Dear diary

No more loud music cuz Rita-downstairs-neighbour is back, so I am currently listening to Unbreakable on headphones. And I’ve been meaning to write in here for a while now, and didn’t know what, and Alisdair said “write about what you’ve been up to” and at first I said that was boring, but now I’ve been reading old entries from 2004 and realised that if I don’t write about what I’ve been up to then I can’t look back on what I’ve been up to six years from now and that would be a shame, cuz it’s nice to dwell in the past. Unproductive, but nice.

I used to write better trip reports as well. Well, I don’t write any these days, I just upload the pics to Flickr. I’ve been to a number of places recently, most recently to Cologne, Mainz and Frankfurt to visit “my Germans”, i.e. Anna, Tobias and Katja. This was nice, if somewhat short, and also cold. We didn’t do anything particularly remarkable. Went to the Museum Ludwig with Anna, and shopping. In Mainz we… didn’t do anything, except go shopping, and hang out at home. And in Frankfurt we went to see The Social Network, shopping (lol), and hung out at home playing Singstar and Rockband. I also went to visit work-people.

Before that I was in Paris, but I did write about that, and before that in Thessaloniki and Kavala to visit Aspa (and go see Placebo). And before that in Luxembourg and Colmar to see Placebo. But I wrote about that cuz that was during BEDA. As was Cornwall with my mum. That’s my past trips all covered. Coming up is Rome in two weeks, and Hong Kong in December. Hopefully, cuz my passport still hasn’t arrived, was meant to have been posted on Monday. Will have to call the embassy tomorrow to enquire. Wouldn’t it suck if I’d booked a trip to celebrate passport renewal (cuz that was the excuse I used) and then I wouldn’t have the passport and couldn’t go? Yes, that would suck.

What else do I have planned… oh squiZZ and I have tickets to go see the lovely and incomparable Simon Amstell on 22nd November. Front row tickets. 😀 Kinda-towards-the-side-front-row, but still. I was also gonna go to Bedfordshire in November to visit Sam, but haven’t heard anything there so not sure what’s going on. I still have three days annual leave I have to take – oh, five actually cuz of Christmas (something something we have to work in between the holidays so we get that back elsewhere). Not sure what I will do with those yet, but considering my current hatred for my job I may just take them off every other week so I have three day weeks instead of four.

Yes, the job is still a thorn in my side or something like that. I hate it as much as ever if not more, even my three day weekends aren’t enough anymore to relieve the pain. I start feeling the dread on Saturday. *lol* So I should find a new one, but 1. that really isn’t goddamn easy at the moment, and I find it hard looking for jobs at the best of times, 2. I’d have to give up my four day week and that would be painful and 3. the plan was to first get my head fixed, then start from there, being in a stronger position so to speak.

Head-fixing is dragging along. I have weekly counselling and at this point it seems like an insurmountable task, tho I do like my therapist which is good and important. It’s strange cuz reading those entries from 2004 just now (where undoubtedly I was in a worse state than now) it all still feels pretty familiar, just in a less acute form. Removing alcohol from the equation has certainly taken the edge off things, but this goes both ways. My life is definitely lacking… something. I find myself wishing (again) that something – anything drastic would happen, even if it were negative. Hallucinations for instance (I was watching too much Ally McBeal there fore a while) – at least then my life would be interesting. As it is it is dreadfully boring, there is nothing I find enjoyable about it. I absolutely loathe my job, then I get home and I’m like “rrrright, so now what?” So I end up sleeping loads, or lying in bed playing iPhone games, or the old classic, hanging out online reading Metafilter for hours and hours and hours. And eating fuckloads of shit, none of it healthy.

I guess the one exception is my motorbike, I do love cruising around Sussex on it, and I should do it more often, but you see, that involves effort. Getting ready, even just making the decision to go for a ride is sometimes too much. I’m aware how ridiculous this is, why deprive yourself of your one pleasure, and how can that be a hard decision to make. But there it is. And I know I sound like a spoilt brat, esp. considering how much I travel. The travel is excluded from the boredom of course, I love getting around, but unfortunately I can’t do it all the time. I can’t afford it.

Speaking of money, I’ve been living way beyond my means again. This Hong Kong trip definitely doesn’t fit into my budget, and once you start you just think “whatever, a little more doesn’t make a difference now” so I’ve been going kinda crazy lately. My nan was going to send me a bunch of money, all part of a “well one of them (grandchildren) is getting something, so the others should get the same” scheme. But she still hasn’t, and apparently she’s going mad now. Bloody typical. Callous of me, uh? I also still haven’t called her (i.e. haven’t spoken to her since I saw her in August) and I really really really have to. But the worse she gets mentally, the less I want to. I should just do it now and get it over with. But I’m sure I can think of an excuse why that is not possible. Tomorrow! *lol*

And now I’m out of things to say so I’ll finish here and go back to reading Metafilter. Or maybe I’ll go to bed and play iPhone games. Work again tomorrow, aaaargh!!!!

PS oh I forgot, another source of happiness is Postcrossing, which is great and I do obsessively and you should do it too!