Day 127: Pea See World

A day of expenditure and administration.  Early morning visit to PC World (atmosphere electric with static coming from so many synthetic purple shirts).  Laptop bought; wallet punched hard.  Lots of installing, and fiddling and lost product keys and forgotten passwords. 

And then an afternoon visit to PC World (purple nylon shirts humming aggressively and bacterially by now) to establish that I am an idiot (mislaid product key - embarrassingly findable). 

This year's winner - my brain

After the week I have had, this does not come as news to me.  I suppose it's nice to have my qualities validated in as many different environments as possible.  Reassuring and consistent.

Pea see world (through tiny pea-goggles). 

Day 126: Acting Out

This morning I feel remarkably light and carefree as I take the escalator up from the station platform at St Pancras.  My feeling is correct.  I am indeed light.  Because I am now minus the bag containing my lap top (the trusty back-up Dell) and all my work stuff, which is still on the train and heading for Brighton.  Unbelievable. 

A horrible sweaty moment of realisation, and a sprint to the information desk, where I beg the man to ring ahead a couple of stops and see if my bag can be retrieved.  He obliges pessimistically, and I spend ten minutes alternately laughing and fretting, until a call comes through.  Against considerable odds a guard has actually managed to locate my bag and rescue it in the scant minute that the train stops at City Thameslink.  Unbelievably lucky.  The detour to pick it up means I'm running late, but it could have been so, so much worse. 

Meet Andrew at King's Place (art, space, squashy sofas, coffee), and update him on the litany of my recent klutzdom.  The ruined laptop, the bag caught in the train doors, the mangled sat nav update, and now abandoning my stuff on the train.  Andrew, who is a clinical psychotherapist, laughs, looks at me owlishly through his glasses, suggests that my subconscious may be 'acting out' and asks when I last had a holiday.

I'd not even thought of it like that.  I'd gone for the obvious external causes (spell/juju/hex/voodoo/curse etc etc).  Not considered that I could be doing this to myself DELIBERATELY.  If it IS me, then I'd like to politely request that in future I just write myself a note, rather than laying this trail of oblique, stressful and very expensive clues.   

A job in an achingly hip Brick Lane media node.  The receptionist is in her early twenties and has dyed her hair grey with a hint of blue.  It looks good, a textural contrast to her glowing youthful face.  Nan cool.  I suspect there's a real chance that here my Dell might be seen as ironic and cutting edge.

It's had a good swan song.  Missed, chased, recovered, valued.  And now, possibly, fashionable.

Day 125: Perfectly Entitled

Today I am overwhelmed and intimidated by Kensington Whole Foods Market.  Floors and floors of FRESH.  Everything is artisanal and privileged and specially stroked.  Faux-naive chalk boards, and artfully tumbling riots of produce.  Why stick something on a shelf when you can NESTLE it coyly in a handmade basket?  Nothing ugly or blemished here.  Perfect stuff for people who couldn't imagine giving themselves anything less.  And so, so much of it.  Undeniably impressive, and beautiful, but it makes me slightly uncomfortable. 

As a teenager I used to visit Kensington Market.  Not whole foods, but a ramshackle indoor market of exciting clothes stalls.  And over the road, there was Hyper Hyper - more of the same.  Independent designers, doing gothic and punky street clothes.  Old hat now - but absolutely the cutting edge at the time.  If you could pluck up the confidence to buy something (the stall holders were a pretty intimidating bunch for a fifteen year old) you were assured of instant kudos amongst your peers.  A jacket I bought there was the first piece of clothing I'd ever owned that made me feel brave. 

Kensington Market closed in the mid-nineties.  It's PC World now. 

If you walk back down towards the tube, you'll pass a phalanx of familiar shops.  Marks & Spencer, H&M and Gap.  They all occupy the building that used to be Biba in the sixties.  Imagine!  Mick and Keef!  Marc!  Anita!  Paul and John!  David and Angie! 

I may find Whole Foods uncomfortable.  But I'd much rather THAT than the inexorable spread of high street ubiquity.

Hand-buffed quinoa, anyone?

Day 124: Oooh, Betty

Everybody has occasional moments of amazing grace.

Hitting the sweet spot with a perfectly-executed dive.  A bull's eye.  A smoothly-pocketed pool ball.  A text-book omelette.  A one-handed catch.  Some people have more than their fair share, but everyone gets a piece of the action. 

Over the last few days, I have not been one of them. I am currently a catalogue of klutz.  A slap of stick.

I have broken the blender.  Totalled my laptop*.  Yesterday I trapped my bag in the train doors. It was a frenzied four-person struggle (on-platform and in-carriage) to free it. I skinned my knuckles. And my ego.

In the evening I accidentally booted a wooden trunk incredibly hard.  No shoes. It was eye-watering.  I think I've cracked something - judging by the sharp shooting pain when I walk.

And it appears that I have not managed to fully load the map on my satnav.  I've done a half-job - it refuses to recognise the second half of any post code.  Essentially it is shrugging and saying 'I can get you to somewhere within a five mile radius of your chosen destination.  After that, it's your shout.'  Very unmellow to discover this at six o'clock this morning. 

It's just as well that I do not believe in voodoo, or I'd be tempted to think that someone was getting busy with some pins and some wax.  But as it is, I don't think I can hang this on anyone else.  Picasso had a Blue Period.  I am simply having a Frank Spencer Period.

* Still haven't totally given up on the hard drive - am crossing fingers that I will at least be able to salvage something.  When I say 'something' I mean accounts, work, pictures, music, footage of last year's Edinburgh show etc etc.  Not backed-up, natch...

'Oooh, Betty.  The cat did a whoopsie in my beret.'

Quite.

Day 123: Short-changed

Today does not deserve anything.  But to give it nothing would accord it too much status.  Instead, an insultingly short entry.

Day 122: Mental Juju

Today I knocked a large mug of coffee all over my laptop.  The laptop that is barely six months old.  It is currently hanging out to dry, inverted tent-style on some newspaper. I know. I could just cut to the chase, snd get my arse straight down to PC World. But maybe, just maybe, a spark of life remains (I am optimistic by nature). Not giving up until I know for sure.

An internet search suggests letting it dry out for forty-eight hours.  This I can do.  Then I will perform compressions and mouth-to-mouth.  If nothing happens, then and only then will I indulge in a mourning ceremony - makeshift black hat (most likely to be a pair of leggings draped over my head - it's the colour that counts) and some moments spent reflecting on the time spent together.  Coffee shops - all those times I didn't spill anything.  The sofa (ditto).  That laptop was Robin to my Batman. 

The irony is that last week, during a workshop, a man put his coffee on the little laptop table I was using.  I asked him to move it, in case it got spilled.  I've never even thought about coffee on my laptop before.

SHIT!  This is the law of attraction in action.  Now I am SCARED OF MY MIND. 

Alternatively, perhaps I am clairvoyant.  I didn't make it happen.  I SAW it in advance!  Either way, I am in possession of some serious mental juju.

Good to know I have superpowers.  Not sure that's going to be enough to get me through a trip to PC World though.

Come on, laptop.  Stay with me.  You don't want to sleep.  We've got stuff to do.  Walk with me.  Don't go to the light.  Squeeze my hand.  SQUEEZE it, goddammit! 


(This post was brought to you by my ancient and heroic Dell, wheezy and overheating, but still in the game.  Good work.)

Day 121: Indoor Overachiever

Rain.  Then more rain.  Then quite a lot of fat, wet snow.  Then more rain.  Now rain, and wind. 

It's a day to stay inside.  I make one brief foray out, but it's not very enjoyable thanks to my 'waterproof' jacket (aka rain sieve).

Back home.  Jacket off.  Time to get dynamic.  Start achieving things.  This is what I manage (pretty amazing):-

Reading the paper - including the bits about London Fashion Week which I don't really understand (pastels, tribal and pyjama trousers, apparently).   

General personal hygiene - I finish my shampoo, my conditioner and my toothpaste today.  The planets align.

Washing-up - everything.  Even the peelings bucket, which is valiant, because it harbours bin juice that makes me gag. 

Achieving a PB at Patience - haven't played for years, but find I still have my magic touch.  All that practice not wasted, then. 

Making a salad for lunch - health is everything.  My body is a temple.

Wearing a grapefruit as a hat for a considerable amount of time - don't know why.  Born this way?

Making scones for tea - balance is everything (jam: cream ratio).  My body is a teashop.   

So, by my calculations, today I have been informed, cosmic, brave, consistent, responsible, monstrous and greedy. 

All without leaving the house.  Not bad for a rainy Sunday.