Highly Strung

Scene: A Meeting With Colleagues

Me: tappity, tappity on Crackberry

Colleague 1: we can all mur mur mur mur and then Kirses can update mur mur mur spreadsheet mur mur

Me(looking up): hang on, what was that you wanted me to do??

Everyone: if you hadn’t been playing on your crackberry you’d have heard that! Thought women were supposed to be able to multi task??

The Boss (snatching Crackberry from my hands): Come to to me afterwards, you can have it back then…

Colleague 1: she was probably playing Tetris

Me: no actually I was emailing N. re a meeting we need to get the diary for Monday.

Colleague2: Oh yes he’s on his way to San Jose today for that Google thing isn’t he?

Me: Exactly! Which is why I just mailed him to say – ‘do you know the way to San Jose…ba ba bada da’

Courtesy of the Boyf and his Canon Ixus panorama function. View from the top of the Rockefeller Centre, New York.

Tonight on my ride home just after crossing Holloway Road I ran into a bunch of disaffected youth, manouvering through them I drew up behind a lone hoodie on a bike with the seat too low. Unfortunately he was weaving from left to right in my way, so I said ‘excuse me’ and he continued to weave in front of me so that I couldn’t get past him, so I said ‘FUCK OFF’ (strong I know, but really how was I supposed to get past him?). As I rode past him I said ‘I’m just trying to get home’, and he said, in a menacing tone ‘WHAT?’. Cue me, riding as fast as possible away from him.

As I ran a red light to put some distance between us I glanced behind me, he was still in sight! I powered up Hornsey Rise relying on the fact that his seat was far too low for him to get any power into his ride. I hit the top of the hill and cycled as fast as I dared down the other side, glancing around at the Clocktower I could see no sign of him…safe…

In other cycling related news, I was crossing a junction when a guy tried to step out in my path. Looking at him a bit closer I realised that under that sweatshirt hood lurked Ricky Gervais, out for a run. So I said ‘Look out there Ricky Gervais’ and cycled on.

Person: You’re an expert in this

Me, looking over: in what?

Him, gesturing at a plate of sushi: this, how do you eat it?

Me, looking at the chopsticks sitting in the dish: with the chopsticks

Him: and do I stick them in this stuff (pointing at a puddle of soya sauce)

Me: depends on whether you like it

Him: and what is this (holding up a chopstick with a blob of wasabi on the end)

Me: it’s a hot mustard type stuff

Him: and this? Is it garlic? (a slice of pickled ginger between his finger and thumb)

Me: it’s pickled ginger

Him: I quite like it

Me: mmhmm (suddenly very busy with typing an email or something, or anything)

Today I mostly feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I know that all I have to do is ask the right people for help and consultation, but even that seems like a huge effort. I want to do a good job but it’s hard when you feel disconnected and isolated.

I guess the solution today is to try and connect with other team members, because if you don’t ask for help how can they guess you need it…

Season 3, you are mine. Put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, the phone on answerphone and Skype on Away … cos I’ll be busy tonight.

God I’m sad…

Bloody hell, it’s freezing today. My flat, which only last week was bathed in brilliant sunlight and as warm as toast now feels like a wind tunnel. The gappy window frames are no match for the wind that is presently whipping around my living room. Thankfully the bedroom is a whole lot warmer otherwise I may have been forced to add not only a second duvet to the bed, but also my electric blanket…it’s late May!

I’m no coffee expert, however I do know coffee genius when I see it. I saw it today in the Monmouth Street Coffee Shop Covent Garden. I wandered in there a bit warm and a bit hangovered and upon spotting the iced latte option went ahead and ordered it. I like iced coffee but I do find it can be a bit bitter and that it is quite difficult to get granulated sugar stirred into it. The Monmouth Coffee Shop however, has this issue covered with a simple, but brilliant solution – sugar syrup -now you don’t find that kind of attention to detail at your local StarNeroCosta..

Does it make any sense at all that someone does not know how to sew on a button? The Boyf is seriously in danger of becoming a cliché! It’s not that he can’t actually – it’s more that he won’t. I have offered to show him how…given that he manages to hold down a fairly good full time job I must assume that he is capable of learning this elementary skill. However for some reason he just won’t pay any attention to it.

This morning he mentioned a button had cracked on a new shirt, when I asked him how he was going to attach a new one he said he had planned to take it to an alteration place down the road. How embarassing would that be?, to be charged at least a fiver for such a simple job. So I said to him – why don’t you ask me to do it and he said because you would just tell me off for asking you, to which I replied – I have no problem sewing on a button for you, but you will still have to suffer through the accompanying lecture regarding how easy it is if you would only learn… I’m pretty sure that at that point he was asking himself if it was worth hearing it all again or just squandering that fiver instead. I think I’m fighting a losing battle and that the next time a button needs sewn on I should just do it and he can take the lecture as read.

(In his defence and in the interests of presenting a balanced view, there are things he is good at which I do not want to get better at – such as repairing punctures and blowing up bike tyres…)

What a beautiful evening, my living room is bathed in light, I’m sitting here in a vest and flowy skirt enjoying the warmth and the general feeling of well being.

The other good news is that I just discovered my hard disk recorder fast forwards at a rate of not just 2x, not just 4x, not even just 16x, but also 64x the normal speed…