Seediness, Santa, and bidding farewell to 2011.

Christmas has come and gone, and it wasn’t half bad I must admit. I spent the latter hours of Christmas Eve going into the early hours of Christmas morning in a jovial mood in the back seat of my car. Which sounds far seedier than it actually was. The good thing about where I live being that you’re never too far a drive away from a nice quiet spot, with good views and a relaxing atmosphere. I’ll start feeling dirty if I find myself pumping down back alleys underneath an orange street light. Think less sleazy, more erotic. Yeah, that’s what I’m aiming for. In any case, the day started off quite well, and I toddled off home to pass out for a few hours. When I was younger I could never bring myself to sleep, didn’t matter if I’d stayed awake the entire night before, or been dosed by my mum on the extra drowsy kids medicine, I’d still be wanting to catch the moment that big fat red bastard shot down the chimney. This year however I actually had to be woken up by my brothers. I’m getting old yo.

I’ll get right onto listing the booty: Tickets for Derren Brown, some DVDs, money, usual smelly shit, couple of books, a few giftcards, and a load of useless little stocking fillers that are nonetheless an integral part of the day. There was a ton of chocolate as well, which was munched at a steady rate throughout the day, only stopping long enough to go and get the curry for dinner. It sound weird to have that rather than the normal turkey with all the trimmings, but it works out better overall. Who really wants to stand and cook on Christmas day? So one of us goes out to the best Indian in town, gets all our favourite food, and we have an excellent meal where everyone’s relaxed. And Doctor Who was on in the background as well. Perfect.

Boxing day was a fairly busy one, we all piled in the car and drove over to see my cousin who was back for a week or so from working in LA. He brought his girlfriend with him, was the first time I’d met her, and she was really nice. Lucky fucker has done well for himself. I’m wondering if being Scottish is something you can trade on abroad…. Dinner consisted of lasagne and chilli, with various breads and whatnot. There’s a time for fancy food, and there’s a time for good fucking scran that you don’t need to figure out how to eat. As the day wore on the drinks were steadily consumed, and nobody seemed to realise that my dad had went through to perform a little spot of acupuncture on my uncle’s foot while a few times over the limit until he’d been gone for half an hour. Someone for some reason decided that charades would be a good idea, and for my first ever go it wasn’t that bad at all. Says a lot about my side of the family that they got poo+knees to mean The Goonies, and from fart derived that I was talking about Sparticus.

Sadly I’ve been working since yesterday, and it’s made me appreciate those fortnight long holidays I used to have all the more. Without a doubt the first holiday days I’ll be booking will be a couple on either side of Christmas and New Year. Things at the call centre have been looking up, spent a bit more time listening in today, got to the point where if I was asked I’d be fairly comfortable taking a call myself, which I’ll be doing next week at some point whether I want to or not. As for plans for Hogmanay, I’ve not really got any. Been invited along to a house party, but I don’t know if that’s still happening, and there’s always just staying in… But I’ve done that every year, I’m in the mood to be out in the biggest crowd I can find.

Been a not half bad year looking back on it, had some awesome times, got decent grades at college, an alright job, my car is alive, and I’m not going through new year in a dry patch. Shit could definitely be worse. Next year may be even better, who knows, but that’s what I’m aiming for. This will probably be my last entry of 2011, hope it’s been a good one for all of you, and that next year is even better. Have fun!

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Stinking, sleazing, hacking, fist bumping.

I’m in a newly cheerful mood. The pipes running out of the bathroom were blocked, meaning the shower and sink were out of commission, and try as I might to scrape myself squeaky clean with a flannel I spent the entire day stinking of BO and last night’s sex. Normally I’d happily wallow in my own shit for a week but spending nine hours in a windowless room with no air conditioning made me a bit less tolerant of it. Still, now I’ve had a good long soak I’m happy as Larry,

Work. Figure I’d better mention something about that seen as it’s where I spend the majority of my days now. Training has picked up and become a lot more intensive and worthwhile. The tools that a fortnight ago might as well have been in Arabic are now all coming together into something that I can at least partially understand. I’m learning it easily enough, and it’s good to have a sense of progression every day, but I don’t know if I’m enjoying it. It’s nothing huge, the people are sound, the canteen isn’t half bad, and the work itself doesn’t seem too stressful or complicated. It’s the little things, like the seeming rigidity of it all, the fact that every keystroke and phone call is logged and recorded, that everything you do is timed and tracked down to the second, that there’s no nipping off for a quick piss because it gets logged as “personal time.” Haven’t actually encountered any of this for real yet, as I’ve yet to head “upstairs”, but it’s only a matter of time. Another pointless thing that annoys me is that ID badges have to be worn round your neck, so that in order to get through the turnstiles in and out of the building you have to bow. Same for getting through any closed doors. To me it seems a wee bit subjugating. I understand the need for all of this of course: call times are logged so people don’t slack off, people show their ID clearly to make it less likely that people can wander in off the street, but all of it feels constricting to me. I’m not screaming inside to get out of there every day, so I can’t really complain. There’s worse jobs nicer people than me are stuck in.

Speaking of people, I’ve been sat next to the same guy for the past week, and he’s beginning to grate a little bit. While the jokes were funny to begin with, now they’re just tired. It’s the constant idiotic giggling at anything that you could wrench an innuendo out of, before going into the most predictable dirty jokes that pops into his head, along with repeating anything he thinks is witty until it’s firmly driven into the ground. Not to mention how he talks about the only decent looking girl that’s around regularly… There’s cracking jokes about wanting to shag someone, I do it plenty, but then there’s crossing the line into being a bit seedy and creepy, something he doesn’t seem to see. Most of the time he’s alright though, provided he doesn’t get the chance to take anything too far. After a couple of days I realised again how true it is that the eyes are the window into the soul, because his are fucking loco. Got treated to a tale of him being a commando, getting shot, “struggling to reintegrate into society,” being addicted to some sort of pills, and a plethora of other gobshite. I’ve learned to take anything anyone says they’ve done in any sort of military role with a fuckton of salt.

This also goes for the trainer, a self-confessed hacker, he told one particularly amazing tale the other day. Whether it’s true or not I have no idea, but nevertheless it’s interesting. Now, this guy says that he used to be part of a hacking group years upon years ago, which had amongst it’s number a few guys that were recruited not long after 9/11 by an organisation heavily associated with the US government. I won’t say what one, but suffice to say they do have a website, so it’s not the Men in Black, it’s the Geeks in Beige. One guy though wasn’t very happy at being passed over for a job, so he rang up whatever number you call for that sort of thing and asked for one. Unsurprisingly, they told him no. Upon hearing this he hacked into a US satellite and, while on IRC to all his buds in the know, proceeded to take control of a nuclear destroyer, pointing them things what makes the biggest booms on Earth straight at Disneyland, and making the gun turrets on the ship do a little dance just for good measure. After he was done and while people were no doubt going apeshit at what had happened, he called them back again, and this time he got the job. But that’s not the end of the story you see, because there was another young stud there that night, and he thought that he could get himself a nice comfy job in the sun by sticking his pinky finger up the arse of the US government. So that’s exactly what he did. And how did he do it? By slapping in every unchanged default username and password he could on his merry tour of a foreign country’s dirty washing by what the trainer said. And boy, did he get deep, deeper than balls deep, into their systems. But he didn’t get a job out of it, instead he’s had a well-publicised decade long extradition fight to stop himself getting shipped over to the US for the rest of his natural life. Apparently the only real thing that’s kept him in this country was so his face would be kept in the papers and act as a warning against anyone else who wanted to annoy their way into work. As for those passwords? Most of them still haven’t been changed, supposedly to act as a honey trap incase someone does decide to take a notion to go hunting for UFOs on Area 51’s network. The story could be true, or it could be a quick yarn thrown together for the benefit of newbies like me, who knows? The company is real, I’m sure I once heard something about a hacked ship, and the chosen scapegoat is most certainly real.

Moving on from that fable, christmas is almost here, and I haven’t been able to get anyone a single present. Being single it was only ever going to be for my parents and brothers, and they won’t be that bothered about it. I have so little money in my account I can’t even take what’s left out of it, and when I’ve bought my lunch the past couple of days I’ve carried around a fistful of change so I can pay the exact amount. Not a great deal of fun I must say. Tomorrow is Saturday anyway, so I won’t need any cash as I can just be a hermit until I (hopefully) get some money in a card on Christmas morning. Just enough to tide me over for another week until I get paid. I’ll pick up a few little things to make up for it later on.

I need reminding, did I put my foot down and say I was going to end the thing I had going with that girl before Christmas or was it whenever she decided “The Talk” was due to be had? Probably both, but as time has trundled on I’m going to assume it was the latter. I’m less worried now about breaking her poor wee hat and seeing it more as simply a friends with benefits scenario. She’s easy to talk to, we’ve got a lot in common, the sex isn’t half bad, and she’s not making any demands on time or attention, so I’m a happy laddie. I don’t feel anything for her though, there’s no yearning to be with her, no twist in the chest when I think of her, in fact she’s not on my mind all that often. Nor is she overly affectionate or hinting at a relationship for her part either. She did however, give one of the most hilarious post-coital compliments I’ve ever had the good fortune to get:

“That was so good I could fist bump you.”

I believe I'm meant to say "like a boss" at this point...

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Brainfart on Christmas.

It’s a little more than a week until Christmas rolls around again, and I’m afraid to say that I’m just not feeling it this year. When I was younger I used to have this impossible to describe sensation around the festive season that I didn’t feel at any other. It wasn’t simply the fact that Santa got closer with each passing day either, there was a subtle change in the light outside, the entire world seemed to have a different vibe to it, like a kind of magic that had dwindled and is now gone. One of the things I associate most with winter is the lights under the kitchen cupboards getting turned on. They weren’t fairy lights or anything, just regular old short flourescent tubes that millions of people have, but they only ever seemed to get turned on in December when the nights drew in earlier. There was the annual argument between my parents about the decorations as well of course: who was going to drag them down out of the loft, who was going to put them up, who was going to take them down again and do it properly, all that shit. Happens in every house, and to this day I’ve never understood the fuss over putting tinsel on a fucking tree. The only bit I did used to care about was putting the angel on top.

Age no doubt has something to do with my apathy, along with the fact that when I was in school I’d be looking forward to a couple of weeks off, we’d be talking about what we were going to get, and probably doing some Christmas themed work in the class. Plus the whole thing felt more like it was aimed at me, now it just doesn’t. No more holidays for one thing, now I’ve got the far more shit “days off.” That’s when you know you’re a grown-up, when life is binary. Another aspect is that there’s nothing I particularly want either. Without meaning to sound spoiled, I’ve got pretty much any material object I could want. Books I have dozens of still unread, and the likes of music, films, and games I can pirate for free easily. This no doubt makes me a bit of a cunt to buy presents for, and while I don’t mind getting money in a card in the slightest, I feel bad at spending it on mundane things like petrol or food for lunch.

But I do have a spending plan for the new year. Firstly I’m going to take my car to the garage, as the MOT is a month overdue at least by now, and I’m going to buy myself a decent pair of glasses, so that I don’t need to wash the rust off of the side of my face every night before I go to bed. Clothes shall also be bought, maybe even doing the womanly thing and buying something too small to give myself a target of fitting into. And a mattress, because the springs in the one I have now can no longer be called such. I did just say I didn’t like spending my money on mundane things right? I’m sure I did. So I’ll start saving up for skydiving instead.

Here’s a song about people you can describe with the following letters: I G N R E G. Enjoy.

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Crayola, tech snobbery, and Sheldon.

Been fairly wiped out over the past few days so haven’t been up to posting on this much. Things right now are quite boring if I’m being honest. Rather than a feeling of “Now I’m working!” it’s more a sense of just getting up and doing something else that’s not very interesting all day while getting paid for it. Which I know isn’t really a groundbreaking concept. The training I’ve been doing at work isn’t exactly back-breaking, yesterday we drew a poster with crayons and felt tip pens. And I’m not being sarcastic, we honestly did get handed a big sheet of paper and were told to draw on it. I don’t even know how to transfer a fucking call to a different department but I can do an awesome rendition of the company logo with a little help from my friends at Crayola!

Other than that it’s been all good. I’ll be happy to get out of the windowless room in the dankest part of the building and up onto the main floor where I too can enjoy 45 minute phone calls consisting largely of waiting for people to reboot their nine year old computers and figure out where the address bar is in their browser. But I’m determined not to be one of those arsehole tech guys that look down on everyone, though this will almost inevitably change within my first week of proper working, where I’ll be sick of every person that calls before long. Already I’ve come across people who refuse to click the right mouse button just because they’re left handed, check what cable is connected to their router by going outside onto the street, and stories of arguments with a guy who wouldn’t turn his porn off while his PC was being remotely accessed. There will be no “Guh! This seventy year old woman couldn’t tell me what her MAC address was, what an idiot!” Promise.

Everyone in the training group is fairly cool, no nasty people at all or general grumps, we all talk and have a laugh. There is one guy though, he’s the designated Him. Every classroom, workplace, bus, family and any other place where groups of more than three people congregate have a Him. Just one of nature’s laws I guess. He’s not a nasty guy, he just doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up. I’m going to name him Sheldon, after the Big Bang Theory character, though he lacks any of the obnoxiousness of his namesake. So, Sheldon is probably the most stereotypical tech support guy you’re ever likely to find. He was the one who made the joke about Doctor Who’s psychic paper on the first day, carries around a niche brand smartphone the size of a dinner plate and seems absolutely incapable of talking to someone without making some sort of reference to things that next to nobody knows about, unless you’re a complete geek like me who has spent more time in front of a TV than the average catatonic pensioner. This means he has a polyphonic ringtone of the Power Rangers theme, starts singing out about Red Dwarf at every opportunity and whose mind constantly plays word association games with whatever his ears happen to pick up.

It makes me a bit sad to see him to be honest, I get the feeling that while he’s fundamentally good, he’s went through life making himself the butt of every joke and can’t quite figure out how to stop himself from doing it. Already what started as laughing at the daft things he’d say has turned into a thousand jokes at his expense. There’s no maliciousness to it, but it’s treading a fine line as he just can’t fire back… wittily enough I guess you could say. He trips over his own words, or makes a reference to something so obscure, like a 90s TV ad, that what could have been a stinging retort ends up being worse for him than if he’d said nothing at all. Part of it is that he reminds of of my little brother back when he had the habit of repeating things he’d hear coupled with daft sounds effects to accompany it. There’s a nervous energy about him, like he’s determined to be outgoing but hasn’t got the method right yet. He mentioned today that he’d never once drank, or smoked, or taken anything illegal, and that’s perfectly fine, people are free to do what they want obviously, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit of pity for him, as it seemed he never had because the chance to do so never appeared rather than any deliberate choice in the matter.

Having said all that, some of the shit he comes out with is just plain retarded, particularly if a woman walks through the door. One, let’s say larger, lady walked through the door and commented that the room was really hot, Sheldon blurted out “That’s because you just walked in the room!” without seeming to think about how that might be taken. At best he might seem a weirdo, at worst he’s just been sarcastic to a fat girl, who had recently become a team leader. Our team leader from what I hear. It’s going to be like watching a car crash in slow motion.

In other news: nothing. I work all day, and spend most nights either reading, writing, or trying not to sit on my arse, which at the moment is failing horribly. The situation with the girl I’ve been spending a few nights and early mornings with hasn’t changed in the slightest, which is a good thing. I’ve been meaning to give her a name, as “the girl” doesn’t seem very nice, but horribly I can’t think of anything that distinctive about her. Tattoos? Tits? I dunno. She’s cool, and turns me on, that’ll do. For tonight I’m having a bit of a catch-up with Marsha, who I was supposed to be picking up right this very second. Oops.

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Sharing, American alcoholics, and back to writing.

That’s my very quick first week over. The morning was taken up with us watching a few videos and talking more about the spirit and vision of the company, then splitting off into groups (three of them with X-Men names, I shit you not) and trying to collectively guess various numbers about how many customers buy the different shit they sell. The trainer likes to talk about “our” business and the things “we” offer, which sounds bad enough at the best of times, but considering that “we” are actually an outsource company it’s a definite case of “they” in my eyes. In the afternoon the training proper began, going through the basics on a practice system, people being taught that the function keys at the top of a keyboard are actually used by people. I didn’t get to do any of this myself, as at first I wasn’t able to log into the system, then the computer itself wasn’t too keen on doing what it was supposed to, so I was huddled round the one screen with two other guys. Right now I’m seeing everything as a mess of data, shortcuts, acronyms and procedures bundled together in programs that are without doubt more about function than style, not that I mind. It’ll come into place eventually, so I’m not worrying about it. I did realise how little time a month can be while I was sat there in the windowless, far too hot room. Or how slow it can be too.

I’ve found myself now sitting permanently next to that girl’s boyfriend. I’d went over to check and see whether my log-in problems were to do with the account or PC, ended up sitting there for a bit, and then got placed into a group for the remainder of the training. I haven’t caught sight of any dirty looks, we just haven’t talked, which is fine by me. Having said that, I did have my first awkward work conversation with the American guy who’s retraining in the tech support side of things. We were talking away well enough, he asked me what I was up to at the weekend, I said I’d probably just have a quiet one, maybe get a drink as well. That turned into him telling me about how he used to have a serious alcohol problem, nearly died, had his stomach pumped a few times, is on various medication, all that jazz. Cool guy, but Christ leave it till next week, just say you were staying in to chill man!

It’s my second day and I’ve already found myself slipping back into the “oh god my life’s draining away!” mentality. Now that free time is a precious commodity I can’t bear to waste it. It also makes me acutely aware of how much of the day is spent sleeping, which is lying down doing nothing when you think about it. And we need to spend more than a quarter of our day doing it, madness! Getting a bit desperate to sign up to the gym or something as well, sitting nine hours a day then doing another few hours more of it at home just isn’t on. I’m still trying to get that perfect balance of sleeping as long as possible while still arriving on time. On Monday I’m going to try the longer but hopefully quieter route through an industrial estate. How exciting…

On the plus side I’ve had the urge to start writing again, did a bit in the car as I’d arrived earlier than I meant to this morning. Maybe it’s just my mind getting kickstarted, or knowing I should have done more of it when I was a scrounger. Remember NaNoWriMo from last month? I never finished it, mainly because 50,000 words was easily done but I wasn’t happy with the quality. Now I’m taking things slower and a bit more thoughtfully. I’m tired and a wee bit melancholy, so my latest grand idea is a romance with no happy ending, just a learning experience. More artful than a zombie story let’s face it. A synopsis may appear at one point down the line, but it’s too “write what you know.” Fuck it, I’ll admit it, it’s me writing about me and how I fucked things up, there we go. And one day it’s going to be one of those indie films, with a soundtrack that’s nothing but whistles and acoustic guitars. Oh god what am I turning into…

Aw Jesus naw!

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My first day at the new school.

This morning started smoothly, I got my clothes and stuff ready last night, set my alarm nice and early, and was washed then out the door with plenty of time to spare. This probably had to do with all the schools being closed and plenty of people staying at home because of the met office issuing a red alert about winds today, officially reaching speeds of up to Fucking Rapid in and around Central Scotland. As is our way it was promptly named it “Hurricane Bawbag” because fuck you weather. So the roads were much quieter than usual, and I got there over half an hour earlier than I was meant to. Cue me sitting listening to the radio about how most of the country has decided to take the day off and god forbid if you usually use a bridge to go anywhere. It couldn’t last though, and with around fifteen minutes to spare I walked across to the building. Then I saw it.

That cheap shitty little car, there are many others like it but this one had a vibe, an honest to God aura of stay-the-fuck-away. I couldn’t quite place it, why was this car getting my hackles up? I couldn’t see who was inside it, so I carried on and went into the reception, putting it out of my mind. There were a lot more people there than I was expecting, over thirty in all, I was figured there’d be maybe five or so. After standing around for five minutes doing the looking at various things on my phone that strangers do so they don’t have to make idle pointless chit-chat the front door opened again, and I realised who that car parked outside belonged to. It was that not entirely single lassie’s from a month or so back, and her boyfriend was standing right in front of me, gangly as fuck, greasy ponytail halfway down his back, and a green anorak three sizes too big. Did he know? Was he mad? Was he liable to kick off? After a while I figured it was maybe, most likely if knew, and not if he was sensible respectively.

The woman who I had the one-on-one interview with appeared and read out a large list of names, his being among them. All in there were fifteen or so of us, with only one woman. Figured as much. We were lead down some stairs, then some more stairs, and finally into a windowless room that was far too hot with not enough chairs. Somehow felt fitting for tech support. After a while tentative curiosity about how that lassie’s guy would act turned to apathy when it became obvious that he was more of the whingeing name calling type than anyone liable to simply throw a punch. Re-enact Columbine on the other hand…

Overall the people there seem fairly normal, though with the legally required portion of oddballs that anything to do with computers attracts from the looks of it. When we went to get pictures taken for the security badges they handed us the blank white holder, leading one guy to make a song and dance about it being like Doctor Who’s psychic paper. It’s bad enough that I know what the fuck he was talking about, but for fuck sake mate keep it quiet! Another guy was around five feet tall, completely spherical, godawful teeth, and balding with spots on his head. He could’ve been anywhere from early twenties to mid thirties. I talked with him a bit and he seems nice enough, but life has kicked him at every turn. Aside from them there’s a couple of Indian guys that’ve banded together straight away, three other guys who were all in some sort of military, and a middle-aged woman that I can see myself having some seriously guilty wanks over if I hit another dry spell. There was also a black guy that I’ve decided to name Moss, mainly because of his hair rather than any other similarity to the IT Crowd character I’ll admit. If he was white he’d be sporting a bowl cut, though having said that he shares my name, so he’s obviously going to be the soundest one there. Aside from them everyone else was fairly normal, not including Cho in the making of course.

The place itself wasn’t very remarkable: one entrance for visitors, another for workers, a big battery farm with phones as the main attraction and a small canteen downstairs. It’s… a workplace I guess. The dress code isn’t very strict, jeans and trainers. No trackies, no football colours. Or rugby colours either for some reason, I’ve never heard of anyone mention it before now. They’re big on the whole data security thing too, seemed to really make a big deal about being able to search through your phone thoroughly if they want to, or even your car if it’s parked on their property. I think I’ll keep on parking in the little scheme across the road, quicker than getting in and out of the car park in the first place, plus I’m kind of a stickler for people not nosing through my shit. I get the need for confidentiality, but I’m not getting searched for a job like this. Not until I’ve taken a decent picture of my cock with “Fuck you” written down the shaft first.

Aside from informing us of the joys of cavity searches, we didn’t do much else apart from sign a few forms and go over the rules, no answering phones or anything. We got away an hour or so early because of the weather, and I’m in again the same time tomorrow. I’m trying to keep in a good mindset about it. The people are friendly, nobody looks extremely annoying or nasty, it’s not a concentration camp, and the toilets are relatively clean. It is my first proper inside job, I’m used to noise and animals and travelling and swearing and constant hangovers and machinery and swearing. Now I feel like I’m going to wake up and find myself neutered, turned into an indoor cat without even realising it. Around one o’clock or so I had an urge to just get out and do some fucking graft, proper hard tiring work that left you exhausted at the end of the day rather than sitting around on my arse.

I’m being a moany faced cunt I know, I remember being the same when I started the landscaping and it kicked shit out of me, then I grew to really enjoy it, hopefully this’ll be the same. Even if I don’t like the work, I’ll get to know the people, that’s what makes a job good after all.

Meow?

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Moving, starting, still shagging.

Been a busy couple of days, and I really shouldn’t be taking the time to do this before anything else. I’m in one of those moods where I’m convinced that time will slow to a halt as long as I don’t do the short list of not particularly hard things I need to do to be ready for my first day at work tomorrow. Like fill in the last details of my previous employment, get some clean clothes and iron them, and maybe clean my boots to wear. And my bank details, because without them I’ll not get any money. I’m feeling slightly paranoid, wondering whether I actually misheard the entire conversation and that I don’t have a job t all, or if I definitely heard the time to be there at correctly. Can’t say I’m all that nervous though, with a month of training I’m sure they’re going to be taking their time, so the first day won’t be all that hard. Plus it’s minimum wage, monkey stuff right? Helped Marsha move flat as well, she’s moving out of the shoebox she was in before and onto a much bigger, fancier place with her pal for what I think was less rent than she was paying at the first place. When I’ve saved up a decent amount to move out I’m getting her to help me find somewhere, bitch can sniff out a good deal from a mile away. All that’s a fair amount of time in the future though.

As for the girl with the tattoos that I said I was done with, what I really should have mentioned was that I was completely done with her apart from shagging. Honestly, I meant to add that little bit in before, but it totally slipped my mind, which explains why I accidentally ended up in her bedroom trying to have one of those really quiet rides like back when you were sixteen and didn’t want anyone’s mother to hear. I realise by now that I am playing with fire a bit, and in a few more weeks there’s every chance she’s going to ask where we’re going, which would mean an awkward conversation and things being over. I think that’s enough about her for a while, I can’t really be arsed going into it all. Still, in Scotland we have a saying: Your hole’s your hole.

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Eatin’ bread and Facebook dead.

This is a rambling, aimless post because it’s after five in the morning and I’m still not the least bit sleepy. The weekend has knocked off my circadian rhythm or whatever the fuck it’s called, which I’m going to have to fix rather quickly as I’ll be up early most days from now in. Which is what normal people do, so I’m not going to complain too much about it.

The fitness aspect of things has been going alright, steadily dropped a few more pounds since the last time I mentioned anything, though the past five or so days haven’t really been the healthiest. Not been able to get to a gym yet as I’m not able to afford it, which is another expenditure from my seeming six-figure minimum wage pay, which I haven’t started earning yet. I feel softer though, and a bit deflated, without any real extra sense of being fitter, and I don’t like it. Weight and fitness are two different things, it’s the latter I’m wanting to use to reduce the former, rather than simply melt off flab. I also had my first bit of bread in around two months. I’m not going to get all melodramatic and start throwing around words like “relapse” and “disappointment” because I don’t feel them. There wasn’t any other food in the house save for a three day old loaf and a couple of slices of lorne sausage that’d probably been lying in the fridge for at least twice as long. Faced with the prospect of either whacking on the George Foreman until the meat was nice and cremated or putting on four layers to trudge out into the snow to top up on tuna, I decided to take the easy way out. And you know what, it was a thoroughly mediocre meal. Eating bread all the time was a force of habit rather than a need for taste or whatever, and now that habit’s been well and truly broken. I don’t find myself going to use it as a snack, because I don’t snack altogether. Easy.

Speaking of habit, or at least things you can’t seem to get rid of, I’m trying to subtly and without drama remove someone from my life, and yes, it’s another girl, though not the most recent one. Nah, this is a girl from college who plain makes me feel like shit. She’s never said or done a bad thing to me, she isn’t horrible, and I’m not head over heels about her, she just isn’t good for me. I dunno what it is, she’s like a fucking dementor, sucking all the happiness out of me through nothing more than proximity. College finished and she was basically gone, only meeting up now and again when I stupidly thought it’d be a good thing or when we’d bump into each other in a club. Every time I did though those old feelings would roar back up, and I don’t know exactly what’s causing it. As I said before I’m not into her, I don’t lust after her, I don’t want her friendship, she’s not even a depressing person, I just can’t be around her. Cutting her out entirely was the easiest way, and I thought it was as simple as removing all trace of her from that most pivotal of social things: Facebook. But I couldn’t unfriend her, only “unsubscribe,” out of internet politeness that I’m struggling to justify. For some reason she’s constantly around wherever I go on the site. She pops up in every friends in common list, on my sidebar nine times out of ten, and she began liking half my statuses and even suggesting sledging later on today, something I’m going to just ignore. I really need to just man up and get rid, let’s face it.

Yeah, fuck it, I’m going to give those few little mouse clicks and unfriend her. I just took a little stroll down memory lane and realised that pretty much all the times I’ve felt worst over the past year have corresponded with the times I spent most with her. Much as it shames me to admit it, that girl’s caused me a fair amount of heartbreak.

Gone.

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Employed!

That’s me got a job, I start in a couple of days. Such awful news only a few weeks before Christmas! It was for the tech support role in a call centre that I wasn’t expecting a call back from. Slightly higher than the minimum wage, which is a nice little surprise, but any real benefit will be eaten up in tax as always. Five days out of seven, working the odd weekend, on a rota with the earliest start being eight in the morning and the latest finish being ten at night. It’s in a nearby town, which is handy distance wise, but getting there means going through a fairly clogged artery, so no chance of bombing down the motorway at 105mph and making it to work in less time than it takes to make toast like I could do before. No pay before Christmas, as it’s paid monthly, though I do get it just in time for New Year. A New Year that I most likely will die of. There’s a job grant that the JC give people who’ve been on the dole for six months or more, and I think I’ve missed out on it by a little bit. A cool £100 would’ve done me well right now. Still, it means I don’t have to deal with those bawbags in the work programme again.

There’s a month of training to go through, then a probationary period. Right now I’m putting a time limit on being in this job: two years, then I’m out. It’s not that I don’t want to work, it just seems like the kind of thing that you could fall into and never get out of, and I don’t want that to be me. It hit home quick when I told my dad, and he mentioned about doing well at it and working my way up to a supervisor position or something at some point down the line. That terrifies me. I had this premonition of me wearing a cheap suit when I was thirty, in an interview and talking about how I had years upon years of call centre experience. This week’s big stupid plan is to save up as much as I can, quit, and fuck off until the money runs out. Y’know, in addition to running a car, getting my own flat, and becoming a self-sufficient mad cunt. While getting into uni and doing a degree in something that I haven’t decided on yet.

Like all jobs I’ll enjoy the novelty to begin with, then I’ll despise having to get up early every morning. And I’m going to be sitting on my arse at a computer all day long… This is just awful, I should really call them back tomorrow, turn down the job, then build myself a nest under the stairs and live there in an a social retarded self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ll need to get used to a bit more of a regimented workplace too, with rules and clocking in and all that shit too. Really though, it’s money, it’s a job, it’s an increased chance of getting out of here, so I’ll work it like fuck.

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The Aristocrats, nearly killing rats, and wanking into a bath mat.

I’m feeling a bit like a zombie right now, my arms weigh the same as a horse, my fingers are refusing to do what they’re told, my neck and shoulders feel like I’m carrying a rucksack full of rocks, and every thought that comes to mind has been dragged through a mile of treacle to get where it is. Not to mention I’ve got a feeling that my stomach is now as thick as the skin on a sausage, I’ve got a desperate need for water but I can’t bring myself to move and get it, and the night’s memories are popping up into my mind at random intervals solely to make me cringe. Was a blast.

Didn’t even go out to a club or anything, instead I found myself sitting in the house of a guy that straddles the line between friend and acquaintance but who I get on well with. I get a vibe off of him that he’s probably a racist, right-wing conservative desperately trying to hide in a philosophical, liberal body. I think it’s the poppy tattoo that’s causing it, along with a gut feeling that “the lady doth protest too much.” Still, he’s alright. The night almost started with a tragedy when I nearly sat the on the guy’s pet rat that was running loose on the couch. I swear that I seen a look of relief on the little creature’s face when I finally caught sight of it. Too many drinks were consumed far too fast, mostly because I was talking in the kitchen to someone as I was pouring my now customary JD and coke, and filled three-quarters of a pint glass with whiskey and didn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to pour it back into the bottle or just letting it lie there, resulting in me finishing the whole thing off in two glasses that I’d wanted to last the night. Instead of me sauntering vaguely downwards (I’m quotatious tonight) I plummeted into drunkenness in record time. Thankfully I had arrived quite late so I’d had a bit of catching up to do anyway.

As the night carried on there was an in-depth discussion on The 51st State, why Robert Carlyle and Samuel L Jackson should get together for another film, competing with each other for the filthiest rendition of The Aristocrats joke, before gradually moving on to me being on the phone to someone while attacking a Tennants box with a kitchen knife to make myself a cardboard helmet. I again learned that while there are people whom I love, would do anything for, and trust them with my life, my dog, and my money, I wouldn’t let them near my phone in a million years. Largely because while my back’s turned a load of flirty texts that soon turn into a tale of me wanking onto a bath mat get sent to the girl who I’ve yet to stop properly seeing. And who then texted me in the early hours of the morning that she likes me and wants to get to know me better, and did I want to go round to her house tonight. Damn my lovable bum.

As the few people who were there drifted off I found myself in a ramble with the night’s host where we pretty much solved all the world’s problems, figured out a way to make people love each other, and basically bring heaven to Earth. Sadly though the finer details have been obliterated by the cheap wine I was on by that point, and not long after I was halfway home in a taxi, trying to focus on something in the distance to stop the world smudging as it flew by. When I finally got home I found that while someone had left a key outside for me to let myself in, they’d also forgotten to take the key out of the other side of the door. Being the conscientious drunk that I am, I didn’t shout to get someone to wake up, nor did I hammer on the door until they heard it. Funnily enough if I were sober I’d have no problem doing either of those things. Instead I had a pish in the back garden, then convinced myself I’d die of dehydration if I didn’t get something to drink straight away. Cue me going on another early morning stagger to the supermarket to buy orange juice and crisps. Getting home again I still couldn’t wake anyone up by throwing stones at the window, so I went into the laundry and passed out on the old rickety chair in there, with one of the dog’s dirty bed blankets wrapped around me for warmth. I woke up again a few hours later after feeling a distinctly damp feeling around my crotch. I thought, in order, that I was bleeding, sweating, or for the first time I’d got in a bad enough condition that I’d pissed myself. Thankfully I’d forgotten to screw the lid of the bottle of juice on properly and it’d leaked in my hoodie pocket.

Third volley lucky I managed to get one of my brothers to come down and open the door, meaning I could proceed to my scratcher at long last. After lying comatose for eleven hours I awoke to piece things together, starting with why I had “Team Meatloaf” written on my forearm, how I managed to get my jeans off without taking off my boots, and most peculiarly of all: how the fuck did I manage to open the right little door on my advent calendar before I went to sleep? Some things are better just left unknown I guess.

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