I’d been struggling with a decision, and thought I’d reached a decision.
No.
My company has initiated a bicycle-buying-eco-friendly scheme through which I can become the proud owner of a brand new shiny pair of wheels — provided I make my mind up by the twelfth of July. For a short walk across the street from my office and into a cycle shop and a small reduction in my salary each month (an amount more or less, equivalent to one week’s worth of coffee), I could be whizzing around town. It all adds up to a great deal. My colleagues are raving about it. So, what are my reservations? Why did I tell the Mista this morning that I’d made up my mind, that I’d like a bike, but I don’t want a bike?
1. A week’s worth of coffee isn’t something to be undervalued.
2. I once had a bicycle in London; I didn’t ride it much (maybe six times in three years); I gave it to a friend; It was stolen.
3. As a child, I was hit by a car three times (on three different occasions by three different people; I feel it important to clarify I wasn’t purposely targeted.)
4. Finally, and most paramount, space. We just don’t have it. The Mista’s bicycle already litters our hallway, or our patio, or our reception, or our spare room/office depending on the day, the weather, and the Mista’s compunction for ‘putting it away’. I don’t want to have to pull it through our hallway and into the patio each night. Equally, I’m certain my enthusiasm for riding to work will wane when I’m faced with the early morning prospect of hauling the damn thing out of the garden and into the reception, down the hall (God damn it! A smudge on the wall!) to the front door.
So it was decided. No bike for me.
The Mista came home from work this evening with news: his bicycle was stolen from the bicycle rack at the tube station! Now my most paramount of reasons for NOT taking my company up on their bicycle scheme has flown the coop. Now we have the space! Hurray.
Of course, I have to ask myself, how long will I have this shiny brand new bike?
Filed under: butters, cultural conundrums, going out, London places, present, work
I spent last night printing consecutive frames from Google Maps UK and worrying about what I’m going to wear to Wimbledon. Google Maps UK is my aid in getting me from place to place, and this morning I had to get from One Place to Another to Another. I’ve been to Another on a number of occasions, but infrequently by car, and never managing the vehicle myself. Today, it happens that I am behind the wheel because Butters needs an operation, and to get her to and from the Veterinarian’s office, I need wheels – private wheels because Butters is liable to pee or puke or worse. After dropping Butters for her appointment, I had work-related appointments of my own. The print-out slices of my journey lay on the passenger seat; I had superfluously marked my way with a red pen over Google’s blue path. The superfluous act with my red pen was intended not so much for reference but rather an attempt to etch the journey into my mind’s eye so that I wouldn’t find myself freaking out on the M3.
Have I missed my junction?
Last night, after printing and tracing and trying to etch into my brain this morning’s journey , I turned to my wardrobe, vastly expanded thanks to my visit to the USofA and the convenient exchange rate. Later this week I will be going to a corporate event where the agenda includes strawberries and cream and tennis whites and champagne or Pimms or both. A wise guy at work had me thinking I needed to wear a hat; thus the undue concern with my wardrobe. This morning I had a ‘doh’ moment followed by a confirmation email that cleared it all up.
Watch Wimbledon much on TV? Have you noticed the dress code?
Smart casual.
I love that designation.
No hat required.
Phew.
PS- If you are concerned, Butters is recuperating with a morphine doused patch and a little doggie cast.
Dinner is a tacky affair.
10 men and me have been convinced to stay behind and stategise.
“The future is one way or the other, don’t you think?”
“It’s this way!”
“No, no! It’s that way!”
“It could be this way via that way, or that way by this way.”
No fucking way.
I think Butters is at home alone and due a walk and it’s not fair that I’m here with these bad bottles of wine and cheap food, and it’s insulting that the boss thinks we agreed to stay because of the lure of a free meal and wine.
I have no patience for any of it, but it’s my job, so I have to pretend.
Sometimes in situations like this, I look around the room and wonder, “Which one would I sleep with? Which one would I choose if the world were coming to and end and this was my choice?”
“Clarissa?”
“Yes? Oh! No, no thank you.” I decline a top up. The sooner we finish the sooner I get out.
My irritation bubbles just under the service.
Generally I prefer the black and white pictures to their coloured counterparts. Here is an exception. The colour picture is so much richer. I like the pictures within the picture all neatly lined up. I like the reflection of the Asian man. I like that there is so much stuff going on in that photo.
I want to say it started in November. Late November in the ramp up to the Christmas festivities: a dinner here, a meet-up with workmates, ex-colleagues, customers, fellow-bloggers, and/or friends there. At first these occasions seemed to present themselves 2 or 3 times during the work week with Friday and Saturday evenings reserved for more personal alcohol assumption.
As Christmas approached, an onslaught of alcohol enhancing events came hard and fast. Before I knew it, I was tipsy most nights and groggier than normal most mornings. The Christmas holidays came and rather than taking a rest, which would have been quite possible considering the Mista, Petunia and I were just about the only ones left in London over Christmas, I dove deeper into the bottle. Not having to go into work was reason for celebration. Every day of the holiday was a holiday. Bottles of wine, pints of beer, champagne and vodka disappeared. We barely left our flat, and I was sauced most of the time.
With the new year and the return to work and the turning-over-a-new-leaf feeling of January that comes over you even when you don’t make new year’s resolutions, I was sure this temporary spell of over consumption would dry itself up and whittle away.
January didn’t do what I thought it would do for me. Instead, at a minimum, the Mista and I split a bottle of wine each night. The mornings continued to be difficult. My gym routine ignored. Each day I vowed I’d have a clean day. Each evening I’d tell myself, “tomorrow.”
By the end of the third week of February, the Mista and I resolved to help reinforce good habits, rather than being the others’ downfall (it seemed whenever the Mista wasn’t going to drink, I would open the bottle of wine or vice versa, and we are both too polite to let the other drink alone). We made a pact: from the last week of February through March we would only drink 5 nights.
We did it. It wasn’t so hard. Of those 5 nights, not all were as messy as you might imagine.
So I thought to myself I had been reformed, that I had been returned to a casual drinker.
April has proven that I don’t need to drink every night. I’ve not drunk during the week, and I’ve been relatively tempered on Friday and Saturday nights.
It’s Sundays that have me worried.
Something grips me on Sunday afternoons when I’m in the kitchen preparing our big midday meal. I want to cook with a glass of wine in my hand. Then I want a glass of wine to accompany the meal. And I want to go to the pub and have a pint with Petunia. And I slowly drink myself drunk until I’m passed out on the sofa, and the Mista slowly shakes his head in disapproval.
Is it just a bad case of the Sunday Blues*?
Am I a Sunday alcoholic?
*Depression brought on by the close of a weekend.
I dream a pedestrian nightmare.
My boss, the dotted-line-one with the ginger hair who influences me on a day-to-day basis more than the dotted-line might suggest, has a certificate with my signature on it. I don’t remember signing it; at least I don’t clearly remember signing it. I remember one time signing something of which the dotted-line, ginger-haired boss had made a triviality, a formality, “admin for the finance guy”.
Now my boss explains how I am qualified to give birth to women (or better said, help women give birth), to deliver babies.
“So, if anyone asks, you’re a doctor. You deliver babies.”
I wanted to argue that what he was telling me was that I was a midwife, but I know my boss, and I knew he would have countered and I would have counter countered and the result would be that after an energy-draining tussle, he might concede “just between the two of us, yes, ‘midwife’ might sum it up, but for presentation purposes, you need to be ‘a doctor who delivers babies, ok?”
And I would agree. “Okay.”
So, I don’t have that argument. I reserve my energy for bigger fish.
“But I’m not a doctor who delivers babies. I’m in IT, and I’m not even technical. I can’t deliver babies.”
He gives me the amused look a realist gives an idealist when faced with the shattering of illusions.
“You won’t have to actually deliver any babies. It’s for tax purposes only. “
By some strange twist of the tax scheme, my company won’t have to pay taxes if it can be proven that we have three ‘doctors who deliver babies’ on staff. I am to be one of these doctors. My signature proves it.
“Who are the other two?”
My boss names two others who, although not qualified to deliver babies, are now, on paper, qualified to deliver babies. He tells me the other two didn’t make the fuss that I am now making. I was chosen because I was considered to be a team player. The implicit question not asked was “Were we wrong?”
The other two are English and haven’t had to have their professions stamped in their passports. Another vagary of my dream: non-English have to have their professions stamped in their passports. So every time I travel, I have to worry about some pregnant lady going into labour.
The ginger-haired-dotted-line boss tells me to stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
Hardly seems a ‘nightmare’ on paper. No monsters. No death. No trying to run through quicksand. I still the feeling of relief to wake up to a different reality.
The Mista is sometimes patient, mostly not, when I recount my dreams. When he’s NOT patient, he lets me finish while he listens with half an ear and makes fun of me for having to share my dreams with him. This dream, though, made him listen. It made him ask questions which make me ask questions about me.
Could this have anything to do with my drinking?
