Insomnia

You got it. I can’t sleep.  I go through these cycles fairly frequently – usually when I’m stressed about something, or there’s a full moon or its hot or “just because”.  Sometimes the cycle becomes so all consuming, that the mere presentation of a bed will send me into an anxious mess.

Last night, I pondered at about 4am about whether to go to the toilet. I *thought* I might need the toilet, and after pressing on my bladder it then became apparent that the question of whether or not to go was actually keeping me more awake than the need to go to the toilet itself.  So to cut a very long story short (this went on for at least an hour): I went to the toilet.

More often than not I get pretty annoyed when I can’t sleep. I toss and turn and then think about irritating things like whether the patterns on my duvet does actually look like Gordon Brown in the moonlight, or I get the Scissor Sisters I Dont Feel Like Dancin’ stuck in a loop on the opening lines “Wake up in the morning with a head like  ”what ya done”…”.   

But in my surreal trip to the toilet at 4am, as I creaked across the landing I was really awestruck as I glanced out of the window across the fields in the dawn light.  It was so breathtakingly beautiful.  All I can remember is this scene of utter stillness – green fields stretching out as far as the eye could see, with a layer of mist hovering above the fields against a dramatic grey backdrop of ominious cloud.  If I were a painter (and I can assure you I am not), I don’t think I could have painted a more astounding scene. 

I was of course too preoccupied and cheesed off with my insomnia and dawn chorus toilet visit to do what I now think would have been an absolutely marvellous thing to do (and yes I am slowly turning into an Enid Blyton character).  I should have stepped out into the scene and become a part of it.  No matter how dotty I would have looked running across the fields in my fluffy slippers and pink dressing gown, I should have embraced that moment.  I might have gone back to bed with a new perspective, or lungs filled with fresh dawn air which might have culminated in a remaining few good hours sleep.  Instead I spent another two hours tossing and turning listening to the Scissor Sisters on loop.

So coming from someone who has done the rounds with insomina: changed mattresses, bought black out curtains, bought a white noise machine, even invested in a CD of dishwasher sounds (I kid you not) – here endeth my lesson for today: to beat insomnia, embrace it. Embrace those exta moments your psyche has enabled you to experience.

Always take a camera to bed (ooerrr), and in all seasons have a pair of wellies by the door, just in case the mood takes you to prance across the field or around your estate – just because.  After all, if you are going to wake up to the Scissor Sisters, make sure its with a head like “What ya done?”

Being sucked in

Now that is an inspirational, positive headliner if ever I heard one. Yet in this youth obsessed world we live in, and as an aspiring singer who hasn’t “made it” these demon doubts occasionally creep in. 

Last night I had one of those moments as I rattled along in my battered old car, doing the number’s game (as the great John Mayer calls it, to “find a way to say that life has just begun”).  So this year, I thought, I’m going to be 33 … THIRTY FRIGGIN THREE goddamn it – as I nearly drove literally right over a roundabout (and not one of those embarrasingly pathetic little lumps in the road that you can’t help but drive over, but a full on tree-laden circle, complete with kerbs and everything).  Then … I thought, this time next year, I’m gonna be thinking … I’m going to be 34 … THIRTY FRIGGIN FOUR (I catch on quickly these days).

But I guess it isn’t really about the number per se.  It’s about being where you thought you were going to be when you reached the grand old age of X.  And I’m not really where I thought I would be. That’s a pretty sobering thought. Somewhere along the lines of getting a “good education”, pining down a “good career” and saddling myself with a nice noose of mortgage … I got lost.  I got sucked in.

Sucked in to the trappings of life and this takes me back to a movie I really didn’t get when I went to see Trainspotting in my early 20s.

“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***g  big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f****g fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f***k you are on Sunday morning”

It’s a pretty right-on quote – even though I haven’t quite reached the dizzy heights of matching luggage or an electrical tin opener.  And somewhere this morning, between pulling out my rubbish bin for collection, in my shades (yes, it is occasionally sunny in UK), and reversing my car out of my drive and my estate with box-like houses, I felt almost as if I was on the Truman Show. 

And thinking about it, I guess the above is why I’m such a fan of the film American Beauty.  Although, I never quite understood the weaker point of the film – that his transformation into “living” again was equated with seducing an under 18, smoking pot and buying a flashy car.  Perhaps that in itself showed that even with enlightenment in today’s world: we’re all doomed to a life trapped by escapism and material goods. 

I’ve always been a fan of Director Sam Mendes, who seems like he’d be a right old hoot to have down at the local pub, pondering the meaning of life.  His latest unofficial sequel to American Beauty was the somewhat overrated “Revolutionary Road”.  Boy meets girl and shares same wild dreams, boy and girl get “sucked in” with 2 kids, mortgage, white picket fence & dog called rover (ok the dog was a lie).  Girl gets bored and dreams of life in Paris. Girl accidentally gets pregnant with 3rd child, girl tries to carry out her own abortion … girl dies (apologies to all of you who have not seen the film).  After many years of pondering what Director Sam Mendes really thinks about the meaning of life, he obviously has come to the rather mundane but goody-two-shoes conclusion of “be contented with what you have”. Yawn. Not very revolutionary to me.  Seems like Mr. Mendes wasted a lot of time tying himself in knots.

I digress.  So,where was I?! Oh yes, as I ponder the perils of my youth, there’s an undeniable part of me that yearns for safety and stability.  And that part of me is the one that picked the safer options “just in case”: the mortgage,  the professional qualification, the savings, the “accountant”  … Like a child cuddling up to sleep every night, I need to know “everything is going to be ok”.

… But ironically society’s obsession with age and the ominous pinnacle of 30 has resurrected my childhood dreams.   The tear jerking thought of approaching my deathbed in my 80s and reminiscing at the sheer volume of financial controls I will have successfully tested throughout my mediocre career as a middle something accountant … sends a shudder down my spine.  We all want to make a mark on the world, at the very least one  of which we are proud of in some way.

And so where does that leave me?  For me personally, life is about juggling these two opposing sides: the need for security with the courage to fulfill my dreams.   If I think about it logically “being sucked in” … is really a continuum, and I’ve only travelled half way down it.  I’m not defined by my job or by a status symbol.  I don’t hang on Manager’s words in the hope of moving up the next rung in the career ladder.  I don’t dream of the next promotion in order to spend my increase on another financial noose.

I’m still largely defined by the child inside me – the one who not only reaches for the stars, but prefers to do so in the safety of her own mortgaged living room.  And whilst I don’t want to be a slave to my age, it still serves as an appropriate ticking time bomb reminding me I’ve only got one life …

The Orifice

Its not often I write a post about work-work, but there are moments when the day to day humdrum reaches the dizzy heights of my blog.

 

Having had a few months off work, blissfully soaking up the delights of the day, it was not only a rude awakening being shoved into the year end accounting process, but also a pretty sharp slap in the face to be surrounded by people talking in a completely different language – one where you use the most convoluted, string of words to embrace a simple concept. 

 

Normal person: “sound good?” 

Same person at work: “are we singing from the same hymn sheet?”  

 

It’s a language of pointless nothingness, or “Management Speak” as it’s commonly known.  So why do normal, self-respecting people use it given some fluorescent lighting and a row of desk pods?

 

I once worked with a Manager who, in effect, doubled the irritation by peppering emails with Management Speak encased in ‘single quotes’. Argggh!  Apart from irritating me, it had the double effect of dumbing down the message so it could be decoded successfully by a 5 year old.  Reading my emails was like being magically transported to my high chair with a plastic spoon edging towards my mouth: “choo-choo …open wide for the train”. But this particular Manager in question was a timid little soul, a bit scared of ‘rocking the boat’ and I’m under no illusion his Management Speak served as a bit of a cushion to keep everybody happy, pacify the masses, mixed in with a little butt kissing.

 

Yet still, I remember another crapweasel I worked with many years ago who not only used Management Speak but actually re-phrased it.  Sort of ‘re-branded’ it as if to make it his own. I distinctly remember a bit of a low point in a project where we all realised we’d screwed up the best part of a year’s work. 

 

Crapweasel: “The way I see it, the horse has left the stable … the question is, we just gotta find a way to catch it”

 

I don’t think I could contain myself in that rather blatant, yet abysmal rehash of “close the stable door after the horse has bolted”.  Crapweasel was a big fan of inventive Management Speak and used it to impress the big guns. And there is some ‘method to his madness’ as I have seen some positive correlations between Management Speak usage & job rank. But there’s a fine line with Management Speak, and Crapweasel didn’t quite pitch it right.  His inventions were a little too way out there and eventually Crapweasel was pretty much counselled out of the firm.

 

Yet here I am again, 10 years into my orifice career and it still trips off the tongue of all professionals alike – clever, stoopid, old, young, wise, foolish … and I even found myself on a couple of occasions stoop soooo low to use it myself. In fact, it can be cunningly used to your advantage”.

 

Manager X: “Acuvoice, what happened to that report I asked you to produce last week?”

 

Acuvoice: “Yeah … ummm … I think I ‘dropped the ball’ on that”

 

Manager X: “Cool, ok”

 

Bingo.

 

But yet, my fondest memories of the orifice have to be of those honest little souls who won’t play by the rules.  I was once privileged to be in a meeting with an enlightened colleague who actually wrote “bored” on one of the orifice mints and rolled it across the table in a meeting in a blatant ‘fingers up’ to the establishment moment.

 

Now that I treasure.