The Best Things in Life Are Free...

...but you can keep them for the birds and bees
I want money!

Thanks to the nice people at Egg (blimey, Mookmoo name checking a banking firm for a GOOD reason!), I am one step closer to getting out of credit card debt. Those nice people have agreed to loan me the money to pay off my Egg card, which will make me much better off in both the short and long term. This has had a rather fantastic effect on my life:

I now have £90 from my payday today to PLAY WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which is why He and I spent last night dancing round the living room to every song we could find about money (I do love the Beatles...), before celebrating solvency with some crime fighting and Corona.

I need hair conditioner and new boots - and I can get them!!!!!!!!!

I am a very very happy Mookmoo today!

Humph

Ozzie is relocating to New Zealand on a whim.

I'm jealous of his freedom to do such things.

And I will miss him.

That is all.

Time Time Time, See What's Become of Me

I got my GCSE results 9 years ago. I seem to remember 'celebrating' by sitting in a darkened room reading Sylvia Plath and hating everybody. I didn't feel that my exemplary grades were anything good - all they did was guarantee me a further two years of public school bullying hell.

2 years later, I was in the tallest hotel in the world, in Singapore, drinking cocktails over my A level results. Free, and getting happier, and making my way to recovery.

And four years after that, just three years ago, I was drinking champagne from the bottle with thirty or forty freinds, waving our degree results around and loving every moment. That was the night I met Him and my life changed forever.

I look back now and I think: if I knew then where I'd end up by taking this path, would I still have taken it?

Annoying Questionnaires

Time of starting? Who cares? What difference does it make? Am I being timed?!

Were you named after anyone? Good question. No, not that I know of

Do you wish on stars? Again, a decent question. Yes, I do.

When did you last cry? Yesterday/day before/day before that... So this question is clearly designed to show me up as the overdramatic emotional wreck I am. Hmmm, that's not something I want to tell everyone via email...

Would YOU be friends with you? Wow! A question on one of these I haven't seen before! The answer being I annoy me, so no!

Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? Again, why on earth would I answer this honestly if it's going to all my friends by email?!

What class in school / uni do you think is totally useless? How random. But of course the answer is algebra. What's 2 x b?! b's a letter, you can't multiply letters. Unless I was absent the day we did the b times table...

Do you use sarcasm a lot? So, this email questionnaire is supposed to be passed between friends. Surely my friends know by now that I say very very little that ISN'T sarcastic. Stupid pointless question then, really.

What do you look for in a guy/girl? Facial hair. Always a telltale sign with a guy/girl. Oh, sorry, did you not mean a person of dubious gender?

How many people do u have a crush on right now? Yes, because I'll answer that honestly and return the questionnaire to my husband...

What colour underwear are you wearing? a) I can never remember and b) why the hell would anyone want to know?! Are you suggesting my friends picture me in my underwear?!

If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? I actually quite like this question. Though it has a kind of faux-psychology thing that irritates me. Dark red.

The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Didn't you ask this about the 'girl/guy'? Eyes, smile, arse

Do you like the person who sent you this? Yeah, like I'm going to fill this in, say 'no', and send it on. This is either a stupid question, or one supposed to spoonfeed a funny funny joke answer. Here's mine: I'm married to him, so you'd hope so... Tee hee. Not.

Natural hair colour? Who cares? I can't remember, personally.

Eye colour? Er, if you know me well enough to send me an email questionnaire, surely you already know?

Favourite food? I assume this means I'm getting a dinner invite... mashed potato

Last movie you watched ? Finally a vaguely interesting question! Before Sunset, for the seventeenth time.

Favourite day of the year? Oh please. What a stupid question. There are 365 to choose from, and who knows what lies ahead?! I'll take a guess at December 6th, but the odds are 365/1 against me...

Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out? No. I used to be a right slapper. Or, the answer I'd actually give: Oh yes, of course, I was never a bed hopping slutbag.

Scary movies or happy endings? Both annoy me, and again this faux-psychology does not yield anything revealing.

Hugs or kisses? *yawn*. Both, hee hee hee. Look at me, being all subversive with the either/or questions!

What book/magazine are you reading at the mo? Wow, another vaguely interesting one! Roused me from my near comatose state of boredom. Jilly Cooper. Again.

What's on your mouse pad? A mouse?!

What did you watch on TV last night? I didn't watch TV last night. Even if I had, I would have lied and said something intellectual. The truth would probably involve soaps and channel 5 shockumentaries.

What is your dream job? Ah, ending on a question that I might actually like to know my friends' answers to. Me? Professional sarcasm distributor.

Phew, thank god I only posted this on here, and not to all the friends gagging for my banal answers!

(Can you tell I'm bored and pissed off?!)

Build It Up, Knock It Down

We've got the builders in this week. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but we've been living with falling plaster and a hole in the kitchen ceiling thanks to a badly installed bath above. So enter the builders from heaven, who have not only finished the new ceiling already, but have left the kitchen cleaner than it started. I only hope they clean the bathroom today when they finish that as well - I can't be arsed to do it myself!

Because the kitchen and bathroom were out of bounds last night, we took advantage of MIL being on holiday and went round to hers for a shower. Bliss not to have to worry about the bathtub falling through the floor any moment! Then we descended on Venus for dinner, which at least saved us cooking over a bonfire in the back garden. I ended up spending half the evening trying explain Trade Unionism to 007, who although very bright for an 11 year old, still had trouble understanding the BA/Gate Gourmet dispute (she asked me to explain, I would hardly volunteer!). On the plus side, I drank the best part of a bottle of wine while lecturing, so it's not all bad.

Still feeling generally bored and pissed off. But you know all about that, so I won't bang on and repeat myself.

Low Motivation

I have lots of work to do, but no motivation to actually do it. Which, in fact, is currently a good summation of my life in general.

I'm having one of those periods where I look around at my life and feel astonished that this is where I've ended up. This really wasn't my life plan a few years ago. It's not being married so much as just being in this weird settled state, where I feel permanently unfufilled but without the tools (e.g. money, opportunity) to change that. I have made no secret of the fact that I was never cut out to be a wifey/mothery/little-woman-y type, but somehow I seem to have landed up on the brink of that without really noticing, and now that I've realised where I am, I'm kind of panicking.

The thing is, I'm not in any way opposed to monogamy and marriage and all of that - I like it, in fact - but it's the baggage that is supposed to come with it that I don't want. I don't want to own a house, I don't want children, and I don't want a career that offers stability and good maternity pay as its deciding factors. I feel like my life path is being mapped for me by someone else, and that I'm not properly in control.

If I were single I'd be in the frame of mind to leave the country right now and go find some adventure. But unfortunately I'm not in that position, so I'm kind of... stuck.

I don't know any of the answers, by the way. Just helps sometimes to write down the questions.

New Developments

In the spirit of openness and honesty and all that jazz, you can now see a picture of me on the menu bar to your right.

All By Myself

He is off to stay at MIL's tonight via a few drinks with Venus. He did invite me to come along to this family bonding event, but funnily enough I decided against it. Instead I think I shall drink a bottle of wine, eat some pizza, and watch TV in a really old pair of PJs. Sad but true, this is currently the best thing I can think of doing on a Friday night.

Now, a round up of recent events: my hair is going through a fabulous stage... I must have lost weight because my jeans are falling down... I'm still on a quest for perfect posture... I haven't drunk since the night out with the marines... I've been going through another phase of crying a lot at things on telly... I feel sleep deprived even though I can't be... I haven't done any real work for the past three days and I can't get motivated to do any now... my office smells of wet jeans...

An Open Letter to Natwest

Dear Managing Director of Natwest,

I understand from having worked in a bank myself that the minimum standard of maths knowledge for bank staff is usually GCSE Maths, and sometimes you don’t even ask for that. So assuming that you may not have a mathematical brain, let me explain this to you slowly.

If I am £0.51 short on a Direct Debit that needs to go from my account, you charge me, instantly, without delay or warning, £35.

Now, where does this £35 go? It’s an ‘admin’ fee is it? Right. So what does the computer which automatically processes, rejects, and places charges on Direct Debits do with that £35? Does it keep it in a special account to buy pretty new cables, or perhaps a risqué new font or two?

Perhaps I’m being unfair. Maybe the work is done manually. When I worked as processing staff in a bank, I was paid £7 an hour (that’s before tax). But slow though I may have been on my more hungover days, I don’t recall it ever taking 5 hours to bounce a direct debit and extort a charge.

Now you see, other banks actually send a letter when they bounce a DD. It’s quite a detailed letter too, usually, explaining the details and why it was bounced, and giving prior warning of the charges it will take from you at the end of the month. Now that I could see taking a portion of the £35. What with typing, and posting, and holding off on putting that charge on. Not to mention the time of the people in the call centre whose number is given out on the letter so that I can ring them to discuss.

But do Natwest do that? No. So, please, illuminate me as to what my £35 is paying for. I’d really like to know. In fact, I’d like a breakdown, to the penny, of exactly what ‘admin’ I am paying for.

Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe it’s not an admin charge at all. Maybe it’s a deterrent/punishment. Yes, because that would work well. Let’s go back to our sum:

So far, I’ve bounced a DD and am now £35.51 short. But of course, you putting the charge on instantly has taken me over my overdraft limit. So that’s another £28. Let’s add that up… so I’m now £63.51 short. That’s right, you’ve just cost me £63.

So that’s perhaps supposed to be some kind of punishment. Right, okay. So you punish people for not having enough money, by making them even more short of money than they were before.

Now, I’d like you to do me a favour. Please turn on your computer, open up whichever accounts database you use, and take a look at my account. Do I look like I have a lot coming in? No. Do I have anything left in there after my bills are paid? No. Do you see those incoming transfers from Paypal? Those are from when I sell my belongings on Ebay to make up the extra cash we need for bills.

Now, explain to me where you think I can get £63 from? Seriously, I’d love to know! Do you perhaps think I have a money tree in my back garden? Or that I am secretly an heiress, or a lottery winner? Or do you just not give a toss?

I hope you’ve really gotten pleasure out of the hell you’ve put me through over the last six months. I hope that you’ve laughed long and hard at every phone call from me and my husband which your call centre operators have sneered at, ignored, and blankly refused to help with. I hope that you watched the CC TV footage of me breaking down into tears in the lobby of your bank when once again I couldn’t find a single member of staff willing to even talk to me, let alone help me or offer any practical solutions. I hope you really enjoyed that one.

Natwest – ‘another way’ to give yourself a nervous breakdown.

Yours in loathing and contempt,

Mookmoo

Posture!

I read a really interesting article the other day about how your posture and spinal alignment affects the health of your whole body. I did a quick check of my own posture and realised with horror that I spend my life with my shoulders permanently hunched under my ears and my spine slumped in a nasty position.

So... my new project is improving my posture so I can walk tall and look like one of those fabulous older British actresses who walk like duchesses and have that commanding straight-backed presence. Or failing that, just to not look so much like a sack of potatoes while sitting at my desk!

So far it's going well, though sitting all day yesterday with my back straight and shoulders back made all the muscles across my back scream in protest. Proof I need to work on it, obviously. I even went home and did stomach crunches and back exercises. I feel so virtuous. Not to mention taller and thinner...

Self-improvement really can be fulfilling...

Men in Uniform

Went out with Nambo, Cliffhanger and Dettori on Saturday night. There is nothing better than being treated like a princess by good looking men with lots of muscles who make a living protecting our country (and/or fighting illegal wars on behalf of that pimp America. But anyway...)

After a good few hours of drinking and, later, dancing, I bowed out at 2:30am when they started heading towards the roughest club in town, and went home to throw up and pass out. The boys rolled home about three hours later and, as I found out next morning, made merry with my collection of nail varnish. I've never seen a Marine with rouge noir nails before...

A good time was had by all, and that excused Sunday being spent lying very still to avoid throwing up. On the plus side, I watched 27 episodes of Friends back to back on DVD. Oh, and we made £85 on Ebay so I may be able to do something I haven't done in a long time - buy some clothes!!

And now it's Monday and I'm still feeling rough. Oh well...

Nightmares

Last night I dreamt that He was killed in a terrorist attack on London. It was so real and vivid that when my grief-stricken dream-self awoke to see Him lying asleep next to me, I was filled with the mixture of rage and relief that characterises being terrified for someone who then walks in cheerfully unaware of the panic they've caused.

Of course, He woke up when I threw myself into His arms and started crying hysterically, and even stayed awake with me from then until our normal alarm time an hour and a half later.

It's left me feeling shaken and slightly removed from reality. I suppose the four hours sleep doesn't help.

Sometimes having a vivid imagination is a curse.

Who Wants to Be a MILlionaire

He has borrowed 20 quid off MIL because we're skint. I'm torn between being pleased that we've got £20 for important life essentials like mashed potato, and being furiously humilated that we had to borrow it from The Woman Who Makes Guilt An Art Form TM.

Still, I guess He's the one who'll have to eat the humble pie with a large side order of guilt...

In other news: I found a pound coin in the street and used it buy diet coke... I am the only person I know who thought 'Lost' was a bit poo... I have a lovely new old computer that not only will let me write the novel, but also has a virtual dog that runs around the screen... my favourite shoes were stabbed in the sole by a vicious piece of broken bottle, but following surgery they are recovering well and the prognosis is good... I may be too attached to my shoes...

Flowers in Your Hair

I am having a good day today:

He cooked me sausage, mash and gravy last night and it was delicious

The short-staffed office is no longer short-staffed

I am taking delivery of a free second hand computer tonight that He was offered by a workmate, so I can start writing again

I can see the light at the end of several tunnels

Monster Mash

Work is hell. He's had to bribe me to stay with the promise of a giant plate of mash potato tonight.

If my phone rings one more time, I will strangle myself with the cord...

Workaholic Seeks Fun And Frolics

That would be the title of the personal ad I would have to use to get dates if He didn't exist.

All I seem to do at the moment is work and sleep. The three days I just had at home have already disappeared under a mountain of paperwork and begging emails from students desperate to get a UK visa and tread the less-than-hallowed cobbles of this distinctly second rate university. Still, it'll slack off in October (if I haven't had a breakdown by then!)

Actually, though, I'm not in a bad mood at the moment. Money is a bit crap but manageable, He and I are doing good, and generally things are okay. Can't complain, really.

All I would ask for is a bit more fun.

Home Sweet Home

Had a great weekend with LotusMomma. So good, in fact, that being treated nicely and bought things and generally being (shock horror) happy, actually propelled me into a total emotional breakdown on Monday morning.

Have spent the last two days off sick, lying on the sofa and having sporadic fits of hyper-responsibility where I've cleaned, or rung the bank, or done other grown up things. The rest of the time I've read trashy novels and watched Friends DVDs and tried to give my brain/emotions a rest. Largely it's worked. I even did some writing yesterday, which was great. I'm starting to feel like myself again.

I feel a bit like I've been trapped in a cage for the last few months, and I'm just now breaking out of it. It's really good. I still don't know what's going to happen in the long term, but He and I have agreed that for now we're going to stay where we are, get back on our feet financially, and try and get ourselves sorted out. So we'll just wait and see what happens and try to roll with the punches.

Anyway...

Am working from home today, which I am totally in love with as a concept. I've really got a lot done, as well as being able to get up and wander around and make coffee whenever I feel like it. Best of all, of course, is answering work emails while wearing hotpants and yeti boots - NOT something I'd get away with in the office...

Still, back to the real world tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.