whee! That was fun! Just got back from seeing Half Man Half Biscuit at Rock City, clutching the new CD, CSI Ambleside, which the fluffy one won't let me play till tomorrow, alas.
Also today discovered that Porcupine Tree will be playing one gig in October at the new Indig02 venue in London, and tickets go on sale on Friday morning. Somehow I will have to contain myself till then.
off work grumpy, and a bit of an update Today I am off work with a strained lower back muscle that's making every position I've tried to be in so far something of a challenge. This is very annoying. I went swimming yesterday afternoon with memevector, and afterwards went shopping, as we had a friend coming to stay and needed something to feed him. I picked up a hand basket, filled it full of bags of fruit and veg, and when standing in the checkout queue bent to pick it up - OW. I somehow drove home, and even managed to cook dinner, but this morning it's worse, so I'm home and feeling grumpy. Andi is feeling ill today too, so is finding it a bit hard going looking after me, though she's being lovely about it as usual.
In other news, I had most of my hair cut off last Thursday. ( hairCollapse )
In other other news, life with Andi continues to be blissfully happy and I still feel like the luckiest woman in the world. Work is better than it was, as I get to grips with more of its complexities, and I have a new manager who I get on with well, though I'm having problems with a formerly cheerful and helpful but now very pissed off, bad tempered colleague. (I'm currently trying to find out whether it's me she's pissed off with or just life in general). We have a newer car (as a big tree branch fell on the old one in the storms last January) which is better to drive. We also have a much bigger bed, which is far more comfortable to sleep in, and which we built the base for ourselves. Andi and I have got more involved with helping organise Queer Pagan Camp, travelling to meetings and doing set-up site crew this year. We've been listening to lots of new (to us) music and going to more gigs. I'm going to be training as a volunteer with the local LGBT Switchboard starting in a couple of weeks, which should be interesting. And we finally ordered broadband, which has also meant upgrading this computer's memory and operating system (thanks Andi!) and should be live in the next few days. I seem to have wandered back to LJ from reading other forums for a while, and am feeling more like posting again, so may start using this journal a bit more often.
swimming Yesterday I went swimming for the first time in maybe a couple of years. I tried to not go mad and swim like crazy, as I tend to be inclined to do - I hope I didn't do too much for a first dip. But it felt great to be in the pool. I'm probably the unfittest I've ever been, after several years hobbling around on this not-quite-healed left ankle, but swimming felt perfectly fine, like I'd never been away. The chiropracter has been very dubious about the wisdom of swimming; he thinks it might adversely affect my right shoulder which he's still treating, and I don't think I quite managed to convince him that I'm the kind of swimmer who wears goggles and puts her head underwater, rather than the kind that doesn't get her hair wet. We came to the conclusion that I should try it, gently, and that we would see, which I expect we will. I think it's time I got stronger and fitter and hope that will help the ankle and the shoulder, because I've been having monthly treatment now for 18 months and things are still not quite right.
I've also been thinking about the possibility of going to a gym. I've never actually been to one before. I quite like the idea of some of the exercises, but am wary of you-must-want-to-lose-weight kind of attitudes, both from staff and other users, especially in the current atmosphere of general, topical, public fat-hatred, which is feeling more and more like a witch hunt.
Talking of which, when I went into the pool last night I was greeted by a great crow of laughter from a boy of perhaps 10 or 12, one of a crowd of (mostly older) lads, who pointed at me and yelled "Look! Look! A fatty! A fatty!" I descended several steps down into the pool, fixed him with a Look, and said in a loud voice, far more firmly than I felt, "Don't you be so bloody rude!" then got into the water and swam off, wondering if I was going to regret it. I heard a voice say "Leave it, leave it" but I didn't look round. Whew. Technically I suppose they could complain about me swearing at a child, which I didn't know I was going to do till I did. I tend to be a bit inarticulate with come-backs, and often end up saying things I have no idea I'm about to say, in a somewhat awkward fashion. It appears 2007 may be going to be the year of No More Shit, though. I do hope so. Maybe if I get more practice I can respond with a bit more panache.
My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Eminence the Very Viscountess Wandra the Ingenious of Waldenshire under Throcket Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title
happy new year 2006 was a pretty momentous year, all in all, certainly the best year I've had personally for quite a while. I'm still finding it hard to believe that after all these years Andi is actually here living with me, but here she is. I like this domestic bliss thing.
stress stress stress 1) Girlfriend in the Air. Always stressful. (Arrives Heathrow tomorrow, hurray!).
2) I'm supposed to be leaving work today at 3.00pm.
But first, I have to run and print a giant mail merge of Important Letters that have to be posted first class today, on a new printer in another room that may or may not work from my computer.
But before that a) the team have to finish the emergency inputting and b) the IT people have to fix the report that provides the thousands of addresses actually required for the mail merge and c) I have to merge two Excel spreadsheets in Access which I've never done before but which I now have notes on having been talked through the whole thing by my manager who has now left for the Easter break. a) should be done reasonably soon, b) may not get done at all, c) can't be done without b).
3) The M25. Between me and arriving at baratron's tonight. Nuff said.
[Edit: It didn't get done (though not because of me), I didn't leave work till after 5pm, but the M25 was surprisingly unstressful, for once, and I have arrived safely.]
tuna sweetcorn! tuna sweetcorn! All perky and bouncy this morning despite late night due to going to Half Man Half Biscuit gig in Derby last night. HMHB were a joy to behold. Want more.
Unfortunately it seems that leaning sideways over a railing (to get a better view) and jiggling up and down for a couple of hours has taken its toll - my dodgy ankle is actively hurting and my lower back has developed a painful twinge on the side that was ok before. I already have a chiropracter appointment next Tuesday, but this weekend I have to drive to Glastonbury and back. Not ideal, really. Oh well. At least I'm having fun.
I've also been meaning for sometime to do an update on the job situation. To cut a long story short, I was offered the vacant team leader position I was planning to apply for, on the basis of my appointability for the previous team leader position, which was less than three months previous to the vacancy arising. Hurray! I started last Monday and have been having an intensive induction week - loads of information to absorb. I'm enjoying it so far though. Will write more about this later I expect. Many thanks to everyone who sent good wishes and encouragement - it really helped.
I had the long delayed interview for the scale 4 post in my current team yesterday. (I am at scale 3 now, the job I went for last time was scale 5.) Once again I came second, (and was the only other appointable candidate) but this time only by the merest whisker - the panel said they would find it hard to give me any constructive feedback as I'd answered everything well. (Go, me.)
I am feeling rather perky now because
a) They heaped such praise upon me it inflated my ego almost to bursting point
b) it was a pleasantly bonding experience chatting to other applicants while we waited for a decision and afterwards, and the atmosphere at work is currently quite warm and friendly. I appear to have social skills at the moment, which always makes life easier.
b) The successful candidate was a colleague from the team across the room currently at scale 5 (team manager) who has decided he doesn't like managing people very much, and his job will now be vacant.
c) I can recycle a (tweaked) version of my last Scale 5 application, have otherwise pretty much done all the hard work required apart from finding out exactly what the job entails and how the team works, and I have to be in with a pretty good chance of getting it.
It also doesn't hurt that
d) I only have seven more days to work this year. Off next Thursday for a week of flexi leave - to Brighton to frolic under the full moon and celebrate Yule, then back home for festive meals and munches and so on
e) The fluffKitten and I have been happily planning an April girlfriend importation and a May registration ceremony. Hurray!
Now I just have to make a lot of impressive looking vegan sweets (choc truffles, fudge, choc marzipan things, maybe pecan toffee) by this time next week, and then I can relax. Xmas presents for the family can wait till later.
pipped at the post My manager at work left last month and yesterday I had an interview for his job. I didn't get it, but have been told I was one of only two appointable candidates (out of seven) and only just missed out to the other person, whoever they are. We don't know who got it yet, but it's looking like one of the external candidates, who reputedly wore a pink tie. (I am provisionally viewing the pink tie as a good sign.) I'll get some feedback next Tuesday when I go back to work. There's another job at an in between level coming up, so this will all have to start again.
I'm not really sure how I feel. This has been a big thing for the last two months and I do feel disappointed, let down and flat. On the other hand also a bit relieved because although I think I could do the job, I'm not sure if I really want to manage people. I would rather be really good at what I do, and do it at a higher level, if that were a possibility. Mostly I think I feel overexposed, in the way you do when you've just been a disorganised sweaty person rambling incoherently in front of three people you have to go on working with.
The whole thing has turned out to be quite stressful and I need to unwind. I'm driving down to Brighton today, to a birthday party tonight and an Autumn Equinox celebration tomorrow night, so hopefully this will help. I had an hour on the phone to the fluffKitten this morning which was lovely and helped a lot. I keep reminding myself of all the good things in my life. I wish I didn't have so many reasons to feel a bit crap right now, but I am trying to stay afloat in spite of them, .
A major reason for wanting the job was because of the money. Andi and I have to prove that we have enough money for us both to live on so they'll let her into the country, and I'm worried that I don't earn enough. I've spent a couple of hours this morning digging up information on civil partnerships and immigration legislation online, and attempting to ring the UK Visas office, but without success. It is very irritating to have to listen to a three minute recorded message each time before being told all the advisors are busy, please ring back later. Three times. Grr. Anyone out there done this kind of thing before, or have any information about how much money/income is enough? I would very much like to stop worrying about this.
2) It's also time consuming. Is it just me or do other people find themselves thinking "Ok, ok, I get the point! Can we just skip to the bit where I start feeling better?"
girlfriend-in-the-air I got back here just after ten, from taking Andi to Heathrow to catch her flight back to Australia. It was as hard as ever to say goodbye, even though this time hopefully it won't be for so long, and next time she comes should be to stay. The car felt empty without her all the way back up the motorway, the flat feels empty without her in it. I'm in keeping busy mode, putting a load of washing in the machine, doing electoral registration by phone, checking the BAA website to see when her flight took off. (22.32, a little later than scheduled. Andi went through to Departures so early that I had time to drive 135 miles home before the plane was due to take off.) Tomorrow I go back to work, and try to remember how to do my job.
I don't like girlfriend-in-the-air. I won't relax till hear she's back home, which should be when I get up on Wednesday morning.
feeling better Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who replied to my last post. Writing it made me feel a lot better and so did all your hugs and good wishes.
It's kind of wild wet and windy out there, but we're getting in the car and heading north. Should be back down to Worcester again Thursday night in time for our little bit of Bicon. Looking forward to seeing people there, even if we're not staying for the weekend.
It was a good camp, I think. Sunny weather, amicable, chilled out. A different site from previous years, which made the camp different in subtle ways - the lie of the land, the feel of the ground underfoot. A site more open to the surrounding world, with beautiful views on several sides, loads of sky, teeming stars, as always in that part of Dorset. Abundant thistles made walking barefoot or lying directly on the grass impractical. Even in sandals prickly bits would get stuck in feet. I think that contributed to my feeling less connected to the camp than usual. For me it lacked focus and was hard to engage with, so that I feel in some ways the camp passed me by and I feel sad about that. I arrived tired and stressed, having had hardly any time to think about camp beforehand, as I had to do a job application in a hurry before we left. And I knew I had a funeral to go to on the Tuesday.
The funeral. Feels like one of those tip of iceberg things, with an effect far beyond the expected.
Some of you may have known, or known of, Monica Sjoo, who died on Monday 8th August. My dear friend Maggie called me to tell me the news an hour or so after she died, and I spent the evening talking to Andi about her, telling stories. I knew Monica for over 20 years, and for almost ten of those years she was a regular contributor to From the Flames, the women's spirituality magazine I edited during the nineties, and also its most enthusiastic promoter. I had a look to see if anyone had written anything online about her passing, and found this short piece by Starhawk. I was on that walk across Salisbury Plain to Stonehenge with them in 1985.
After my life went boom at the end of the decade and FTF went with it, I dropped out of touch with many people, Monica amongst them, but a couple of years ago we sorted out our remaining bit of unfinished business, and I went twice to her month long retrospective exhibition of paintings in Bath last February, to see her and other women speak and do workshops. It was wonderful to see her huge paintings in the gallery, hung and lit properly, full of the light and colour that so rarely is conveyed by the photos and reproductions available. I remember seeing her paintings propped up against the walls of the tiny flat she lived in, themselves papered with hundreds of visual images, eating the stew Monica used to make, sitting for hours talking at the little kitchen table, and even on one occasion where lots of us stayed there, sleeping underneath it.
So many memories. The funeral was full of people I hadn't seen for years. Al and I drove up from the camp, which was further than we'd thought, arriving at a house full of flowers, people, food. Monica's body was in a veiled gazebo in the garden, so that we could say goodbye to her, beautifully dressed and arranged in her cardboard coffin, with flowers and herbs. We had to drive from there to the crematorium, which was also further than we thought, through heavy city centre traffic, without knowing where we were going, and missed the first couple of minutes of the ritual. The place was packed. Invocations. Eulogy. Singing. Poetry. A woman played the harp. Some of us cried. Outside on the grass we made a huge circle and held hands. We drove back again to the house, to say our goodbyes and exchange a few phone numbers. It was 11pm by the time we got back to the camp.
And I seem to have been crying ever since, on and off. Not directly because of Monica, though she had such sorrow in her life. Grief manifests in unexpected ways. I found it hard to reconnect with the camp after I came back, kept feelng tired and lonely and out of things, despite Andi's loving support. Everyone at camp was lovely and understanding. I went to a couple of workshops, and a ritual, but still, I felt I wasn't really there, and the days, and my holiday, were ticking by. My birthday on the Friday was quiet, because I hadn't told many people I was having one, and because it made me feel sad to feel so sad on my birthday. I couldn't seem to work up the energy to contribute much to the camp, apart from sometimes lighting the fire in the morning for the hot showers, which we were camped right next to. At least I was clean, this camp, even if I was sad.
And now at home, briefly, I still feel sad. Grief touches off other grief. Two important relationships have ended this year, and now the grief over those is surfacing sharply. I don't want to feel sad. I resent the time it takes - away from the precious few weeks with Andi, away from my holiday from work. Tomorrow I go to get adjusted by the chiropracter; on Wednesday we drive to Durham for a brief visit with my parents. On Thursday we drive down to Worcester for a day and two nights of Bicon. On Monday I drive Andi to Heathrow to catch her plane, and on Tuesday I go back to work. There's not enough time.
I have no idea, right now, how I'm going to cope with Andi going back. I'm holding on to the fact/hope that this time she won't be gone so long, that in six months or so she should be back, to live with me this time, once we get the paperwork sorted out. I am in awe that this wonderful woman is going to move half way round the world to be with me. I have a lurking fear that something will happen to stop it, that what I earn won't be considered sufficient for us to live on. I know I'll be all right. I know I'm probably worrying more than I need to. In lots of ways my life is really good. Lots of positive things have happened this year too, things I'm really happy about. I keep trying to remind myself of that. My friend Linden once wrote "for me, grief is a horse you ride until it tires itself out". Sometimes I am impatient at how much time and energy emotions take. I want to be done with them and move on. For now, sleep will have to do.
loved
excited
pleased
contemplative
mellow
stressed
optimistic
tired
indescribable