Young Hearts Meet at Art Noise Shows

As mentioned in my previous post, the phones are fucked. Always one step behind, the IT people have sent us the following email:

Hello everyone,

Due to a major telephone line fault we are experiencing only one - way communication, if you make a call the person at the other end cannot hear you.

This problem has been reported to BT, an engineer is on site and working to resolve it as quickly as possible.

Your patience is appreciated and we will keep you informed of developments.

Dudes. I could have told you this hours ago. I chose not to, obviously, because then it might get fixed and then I might have to do some work. And today is definitely not a day for working. Not only am I quite tired and a little bit blind in one eye thanks to a ruined contact lens but also I just joined LJ, which means hours and hours of future time wasting. Soon I will have joined every possible internet thing and I will never get anything done. But surely that is the best way to spend a day at work?

Anyway, I am well happy today. I love using the word ‘well’. I’m sure I used to say it in a non-ironic way back when I was 13 or so. Obviously, at the age I am now, everything I say is dripping in sarcasm. That’s not true. But ‘well’… it started with “I well love you” and now has taken over my speech patterns. I pick up other peoples speech patterns so easily, it’s really awful. I am such an accent whore. But I’ve noticed that other people do it too. For example, when I saw this guy I hadn’t seen in a couple of years just before New Year, he sounded pretty West Country, thanks to 3 years of living in Bristol. So I take heart in the knowledge that I am not the only one whose accent shifts like a sand dune, and that it is a curse inflicted on all of us middle class southerners.

Going back to what I was saying about being happy… Despite the fact that my hair is looking like a cross between my little brothers hair and a helmet, things are pretty fucking peachy. My mum called me on the way to work to tell me that she’d got a Merit in her Grade 3 Cello exam. I’m really proud of her. She only started playing the cello recently (can’t recall exactly when, but it was after she cut her finger off, which was half way through my 1st year at uni, so sometime in the last three or so years) and she’s doing really well, though she has started practicing in front of a mirror because she’s worried that she pulls silly faces when she plays. I love people’s facial expressions when they’re playing an instrument. I’m sure I look really stupid myself. I used to always play the violin standing on one leg, but I stopped that because it wasn’t conducive to actually playing properly. Now I find that I dig my toes into the floor, so it helps if I play barefoot. It’s just as well I’m not in an orchestra or anything. I’d look ridiculous.

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. At midnight exactly N brought me some chocolate cake with a candle in it. And no ordinary chocolate cake, I’ll have you know. It was bloody marvelous. It makes all other chocolate cakes pale into insignificance. And a candle in it. How sweet is that? Also at midnight, texts from S and cousin JS, and a little later, one from my brother, which was pretty cool (as a family, we’re pretty rubbish at remembering things like that- I’m thinking facebook may have been a contributing factor in helping him remember, but I’m happy to be proven wrong). In the morning I managed to be late for work, and while walking to the bus stop, eating a piece of toast with nutella (I fucking love that stuff… how did I not like it for years? What was wrong with me?), I got a call from SH, who’s in Abu Dhabi. I was very touched that she’d remembered my birthday.

Then I got to work and it was okay for a while. R and C sang happy birthday to me, and R gave me a card with a big lipstick kiss (much appreciated). I went over to the press office and everyone was very sweet and did the whole “aaaaah, you’re so young” thing, but were really nice about it. My mum rang me. Then it all started going downhill. I got bored. I got very melancholy. I moped around and complained a bit. I read a bit of my book and laughed so hard I nearly choked and got some very strange looks. Then I got more miserable. Just as I was feeling really rubbish, the woman I share an office with (there are 3 of us in the one room- me, her and a guy) came in with a cake with pink candles. R and C came along and we all had cake and juice and it was lovely. I even got a card from my directorate. I thought they’d forgotten about it but they had been really sly and everyone had signed the card without me knowing about it. Well, I suppose they were either sly or I was dopey. I’ll go with the latter, on second thoughts. It was very sweet anyway, and made me cheer up.

After work (which degenerated after that, as the others went home and I was left by myself to do all the work… grr) I met N, who’d bought me a beautiful bunch of flowers and some chocolates and that made me smile a lot. I’d missed him all day, but I didn’t realize quite how much until I saw him. We went to eat at Tas, which was very nice. I’ve been to the café before, but not the restaurant, and very nice it was too. So that made me very happy. Just spending time with N is amazing. I don’t really know what to write because I know he’ll read this and I’ve said all of it to him before. Also, it has come to my attention that his flat mate has been reading this too, despite the fact I’ve never met him. Now I am worried about meeting him. People tend to think that I’m weird if they’ve read this. Not that people who don’t know me properly don’t think I’m strange… but that’s slightly different. In a way. I guess. I mean, look at JA. He used to read this and he said mean things about me. Now I don’t think he thinks I am quite as fucked up as all that (unless he is very good at acting, in which case he should amend his CV to say so and take off the rugby related fabrications). I think what I’m trying to say is that this journal probably isn’t a true reflection of me. I am far less neurotic than this in real life. I’d like to think I am slightly less self-obsessed as well. Please take into consideration that I write this in a very strange environment (ie, at work). I sometimes forget that other people read this, and get reminded when people leave comments pointing out just how lame I am. I know this. You don’t need to tell me. Seriously. Which I suppose poses the question: why on earth do I write this anyway, and why do I choose to ignore the fact that other people read this, and when they call and say “how are you?” they already know- to some degree- how I am. In a way it is a little disheartening to know that not only am I incapable of having original thoughts (I am, after all, a historian and therefore a plagiarist), but also I am incapable of even articulating these thoughts first, before my cyber self has shared them with the world. That said, I’m not going to stop writing this. I do, in some strange twisted way, find it quite flattering that people would spend even five seconds reading about my life. Even if it is just to laugh at me. I honestly do appreciate the fact that people care enough to be bothered, perhaps because for so long I was convinced no one ever would. I have the most lovely people in the world who genuinely care about me, and that’s fucking amazing. I won’t stop writing this because I am bad at keeping in touch and maybe this way people can see, if they so wish, what I have been up to. I also enjoy reading other peoples journals, and that is another reason why I won’t stop writing this. Finally, it’s my journal. If people think that I’m a self-obsessed emo kid on the basis of it, well, fine. Or not fine. I don’t know.

Going back to the description of my birthday, a lovely time was had by all. Nighty Night was shown on tv and I laughed so hard and tried to speak while laughing but failed miserably because I sounded like a buffoon. We listened to the lovely Little Wings and fell asleep. I love N and I love how happy he made me on my birthday and every day.

I just had to go back to my flat to get some new contact lenses, which took an hour and a half. What a pain in the arse. I did see some interesting things from my vantage point on the bus, however, such as a man with the largest shoes ever, a woman with tits the size of beach balls (seriously) and a very pretty Chinese girl… and then, crossing the road back to the office, N appeared!! It scared the life out of me as I was listening to my mp3 player and he came running at me. It was very cool to see him although I was a bit spaced out thanks to an hour and a half on the bus. Still, it’s good to get a hug and a kiss in the middle of the day!

A very good development in the world of lamb is that #1 is cool with me again. She called today to say happy birthday and we’re going on a ‘date’ tomorrow (ie spending quality time with each other doing something quasi-cultural). I’m so glad things are okay again. It had been making me upset and I am sure people were getting sick of me moaning about it and probably thought I should shut up.

Anyway, it is my birthday drinks tonight so hopefully a fun time will be had by all. My grandpa has sent me a tenner for my birthday (“don’t spend it all at once!”) so I’m quids in, quite literally.