Stoppit. And Carryon.

I’m sure I’m meant to hold confidentiality in some sort of sanctity but unfortunately I find it hard when I have to deal with conversations like these:

Me: Good afternoon, how can I help?
Man: Yes, I sent you an email. What have you done about it?
Me: Okay. I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific. What was the email about, and when did you send it?
Man: I sent it six months ago. It’s about a problem.
Me: Right. What sort of problem was that then?
Man: The government are using lasers on people.
Me: Sorry, what?
Man: They’re using lasers on people to control their brains.
Me: Sure. Right.
Man: So what are you going to do about it?
Me: Err… I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to tell me. You’re saying that people are being controlled by lasers?
Man: Yes.
Me: And where abouts is this?
Man: Southall.
Me: What, on the street?
Man: Yes. On Southall Broadway.
Me: And you’ve seen these lasers, have you?
Man: Yes. I took pictures of them.
Me: So you have photographic evidence that people are being controlled by lasers while doing their shopping on Southall Broadway?
Man: Yes. But I was forced to destroy the photos.
Me: By whom?
Man: The lasers.
Me: Okay… Now, I’m not convinced that this falls under our remit.
Man: What?
Me: We don’t deal with laser related mind control. Why don’t you contact the police?
Man: I did, and they told me to piss off.
Me: Really? That’s… Anyway, I don’t think we can help you on this one.
Man: Why?
Me: Well, lasers… not really our thing.
Man: So what is it that you do?
Me: Neither lasers nor mind control. Contact the police.
Man: I’m going to go to the United Nations on this one! Everyone will hear about it! It’s just not right!!
Me: Indeed. Goodbye.

Lalala. The one good thing about this job is that it makes me feel relatively sane. And a good thing about the seriously deluded is that they don’t call me names like all the “farkin’ racialists” do, they just pity me, which I find pretty damn hilarious. I don’t normally like being pitied, but sometimes, I’ve got to admit, it makes me laugh.

The weekend was pretty good in all though I did something I shouldn’t on Saturday afternoon (ie cry about what I was writing about in the last entry). I felt really REALLY awful after that and told N to forget that I had said anything. I will have to make a concerted effort to not do that ever again. Unless I want to feel like the biggest bitch on the planet, that is. So, prognosis is: less weirdness, more being cool and not letting emotions ruin my life, or, more specifically, other people’s lives, or even more specifically, N’s life. I will have to control my outbursts of insecurity to when I am alone and can sit in my room with the lights off without anyone knowing about it until I write it in here, and then you can all sit and read and mock, or whatever it is that you all do. Ha, and then I could be the one whose journal you read only to see if I’ve killed myself yet. I’d rather be that person than let anyone else be that person. All heart, me, all heart.

After work on Friday I went to the pub with R and C, where we sat on the roof terrace and discussed how this girl we know has just got married to a man who resembles a mollusc. I managed to miss the first bit of the conversation and so came out with some suitably thick things and decided instead to sit quietly and drink my pint. After nearly getting run over by my own bus (which could have either been really bad (like, getting squashed and missing the bus) or really good (getting dragged along by the wheels, thus saving myself the hassle of actually getting on the bus with all the plebs but still managing to get to my destination) but in the end was purely theoretical), I got home (I say home; it’s not home) and we went out for dinner at Ganapati’s. I had chocolate, cardamom and chilli cake, which sounds terrible but is truly one of the greatest things known to man. I tried, and quite possibly failed, to explain the British electoral system. You don’t realise how much- or little- you know of something until you have to explain to someone else. For example, I didn’t realise I was akin to an illiterate deaf-mute until I tried to teach English.

On Saturday we went to see the Sultan’s Elephant, which was fucking cool. I took lots of pictures and will see if my limited technological capability allows me to post a couple up here. After lunch, we met up with one of N’s friends, who was on a pub crawl with his dad. I got hit on by the dad’s girlfriend, who tried telling me about “racial ecology”. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, so I just nodded as I didn’t know what else to do. The dad thought she was talking about incest. I started off feeling quite socially inept (new people always have this effect on me because I am rubbish) but by the end I was slightly scared, not to mention completely lost. She held my hand for far longer than necessary, told me to email her, and said I should come round. Then they all tried to fit in a phone box. By now it was pissing down and we went home and I tried not to get wet-jean-skank everywhere. One day, when I am an adult (and smoking real cigarettes and shopping in Waitrose) I will have trousers that actually fit me and don’t have bike oil all over them. These days are very much in the future. Then we went to sleep.

I woke up about an hour before N but I couldn’t move because I was literally paralysed, thanks to the way I was feeling. Fun. When he woke up is when I did the crying. Bad. Anyway, we headed off to the Princess Louise, where drinks were had by all (as is done in a pub, I guess) and I ended up only moving from my chair once, which is a result if you ask me as I’m a lazy bastard. I showed people the pictures of the elephant, and everyone was impressed except for JA’s housemate who refused to believe me and said that I’d done a photoshop job with the photos. P chipped his tooth on a glass, which was fun for everyone (except him) as he kept baring his teeth at every mirror in the pub. We moved on to the next pub where I was told- by a bloody northerner- that he would never be able to look at me in the same way because I am from the countryside. You’re from the north. Shut it. He practiced being condescending; I practiced “being told”. By the end of the evening, several facts had been established: 1) I am good people, 2) You shouldn’t trust people who have grey hair, but being bald is okay, 3) Lots of people seem to want to shag each others parents, which- to me- is wrong wrong wrong, 4) Tesco Value rice and ketchup is not a meal to be sniffed at, and 5) Midget porn is good because (and I quote) “it’s like, if there’s a midget man having sex with a normal sized woman, it’s like watching a child having sex with a woman, which is brilliant”. When asked whether he had any midget porn on his computer, he replied “no, but only cos I don’t know where to get some- if I could, I’d stock up”. To which there is only one answer, because there is only one person who owns that much porn. Anyway, people went to afterschool but we went home and grilled some halloumi and I checked the F1 grid positions on teletext even though the internet was right there and wondered why I had admitted in the pub that I had once watched a race solely on teletext. It was nice not to be pissed, and despite eating cheese before bed, I managed not to have any psycho dreams, so maybe the boycott of pre-bedtime cheese can come to an end.

In the morning we woke up a little later than planned and then I pissed around for so long that by the time I got home, had a shower and left and then got all the way to Whetstone, it was an hour and a half later than planned. Still, it was a really pleasant Sunday afternoon, running around the garden barefoot and chasing the cats and emptying slug traps (I will never EVER drink Miller’s beer, not after that) and fixing a bamboo teepee and drinking tea and climbing a tree and hiding the scooter in a bush and really half heartedly playing football and admiring dolls. They asked me if I wanted to come and work for them again. I so wish I could. One of the kids got annoyed with me because I said that his cat was so fat that it looked like a space hopper with legs, however, he later admitted that he used to have a pet goldfish until the fat cat ate it, proving my point, I think (how sad am I if I am trying to prove my point to an 11 year old?). Anyway, yeah, came back down from the northern wastelands of Whetstone, via Totteridge hill, which always makes me laugh because I used to know someone who thought that was the biggest hill in the world. Ha! But then, they didn’t see a cow until they were fourteen. Call me countrified, but that’s fucked up. Back on the right side (south side) of the river I went straight to Ganapati’s where there was a little group of people waiting to eat the damn tasty food. Barring a little banal conversation and excessive checking for nuts in every dish, it was very pleasant, and despite the fact that we didn’t really know what was in some of the dishes (other than the nut content), we all stuffed our bellies pretty satisfactorily. I say that. The thinnest of the lot ate the most and I suspect he could have eaten the same again. Good lord, the boy has a tapeworm. A pint in the junkie-free (or at least, vein-free, thanks to the blue lighting) pub and then bed for what could only optimistically be called a sleep, and would more accurately be described as a nap.

Today has gone slow. In a way yes, in a way no. I got soaked on the way to work and when I arrived I was asked if I was wearing a hijab. It’s a hoodie, I am ghetto, recognise, or whatever it is that the youth say. I had inane conversations, as detailed above. I considered hitting my head against a brick wall. I called up SOAS who said that they had made a decision about my master’s application on the 30th March, but they couldn’t tell me what it was, I would have to wait to get a letter in the post. Why, I asked, could they not have a look on said letter, if it was indeed sitting in front of them waiting to be sent to me, and tell me on the phone what it said. They said to call back on Thursday, so looks like I will have to wait until then for the inevitable rejection, so that’s fun. I tried to drink a litre of water in one go, just for something to do, but it made me want to gag. I didn’t apply for any jobs. Pah.

Over the weekend, I thought that instead of boring people with my incessant emo-girl drivel (sorry, I know I’ve stolen that phrase, but I couldn’t not do it) in person, I would use this journal to put it all in. But now I’m thinking that that would be slightly disingenuous. I don’t know. All that can be said is that I am fighting very hard not to be crushed by the enormity of my ineptitude. And lalala.