Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Guard your bananas, weather's a-comin'
Good grief. Look at this. I nearly got a job writing for those people. I'm sure I would have got sick of it very quickly, and also it would have been nearly impossible to get to the Lakes every day, but I was in my desperately-applying-for-anything-remotely-interesting period. Haven't looked at a job section for what feels like months of blessed rose-petal-strewn relief. Considered it briefly today, though.
After a slew of proper actual work, I've fallen prey to a bunch of timewasters. This is what you get for dropping your pay-per-click budget - pay a bit more and you get serious people who give you money in exchange for services; a bit less and you just get silly fools arsing about. Boy with dissertation wanted much detail about my work, including do I charge by word count of original document, or by number of errors found? "No, Person, I charge by the number of dots I can count on lower case Is and Js before I start to go dizzy." He ended up backing out because of something incomprehensible. Girl about to go to university wanting tips on essay structure. Someone else wanting to know how to get into proofreading as a career, runs her own business with husband but fancies doing something else. Right. Let me help! I bet you've got a dinky little portfolio of property, too, doncha? Why don't you go and ask your stuck-in-rental-trap tenants if you can borrow a fiver, damn you, and stop bothering me.
Eye test to see if my specs are to blame for my bout of crazed wobbliness yesterday - was so dizzy I couldn't even open my eyes when I was lying down for a while. Apparently my eyes are fine, hardly any difference. Which is good news, of course, but it still means that I'm ill with something inexplicable. Look, I refuse to die unpublished, OK? So you can just wait until I get my shit together to write something of worth, mysterious ailment.
Spent too much money on crap in town, but resisted the call of a nice dress. I have lots of nice dresses but they never see the light of day, or even the light of night. The one I tried on today was lovely except for its curious framing of my legs, which have never been my favourite thing but are now suffering a bit from lack of exercise. And paucity of sun, since circa 1988. I know 'transclucent' skin denotes some kind of angelic beauty but in my case it just means that you can practically see my shinbones. Plus I'm pathologically averse to wearing flimsy shoes.
I'm very happy that the weather is warming up and that I was able to walk home today in my top, but the usual sense of mild dread descends. The world will suddenly turn into one big Coca-Cola ad with girlies everywhere in little wafty dresses and sandals and me all awkward in the usual tit-scaffolding and leg coverings and overheated trainers and not a builder's van's honk to call my own. Although someone did honk me the other week. Yes, I am a good feminist, but I demand my share of honkage. Thank you.
Got home to find one of the usual strange children in the Pagan's garden next door - she has two of her own and seems to do childminding on and off, although she also has lots of friends with children (and dogs, they all have dogs, but NOT on strings, that would just be too much). This one was around six, and very friendly.
"Hello!"
"Hello there."
"I'm digging a hole."
"Are you?"
"Yes, we're going to plant seeds. Would you like to see?"
And we discussed mud and the ickiness thereof, and how much room dandelions need to grow. Children are so wonderful sometimes. The Pagan's Daughter is the most beautiful child, eight or so, spitting image of Drew Barrymore in E.T. only brunette, and she is so talkative and sweet and full of something like the innocence that has just ended up as pornographic roadkill in the pages of The Sun. But it only takes one horrible nerve-shredding screeeeaaaaaam from some brat in a pushchair to cancel out any affection I might be developing for small people as a species.
I lied, being single is a bit rubbish. The evening opens up before me like a big hole in the ground. I'm secure enough now to not care about the status of it, it's the practicalities of having nothing where once there was something. Well, I don't have nothing, I'm very lucky to have two new friends (providing I can hang onto them, please God/secular deity), but there's a definite sense of lurking dissatisfaction and loneliness just outside the nice comfortable campsite of the solitary-by-nature. I think it's just raccoons, not bears. It'll be a while before I can downgrade to squirrels.
After a slew of proper actual work, I've fallen prey to a bunch of timewasters. This is what you get for dropping your pay-per-click budget - pay a bit more and you get serious people who give you money in exchange for services; a bit less and you just get silly fools arsing about. Boy with dissertation wanted much detail about my work, including do I charge by word count of original document, or by number of errors found? "No, Person, I charge by the number of dots I can count on lower case Is and Js before I start to go dizzy." He ended up backing out because of something incomprehensible. Girl about to go to university wanting tips on essay structure. Someone else wanting to know how to get into proofreading as a career, runs her own business with husband but fancies doing something else. Right. Let me help! I bet you've got a dinky little portfolio of property, too, doncha? Why don't you go and ask your stuck-in-rental-trap tenants if you can borrow a fiver, damn you, and stop bothering me.
Eye test to see if my specs are to blame for my bout of crazed wobbliness yesterday - was so dizzy I couldn't even open my eyes when I was lying down for a while. Apparently my eyes are fine, hardly any difference. Which is good news, of course, but it still means that I'm ill with something inexplicable. Look, I refuse to die unpublished, OK? So you can just wait until I get my shit together to write something of worth, mysterious ailment.
Spent too much money on crap in town, but resisted the call of a nice dress. I have lots of nice dresses but they never see the light of day, or even the light of night. The one I tried on today was lovely except for its curious framing of my legs, which have never been my favourite thing but are now suffering a bit from lack of exercise. And paucity of sun, since circa 1988. I know 'transclucent' skin denotes some kind of angelic beauty but in my case it just means that you can practically see my shinbones. Plus I'm pathologically averse to wearing flimsy shoes.
I'm very happy that the weather is warming up and that I was able to walk home today in my top, but the usual sense of mild dread descends. The world will suddenly turn into one big Coca-Cola ad with girlies everywhere in little wafty dresses and sandals and me all awkward in the usual tit-scaffolding and leg coverings and overheated trainers and not a builder's van's honk to call my own. Although someone did honk me the other week. Yes, I am a good feminist, but I demand my share of honkage. Thank you.
Got home to find one of the usual strange children in the Pagan's garden next door - she has two of her own and seems to do childminding on and off, although she also has lots of friends with children (and dogs, they all have dogs, but NOT on strings, that would just be too much). This one was around six, and very friendly.
"Hello!"
"Hello there."
"I'm digging a hole."
"Are you?"
"Yes, we're going to plant seeds. Would you like to see?"
And we discussed mud and the ickiness thereof, and how much room dandelions need to grow. Children are so wonderful sometimes. The Pagan's Daughter is the most beautiful child, eight or so, spitting image of Drew Barrymore in E.T. only brunette, and she is so talkative and sweet and full of something like the innocence that has just ended up as pornographic roadkill in the pages of The Sun. But it only takes one horrible nerve-shredding screeeeaaaaaam from some brat in a pushchair to cancel out any affection I might be developing for small people as a species.
I lied, being single is a bit rubbish. The evening opens up before me like a big hole in the ground. I'm secure enough now to not care about the status of it, it's the practicalities of having nothing where once there was something. Well, I don't have nothing, I'm very lucky to have two new friends (providing I can hang onto them, please God/secular deity), but there's a definite sense of lurking dissatisfaction and loneliness just outside the nice comfortable campsite of the solitary-by-nature. I think it's just raccoons, not bears. It'll be a while before I can downgrade to squirrels.
