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This weekend i'm forming a posse to go out to the Electric Ballroom. Sisqi's up for it. Scouse and Pablo are a "maybe" and Bea's bringing the black Kat and a friend simply known as "Deborah". Aside from the annoyance of the water tank in my bedroom (the engineers are coming round AGAIN this Saturday to replace the enitre valve system), i've been feeling a bit more relaxed lately. I went away with my parents to a retreat built in the 13th Century for pilgrims (which served as temporary accomodation for my mother when she first came to England many years ago) and found some peace wandering the grounds. The Order of Carmelites who run the grounds were surprisingly down-to-earth. They offered practical, secular advice and never once attempted to palm me off with religious tracts of little spiritual value. Their mission is to offer peace to anyone who came to them, regardless of religious belief (which was a relief to me because i'm very wary of organised religion). I can see why my mother liked the place - the serene people and heavy stonework of the ancient buildings made it seem like a village out of Lord of the Rings.
I bought a copy of "The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb" from a local bookshop this lunchtime. It's so-called because Crumb was famous for doing quite offensive comics back in the day. I've had a mild interest in Robert Crumb since discovering his pioneering work with the counterculture comics that he did in the 60s, but i never really knew how amazing his pen artwork was until i flicked through the book that i bought. It is true that he has a fetish for women with strong-looking legs, but its his attention to facial expressions and his technique of using cross-hatching that i really admire as the former is hard to replicate and the latter is very time consuming. Combine the two on paper and you have a labour of love. The book is really good because it shows Crumb at his best. The book - comprised mostly portraits of old jazz musicians, rural scenery and almost-candid family portraits - was the best fiver i've spent in a long time.
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Thing are slowly fitting together.
Made an appoinment with a plumber to come fix the hissing water tank in my bedroom. Although i haven't tinkered with the unit in any way, i'm certain the fault lies with the valve becoming calcified. Whenever i use hot water for the radiators/bath the tank fills up quickly, with the remaining 1% slowly dribbling in over 8 hours. The noise is really irritating - a kind of hiss that you can't block out and makes it hard to sleep. Anyway, by this time next week that'll be a thing of the past. Things are looking up at work too - i've moved into a bright newly-refurbished office on the 3rd floor next a window wall. I've got a fair degree of privacy and am sitting around people i know and like. Goodbye dark, humid, buzzing-fluorescent dungeon.
I also had a blood test yesterday to determine if my thyroid is acting up. This is actually a routine test as they're not expecting any physical problems, and are doing a simple process of elimination. Since the test i've felt remarkably normal. Last night i sat in the living room, did some music, exercise and watched some iPlayer. This morning i woke up feeling hungry and even had thai for lunch. I'm not anticipating an immediate recovery (though this will happen in the not-too-distant future), but it's such a relief to not feel tense or worried.
I'm hoping to meet up with Sisqi later on for a bit of a wander down Oxford Street. I need to do a bit of light christmas shopping (my dad has his eyes set on one of them fancy bluetooth keyboards for the mac) and i enjoy wandering around after work. There was talk of a discount curry, but i'm mostly keen on finding out what Urs has been up to in Thailand. She came back just before the craziness happened.
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I once asked Josh if he was afraid of anything. He said he wasn't, but there were lots of things out there that disturbed him, things that filled his very being with feelings of sick dread. And that list contained many things - mostly insects that like either burrow into human skin like chiggers or ticks, or insects that try to climb into your ear like moths or cockroaches. Windowlicker-style photography also disturbs him.
There are only two things i truly fear - clowns and prison. Clownophobia is a perfectly legitimate fear because when clowns aren't trying to entertain small children, they're trying to kill them (as i found out with Pogo the Clown a few days back). Prison is a more abstract fear because i've not yet experienced it. All i know is that i don't like confined spaces and going to the toilet in front criminals. Also, if the prison series Oz is anything to go by, i would dread being forced to "toss salad" and wouldn't hesitate to shank anyone who asked me if prefered "jelly or surp".
Being afraid of something abstract like jailtime is kind of strange though. Scorpions and spiders can inflict pain and even kill you, but there is nothing harmful about the idea of being prison (apart from maybe the reality of having some 19-stone pervert trying to stove in your nose with a piece of tile for a packet of L&B while a screw watches). When i was at uni, i used to walk pass the county prison whilst wandering around the outer fringes of the city centre. Usually i'd be lost in some daze, checking out potential night time venues like Industria or J21, but walking past those giant turrets used to wipe all train of thought from my mind. People were behind those huge stone walls. People i weren't allowed to see or interact with. Adults being punished.
I was chewing over the concept of fear vs reality last night as i lay on the bed and listened to radio 4. There was nothing much else to do; i was too lethargic to work on my website and i was also feeling a bit out-of-sorts, to be truly honest with you. The weather's partly to blame - i wake up in the dark and leave work in the dark - and i'm still feeling lethargic after the nose op (though my breathing's fantastic now). Mostly though, i need a holiday. I haven't properly unwound since Cuba back in March, and drinking vodka until i'm sleepy just isn't the same as some time away. I'm going to go see my folks this weekend and then i've got Paul's beer thing the weekend after that, but finding some remote location where i can roast myself in the sun is definitely on the radar.
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I'm sitting in the basement office. It's not going to be long before i move back into the reconditioned IS department, but for now i'm enjoying staring at the monitor, my eyeballs slowly being roasted by the twin monitors under the relentless flourescent lights. It's dark down here and what little natural sunlight that squeezes through the bar-crossed windows level with the pavement is small and insignificant, dulled by the onset of winter.
It's strangely serene down here. The project i'm working on is winding down and most of the consultants have left. The remaining few are tethered to similar projects and are sprinkled around the office. It's also very quiet. I could louden things up if i wanted to - nobody would complain - but i stick to my headphones and play a songlist containing Imogen Heap, Nouvelle Vague, Tom Middleton and Ramsey Lewis. All are easy on the ears and do not distract me from the work that i do.
My sidekick on this project is a guy called Vedavyas (Veda for short). He's several years younger than me and knows more about Java than i ever will. Even though computers are not his passion, he quickly realised back in India the scope for a good career and the money that can be earned by grappling with computer code. He told me that he wants to get certified as an Enterprise Architect.
I never really understood the appeal of certification unless it's safety-critical, like a HGV license, or a Corgi certificate. Although i believe people should learn as much as they can about things they're interested in, as business goes, certificates have never made the slightest bit of difference. Pair me up with a person who's qualified in, say, Photoshop and i can tell you within half an hour whether they're really qualified. Veda claims he wants to get certified in order to boost his lack of years as a developer. I don't really care what he does as i know for a fact he's going to be the world's strongest millionaire in a few years time because he's a brilliant programmer and likes lifting weights in his spare time. His desk is littered with empty protein shake bottles and books on Rational development. My desk is covered in plants and two hundred indentical printouts of a wikipedia entry for Pogo the Clown. The latter was an accident - i meant to test our printer to see if would print on both sides of a piece of paper and accidentally keyed in the wrong information. I don't trust our confidential waste delivery service, so i've stapled the pages together and using them as a doodle pad.
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Vanilla Beach 2005 ::
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