get to use them for the daily commute into work! Maybe I could alternate between cycling and skating, if I ever get off my fat arse and start cycling in too that is!

Anyway about a hundred British shekels for the skates and another fifty for the safety gear and a spare week or two, and I could be a total skate demon!

The other scary thought is to take up parachuting. I'm trying to avoid that thought for the moment.

I think I may be trying to avoid growing up here. Heh.

Looking forward to a good weekend

I had a great evening last night, went to the pub with P & D for the usual Thursday night drink. Good conversation and the usual banter was had.

It must have been a good night, as I remember getting home, being disappointed to find that V was not online, then waking up on my sofa at 4:30AM! V had said hello while I was sleeping, so I was a bit cheesed that I had managed to miss her. Yeah, then I went to bed.

C'est la vie... I'm living in the "now" dammit, no getting cheesed for me! :)

So two days without speaking to V, I think this must be a bit of a record for me. I'm surprised I have not started to shake with withdrawal symptoms. Ho ho.

Today had been pretty much taken up with recovery, there has been a mighty amount of liquid consumption and more analgesics than you can throw a shitty stick at. (Though obviously not enough to overdose, that would be foolish!)

Its now gone 1PM and I am feeling kinda human again, starting to look forward to the weekend.

I'm picking up my daughter this evening and driving up to Yorkshire to spend the weekend with my parents. Apart from the driving, it should turn out to be a good.

Next week will be my last week at this job. Things on the now job front are shaping up nicely. I have my CV in for consideration at three tier one investment banks and, two more at tier two banks and one at an asset management house. So, given that the CV is out there at six places, I'm reasonably confident that three or so will come back with interview slot, and since I am the lord and high master of interview technique, I expect at least two to come back with a job offer.

It certainly looks like losing this job is the best thing in the world for me, this job was frankly doing my head in, and by taking another job, while the job market is on such an upper, I will probably be charging in the region of £75-125/day more. More spending money. Happy days.

Onward towards a good weekend.

A good evening, but a middling day...

The film (sorry, documentary) yesterday was very good. In fact it turned out to be three and a bit separate films.

Capital Ill,
Suits and Savages, and
The Yes Men.

Capital Ill was proof that I am moving towards middle age, it depicted the people involved in the anti-capitalism marches of the last few years. It was somewhat ironic that they espoused peaceful protest and yet turned up in gasmasks and wearing swimming goggles, then as far as I could see, spent an awful lot of time goading the police.

By the end of that film (sorry, documentary), I quite wanted to join in with the police myself, and that's me, who happens to think along the same lines, that the WTO, IMF and World Bank are institutional evil!

Suits and Savages, the second film (sorry, documentary), was about a programme in India ostensibly to protect the Bengal Tiger, that had gone a little nasty.

I came away from that one feeling that the people doing the science and making the equations where earnest. The people using those equations to hand over the cash where earnest. Even the people on the ground who had been displaced form their forest were earnest.

Unfortunately, in between these layers of earnest and committed people, there was a layer of Indian bureaucracy, that had taken the opportunity to tell the people of the forrest to move on (with some subsidy) and in some cases forcefully moved those people on, even though the guys providing the cash said the move was strictly optional.

Once they had moved the indigenous people on, what did they do? Er well they kitted out the Police with 4x4s and guns, then called them "Rangers" and they put some nice new roads in. Then it all kind of fell to pieces when they STARTED LOGGING!

The numbers of Bengal Tigers, not entirely unsurprisingly continue to dwindle.

From a non-content point of view, my real problem with this film (s, d) was that it could have done with some more editing, it seemed to drag and was a bit haphazard. But what the hell, it was way more accomlished than I'll ever manage in a career of film making.

The second-and-a-half film (etc.) was a five years later follow up to the Suits and Savages, left me somewhat depressed at the abject lack of correction that had occurred, given that a report had been made by the guys supplying the cash, indicating that A LOT was wrong.

The final documentary (woo hoo, got it right that time!) was The Yes Men, this was the film I went to see. Imagine a bunch of hippies, who ditch the sandals and beards, dress up in suits and turn up to meetings they have been wrongly invited to (their web site was easily mistaken for the WTO's site), who then turn up and talk about the benefits of slavery and child labour in developing nations. Yes as I'm sure you can imagine it was a hoot!

Well worth going to see, I can highly recommend it.

After the cinema, we all (myself, P and D) headed off to the pub and had a couple of jars of booze. Then the most amazing thing happened, a bunch of roaming masseuses turned up (Urban Chill) and I had a head, neck and shoulder massage, where I got to decide how much I forked over. As I explained to the lovely lady that did my massage (Justine), she can obviously see a man with a big bank balance, no impulse control and a serious guilt control problem. I managed to reign in the guilt a little and only handed over £20.

Anyway after a couple of pints of muscle relaxant combined with a proper physical relaxing massage, I feel physically great today still. Happy happy joy joy.

Didn't get to speak to V all of yesterday, not even a text, given the amount of contact of recent, I felt like a piece of my life was missing just before I went to bed, and couldn't work out what it was until I reviewed the day. Hopefully, I shall speak to her tonight when I roll in from the pub after my usual Thursday night drinkies, pissed as usual.

As for today, er... well work has been nothing special so far, it sucks but I just don't care, I'm still taking a page out of the book and living in the now.

Right I'm off to lunch now...

In the now

Today is a great day. I'm totally fixed in the now, the inner critique monologue is not even getting a look in at the moment.

My anti-SAD light has arrived, and I have calculated my regime for use. I'm hoping that I'm going to have a realllly good winter with the aid of this little device. Fingers crossed.

Going to see a film (sorry, documentary) this evening with P and D. As far as I can tell this is the only place it is playing in the UK! And it is only for this one showing tonight. At the moment the chaps who made it are trying to get a distribution deal in the US, hopefully with the success of the Michael Moore stuff, these guys should get a sniff of the "Documentary as an evening's entertainment" action.

No further news so far today on the subject of employment.

Optimism and joy seem to be the watchwords of the day.

Feeling affirmation of my new lighter mood

Finally got of my arse and started looking for a job. I've been browsing for the last couple of days, but the lack of enthusiasm has bled into other parts of my life too, so it had not been very proactive browsing. More the sort of thing you might describe as the "I'm looking for something ideal to fall in my lap" kind of browsing.

Anyway, today I decided to make an effort, if I don't get a job by the end of November I can safely assume that I'm buggered until February next year. Money is not an issue, but an excess of my own company may be detrimental to both me and the friends that have to put up with me.
So I had a look this morning, and nothing too special, but a couple of "maybe, if I made an effort I could do them" things came up, but I decided to pass on them. I'm looking for something that is a close fit, as the last few jobs have really sucked as I have compromised too much on what I was prepared to take.

Anyway about an hour ago, an absolute gem landed in my lap. It looks good, I have the skills, I totally did well on the call to the agent, and he was ultra-ultra positive. (Yeah, like he wouldn't be, I know, I know.)

I feel good about this.

I feel that my positive vibe is being reflected back at me, I am sooooo totally in the fucking zone!

I am legion!

Proud, oh so proud!

I hope its not pride before a fall! :)

What have I to be pridefull about? Well last night it was touch and go whether I was going to attend work this morning, for a start.

I was up until about 3AM last night, IMing with V and playing Kingdom of Loathing but mainly reading my new book. All the while, I was thinking about nothing in particular, enjoying the now, not dissecting the day or thinking about tomorrow, and every so often, this little thought would pop up from my inner dialogue, "Ditch work tomorrow, its not like they can sack you is it?"

Of course, they can sack me for gross misconduct, but I suspect I'd have to turn up for work in a little leather posing pouch, sexually harass a female (or male, I suppose) member of staff or some such!

Although while chatting about dress, the dress code for the office has been relaxed while we are in the current building (we are here temporarily, me especially so), so I am at work in jeans and a t-shirt, not bad for a guy working at an investment bank huh? (Shut up! I'll take my little bit of happiness where I can find it.)

Anyway, I woke up at 7AM as usual this morning, hit snooze seven or eight times as usual then finally got up and went through my usual Tuesday routine.

Tuesday if you remember is my "Weigh Day", this week I have lost 2lbs and 0.3% fat. I am now officially overweight and not obese! (Er, again..., I have managed this before, but I fell off the wagon.) YAY!

So that's two things to be proud of, I managed despite my evil inner dialogue to attend work, AND, I managed to lose some weight.

Today is an official bullet-proof day. My kung-fu is too powerful for the world to take me on and win. Bring it on motherfucker!

Uh... OK I'm going to chill out for a while and pretend to do some work now. (I never said I was going to do something when I arrived did I.)

Back at work

So, you didn't like work before they sacked you, and now you have to generate some enthusiasm for the next couple of weeks before you are out of the door.

Oh, and you're up against the wall on a high priority deadline.

Not a good position to be in is it?

As you'll have read, enthusiasm and commitment have been AWOL for the last few weeks. Now I've been sacked, which usually reduces the capacity to give a fuck about a job. And yet, somehow I have to:

1. Give a flying fuck,
2. Perform admirably,
3. Not kill a single human being.
   

What I really want to do is fuck some shit up. But since that would be professional suicide and contrary to my ethics, I guess I'll let that urge pass.

The humorous bit is, that we are trying to get the product out the door, a time when stress is at an all time high and motivation needs to be there by the bucket load. What the fuck my manager (DF) was thinking when he terminated my contract just prior to this phase, I have no idea. Ah well, DF's loss and DF's problem I guess. I can only imagine that money was the major factor.

At out team meeting, our team lead (PE) laid out all the things that have to be done this week before end of day Friday, the list was pretty substantial. PE also pointed out that he would understand if I found it a little hard to generate the wherewithal to follow though. If PE "gets it", why doesn't DF (PE's manager) get it?

Pfft, fool. But like I said, its not my problem. (Well I guess it will be if they refuse to pay the invoice, but lets hope it doesn't come to that fair reader.)

I'll work as hard as I am able, which given my current mood(1) will be pretty fucking unimpressive.

Hi Ho Silver. Onward! (Or not.)

1. Current mood: prostitute after turning her first trick. I'm feeling dirty and used right now, but trying to console myself by thinking about being significantly richer than before I turned the trick.

An excellent weekend

Yesterday was a great day, as a result I managed to have a great time for a whole weekend.

Marvelous!

Had a great time with V, I managed to fix the naughty computer, we watched a DVD (eventually), drank wine and conversed deeply. Apart from the fixing the computer, that would be my ideal night in.

Obviously such an evening can be improved with some great sex to finish off with, but you only get to do that with a sexual partner. I guess I'll have to sort that side of my life out at some point!

V had suggested a book I might benefit from reading, and had gone out of her way to get it for me. I'm a few pages into The Power of Now and there are certainly some interesting ideas there for me to look into.

Given V's previous track record for book suggestions (Overcoming Overeating), which to date has been good, I'm going to follow through on this one.

As you may have guessed I'm an empiricist in the extreme, so waffly "new age" stuff is pretty hard for me to swallow. However, since I'm quite capable of analysing myself into a corner, and given that pretty soon (the way I'm going) I'm going to analyse myself into a mental breakdown, (lets face it, my life is failing generally, eek,) I'm open to life-saving suggestions right now.

Even to the point of embracing some sort of spirituality, which is utterly contrary to my empiricism, I'm prepared to go far with this, but not too far, I don't think I could swallow organised religion, that would be a bit much.

If anyone else has any suggestions for books that will change my life, please drop the name (or better still an Amazon.co.uk link) in the comments. I'll appreciate it and most likely love you for ever (or something).

A pleasant weekend so far

Yesterday was a good day.

I went to Borough Market, bought some food, popped round the corner and went to work for a few hours. But I get to charge for the whole day, which means I worked for about £150/hour (YAY!).

Then I went home, cooked myself a great steak and mash, chatted in IM to V, watched some TV and generally slobbed out. I then popped out and got the DVD for tonight's viewing and I may or may not have bought some ice cream while I was there. (Ooops, I may or may not have eaten a tub of Ben and Jerry's, I may or may not be most contrite about this.)

This morning I had a MIGHTY lie-in and didn't get up till gone eleven (an extra four hours in bed!!!*), which means I had a good nine hours of sleep last night, an event that has not occurred in at least a year that I can think of.

I feel like a God right now, relaxed, happy and stress free. Fuck the job, who cares, I change jobs every few months anyway, how is this different? Maybe I'll get the next job in an office full of easygoing super models, who knows? Who cares?

This afternoon, I'll be popping over to V's place to do some more computer fixing (hopefully) and to watch the DVD, all in all a nice day.

Hell, I've even enjoyed doing my laundry today, and that I know, for a fact, that that is just plain sick!

Happy days.

(* I HATE multiple punctuation, so that shows you exactly how happy I am about that little factlet.)