some words spoken silently to michael via the Internet

i watched fireworks from my window.

i spelled "liter" l-i-t-R-E today. i used the word liter at all.

i'm worried that spiders are biting me at night when i am vulnerable to the attack.

my life is losing shape.

time in england running out. the green is going. leaving lush lands behind. future is uncertain, but the terrain is dry.

where am i going?


... as i know it.

but i feel fine.

fine.

fine.

Throwing Stones

People who work in glass palaces shouldn’t…

So ... in the last two weeks our flurry of not-working has reached all-new, next-gen, hi-def heights. The entire writers team in our UK office was made redundant, half of the UK Creative Services team (of which numbers the writers make up half), and out of our whole office: 21 roles (the roles, not the people, right? Right.), making the UK CS team’s cut of 11 roles, again, nearly half. So as you might expect, even more people are now doing even less work (some are in fact now officially doing none at all) for the duration of our "consultancy" period.

In addition to that shattering news, they announced on Thursday that the company is closing our Chertsey office, yes, that stalwart symbol of conspicuous prominence: The Glass Palace (see below for photo). Which sadly means that all of the contract facilities type people (Grace and Anna from the coffee bar; Simon, Hayley, and the EATS crew) also have a now rather limited shelf life.

The mood, to be redundantly clear, is less than jovial.

I’ve been coping, just. By continuing to work on my projects (mostly Sims and mostly what we used to call "US-led"), I have been able to fall back on my usual course of survival: denial. When I’m not swamped with Sims requests, I find that sleeping and sipping liberally-poured rum drinks offer nearly the same level of oblivion. On a good day, I go to yoga and tire myself out so ridiculously that I can’t think at all, let alone dwell on anxiety-provoking topics.

Yoga aside, none of this has been particularly helpful (yet far) in casting aside the nearly one stone that has been slung about (not my neck, which would probably be even worse!) my middle over the past two years. But now that I’m going to potentially have so much time on my hands, and won’t be inhabiting a great glass structure, it may well be time to toss it.

holding my breath

sniff. sniff.

This Summer England enacted their very own strict anti-smoking laws. No more puffing in pubs. No more reeking up local restaurants. Smoke free. Aaaaaah.

As it was, our workplace was already smoke-free. Sort of. Basically it meant that anyone wanting to inhale their nicotine fix had to scoot out the door a few feet and then commence with their cough-iriffic habit. This consequently meant that our lovely boardwalk along the lake was frequently dappled, not just with the usual goose poo, but with folks clinching and sucking on cancer sticks. You could go sit outside to enjoy the infrequent sunshine amidst the incessant smoking ... if you dared. Likewise, walking out most of the doorways to the “car park” was destined to dump you in a tobacco haze.

That was before the big change. The new, stricter laws were going to further protect employees from the hazards of other people’s second-hand smoke.

Good, right? Except.

The deck is now devoted to sun-seekers (along with the geese and their droppings). [Here's a view of the deck at the front of the building; it continues the length of the building and there's a bigger deck with tables and such on the other end. Pretty, isn't it?]

The administration, in accordance with the new laws, allotted a singular spot for the smoking masses. It appears, however, that this one locale that they’ve designated as the permissible smoking place is smack-dab next to our intake air vents. So now instead of having to actually go out of your way to breathe incidental toxins, you can sit at your desk and have it brought straight to you via our air system.

Fantastic.

A number of emails, from a wide variety of people, to our facilities department (who fields, or doesn’t as the case may be, these questions) have gone unanswered.

Scary Stuff

It seems that I have neglected to rave about my new favorite thing: my widgets. Even the word is cute. I’ve reigned in my widget impulse and am now only using seven (you can count them below). If you don’t have them yet, do yourself a favor and get some. At the very least get the weather one.

Right now, I also have a seasonal widget -- my Halloween countdown clock (there he is the lower right corner). It’s an adorable jack-o-lantern and tells me, down to the second, the amount of time remaining between me and the scariest day of the year. I’ve had it for a while. I think when I first added it, we were about 40 days out. Now that we’re getting closer, it was time to change the entire background. Some google image-searching turned up some really creepy stuff. I now have a haunted house scene gracing my PC monitor (which is gigantic, by the way – only newly so, which is why I have to mention it because I am still in love with it. See below). Around the corner (or above in these two shots), is an even spookier graveyard scene on my Mac (well, when I say corner, they’re really side by side, but at slightly different slants).

But here is the most terrifying part about all of this. When I had it all set up (see yesterday's post), I proudly thought to myself “That is WELL scary!”

Huh?

Yeah. See, it isn’t unheard of over here to use the word “well” to mean very or quite. You might even hear someone say that something is “well good.” Which gives me pause, I have to say. I don’t think I like it and yet, there it was, popping right into my head of its own accord.

Spooky.

Nice Work if You Can Get it

There’s a new craze sweeping our office. Perhaps you’re already hoisting a banner on your own local bandwagon. As with most new things, I am a late adopter, being ever so un-hip. I like to come in just after things hit their peak, when the trend is waning and exhibiting the beginning of death throes. Still, I am throwing myself into this one wholeheartedly. Or at least, as I do, intermittently wholeheartedly. You know, when I can be bothered.

For the past six months or so we have been hearing over and over again that our department is being restructured, our job roles will be changing. We’ve also been privy to a wide range of implications and suggestions about whether we will all even still have roles (jobs, that is) and even blatant assertions that some of us will be unhappy with the changes. In spite of what were undoubtedly the best intentions of our higher ups, this has amazingly had a quite negative effect on the work habits, attitude, and morale of the troops.

And so it ensues… The name of the game these days is do as little as is feasible over the course of the day, which many have industriously shortened to as little as six hours. Which is, after all, really more efficient and shows acute resourcefulness. Why string out a day of not-working to eight or nine hours when you can get just as little done in fewer hours?

While at work, it takes a surprising amount of ingenuity to find things other than work to fill the day. This is sometimes made even more difficult by the non-team players who might actually want you to do some work. They have a very selfish way of interrupting you when you’re playing Halo or expecting you to actually attend the meeting that you arranged.

Yes indeed, it’s hard work not working. I mean, anyone can not work, but to do so without suffering immense boredom is no mean feat. Some are bound to fail. Some will get railroaded into actually completing projects. Some will fall victim to that widespread modern-day office malaise, namely staring into space, drooling in front of their monitors. Others will aimlessly wander the paths of the Internet, trolling for tidbits of even modest appeal and feigning more interest than is in fact warranted by the “information” they uncover. But a valiant few will prevail and fill their hours with amusing coffee breaks, exciting game-playing sessions, incessant instant messaging, l-o-n-g lunches, and even the occasional bout of sport and exercise. Not a very lofty goal? Perhaps not, but in these days of rampant disillusionment and passionate cynicism, we all must do our part.

I'm Still Not Doing Them

I thought about coming clean (after being inspired by Jo's ducks neatly aligning themselves) about all of the things that I am completely in denial about and avoiding... my taxes, my car reg is which is paid up and current (thank you), but for which they didn't see fit to actually send me a tax disc , my lease which is ticking away toward expiring (though I think I should also get credit because I did phone the agent. She's just never phoned me back. Harridan.), my perpetually anaemic finances, my grandmother's birthday (3 days ago), my nephew's birthday (11 days ago), my non-existent exercise regimen (again, if my yoga instructor nips off to teach in Australia for months on end -- well?) ... and the list goes on and on.

But I don't know that I am actually even going to pretend to try to make myself do anything about them, so perhaps confession is pointless. Denial is working for me. For now.

Here's what's not working for me -- all the freaking spiders. I know I've said something about this before, but let's get real. How many spiders can one small house and garden actually NEED? Well, let me tell you, regardless of what it needs, it can jolly well support a truckload.

This morning I left the house just before 9, and it was a misty, foggy morning... all the better to see the virtual forest of cobwebs, my dears! My front garden looks like something out of a Halloween story. And it's true, I love Halloween, but come on. In hindsight I also realize I should apologize -- I should have taken photos, but I was 1) underwhelmed and not a little disturbed, and 2) lazy. Perhaps I will be lucky enough (ha!) to see them again tomorrow and get a second chance.

I keep telling myself, "yes, but there's no snakes in England," (sometimes even in a self-congratulatory sort of tone) and none of these horrifying infestations either. So I got that going for me.

Real Dan and the Return of the Swiss Miss

Me and Real Dan, at Carluccio's in London. Photo courtesy of Brian, who is a better photographer than I am anyway.


It happened again. After a wonderful reunion with “Real Dan” a few months back (and sadly my last post as I have been horribly remiss in blathering on about my not-quite riveting life), I got a message via Facebook from another dear friend from my past. Stefani (the “Swiss Miss”) was an exchange student at my high school briefly and then she moved to Southern California and then back to England... and we regrettably lost touch. But through the magic of Facebook she’s back! Hurrah! It’s so super-fantastic that I feel like we could be an advertisement for them.

I’m slotting her right back into my life and “we mustn’t drop off like that again!”

In other news ... hmmm, what other news? Exactly. Everything at work is still up in the air and irritatingly quasi top secret. Which brings me to this rant: if you want to keep things under wraps, why not be discreet for godsake? And if you’re not going to tell people, shouldn’t you at least not tell them that their jobs will be changing, that they won’t be happy, aren’t going to like the changes... but hey, don’t worry about it all, there’s nothing you can do so just get on with it...?!

Interestingly, I am only de-motivated part-time. On those days, I drag Jo downstairs to drink tea (or another soothing hot beverage of choice, hot chocolate also works) while we sit and look out at the lake. And I try not to moan the whole time (honestly I do) ... without a huge amount of success it must be said.

In between my whinging episodes, I’m “getting on with it” ... mostly, I think, because the work I am doing has nothing whatsoever to do with the higher up who did actually say those words above to our entire Creative Services team. I’ve been up to my eyebrows in city-building (new SimCity title), island castaways, and some other forthcoming Sims-alicious bits.

There. That about catches things up. I can now pretend that we’re up to speed. (The 2 or 3 of us who might still be reading!)

but he belongs to me like lost baggage

About two years ago I drunkenly emailed a friend from uni who I hadn’t seen in several years. As you do. It was (thankfully) short and sweet and I wrote it in cahoots with another (equally drunken) friend. And, as you do, I immediately forgot all about the fact that I had sent it.

… Nearly two years to the day (and about a month ago) I got an email from Dan (the recipient of my slushly scribing). He’s finished his dissertation and rejoined the land of drunken emailing and so took the time to respond [Note: if this sounds at all snide it absolutely isn’t meant to]. I haven’t yet written back. But I think that’s allowed. Right? You know – a year to give a wedding gift (never mind I am well into Year 2 for at least one friend) and a reciprocal amount of time to pen a response to a response … or something. It’s a rule. I’m sure of it. Even if I did just make it up.

So anyway. The gist of the email from Dan is that he’s coming to pretty England in August (which is … er … now). So what happens to the rule?! Do I write to him before the weekend then? (it’s OK he’s in touch with Brian too, so I won’t miss him if I can’t pull it together.) But does a transatlantic trip negate the equal response time rule?

Whatever the etiquette, I am immensely looking forward to seeing Dan (or “Real Dan” as he was known among my uni flatmates. He was in one of my comparative lit courses along with another Dan, who my flatmates and I called “Innocuous Dan.” So this Dan was either “Real Dan” (if clarification was called for) or simply (and most usually) “Dan”.

So beware your drunk-dialing and typing! Even if you think it’s long gone without consequences… it can spring itself upon you most unexpectedly. Happily, sometimes that’s even good news.

** I'd love to give you a link to the complete poem alluded to in the title, but alas I cannot find it except for this instance on a Spanish speaker's blog (with a few minor transcription/spelling errors). But nonetheless, with my thanks to Ms Sexton and Clara the blogger. **

7:4 ... at Least til I Think of More

Seven things I’ve learned in England

1. To treat collective nouns as plural. On a good day, I can tell practice from practise too.
2. To think in pounds. Calculating how much stuff here would cost in US$ is flat-out depressing. Conversely, considering American prices in £ is sterling!
3. The Window Tax. All those bricked up window-shaped non-openings on buildings, in exactly the spot you think there ought to be a window? That’s the Window Tax.
4. Americans are loud. Mostly. But we do have nice teeth. Again, mostly.
5. To like football. You know, the soccer kind. And, perhaps more impressively, cricket.
6. That it will take nearly half a day to wash one small load of laundry.
7. Being polite and being nice aren’t the same thing. Most people here are mostly polite most of the time, whether they like you or not. But when someone is nice, they always mean it.

But I still don’t get it…

1. Celsius. Nope. Can’t do it.
2. And, come to that, metrics in general. A kilo? I know how much that is, but how heavy is that?
3. Marmite. Eccles cake (pass. for obvious reasons). Meat-flavored crisps.
4. French wine. I don’t know nearly enough about French wine. Or Australian, Italian, or South African. Clearly, I was too steeped in California wines. Happily, this is one I am content to keep working on. Steadily.

Awash in Bitterness

See. The thing is. I actually love a good storm. Flashes of lightning, booming peals of thunder, raindrops the size of olives.

What, it turns out, I don't love is continuous rain all Summer long.

A few summer squalls? Fine. Cool, even.

Forty days and forty nights of start-building-the-freaking-ark-rain? Um, no. Not so much, thanks.

On the plus side, at least my tap water is still potable. For now. Or so I think...

Outside work tonight, with reflections of raindrops.

A Very English Summer

The thing about Summer here is that it’s, well, not so hot and, yes, rainy. And, unlike the chronic sufferers of the Twainian coldest Winters in San Francisco, you can’t drive 20 minutes and end up somewhere hot.

On the upside, this makes for a very green country—rolling hill after rolling hill of lush, luxuriant, Technicolor (or colour, as the case may be) green. My office is nestled in a park that boasts endless stretches of herbage upon which countless bunnies cavort in gluttonous delight.

Traveling around pretty England is a feast of emerald to jade to sage. Everywhere in England is green. Everywhere, that is, except my front garden.

Perhaps it’s not maliciousness on my lawn’s part but a kindly desire to make a California girl feel at home. I look out my front window and here and there see tufts of tawny-trying-to-be-green almost-lawn. But mostly it’s a sad state of miserable, half-hearted growth. It’s my own mini golden hills of California, but without the sun.

I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with gardening skills.

In the Driver's Seat

So, I've been driving in England for a while now. and I'm doing, you know, sort of ok. As long as I don't have to leave my comfort zone. Which pretty much means from my house to work and to the local Tesco. Anything that doesn't fall within that zone, is not even to be considered. Cos the thing is, driving here is pretty absurd. Yeah, there's that whole other side of the road thing. That's not great. But you know what really gets me? It's the size of the roads. You'd think it would be a given that you'd need at least enough room for one car going and one car coming on a two-way road. But, in England, you'd be wrong. So even within my tiny 2-mile (it might even be less, but let's pretend) comfort zone, there are many Roads Not Taken.

This evening on my way home (at a decidedly and purposefully non-rush hour, thank you very much) it occured to me that it feels a lot like driving in a videogame. That same adrenaline rush of cars speeding towards you and having to dodge quickly out of the way. Because I'm on the wrong side, not -- this time! -- because I forgot, but because on the already ridiculously narrow road there are too many cars parked on my less-than-half to actually use it.

This wouldn't be so bad except that I am crap at driving games. And I don't get to restart if it goes badly.

Then there are roundabouts. The thing about roundabouts is that they're kind of like people--I'm mostly okay with the ones that I know, but the ones I don't know are sort of scary. Even knowing the rules doesn't help. I think I understand the concept . But then when I come up to one I don't know, it seems foreign all over again.

So finally I get home... which is located picturesquely on a gravelly, small lane... and up a tiny little incline is my garage, which I could practically span the width of with my arms and I have to navigate my car inside, hopefully without wrenching off any mirrors. I'm almost used to the smallness factor and maneuvering the car in just so. It's the fact that I can't help brushing elbows with all of the spider residents that still gets me down.