failures and photos and thoughts on life in general

Today I feel a lot better. I really am very lucky to have such lovely people around me, whether in person or by email or text or whatever. Over multiple cigarettes at work yesterday I was told to stop being so damn silly and to believe in myself more. I didn’t realise that it was so obvious to people how I am, and how I feel about myself. But I suppose, these are my friends and if anyone knows how I am, then it’s them. So I am making a concerted effort to believe in myself more and to take control of my life, rather than letting things happen to me- though, of course, without forcing other peoples wills or anything.

However, in typical “me” style, I am burying my head in the sand and not thinking about the situation with N. I will think about that another time, and in the meantime I will try to think about other things. Of course, I am secretly thinking about it a lot, and amazingly, I think I actually have coherent thoughts on it… whether I will be able to articulate these at any point, I don’t know.

Thankfully, my task of thinking about other things was made a hell of a lot easier yesterday. We had a meeting that dragged on for one and three quarter hours, which was incredibly dull. I drank nearly two litres of water just for something to do. The rest of the time I looked at my colleagues and was filled with warmth towards them, which was a fairly shocking revelation. More shocking still is that they all care about me. I guess maybe people do like me after all. Anyway, the meeting was all blah blah blah until the director asked us how we were doing in our little department.

Me: Errr, yeah, fine.
Colleague: Couple of outstanding issues but otherwise fine, yeah.
Director: What outstanding issues?
Colleague: Well, we’re still waiting for the press office to give us the statement on sharia law.
Press office: Yeah, well, we’re still waiting for the policy officers to give it to us.
Director (to me and my colleague): So you haven’t replied to the people who’ve asked about sharia law?
Me: No. We’re waiting for the press office.
Director: How long have these people been waiting?
Colleague: Ten days… two weeks… something like that.
Director (going slightly nuts): That’s not acceptable. You have failed. You’re letting the organisation down.

Ah piss off. You do it, if you’re so worried about it. Anyway, after work C and I headed over to the National Theatre to see a photography exhibition about gypsies and travellers. We were trying to choose some pictures for the report we’re putting out, and saw a couple that we quite liked, with the whole settled community vs travelling world contrast going on. I have no idea how much they’ll cost, but seeing as we only need two at most, I don’t think it’ll be much. Plus, great publicity for the photographer, who was by far the most dressed up person there. There was free wine, so we drank a glass or four and chatted on the side for a bit about monkeys and social psychology. Some guy was there who works on the project as well. C said that he would be perfect boyfriend material (this is working on the advice of her mum, who said that men only reach the desired level of maturity aged 50- and that’s only the more advanced ones). My response was, “But C, he lives in a hostel!”

Which is true.

Anyway, we hung around outside the NT smoking cigarettes and commenting that it’s trés jolie, le béton en style de bois. Then we took the bus up to Camberwell. On the way we called her boyfriend, who was at home and therefore available to cook, and I decided to go round. Which was cool as I got to see her new flat, had some food and looked at the amazing views from the roof terrace. Unfortunately, her brother was also there and we had a conversation that went like this:

Me: Salut, ça va?
Him: Bien… toi?
Me: Pas mal…. errrrr… l’apartement est trés jolie.
Him: C’est C qui a faire.
Me: Tu manges pas avec nous?
Him: J’ai pas faim.
Me: Okay… je cherche C.
Him: Cool… ciao.

Hmm, a nice bit of social awkwardness. I wanted to ask him for my book about cannibalism back, but I don’t think that would have gone down tremendously well. Things between us are a little bit odd since I had that dinner party where I drank three bottles of wine, fell of a box (we didn’t have enough chairs, and I, as host, offered to sit on a box instead) and kissed C’s brother. And then never returned his calls or texts or anything ever again. In my defence, that was during the days when I got pretty shit faced fairly regularly and I was a bit of a bitch to everyone, mainly because I was an emotional ruin (following end of relationship, new life, blah blah blah). The dinner party was actually a bit mental. K was meant to be there but we’d gone to a Halloween party the night before and had gone home with some guy we all thought was gay. I ended up in Brixton drinking sherry, for god’s sake, and having the first of my encounters with the Irish guy. In the morning I staggered home, last nights makeup still on and attempted to make a risotto and got horrendously drunk. My god, I was a mess back then.

I got back to mine and sent some texts to various people and had a nice cup of tea, before realising that I was going to have to find something to do QUICKLY if I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of thinking too much and thus getting miserable. So I did what usually does the trick to make me happy: I got out my photo albums and went through, laughing my head off. The best ones are from when I was in sixth form. They brought back so many memories- like the Leaver’s ball, going to the pub for an English breakfast and a pint with Tom every free period, being really emo in the smoking hut, coming to London at the weekends and dancing like fools. I only wish I had taken a photo of when one of my friends painted his armpit hair with UV paint on the train. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. He was sitting next to this woman who gave us the most disgusted look ever and moved carriages. Not just seats- a different carriage. G always told me I was stupid for taking so many pictures, but he was pleased when he came round last and we went through them and laughed at everything, even though he looks like a woman in some of them.

For some reason I carried on looking at the photos and looked at the ones of my ex. Recently I’ve been feeling a bit funny about him, possibly because he’s left the country. I mean, yes, he’s a cunt and he treated me really badly. But then again- and please bear in mind that I don’t have the vocabulary to describe this- we were inseparable and had that special thing, whatever that is. I realised that, given what I know now, with all my regrets and everything, I would still do it all again. Which I suppose makes me either completely naïve or a total masochist, and also makes me very different to N. But that’s how I am. Actually, I wouldn’t do the whole thing again. I would have got out a lot sooner, before it went shit. Though when that was, I don’t know. Even after we split up, we still lived together and when we weren’t arguing or ignoring each other, we were hugging on the sofa, making the most stupid jokes and generally being silly. I suppose we were like magnets. And eventually magnets lose their force and finally they repel each other.

That’s the more poetic way of looking at it, anyway. The alternatives would be to either beat myself up about it and try to analyse everything I did wrong, or to blame him for everything. Either option are, admittedly, easy to do, and I do still maintain that he had no right to treat me the way he did (which I won’t go into right now).

I prefer the poetic explanation as I am a hopeless romantic, and can’t really do it any other way.