Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do
That was quite a busy weekend. I had a 'do' to attend after work on Friday*, after which I changed out of my formal clothes and got the Northern Line up to Camden. I met up with fireblade__, random_goth, cocked_brow, wormburger and a couple of their mates, whose names I have now unfortunately forgotten, in the Dev. We moved onto Inferno after a while, which was the best one I've been to for quite some time. The music was predictable but fun and I had a good dance (for most of the night in fact); I'd had a couple of good nights' sleep beforehand, so my brain didn't start shutting down on me; I didn't accidentally swallow my fangs. All sorts of fun bonuses like that. I also bumped into Craig, my ex-flatmate of about two years ago and we propped the bar up for a while, discussing what we've been up to in the time since I left Newington Green.
On Saturday, besides sleeping quite a lot and going for one of my Long Walks in the Sunshine™, I got to work on an exercise from the latest self-help book, which I'd been putting off for ages: opening up a new exercise book and writing out a serious of long and detailed descriptions of some of the worst moments in my life. Or, at least, the ones which I've found myself fixating on the most. This wasn't a very fun thing to spend my day doing and it meant a couple of time-outs to watch episodes of The Mighty Boosh, but I went through with all this because the book told me to. And the book rules my life, obviously. I'd like to think I'm stripping down my soul and laying out all the component parts neatly on a tarpaulin, just like a photograph from a Haines manual, so that the end result will be a perfectly maintained and eficient machine. On the other hand, I could just be taking to heart the rantings of some American quack psychologist with a silly moustache whose only real qualification is having appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show a few times. We shall see, in time. That took up most of the day and I failed to get any animating done.
Yesterday I ended up heading to Angel in the afternoon/evening for the Black Celebration, which was fairly good fun, as these things go. One of the more interesting innovations they've added this year was handing out free drugs in the audience - not entirely sure who organised that or why, but it was a fun touch. I decided I'd better not stay for Suicide Commando's encore though, as it was getting a tad late.
A good weekend, then. Unfortunately, in contrast, today's been unrelentingly shit. It's three years tomorrow since I started work at *** and (coincidentally) I got invited to attend a brokers' meeting today for the very first time, which I thought might be a kind of initiation into the important world of the insurance big kids, or something. A painful rite of passage it proved to be, as I was forced to try and look alert and attentive all the way through a tedious 90 minute meeting, despite lack of sleep and feeling a little chemically imbalanced, where the only participation actually required from me in all that time was literally just to say "Oh, is it me now? Umm, well, we've got most of the multinational problems sorted out, but I could do with a list of local contacts to send to the regional offices." Everything else being discussed was entirely irrelevant to what I do and I was pinching myself for most of the other 89 minutes.
The brokers then took everybody out for a meal/drink at their expense, which would have been nice, except I didn't know the pub where they'd booked a corner and I got separated from the rest of the group in the bustling street (apparently they'd not noticed I was missing) and it took me almost half an hour to locate where they'd gone. Everybody in the pub then stood around in a circle which I couldn't quite physically get into, discussing football and what the insurance market was like twenty years ago; conversations which I made a couple of futile attempts to get involved with, then gave up. Then the food arrived - all the sandwiches they'd picked in my absence were full of meat and their response when I said I was veggie was "Oh, okay then." So I spent the next hour and a bit standing around, watching everybody else stuff their faces and talking in little closed huddles about how hilarious it was settling claims after the 1987 hurricane. For some incomprehensible reason they kept insisting I stayed, but I eventually made an excuse and went off to buy some food at Subway. I really hope I'm not offered any more of these exciting networking opportunities.
On the train home this evening, I managed to leave the bag containing last Friday's work clothes (suit and everything) under one of the seats. Slightly bad move on my part. I've reported it to the train company's lost property line, but I think the chances of getting that bag back are slim at best. well, that's another pat on my own back I've earned.
* My friend Paul, who also used to work with me at my previous job, has got a transfer to the Croydon branch. I'm not sure if I'd be celebrating that myself per se - although it will no doubt save him on train fares - but it was an excuse for a couple of swift pints after work, so off I went to that.
On Saturday, besides sleeping quite a lot and going for one of my Long Walks in the Sunshine™, I got to work on an exercise from the latest self-help book, which I'd been putting off for ages: opening up a new exercise book and writing out a serious of long and detailed descriptions of some of the worst moments in my life. Or, at least, the ones which I've found myself fixating on the most. This wasn't a very fun thing to spend my day doing and it meant a couple of time-outs to watch episodes of The Mighty Boosh, but I went through with all this because the book told me to. And the book rules my life, obviously. I'd like to think I'm stripping down my soul and laying out all the component parts neatly on a tarpaulin, just like a photograph from a Haines manual, so that the end result will be a perfectly maintained and eficient machine. On the other hand, I could just be taking to heart the rantings of some American quack psychologist with a silly moustache whose only real qualification is having appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show a few times. We shall see, in time. That took up most of the day and I failed to get any animating done.
Yesterday I ended up heading to Angel in the afternoon/evening for the Black Celebration, which was fairly good fun, as these things go. One of the more interesting innovations they've added this year was handing out free drugs in the audience - not entirely sure who organised that or why, but it was a fun touch. I decided I'd better not stay for Suicide Commando's encore though, as it was getting a tad late.
A good weekend, then. Unfortunately, in contrast, today's been unrelentingly shit. It's three years tomorrow since I started work at *** and (coincidentally) I got invited to attend a brokers' meeting today for the very first time, which I thought might be a kind of initiation into the important world of the insurance big kids, or something. A painful rite of passage it proved to be, as I was forced to try and look alert and attentive all the way through a tedious 90 minute meeting, despite lack of sleep and feeling a little chemically imbalanced, where the only participation actually required from me in all that time was literally just to say "Oh, is it me now? Umm, well, we've got most of the multinational problems sorted out, but I could do with a list of local contacts to send to the regional offices." Everything else being discussed was entirely irrelevant to what I do and I was pinching myself for most of the other 89 minutes.
The brokers then took everybody out for a meal/drink at their expense, which would have been nice, except I didn't know the pub where they'd booked a corner and I got separated from the rest of the group in the bustling street (apparently they'd not noticed I was missing) and it took me almost half an hour to locate where they'd gone. Everybody in the pub then stood around in a circle which I couldn't quite physically get into, discussing football and what the insurance market was like twenty years ago; conversations which I made a couple of futile attempts to get involved with, then gave up. Then the food arrived - all the sandwiches they'd picked in my absence were full of meat and their response when I said I was veggie was "Oh, okay then." So I spent the next hour and a bit standing around, watching everybody else stuff their faces and talking in little closed huddles about how hilarious it was settling claims after the 1987 hurricane. For some incomprehensible reason they kept insisting I stayed, but I eventually made an excuse and went off to buy some food at Subway. I really hope I'm not offered any more of these exciting networking opportunities.
On the train home this evening, I managed to leave the bag containing last Friday's work clothes (suit and everything) under one of the seats. Slightly bad move on my part. I've reported it to the train company's lost property line, but I think the chances of getting that bag back are slim at best. well, that's another pat on my own back I've earned.
* My friend Paul, who also used to work with me at my previous job, has got a transfer to the Croydon branch. I'm not sure if I'd be celebrating that myself per se - although it will no doubt save him on train fares - but it was an excuse for a couple of swift pints after work, so off I went to that.