Monday 10th April
TODAY'S entry is in honour of he who would be known as Phnarr, since he complained that I would not let him read my real diary and he thinks there are interesting things about him in it. On this score, he may be correct (grin) But maybe this will make up for my secrecy, even if he was just teasing about being upset about it. He is single-handedly responsible for making sure that I don't spend the time between my shifts at work during the day in a depressive bed-ridden lethargy by sending me no small number of emails. He also indulges my passion for tetris and I hope one day he'll indulge my passion for cake, as well, but who knows. So there you go, Keyf, feel better now? (big amused grin)
Had the most horrible week at work, I got picked on left, right, and centre. My supervisor in the evenings switched me onto a different section and then spent the rest of the week shouting at me for the smallest little things. Case in point - he really went off on one about me cleaning the red part of the canteen before the white part, even after I'd told him that that's the way my (now ex) boss taught me. It's like being at boot camp, he was yelling, "CALL YOURSELF A CLEANER?!" and I was standing there thinking, I bloody hope I am the worst cleaner in the world because it's not what I'm about, whilst resisting the urge to scream, "SIR NO SIR!" back in his face. Then I heard him slagging me off to Bob (long-time readers of this column might remember Bob from earlier entries)...actually that's one of the good outcomes - Bob isn't speaking to me anymore since my fall from grace. Then Andy, normally so friendly and nice, shouted at me because he'd heard I'd been slagging off Ellen. This is ludicrous, she's one of my best friends there, and the thought he would really think me capable of it left me close to tears. Maybe I am just being overly sensitive.
Anyway, new week and all that, hopefully it will improve. Just completed my second weekend in a row of all-day shifts on both Saturday and Sunday. This might explain why I went to bed at 6pm last night. To say I was knackered would be like saying Chernobyl was a camp fire. But then, I did go out Friday and Saturday nights. Friday I went to Leicester Square with Jen and her friend from Manchester and her friend's brother. Remembered how much I hate Leicester Square on weekend nights, ugh. Was fun though. On Saturday, I was forced to go (shudder) south of the river for another party at Allen's in Streatham. This was a huge amount of fun since Arran was there as well and I haven't seen Arran in over a year. He is planning on moving back to London this year sometime, when a job presents itself. Allen wants to move in with him, how much fun would it be living with them next year.....hopefully it's a possibility. We'd just have to take careful steps to prevent Allen from shooting holes in the walls like he did in Halls (grin). Anyway, Jen and I left around 1am, we got up to the main road and saw the night bus coming so we started belting it towards the bus stop. I thought I was going to die, I was stumbling along the road waving a cigarette shouting "STOP STOP!" and meanwhile Jen was shooting ahead. We were lucky enough to get the only friendly bus driver in the world. She stopped for me, then pulled a bit further along the road of Jen whilst lecturing me on the dangers of smoking. Then she pulled along a bit further and picked up the people who were actually at the bus stop. Wonders never cease...
So that was stage one of our amusing journey home. All the way back to Trafalger Square we lounged around talking about sex (this is becoming a scary habit for Jen and me now) and then we went and waited at the N5 bus stop for the second bus, armed with botulism-in-a-roll from one of the vendors. After Jen had thrown half a pint of ketchup mixed with onions all over my ankles, and we'd exhausted all the possible jokes about the freakily hard sausages (this took some time since we were drunk and therefore easily amused) this Italian (or possible Greek) (or Spanish) (he was definitely Mediterranean) sat down next to Jen and started talking to us. She ignored his insistent "excuse me"s for quite some time but in the end the following conversation ensued
Lech: (strokes Jen's leg) I like your trousers
Jen: Me too
Me: (puts hand on Jen's knee) Me too (pointed look)
Lech: (more stroking) I really like them
Jen: (puts her head on my shoulder)
Me: (strokes Jen's face) I'm *so* glad you're coming back to mine tonight
(Lech ignores the lesbian-play-acting and continues to try and chat Jen up...)
Jen: I'm not into men
Lech: eh?
Jen: I prefer women, men just don't turn me on
Lech: Oh (looks at me) what about you?
Jen: She's my girlfriend, like
Lech: How can you know you prefer girls if you've never had a man?
Jen: I have, I prefer girls
Me: Me too, I've had lots of men and they just don't cut it
Lech: (classic line alert) You only prefer girls because you haven't had sex with me
Jen and me: (crack up)
(More mumblings from Lech about us having sex with him and ponderings on how we actually perform the deed...I alternate between trying to keep a straight face whilst explaining that there are other things than intercourse and wondering whether all the other people around will actually think that Jen and I are really a lesbian couple while Jen tries to tell him to go away)
Lech: (to me) So I think you should come back on my bus and have sex with me
Me: I really don't think so
Lech: Well I don't want to have sex with you anyway I want to have sex with her (nods at Jen)
Me: Over my dead body
Anyway, after that we managed to get on the N5, we were the first people on, but it took 45 minutes to get from Trafalger Square to Centre Point, which is a 10 minute walk, because the traffic was so bad. No wonder the wait for night buses at Camden Town is so long. Anyway, there were these lads sitting behind us whose conversation I was listening to in between falling asleep and cursing the rain, one of them thought his girlfriend might be cheating on him so he'd hacked her email account and he was reading all the emails she sent and received. He told his mate he could read them when they got in. What a complete bastard! When I got off the bus I nearly stopped next to him and said, "If my boyfriend read my email, I'd cheat on him too". And people wonder why I find it so hard to trust people.
Emilia's in Budapest for a fortnight but she's sick, poor love. Her Hungarian lover is keeping his distance, apparently. Zoe is still with me, just, although I totally lost my temper with her the other day after asking her half a dozen times to clean up the room she is in. She's at a job interview now, but she doesn't really want the job so I have a feeling she's won't try very hard, grrr. Rapidly reaching the end of my tether. She said she wanted to stay for a week when she lost her job - it has now been 5. She was close to being out on the street when she borrowed my travel card and then didn't bother bringing it back, so I had to miss my shift at work - I was the angriest I can ever remember being with anyone. Sometimes I wonder how it's possible for one person to be so utterly thoughtless. I just don't want to end up hating her, that's all.
Talking about wonders never ceasing...had a text message on Saturday night from the thug, complaining that I am never at home when he tries to phone me. Jen and I were sat there on the train to Streatham going, "I can't believe he phoned me" "I can't believe he phoned you either" for about 10 minutes. It was quite comic in a rather tragic way (grin) I was really happy. Suffice to say, I have not heard from him since (wry grin) but, but, but...it's all good. I'll get back to you all when I decide exactly why
Wednesday 12th April
Oh dear, I really should be careful what I wish for. Today I had written confirmation that I am the worst cleaner in the world - well, at least in Fenwick, and I've got a disciplinary meeting with my personnel manager tomorrow to prove it. Apparently, everybody in the department thinks I'm a terrible cleaner but they are all too polite or too scared to tell me. I find this ludicrous! Well, I don't - I mean, it's true, I am a terrible cleaner, the work is boring and uninspiring and unchallenging and I have no motivation to do it properly, so I very rarely do. But I don't understand why, if I am that bad, I'm being permitted to work all the overtime on offer. And I don't understand why nothing has been said to me in the past. It makes no sense at all - if I were them, I'd probably fire me, not just let it go on and on and on. Now I can't decide whether to
(a) stick it out and work really hard to improve opinions of me so that when I leave they will be sorry to see me go, and then quit
(b) as above, but stay
(c) chuck it in as soon as I can get another job
I think I'd like to stay and improve my reputation, but I'm just worried that I'm going to end up really hacked off with the place (I mean, more than I am at the moment) and then not try at all and get myself fired, which wouldn't be very clever. Decisions, decisions. It's not doing my health much good, I'm sleeping less than I was at the beginning of the year, which was a pretty small amount then. I end up sleeping all day instead which isn't good for revision or anything else, for that matter.
Bought myself two new books today to cheer myself up. They are both travel writing (grin) I think I've got the bug. Finally managed to buy a Bill Bryson book, they're mostly about America so I couldn't justify buying it as a pay-day book because it was no use for the course, but they always look so interesting. I hope this one lives up to the impressions it has created. Also bought a new t-shirt...still didn't find the skirt I'm looking for, I think that makes 12 shops I have looked in now. I am going to have to admit to myself that it's just not out there. Anyway the t-shirt is a carbon copy of my favourite one, which I have worn to rag-like status. I found ten quid on the floor today, you see (cackle) so I'm feeling a bit flush..I'll conveniently ignore that my total purchases today came to 27 quid....
One last thing - nobody go to the Odeon on Leicester Square. Jen and I tried to get advance tickets there for American Psycho today and the guy at the counter was incredibly rude. He wouldn't listen when we explained that we knew the film didn't open for another 10 days and just started yelling at us like we were idiots. Disgraceful behaviour. To think...when I found that money this morning, I thought, "Oh, looks like today is going to be a *good* day"....ah, the irony of it
Tuesday 18th April
Well, the work thing wasn't so bad, it's all calmed down a bit now, but like a sign from above the chef job at Soupworks is being advertised again, and if I got that then I could live anywhere I wanted next year because I wouldn't be tied to Brent Cross. The pay's not as good, but I think I'd love the job. And Fenwick is just getting really stressful. Before I had my meeting with my personnel manager last week, I had all these nightmares about it, the weirdest of which involved Fenwick suddenly acquiring these three swimming pools one of which I fell into, very strange.
Needless to say, I emerged from my real meeting dry and with a sense of
victory...I just sat there and when she said, what have you got to say
about these complaints, I said, well, fair play to them. Yep, no smart
answers, no trying to get out of it, no launching into one of my ready
prepared speeches about the crapness of the company and the horrible way
they treat their staff. I just sat there and wondered why she didn't pluck
her eyebrows because that would really accentuate her eyes better (big grin).
So, hmm hmm,
1) it wasn't a disciplinary - it was a "little chat" - the disciplinary will
come in a month if I don't improve
2) I didn't get my pay rise, but I didn't expect to anyway so no big deal -
the overtime rate has gone up by 20p an hour and since
most of my pay comes from overtime I win either way
3) I totally screwed up by telling her the dates of my exams, which means
that it will be totally obvious when I ring in sick which means I either
have to get a doctor's note or use up some of my precious holiday
4) my leaving present to my personnel manager will be a pair of tweezers
The funniest part was that after I came out, I was mopping the canteen and the little round green thing calling itself Bob, who is the rudest, most bigoted, most two-faced hypocrite in the department, as I have probably already mentioned, came up to me and said, "I'm going to say this in a quiet voice and to your face - other than to do with work, I don't want to speak to you socially" and walked off again. Oh, how I giggled...I must tell everyone else, I thought, they've all been dying to know how to shut him up for years! This is because my evening supervisor was complaining about me to Bob, and now Bob wants to disassociate himself from me to try and curry favour among the managers. He will be saying, "I always knew she was lazy, well, she's young, she's got no respect, never does her job prop'ly, I haven't got time for these people, I've got blood pressure you know..." it does make it a bit uncomfortable but I think I'll cope (grin) the cool part of it is that I wasn't going to say anything to my supervisor about him bad-mouthing me, because it looked like a petty get-back, but I had a good reason to so I did. It was really funny, he did exactly what I do when I've been totally caught out, he tried and tried to cover himself with all sorts of silly excuses and told me I shouldn't worry about it without actually admitting he was wrong. Well, actually, he did it nothing like me, because if it was me, I would have done it way better (cackle) but what do you expect, he's been a cleaner for 19 years, the Royal Flush has fried his brain.
But enough of this nasty work stuff. I missed my shift this morning, actually, and I tested the "You're not contracted for mornings so you don't have to bother ringing in if you're not turning up" theory because my phone was dead and I wasn't at home (scuff). This is because I followed a boy promising me gin back to Earl's Court from ULU. I was slightly the worse for wear (Chernobyl/camp fire analogy again) but I should point out that it wasn't just some random bloke, it was the previously-mentioned Phnarr and his flatmate. In spite of saying "I should go home now" about 30 times I happily didn't bother in the end. It's always nice making new friends in London (whistle) because it can be a really lonely place at times. Anyway it follows that now I am knackered and sort of achey (grin) so I think I'll go to bed now.
Friday 21st April
It's all very strange. I mentioned to my supervisor that I was applying for a new job - the very same supervisor who only last week was practically pushing me out of the door - and he spent the best part of half an hour telling me I would never get such a job for various reasons. Having got over feeling throroughly demoralised by this, I began to realise that he was actually trying to talk me into staying. This I can only attribute to him not wanting to have to bother training someone else to hoover and mop in my own particular useless style. I despair. I can do no right at that place! If I'm there, they complain. When I suggest that I leave, they complain.
Anyway I got my application form and it's pretty scary but as long as I can think of something to sell myself unconditionally in 25 words or less, I'm in. Joy (grin). They want to know what the best thing about my current job is. The only thing I can think of to say is "leaving it". Well no....I suppose I should say something like, I love the flexibility and I get a real kick out of seeing the shop so shiny and clean for the customers who I consider to be my number one priority although I spend half my time glaring at them and being rude when they walk all over my wet floors. I can see this is going to be another CV thing...I had to write my CV as a joke and then take out all the sarcastic bits, it was the only way I could think of what I wanted to say, which is a bit worrying. The other staff are the best bit of the job, anyway, well, most of them. Take Billy the Chef, for example. He divides his dialogue with me between trying hard to embarrass me - which I regard as a wonderful opportunity for practicing witty responses - and relating stories of various pornographic things he has seen on TV. The first time he ever spoke to me was to suggest I entered the "Roly Poly Readers' Wives" section in The Sun. I think my response was to be outraged at him suggesting I was married. I think he was a bit surprised I didn't slap him, so he waited until I was leaving and then told me not to bend over when I read the newspaper because he could see right down my top. I was like, oh well, nevermind, I have nice tits. Since then, he says the most explicit things to me and I make a point of not rising to it, or trying to better him. This does not always do me any favours...
Billy the Chef: Bloody students! Spending my bloody taxes!
Me: *sigh* *polish door*
Billy the Chef: I bet you spend all my taxes on getting pissed in the union and trying to pick up freshers, don't you?
Me: (ironic smile) Nope, I spend it all on rent boys
Billy the Chef: (stops chopping parsley) WHAT?!
Me: (utterly failing to look through glass door panel) (much louder voice) I said I spend it all on RENT BOYS!
Big Cheese General Manager of Fenwick Mr Hunter: (enter through door I am standing in front of one second later)
Me: (mumble) I really really have to leave this place now
Let me make this point now so nobody is confused - I do *not* spend my grant on rent boys, and I do *not* condone the practice of spending government funds on rent boys (although no doubt many members in both the upper and lower Houses of Parliament may disagree with me). Although it is true that I am as likely as not to spend the 7 nights after my grant cheque has arrived in a state of gibbering drunkeness, I have never picked up freshers, or anyone else. And I paid....well, about half of my grant cheque's worth of taxes last year. In fact, counting the summer job, maybe even all of it. So it's still my money.
I only just realised that. Maybe I won't spend the next one on red wine and holidays to Cuba (grin).
White wine and holidays to Brazil, on the other hand.....
Monday 24th April
I have returned from my sojourn in the provincial hell of coastal Kent relatively unscathed. (Note: I probably only think this about coastal Kent because I didn't grow up there, I'm sure it's lovely really). Still can't get to grips with my maternal family (ie my mother and my grandmother) managing to disapprove of absolutely everything I do. Mother Hand isn't so bad, I suppose....but my Gran....OK, this is a woman who undoubtedly thinks that if I ever get married I should do so wearing horns and a black dress embroidered all over in red thread with "IMPURE", so staunch a Christian is she...and yet she criticises me for not putting Zoe out on the streets with no food and money. This seems to me to be more than a little hypocritical. I spent most of my time in the gran's old padded rocking chair (which she told me this weekend she was bequeathing to me on account of my being the only person who ever sits in it anymore) with my head in a book of some description (she keeps all my old Enid Blyton books under the spare room bed) but then I got into trouble for reading too much. So I went and sat on the beach and read there instead, until my now 5-day-long headache returned with a vengeance. So I decided to walk home, past all the range rovers with their 2.4 children and mothers with sensible bobbed hair (NO! NOTHING LIKE MINE!) and fathers with good jobs in the city. The whole town is a sociology study just waiting to happen, in my opinion. Anyway, I reached the corner and was overtaken by an ice cream van which decided to start playing Greensleaves just as it reached me, at a volume which would have shamed the average London night club. Not good for my headache, or my temper for that matter.
Decided to slope off to the pub after my gran was in bed, to try the medicinal approach to curing my headache. Managed to drink 2 pints in the 15 minutes before closing. I was sat at this table on my own contemplating various issues currently bothering me when these girls lurched over to get their drinks, which they'd left on my table. I think they felt sort of bound to speak to me...
Girlie 1: You here on your own love?
Me: Er...yeah
Girlie 1: Ooo aren't you brave!
Me: (thinks of the dodgy London pubs ventured into alone on previous occasions)
Me: (thinks) It was here or the bottom of the canal
Me: (says) Not really....
Girlie 1: 'Ere, she's 'ere on 'er own, ain't she brave?
Girlie 2: Yeah! you from round 'ere?
Me: No, staying with family for the weekend
Girlie 2: Oh. My boyfriend's just dumped me, says 'e don't love me anymore, an' 'e don't wanna be wiv me, but that's OK, cos all men are wankers
Me: (feminist part thinks) Hallelujah! I am amongst friends! (grin)
Me: (normal part thinks) That was a little more information than I really needed....
Me: (says) Oh, they're not worth getting upset about
Me: (wonders whether I will ever actually truly believe this)
Me: (drinks three quarters of a pint in one go, just to fill void in conversation
Girlie 1: You got a fella?
Me: (wonders if I will ever find out the answer to this)
Me: (easy option) No, they're too much hassle...
Girlie 1: YEEEAHHHHH! ALL MEN ARE WANKERS!
Girlie 1: (starts counting out her remaining change to see if she can afford to buy the Irish guy at the bar a drink before last orders)
I'm telling you. A sociology study just waiting to happen.
Anyway the rest of the weekend was spent studiously ignoring conversation (although my gran managed the obligatory "are you ever going to get a proper job?" comment when I mentioned my plans for my Masters) and trying to mow the back lawn. This proved difficult, since it wouldn't surprise me to discover that the mower was used to cut the grass in the Garden of Eden. By the time Mother Hand and I had finished, it looked like my brother's hair when his friends cut it with nail scissors as he lay in hash-induced unconsciousness. Except that they didn't dye my brother's hair green, thankfully.
I can hardly remember being this grateful to be home ever before, in spite of almost ending up in Fulham thanks to Mother Hand's attempted detour through Richmond Park. Don't even ask me how we managed up over there. She wanted to drop me at a tube station instead of taking me all the way home, but thanks to the massive detour almost to Stamford Bridge, she might as well have driven to Colindale. *Sigh*
I suppose it was sort of good to get out of London, anyway. I saw some lambs gambolling in a pasture and some real live bunnies sitting next to the road twitching their noses at me. I walked quite a long way along the canal in vain search of a row boat for hire, I haven't been rowing in ages. Probably this time last year, actually, at Stanborough when Suitcase Boy almost capsized us. In spite of all the fresh air and country-type things, though, I cannot think of a worse prospect than ending up there forever. I saw Girlie 2 from the pub today when I went to Iceland for some milk, she was working on one of the checkouts. She told me in the pub that she'd lived there all her life. What a fate. But then I suppose that's just me, I mean, even Portsmouth got too small for me by the time I was 15. Maybe in a few years living in Hythe will be suddenly more inviting. Think I would miss the tube, the 24 hour shops and the huge variety of interesting things to do and see even if you're skint, though. Although not the loneliness and the homeless people. Also I think living here makes me more paranoid, since I seem to be particuarly paranoid at the moment. Although that might be well founded (big smile)
Wednesday 26th April
There is one good thing I can say about X-stream and its 0800 number. It gives me time to do things I never normally have time to do. For example, yesterday as I waited for it to connect, I tidied my entire room. It dialled 344 times before I gave up. Today, I have spent half an hour doing my nails, before I gave up and connected with Freeserve instead. *Sigh* why is it that I spend most of my life hating BT, and now it turns out I need a BT line to take advantage of the free calls on Freeserve? Life just isn't fair.
Have just spent a particularly fun evening with a wine box, and Justine and Zoe and Emilia, and a big bag of doughnuts. Zoe and Emilia came to Asda with me and we spent an interesting hour trawling around looking for things with big stickers on saying, "Oops!" Watching Zoe swap eggs around in their boxes until she had 2 dozen dark brown ones was one of the more amusing things I have seen in a long time. She got so excited about finding eggs for 4p instead of 4.2p (grin) anyway she managed to find me enough bargains that I could afford to buy some Bailey's ice cream and some grapefruit juice. I love being this close to pay day. *After* pay day is always horrible because the money leaves my account quicker than the Thug leaving my house after I've made him a bacon sandwich (cackle).
Anyway, not much to say. I just wanted to relate the story of Zoe and her eggs because it really made me laugh. We've just been sitting around boring Emilia and Justine to death with stories of our wild youth. Now I'm in one of those where-did-the-time-go moods and we're trying to think of a London club that is suitably cheesy whilst at the same time suitably unknown - not the Hippodrome or Equinox or anything else so obviously shameful - so we can go out and try and recapture some of it. I suppose I should be thinking about revision. But there - that's something to start tomorrow when I'm trying to connect to X-stream (grin)
Saturday 29th April
Last night I collected the award for "Most pissed on Four Pints of Cider". I haven't been that drunk since.....oh, last week. Well, I was pretty hammered though. I was supposed to meet Jen for one pint in the pub near Richard's house and ended up getting the night bus home with Zoe at 3am. It's amazing how out of hand these things can get! The night started off as usual, we all sat around talking about boys and what to do with them for about 3 hours getting steadily drunker and quietly taking the piss out of these girlies sitting nearby. It was all fine until we got to the stage of drunkeness where we really wanted cigarettes. Zoe decided to try and steal this pack belonging to the girls sitting next to us, so she knocked them on the floor and I stood on them, and then Jen fished them out of the packet under my foot, very subtle like. It must have been totally obvious since we were the only ones sitting nearby and we didn't have any cigarettes and then suddenly we were all sitting there smoking. The girlies just sat there giving us evil looks for the rest of the evening, and then two of them got into an argument because one of them gave the other some money to buy some fags and then asked for her change and the other one wouldn't give it to her, so the first girl started yelling at her for being really tight. Must admit, I felt a bit guilty then. But anyway, after 11 we got up and went to the next door room but they were playing a bunch of salsa music because it was someone's birthday, so we trawled around until we found an unattended pint and took it back next door and sat in our original seats. The girlies were still there. They got up to leave, and as they were going one of them leaned over the table at Zoe..
The Dolly: I hope you enjoy smoking my friend's cigarettes
Us: (Various baffled noises)
Dolly: Look, don't try and deny it, I'm talking to you (points at Jen), you (points at me) and especially you (points at Zoe)
Jen: (glare) (hackles up)
Dolly's friend: Leave it, leave it, it's not worth it
Zoe and Me: (Various baffled noises)
Dolly: I was your age once....
Zoe: Once! I'm *way* older than you!
Dolly: (leans over and tries to grab collar of Zoe's coat)
Me: (shifts position to make it easier to hit her if she tries anything)
Dolly: (looks really pissed off) Come here....come here....I was your age once...and and....(hic)
Dolly's friend: Come on, let's just go
Dolly's other friend: What did you say to her?
Zoe and Me: Look, she's obviously drunk, we didn't say anything to her, she just came over and started saying something about lost cigarettes
Dolly's other friend: Uh huh....
Exit Dolly and friends
Zoe: HOW PATRONISING WAS SHE?! I'm *way* *way* older than them! (debatable but we agree anyway)
Jen: If she'd have pointed at me one more time I would seriously have stood up and decked her, I'm in that kind of mood, especially since I had nothing to do with it
Me: I know. Cigarette anyone?
It was just like old times (smiles) The funniest part was they left almost full drinks on the table so we had their alcohol too, tee hee. Anyway, then Richard turned up and we went back next door and joined the birthday party. Zoe and I terrorised this girl in the toilets by telling her she had a very pretty dress and she was beautiful and not to worry about whatever any boys said because all boys were horrible...she must have been all of 8 years old. We kept dancing with each other and falling over until this old guy came up to us and asked us if we wanted a drink. I'm not quite sure what he hoped to achieve but we got one anyway, since I'd just knocked Zoe over the sofa and her drink had flown off the table at the same time. By that point though, I was too drunk to drink it, and even right at the end when Jen and I were sat on the floor chatting, this guy came over to us and gave us both a glass of wine, and I couldn't even drink that. I think it's because all I'd had to eat all day was a bacon sandwich at 4pm.
Zoe and I managed to navigate the night buses home without too much trouble, although we sang overly loudly most of the way, as we had been doing in the pub, and Zoe kept making rude comments about the people sitting around us. Then this guy fell asleep and fell off his seat into Zoe's lap, that was quite amusing. Close to home he asked us where Burnt Oak was, so we invited him back to my house for dinner, we promised to cook him spaghetti bolognese and everything but he wasn't tempted, surprise surprise (grin) We said he could sleep on the sofa and he was like, you don't invite a bloke back and then make him sleep on the sofa, that's just rude! And I said, well you can sleep in our bed if you like but we're so tired we'll probably just pass out. So that's another busload of Londoners who think I'm a promiscuous lesbian. Zoe got off the bus shouting, You turned *me* down! You don't know what you're missing! Nobody *ever* turns *ME* down! I'm the best offer you could get anyway you GINGER! And I had to push her off the bus before the driver got pissed off and shut the doors or the guy got pissed off and hit her.
Finally, as we stumbled down my street we saw some of my neighbours getting out of this big car dressed in white robes. They might have been the Klan except they were black. Anyway we started going on about it being Jesus and Mary Magdelene and I think they were not best pleased because...well, whispers are always louder when you're drunk, n'est ce pas? Luckily Emilia was still awake when we got in so she supervised us making coffee and cooking sausages and onions, so we didn't burn the house down. Fell asleep whilst still online, thank god X-stream connected first time and it was free. Maybe one day I'll learn to be responsible and not get so drunk. Although I honestly didn't mean to.
Anyway. In other news....I'm quitting my job, la la la, I decided for definite on Thursday and it made me really happy for the rest of the week just thinking about not working there anymore. I've applied for a job as a web listings validator, whatever that is. You need excellent English, really good proof reading skills and decent computer literacy...was this job made for me or what! It pays really well too, and it looks as though it's the sort of job I might be able to keep on part time after September. As well as that I'm going to apply at William Hill, because they're advertising and I've worked for them before, and for that chef job in the soup restaurant, and for this security guard job at the police training centre where Roy the desk man works during the day. I've just had it with Fenwick, my evening supervisor is sucking up to me now like nobody's business, giving me really easy jobs and stuff. Yet I got passed over for working this Bank Holiday - which I thought it had already been agreed I was doing - and they didn't pay my sick leave last month when I had one night off, because it was my 5th day off sick *that year*. I'm not impressed. I just really hope I can get another job so I can leave asap.
Funnily enough, I passed out at work this week too, but it was my own fault. I have to clean this horrible horribel toilet now, it was part of my punishment I think, but it's the one the delivery men use and it absolutely reeks, so the first thing I do whenever I go in there is drench the place in air freshener, which is choking as well but much better. So this time I did the same, and then started misting the floor with the pine disinfectant, but I must have had it on a really fine mist or something because most of it ended up in the air instead of on the floor. But because of the air freshener, I couldn't smell it, and I didn't realise how much I had inhaled until it caught in the back of my throat, whereupon I started coughing and retching. Then all of a sudden I was on my back seeing stars. Not usually a bad state of affairs (cackle) but this time it was a bit scary. Thank god I fell backwards instead of forwards or I would have ended up swallowing the stuff too. That'll teach me to use too many cleaning products in a confined space (grin)
Also this week, on Thursday, the old AMAB mantra became "All men are bastards *sometimes*" (grin) The house was full of girls still, since Justine was still around typing her dissertation.
(Wow, don't those bullets look *cool*?!) Anyway, boys are in such favour here at the moment that the cake I made on Tuesday is *still only half eaten* (shock, horror). Maybe we are just being beguiled by their crafty wiles. Well, nevermind, as long as it's keeping me off the cake (smile).