Just a Little Note Before the Year's End

It’s the last day of 2012, and I’m finally sitting back infront of my laptop and writing. It’s been a very long time. Sorry everyone. Before I wish you all a VERY happy new year and all that, I’ll give you a quick round up of the last few months of my life. 

This Winter I Have:

è Left my internship post at BritishAmerican Business, New York, leaving behind many awesome people and unbelievable career opportunities.

(Much as I appreciate the total, unbelievable, super-fantastic-ness of the experience I was cutting short, not one sad goodbye was said. Since landing back in the UK neither of my feet feels the least bit shot at, and I am happy and safe in the knowledge that I will never be a high-powered business woman. I don’t miss America at all. If anything - and I know this sounds bad – it’s become even more of a strange and distant land, which I regard with no emotional attachment at all; just morbid fascination, curiosity and occasionally the tiniest amount of sick in the back of my throat. The amount of syrup they put on their waffles – and their bacon – is a little too much for me. As is the general optimism and happy confidence in the people. No bad feelings, America, you’re just not my place).

 è Worked lots and lots, to make lots and lots of money

The slight problems with leaving early from a year-long placement abroad are the costs incurred.  Needing to pay back the money spent on my visa for the time I won’t be using it, and buying rather too many flights on rather too few student loans payments has left me sitting in my overdraft, with a cool sum of about £1200 in debt.

è Moved back to my hometown, saw my friends, family, ate Christmas dinner and generally got back into the swing of England life (obviously starting in the pub).

It feels really good to be home. I don’t mind the rain. I don’t mind how awful the buses are. I don’t mind not having my own place to live. I don’t mind everything being shut by 6pm. I like the comfortably silent London underground. I like the BBC. I like chip shops. I like that I haven’t put on a pencil skirt or blazer in 5 weeks. I much prefer working any and all shifts that Waterstones St Albans will give me to working 4 days a week in an office, getting stepped on in stiletto heels and being told to ‘mingle’.

So not having to go back to New York has really made this Christmas for me. I’m just about to go out and see in the New Year with friends, beer and takeaway. In contrast to my usual, chronic cynicism concerning New Year’s Eve, I’m getting a bit tingly and excited. I will probably be merrily shouting along to Auld Lang Syne with the rest in 6 hours’ time, giving my hands to all my trusted friends, and anyone else who walks past, having downed many a cup of kindness. I’ve loved seeing and hugging and nibbling and tippling with all the people I know and like, and hope 2013 will be equally weird but a little less stressful than 2012.

So expect many more posts in 2013. As I’m now unemployed and not again planning to persue any careers unsuited to me, I should have much more time to wast- I mean, write. 

Merry Super Happy New Year everyone!!!!!

A small Christmas present to my hometown:

Central Ave, Brooklyn

The Literary Review Just Got Exciting!

Well, it actually has been for the past 20 years, I just didn’t know. 



As a student of English literature, I’m no stranger to the Literary Review. It’s a place I regularly find myself trawling through, looking to impress my tutors with up to date criticism. I hope they might be duped into thinking that my fantastically relevant reference articles are pieces I merely happened across while eagerly flicking through my monthly subscription, rather than the product of a few haphazard taps of my keyboard (I don’t even have to type it all out any more - my igoogle page remembers my frequent and frantic search on the eve of every deadline).

But oh, how I have missed out in only giving this magazine the minutest fraction of my attention! I have been so dismissive and unappreciative. Blinkered by my narrow search criteria, driven solely by my quest for a precise result. And consequentially I have denied myself the world of pleasures available to those aware of all that this esteemed and valuable publication has to offer.

Did you know they do a BAD SEX AWARDS!?!


That’s the problem with us students. We’re only after one thing. Once we have our references we just toss the magazine aside, not taking the time to discover all its other beautiful aspects. Philistines.

It saddens me when I think about all the years of my life I’ve spent, unaware of the amazing invention that is The Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. I feel similar to how I imagine the second dude to leave Plato’s cave felt. After continuing to resolutely face the cave wall, calling the first guy who climbed out a wally, telling him to stop talking nonsense, only using him to bring back that outside-chicken he got that somehow tasted so much better than shadow-chicken, I’ve finally seen the light. And I now know that I was the real wally. I’m newly enlightened, and embarrassed that I wasted so much time in the dark eating ghost meat.

Every year the Review holds a lush ceremony in London, where one deserving author (if they are brave enough to attend) is presented with a statuette of a naked woman splayed out across the pages of a book, and the title of ‘author of the worst description of a sex scene in a novel’. The award excludes erotic and pornographic fiction (so not a whiff of Christian Grey anywhere near this year’s shortlist). What they are looking for is ‘bad sex in good books’ (so again, Christian Grey nowhere in sight). The magazine’s website explains that the award is designed to draw attention to ‘crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description’, a common crime in contemporary novels, according this entertaining and informative video.

The Review are seeking in their own way to improve the standard of modern fictional sexy encounters by highlighting authors’ awkward metaphors and evasive similes; hopefully discouraging such badly written inclusions in future. The founder of the award, former editor of the Literary Review Auberon Waugh, started it due to his belief that publishers encouraged the inclusion of sexual content to boost novels’ sales.

On a serious note, this is an awesome cause: eliminating poor obligatory sexual content, and working towards making sure modern novels retain a beautiful literary standard. I don’t want sex scenes to become shoddy laboured requisites in every novel, be they crime, historical, or that Alan Bennett one about books and the Queen. I don’t want to become desensitised to the danger and excitement of a good sex scene by recurring dodgy content. I really like that there’s a (sort of) quality control working to stop rubbish sex scenes being brushed over by editors and publishers, due, I can only assume, to some sort of universal sub-conscious recognition that sex is always crude, and therefore can be crudely described, even in a really good book. Sex can’t just be prudishly accepted by authors and critics as resident in the land of awkward, embarrassed euphemism and unhelpful metaphor, not requiring the same powerful, expressive language one would use for describing deep seated emotion or a picturesque landscape.

On a less serious note, it’s also REALLY REALLY FUNNY. My favourite example is from 2010 winner, Rowan Somerville’s The Shape of Her:

'Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her' 

Is it just me who found that more reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs than of anything remotely sexual?

This award is without a doubt my best discovery of 2012. It’s light-hearted, entertaining, and is simultaneously allowing us to laugh out loud at awkward and far-fetched descriptions of sex, while keeping sacred our ability to have a little naughty giggle at the good stuff too.

Here’s some extracts from this year’s shortlist (hee hee hee!) I don’t know about you girls, but no part of my body is a bakewell pudding, or a light-sensitive manual camera. And jockeys don’t (to my knowledge) go inside saddles (pelvic or otherwise). And my Lady Jane is definitely nothing like a chrysanthemum (though I will admit my plant knowledge is pretty shaky, and I had to do a quick google image search just to check). Enjoy! 

The Quiddity of Will Self, Sam Mills

'Down, down, on to the eschatological bed. Pages chafed me; my blood wept onto them. My cheek nestled against the scratch of paper. My cock was barely a ghost, but I did not suffer panic' 

Noughties, Ben Masters

'We got up from the chair and she led me to her elfin grot, getting amongst the pillows and cool sheets. We trawled each other's bodies for every inch of history'

Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe

'Now his big generative jockey was inside her pelvic saddle, riding, riding, riding, and she was eagerly swallowing it swallowing it swallowing it with the saddle's own lips and maw — all this without a word' 

Rare Earth, Paul Mason

'He began thrusting wildly in the general direction of her chrysanthemum, but missing — his paunchy frame shuddering with the effort of remaining rigid and upside down'

The Yips, Nicola Barker

'She smells of almonds, like a plump Bakewell pudding; and he is the spoon, the whipped cream, the helpless dollop of warm custard'

Infrared, Nancy Huston

'This is when I take my picture, from deep inside the loving. The Canon is part of my body. I myself am the ultrasensitive film — capturing invisible reality, capturing heat' 

The Divine Comedy, Craig Raine

'And he came. Like a wubbering springboard. His ejaculate jumped the length of her arm. Eight diminishing gouts. The first too high for her to lick. Right on the shoulder'

The Adventuress: The Irresistible Rise of Miss Cath Fox, Nicholas Coleridge

'In seconds the duke had lowered his trousers and boxers and positioned himself across a leather steamer trunk, emblazoned with the royal arms of Hohenzollern Castle. 'Give me no quarter,' he commanded. 'Lay it on with all your might.' 

So there you go. You may have learnt nothing new about sex, but I personally was not previously familiar with the word ‘wubbering'. The winner will be announced on the 4th of December!

Am I A Middle-Class Wanker?

I wrote some thoughts in my notebook coming home on the 63 bus on Sunday:

Caitlin Moran’s column in the Times Magazine this weekend was about why, despite having her own conservatory and piano and recycled wine glasses, she still feels working rather than middle class. And how it’s not about how her life looks, but her frame of mind. What a silly thing to write for the Times! It’s only going to be read by other middle-class people at their kitchen tables over their morning filter coffee. None of her readership will identify with her at all!

As I read the column, eating grapefruit in my friend’s kitchen with all matching appliances (including an impressive 4-piece toaster with bagel button), I completely agreed with her. She admits that ‘the way we calibrate class in this country does indeed insist that if I were now … to claim that I am still working class, I would be, in some obscure way, a bit of a w***er’. And that is true. The logical explanation for this is that in identifying yourself as working class you are claiming you have less than you do, and to do so implies you do not appreciate what you have. I often worry about the level of hypocrisy I excude when I talk to my friends at university about the importance of unemployment benefits and child support and EMA while shopping for new dresses at the Bullring Topshop. But that doesn't stop me feeling working class, like my upbringing still matters. Class has not been defined purely in monetary terms by just about anyone for like, ages. The real reason you’re seen as a bit of a knob for distinguishing yourself as a class that belies your earnings, is that you’re seen as a try-hard. You’re like a tory MP rallying for votes in Sheffield by maintaining you’re best mates with Jarvis Cocker. But Jarvis Cocker has just as much money as a tory MP. Does that mean they are now of a similar social class? Does the fact that a bunch of people really really liked Pulp and paid money for their albums make Jarvis a wanker for continuing to sing about common people?  

Of course not. As humans we make stereotypes because we like to define things. We like rigid rules to dictate these definitions, so that we can recognise people and put them into categories easily. We want to know as much as we can about stuff; our brain naturally wants to fill in the gaps. So we like to be able to see a copy of The Art Book, or a Nigella recipe out in someone’s home and immediately be able to deduce from that that they also probably liked The White Album and have recently taken up knitting. All these traits are of course as unconnected to class as they are to each other. There seems to have been something of an obsession recently with defining ‘middle-class’. Recycling is middle-class, irony is middle-class, guilt is middle-class, swearing for effect is middle-class. Mocking the middle-class is middle class. According to the blog ‘Stuff White Brits Like’, ambivalence about Will Self is middle-class. Seriously? Ambivalence about Will Self is the default emotion everyone has about Will Self. Those overly long and complicated words he uses in his consciously deep and philosophical writing. He epitomises the ‘fit but you know it’ dilemma. Will Self himself is probably ambivalent about Will Self (the self-aware middle-class twat). It doesn’t matter how you were brought up and what you believe in. As soon as you start a compost heap or use the c-word you are no longer allotted the right to quote Arthur Scargill or drink tennants. It’s a package deal. You have to move out of your flat, take your compost and dirty words down to Surrey, buy a cat which you will have to name after an obscure 80s music icon and start a record collection. Because OBVIOUSLY there can’t be any overlap. Working and middle-class people can’t engage in the same activities. They are two distinct spheres. How on earth can people in completely separate worlds both follow Stephen Fry on twitter? It’s confusing an immovable divide!

Come on guys, it’s not about what you buy, or what music you listen to. I may buy organic when I can, and find Thom Yorke's voice enchanting and beautiful. But this is Britain, class is POLITICAL. Financially, my social class confuses me. Politically, it does not. Despite not having very much money when I was a child, I can’t deny the reasonable cushtie-ness of my life. Being met with the fierce scent from the brewery across the road every time we opened the door or window of our first Edinburgh flat made me feel poor (especially that time when upstairs had a shower and our kitchen ceiling fell in). Reading Irvine Welsh a few years later made me feel very, very well off. Mark Renton would shun me as a peroni-drinking university dickhead. I mean, my mum’s not a miner. She’s a camera operator. We have an imac. I’ve spent whole hours of my life convincing her of our new, undeniable middle-class status, pointing to the aforementioned snazzy computer, and her own black and white photography framed on the walls of our open plan living room. PRIVILEGE, DUH. But my reflex has always been to regard middle-class as something I’m surrounded by, rather than part of. I will still feel far more easily united under the phrase ‘tory scum’ than ‘squeezed middle’. As Ms Moran says, the good old days were only good for the man. Being working class is about change: ‘joy, revolution, progress, urbanity, carousing until you bust’. The only way is up. Restlessness; a need for change. Walking down Millbank on the first student fees march in 2010,the beautiful flames outside office buildings warming my belly and satiating my need for some kind of revolution (however small), I received a text from my grandma saying ‘I’m in Trafalgar Sq, where are you?’. That made me feel brilliant. She didn’t receive the call-to-arms passed round every student halls in the country, but still she wrapped herself up and left her Hertfordshire home to defend what she believed in. She remembered the importance of higher education not only in providing young people with degrees, but also an opportunity to GET OUT. Whether you’re looking from a balcony at the top of a tower block, or through your bay window onto a tree lined street, the world can still look old and crap, and in need of a reshuffle.

If our current earnings negate our past ones, then there’s no reason to hope to vote anyone into Parliament who will actually represent the working classes. If we connect salary with one’s ability to identify with certain classes, then as soon as anyone gets elected and settles into their accommodation near Westminster, we effectively retract their ability to communicate with the common man. I’m not saying social typecasting is the only thing stopping politicians being fair and open-minded. I’m not so naïve as to assume that our poor representatives really have a degree of ‘normality’ to prove, and we’re being unfair in branding them ridiculous for queuing up in northern pasty shops attempting to dupe us into thinking they’re just like Roger from Greggs except if he had power. I know they’re not stuck feeling hopelessly trapped in their lonely upper-class money bubbles, jumping up and down in a furious attempt to smash through the glass ceiling, trying desperately to free themselves from the GOSH DARN pheasant dinners and free police horse trials. But champagne socialism is rare. And people do play-up to their stereotypes. So putting so much emphasis on rigidly defined class, and labeling people as wankers for trying to contradict their background probably doesn’t help.  

OH. And why was I reading the Times Magazine on a Sunday morning, you ask? They don’t sell that it New York, do they? And you won’t have bought your way round the pay wall will you Siobhan, you blatant Guardian reader. Well no, that’s true. I was reading the weekend paper left on my friend’s kitchen table. In south London. I left my internship at BAB, and I left New York, and I flew back to England. They don’t really have class war there. Or healthcare. And the lights are really, really too bright. I had no kinfolk, and the utterly superfluous business of international bigwig schmoozery was getting me down big time. So I only lasted 3 months as a grown-up. I’m going to take a break and try again. Anyway, more explanation coming soon, but for now, it’s great to be back in the shire. Just great.  

At work on Friday, I thought about boardrooms, warzones and language

At work this week (this strange one-day week created by hurricane Sandy, throwing me all off kilter), I was logging the book reviews published in our latest magazine into the database. Our magazine is about corporate and international affairs, and is only circulated round our membership. All articles written in it therefore, are essentially for the purpose of networking. The book reviews section features publications (mostly non-fiction) written by our members: generally CEOs of large multi-nationals who somehow still manage to write books about their profession. It makes me suspicious. Either being a CEO is easier than it looks or the quality of the books is fairly bad. If you are able run a company and publish masterful business commentary on the side, you must be cutting some serious corners somewhere. (I’m sure Barack Obama shouldn’t have had the time to write that picture book.)

Having neither read any of the books featured, or planning to, I can’t give any further insight into this particular problem. In this instance, the thing that struck me most about these highly specific corporate business publications was their titles: they were all overtly war related. (The only exception to this was ‘How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things’ which, judging by title only, I feel might lend some weight to my previous point about something having to give in the CEO/Author life balance to create such works. In the case of this author, time spent on creating an intelligent and poignant title clearly suffered. The one he landed on gives the impression that instead of writing a book, he just went through ‘Market Capitalism for Dummies’ and deleted out the cartoons of confused looking stick women). Some of these eponymous battleground associations included ‘The Commando Way’, ‘Courageous Counsel’ and ‘Army of Entrepreneurs’. I think this reflects a general attitude surrounding the world of business. Whether it’s in the boardroom or ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, the corporate world is constantly presented to us in combative terms: it’s a harsh, unforgiving, aggressive environment. And seeing all these titles listed on the same page in front of me really made me think about how deep the comparison goes. From every angle, business is seen like a warzone; especially at the highest international level, where extreme free-market economics is generally the ideal. Survival of the fittest. The words ‘cutthroat’ and ‘dog-eat-dog’ are savoured in the mouths of both high up executives and beginning entrepreneurs. For some reason, this language is not considered to be reflective of a dangerous or unhealthy environment, but one to be survived and therefore one reserved for the best. I don’t for a second claim to be a business expert (if you’ve read much else on this blog you will know that I profess quite the opposite), but I think this image of business is probably both unhealthy and unnecessary for modern corporations. Or for the people that have to live in the same world as them at least. 

We know that the highest corporate boardrooms are a boys club, and always hear complaints about women not being able to break the glass ceiling into the offices surrounding Wall St and St Pauls. The constant presentation of business in such an aggressive and warlike way probably has no small part in that. The high up executive positions, like in the army, are advertised to appeal to men. Combat has been presented in this way since the dawn of time. I mean we all know war is justsophallic. Impaling spears gave way to stabbing swords which were replaced with ejaculating missiles. Even the term CEO, Chief Executive Officer, evokes battle-zone vocabulary. I know ‘Officer’ has the word ‘office’ in it, but I’m sure it was an army term before it was a business term. And I’m also sure that it wasn’t lifted from combative ranks unintentionally. Even if it wasn’t a conscious decision, the connotations of the title of ‘officer’ are significant at least on a subconscious level, in conveying what the expectations of the role are, and who is going to desire it. Much like in the army, the title of Chief Executive Officer is just another way for the less physical but equally competitive men in our world to metaphorically display the size of the gun they are carrying. The only thing missing is the pervasion of an offensive, ironic, sexy-CEO Ladies’ costume, mirroring that of ‘army girl’, to make the same gender bias official.

I don’t think business needs this reputation of violence and aggression being the way to succeed. It seeps through every section of corporation until it becomes normalcy. And you only need to watch one episode of ‘The Apprentice’ to see that those aggressive qualities in isolation do not make for a good business environment. They don’t even make good T.V.

It’s a sickening culture, and language is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve all been agreed for a while that real international war-zones are bad, and should generally be avoided where possible. Even the Prince of warmongering, George W. Bush, conceded that he thinks ‘war is a dangerous place’ (well done G). So it can’t be a positive thing for the same imagery used to make war seem appealing to filter into business vocabulary. It makes (and has made) business exclusively for ball breakers and cutthroats, it perpetuates gender-bias, and excludes potentially successful and intelligent people who don’t fancy constantly being on the attack. People who perhaps could use international commerce as a force for good. It makes the highly questionable moral decisions of the Union Carbides and the BPs of the world that much more common and acceptable. Just as morality is suspended in a battleground, so does it seem to be suspended when corporate greed is at play.

International business should not be a war-zone. And if all war could stop too that would be great. Thanks, world

Yours Sincerely,

Siobhan Palmer.

Monday, 11.16pm

I really like it when the man in the apartment next door sings. He’s awful. At the moment he’s practicing this strange warbling song, which seems to only consist of the lyrics ‘hey yooouuu, hey yooouuu’. I certainly wouldn’t be wooed by it if he was using it to serenade me, but through the anonymity of the walls I’m enjoying it. I like hearing other signs of life from my boxed in little room; listening to his crap music is sort of the closest thing I have to looking out a window. In the aftermath of a hurricane, hearing music pipe up in the dark is doubly nice to hear… It better be the bloody aftermath anyway. If the last few hours have just been God having a bubble then that man will have a lot to answer for when I get up there. I imagine he has a lot to answer for anyway though, what with the increasing famines and tsunamis and things. Sorry, sorry, not God - CLIMATE CHANGE. Silly me.  

But yeah, the singing, I’m enjoying it.  My links to the outside world are depleting rapidly: everyone having gone to bed in England and America, my storm updates are now coming to my phone via my mum in Australia, when she gets a chance to watch the news. Apparently ‘Today in Aussie Parliament’ is on the set right now so I won’t have any more information for at least an hour. And so neighbor-man’s distant, warbling, uneven tones are acting like my comforting nightlight. Not that I need a nightlight anyway - I’m not turning the main light off just in case when I flick the switch to turn it on again nothing happens... This blog is highlighting a massive gap in my knowledge, isn’t it? Seeing the evidence mount up here on virtual paper, I’m suddenly realising how perfectly dreadful my understanding of technology is. I mean, I didn’t think I was the next Steve Jobs or anything, but I thought I had the essentials, you know? I'll have to add it to the list of basic life-skills that happen to have passed me by, along with mental maths, swimming and knowing difference between and ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’ Well, now I've accepted my status as technological dunce, I might as well take this opportunity to point out that my posts would be much better ordered, over a number of thematic pages if only I could work out how to do it. It’s not for lack of trying. So if one day you click on a link and my blog has suddenly become a well ordered, wordy paradise, send me some congratulatory flowers or something, because I will be extremely proud of myself, and be expecting a big to do.

It’s been calm outside for a while now, so with no more shaking walls or crashing roofs, just the pattering of the rain and the bad singing next door, and I am actually going to sleep now.

Monday, 9.34pm

I wish I lived a floor down. The wind really picked up in the last few hours, and there are some banging noises on the roof making my whole little attic room shake. If this is what it’s like in a sturdy, brick apartment block in New York City, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for people in their wooden houses on the coast down south, or in the Caribbean, with buildings still being rebuilt from Haiti’s last earth-shattering natural disaster. Still, I have prepared myself. My good-for-nothing, internet-less laptop is packed away with my camera and other valuables, ready for swift saving should I need to make a speedy getaway, and everything that previously sat under the suspect nailed up trapdoor in the ceiling (a clear weakpoint, where the crashes get very loud), has been moved into the far corner of the room. I shall sleep tonight in my barricaded fortress (with my teddy):

The sign may have been excessive. I cannot convey to you how much of a loss I have been at without the internet. Updates on the storm are being texted to me by my very helpful friend on her laptop in Georgia, but other than that, my contact with civilisation is severely limited. So yes, I’ve made a fort, named it after myself and written a sign. For the moment, it is my world. Goodnight, outside-folk. 

Monday, 7.02pm

The internet connection is gone! Gone! I was prepared to lose electricity, water, heat, sanity … but INTERNET? This is AMERICA. The thought of what I’m going to do for the next 36 hours is not something I actually have the ability to contemplate. I mean, Edward just died. What on earth is Dodo going to do? Is she going to do as he would have wanted? Or keep on seeing Mr. Ladislaw, with his Byronic attraction and rebellious charm? And did Dr. Lydgate marry Rosie for love? I have a feeling he may not have done (I mean who would? She’s really annoying). Will Fred ever manage to repay Mary’s father? My brain literally can’t hold this many questions for 36 hours. Or longer. Who knows when the internet will return?? The lights have started intermittently flickering too (genuinely. My flatmate can now back me up on this, we both saw it). I think it’s time we all went to the Winchester, had a pint, and waited for all this to blow over.

Monday, 5.01pm

SANDY'S A GIRL! Why has no-one been putting more emphasis on this point? None of the news channels had suitably informed me about this. I had to google it. And it wasn't even an easy google. It took some digging. I feel like such a fool thinking of it as male all this time. Does that make me a sexist? Or just not a big enough Grease fan?

...

I'm sorry, more thoughts on that point were coming, but I just got distracted and completely lost my train of thought. I thought the light in my room flickered, and I froze in fear of losing power. Then I blinked, and thought the light flickered again, and got really tense. I've been sat up, straight backed like a startled rabbit, occasionally blinking to see if it looks the same as a light flickering, trying to catch myself out by blinking before I think of blinking. It's 10 minutes later now. I think I may have just blinked the first time as well. The power's still on. 

Monday, 2.57pm

I just went outside. And I realised the worst place to be in storm-struck NYC right now is actually twitter. From what I was reading on the internet, I was expecting to see powerlines down, freak winds and a ghost town of a city. As it is, the corner shop opposite is still running, people are still driving, the postman is still delivering and the wind and rain are battering down like one would expect them to in a usual storm. I realise it is going to get a lot worse than this, what with Sandy on his way in a couple of hours, but for now, I'd quite like the current updates to mirror what is going on right this minute, rather than what I should be expecting later. Everyone's getting frightfully ahead of themselves! My room doesn’t have an outside window, so I have no frame of reference other than news channels and twitter, and, when the storm gets heavy enough, sounds from what hits the roof. I was bracing myself for the power to go out any minute, and me to be on my own, in the dark with candles and books until at least Tuesday evening. I was getting ready to wallow! I’m now going to take a break from the terrifying news narratives and settle down to a nice calming episode of Middlemarch. Aaahh, Mr. Ladislaw ... 

Monday, 2.15pm

I got red on me. 

I only had a black sharpie and red nail polish to work with. It's suddenly hit me that we might lose water, and therefore not be able to wash ... and I might have to go into work tomorrow. I just stopped short of moving onto my face and neck, too. This was a rash decision. It doesn't even look real so I can't pretend I had an accident ... My room smells very strongly of nail polish. 

Monday, 12.28pm

Sometimes I like to pretend this isn’t a hurricane, but I’m actually barricaded in my house because of a zombie apocalypse. 

I don't know why I would attack a zombie with an ancient club. I definitely don't have access to one. I'm not one of the slag brothers. I think I need to seriously re-evaluate my zombie plan.

Monday, 11.30am

First signs of Frankenstorm – it’s raining and windy. I wish I’d bought some hot chocolate for this. That would definitely hit the spot right now.

Monday, 9.37am

My first full day of indoor storm-waiting is begun! I don’t know why I got up this early, I have a whole day to kill. I wanted to get a shower in before we could lose water, but now that’s done I’m at a bit of a loose end as to what to do. Should I put make-up on? It’s something to do, but then if we do lose water I won’t be able to wash my face and I’ll get spots. But if I have to be rescued by firemen …

Sunday, 10.46pm

My internet’s being frighteningly slow. I assume that’s because by now absolutely everyone is holed up in their homes streaming stuff. Broadband providers should have prepared for this. There’s obviously going to be extra strain on the … wires, or waves, or whatever internet runs on, during extreme weather. If they can get wi-fi on a plane surely they can make it work for me. I had to stop re-watching Gavin & Stacey half way through. I nearly cried. Anyway, without iplayer co-operating I have had to move on to Netflix, which I luckily put off starting my 30 day trial on, waiting for the optimum moment to make the best use of the free films. This is definitely it. So I looked for a tv drama to get suitably engrossed in. Oddly, I picked the 1994 BBC production of Middlemarch. It was a strange decision as I’m not exactly a sucker for a period drama and I also am generally against watching a tv series before reading the book. But this is a hurricane, all normal laws are suspended. Anything could happen, I’m letting LOOSE. I’ve watched one episode and I am already hooked. Why doesn’t Lydgate stand up to the banker man?? And why is Dodo’s new husband being so mean to her!? And why does Fred assume Mary wants to marry him? And why do all the women ride side-saddle? I know it’s dainty but my God, it’s definitely dangerous. 

Sunday, 6.42pm

After watching ‘Hurricane Central’ on the weather channel for the past hour, I’ve become convinced there’s going to be a power-outage. Deciding that I wasn’t suitably prepared for such an eventuality, I just went to the 99c store round the corner and bought 30 tealights, an alarm clock and 4 AA batteries. I’m now sitting on my bed eating a yoghurt, trying to think what I own that’s battery operated. Is anything battery operated anymore apart from tv remotes?

One Hour Ago

Our fridge broke again. The coils at the back get covered in ice and then it stops working, and every now and then we have to defrost it all and start again. At first we thought it was over-colding itself because of the humidity of summer. Now it’s happened in late October we think something’s wrong with the temperature regulator-thing (none of us are particularly technical). So after a confusing and crowded adventure in the local supermarket, I came home to see my flatmate with his head in the freezer, trying to speed up the defrosting process with a hairdryer. He’s still there now. And my foods still in bags. I’m looking over my pre-hurricane stock bemusedly while the white noise of the hairdryer makes me oddly calm. I’d never been to a supermarket the day before a potential natural disaster before. It didn’t occur to me how utterly mobbed it would be. It took me 20 minutes of ducking through people and trolleys and small children just to hustle myself a basket. Then there was the question of what to buy. Coming from England, where no freak weather ever happens, I felt quite uninitiated into the process of panic buying. I was worried, going round just picking up normal things like cereal and yoghurt. ‘Fool!’ the cashier is going to think as I go to pay for my goods, ‘she’s only buying regular food-items! Where’s her 6 kilo bag of oats, where’s her month’s supply of crackers? What an amateur!’ I embarrassedly presented my goods at the till, chucking in a pack of gum and some m&ms for good measure, as people around me were clearing shelves of paper towels and crisps as they passed them in the queue. I’m still worried I didn’t buy the last bag of bagels. Loads of people had bagels. I’m missing out by not having bagels. I bet there’s something that happens during a hurricane where bagels are really useful…

Sandy

It’s 5pm on Sunday the 28th October, and I’ve just got home, eaten, and set myself up in front of my laptop. Hurricane Sandy is heading to New York, due to flood our coastal areas and blow our power lines down with 35-55mph winds in about 27 hours. The subways will all be shut down in less than two hours. Having stocked up on tinned goods, bottled water, and checked that my phone’s torch setting still works (it’s an old sony, not a snazzy iphone. So when I charge it tonight, it will actually last me until next Wednesday and not run out of battery 3 hours later. It will also survive if I drop it down the stairs or spill detergent on it – and I know these things through experience. So I hope my mum will finally stop hounding me to get a smart phone. I just don’t trust things you can’t fix with sellotape. I hope you now see the advantage), I’m officially ‘prepared’. In anticipation of potentially not leaving my small apartment until Wednesday morning, and as this is my first hurricane, I thought I might write some ‘diary entries’ to keep myself occupied. Who knows, if cabin fever properly sets in, this may turn into a thrilling, real-time chart of my descent into madness, on the perfect gothic backdrop of the worst storm in New York history, the week of Halloween. One can only hope.

Challenge

So this week I’ve been asking for feedback on my blog posts, and in response, I was issued a CHALLENGE. This post is to only be about positive things.  Before my friend issued me with this task, he warned me not to ‘get mad, okay?’ I suppose because requesting a more positive outlook implies that my posts up until now have been negative and bad. I didn’t get mad. I readily accepted this momentous challenge, because, in all truthfulness, I know that’s exactly what it will be. And I’m interested to see if I can do it. Literally. My mum gave me a similar mission 5 or 6 years ago, when she said that if I (then her sullen teenage daughter, complete in purple lipstick, netted sleeves and chains clinking as I walked, like an eerie gothic morris dancer) gave up insulting her for lent, she would reward me in cash. I think I responded with some derisive comment about how having to buy politeness and respect must be quite a low point for her, thus forfeiting almost immediately (Sorry Mum). So never before have I actually tested whether my brain is capable of just, like, giving the verbal thumbs up to stuff that is good. No sarcasm or abuse included. I’m genuinely intrigued to find out.

I also think this will be a healthy exercise for me while I’m over here, as I’m conscious of becoming one of those horrible expats that just sing the praises of their homeland, and never shut up about where they’re from to the point where you just want to tell them to go home. And I DEFINITELY don’t want to come back one of them nationalists, ew. So here goes. These are some things I have noticed in New York, which are just good in and of themselves, and deserve no scorn on my part. Things that have brought me nothing but enjoyment and happiness, and deserve some recognition:

Good Things About New York

1.   The number of people begging on the subways: I know a lot of them are trying to fund drug habits etc etc., and regardless of whether they are or not, it’s depressing to see these real life reminders of the level of poverty and homelessness in the city, all met with silence and disdain. But as I watch them all go by, I get some twisted satisfaction to know that before the Wall St bankers can return to their uptown apartments, they have to come face to face with their antithesis. For half and hour every morning and evening, they can't stay in their wealth-bubble. Plus, having the subways as such a free space means you get treated to some pretty cool shows there too. Travelling underground on the weekends you can buy sweets, listen to mariachi bands, watch break dancing, and much more without even going out of your way. It’s like a lovely, creative pic’n’mix. You can make eye contact with people on the New York subway, too. Sometimes people say words to eachother. OMFG. 
2.  The pervasion of left-wing propaganda: It’s shielding me from the tide of fearsome Republican announcements probably coming straight from the Deep South to the U.K., striking fear into the hearts of informed British citizens. Living here makes it hard to believe the polls are near tied. I forget the size of America and the insignificance of the Williamsburg electorate, most of whom are probably too hipster to vote anyway. I’m potentially in for a shock on election day
3.  The soldiers in Grand Central Station: They always wear camouflage even though it doesn’t help them fit their surroundings. I never stop finding that amusing. 
4.  The surprising lack of pigeons for such a dense and crowded city
5.  The abundance of public water fountains

That list awkwardly fizzled pretty quickly. I don’t think the tourist board are going to be hiring me any time soon. And despite the scant nature of my ‘good-things count’, I still find it hard not to end my positive post with some kind of final cutting remark; an injection of balance is needed in this overly optimistic and celebratory piece, this unapologetic, unrelenting cringe-fest of HAPPY.  Perhaps I see the bad in everything. Or perhaps I am unfair to America. On reflection, I think it’s the latter. I have a feeling that what made me study the States, and what made me come here, wasn’t deep interest and passion, but a wild obsession which has transfixed me from afar for years. I didn’t come here with the intent of immersing myself in the culture, but rather as a curious observer; someone with a morbid fascination with spray on cheese and the electric chair. Rather than dismissing them as marginal and not worth my attention, as I might do with the EDL for example, I lap up American right-wing vitriol about ‘slut-pills’ and ‘legitimate rape’, and spew out my resulting outrage in big Daily Mail headline font. With the concentration of a child sitting over an ant with a magnifying glass, I sat on twitter late into the night, awaiting the judge’s verdict on Troy Davis. Fox News is my equivalent to voyeuristic 80p gossip magazines. In my first year of uni, I remember being ever so slightly disappointed, after being told that a new girl had moved into our halls from Georgia, to discover that she didn’t have a southern-drawl, red-neck politics or bible-belt religion, but was actually the friendliest, nicest new flat-mate any of us could have hoped for.  So I suppose I am incapable of observing with balance and sincerity. I seek out the strange, maddening aspects of things, and am constantly in the mode of sarcasm, looking to be provoked. And that has made me represent you unfairly, America. I am very sorry. I know you have moderate politicians and unbiased media outlets, and normal, agreeable people. But they’re like the quiet child in the class that does all their work without a fuss and so gets no attention. The naughty ones like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin with their hands in the air throwing their books on the floor, telling on the immigrants and blaming the ‘abortionists’ for 9/11 are unfortunately impossible for me to ignore.

So how did I do, Mark? I feel like I might have failed. I hope you will believe me when I assure you that despite what my writing might suggest, I am not spending my whole time in New York City holed up in a dark room, writing snide hate-mail to the outside. If you were looking for some reassurance that I’m not depressed or sad, but am really getting an exciting and new experience, please set your mind at ease. Angry and ranty happens to be my modus operandi, but please don’t take me too seriously. 

(If you were just trying to make me a bet, then I owe you a beer.)

This is a picture taken from East-River State Park in Brooklyn. If you jump the fence, there’s a wall by an old warehouse that you can climb to and sit right on the East River, and see the New York Skyline. The Empire State Building was just yellow that night, but it shines a different colour for special occasions. Sitting there, it’s hard to forget where you are. 

See that massive glow in the sky? Like a dangerous chemical attack, or space-time cracking? That’s the light from Times Square. That’s the effect on the sky every night; that’s the amount of energy being consumed and spat out by that small section of land 24/7 365. I mean fuck. Just Fuck. 

Today I Forgot to Put a Notebook in my Bag

So I wrote just a few of my thoughts on a scratty bit of paper instead. 

It got a bit crinkled, and some of the dye from my jeans made the edges quite black

I don't like not having a washing machine:

It makes me dirtier. Having to go all the way to round the corner with a bag of smelly clothes is just not something I ever have the inclination to do. I can't just throw a bunch of stuff in the machine when necessary and take it out again a couple of hours later. Why has New York not undergone the transition that seems to have happened everywhere in Britain, where a washing machine is an accepted essential in the home? I thought America pushed the whole 50s housewife, kitchen appliance consumer culture thing much more than we did. Why is it acceptable to make washing your dirty laundry so public here? 

Imagine that scene in Trainspotting, where Spud wakes up in a strange house after a bender and realises he's shat the bed in a monumental way. So he sneaks downstairs, to try and get cleaned up, and bumps into the parents of the girl who brought him home (because - as he later finds out - she's only 15). The mum offers to help; Spud refuses, but she's quite insistent. So they're there in the kitchen, fighting over these sheets, her trying to take them off him, him desperately clinging on, and they start to tug, and then, in one sudden movement, they both fall backwards, and shit sprays everywhere. All over her. And him. And her husband. Imagine that, yeah? But in a New York setting. Where those sheets get taken the laundromat. You don't want to, do you?

So who's more sophisticated, America? In the UK, there are conveniently placed washing machines in every home. Evolution that is. You can stick your 4G up your arse. Think about it, New York. Think about it.

...

Is it worrying that I was writing this at my desk rather than scheduling our CEOs meetings or keeping spreadsheets up to date or doing something else that I should have been doing at work? 

Coping Test

Thursday night was BritishAmerican Business’ Transatlantic Business Awards Dinner. An annual event at the Pierre Hotel in New York’s Upper East Side, where tables go for over 25, even 50,000 dollars; high powered businessmen drink wine and scotch, eat well, and watch four honourees accept awards for their contribution to international business relations. The whole thing is fucking swish: black tie, precision planning and the utmost professional conduct throughout. How exciting! It’s the biggest event in the BritishAmerican Business events calendar. Forewarned by my colleagues that - having never been to a black tie event of this calibre before - I would be enthralled by the precision and class of the night, I decided to use the evening as a benchmark. Perhaps being surrounded by bravado and success would finally spark my latent passion for business.

Metaphorical litmus paper having been dipped in the acid of a world class business awards dinner, I can now officially declare the evening thoroughly vom-tastic. The whole thing made me literally sick. From leaving the office at 4pm to leaving the Pierre at around 11pm, I had a slightly pukey sensation at the back of my throat. While I sat infront of my $5000 dinner, listening to some of the most powerful men in the business and financial sector making blasé comments about the state of the euro-zone, having a casual chuckle at the expense of starving Greeks, my gag reflex threatened to completely give in. In fact I would have loved nothing more than to have personally thrown up on the expensive tux of every attendee.

Getting driven from the office was very strange. Speeding down 5^th avenue in a black town car with leather seats, the driver apologizing for the state of the traffic, felt surreal.  In the end I had to close the scenario for the night (which I had had open on my knee, memorising the names and faces of the guests of honour), and get out my notebook instead. The only words I had time to scribble down before we turned on to 61^st were ‘So I quit. I don’t feel snazzy’.

My sense of unease increased when I stopped at the Pierre, and had the door opened for me by the hotel doorman, and shut behind me by my driver. Intentionally swinging my crinkled h&m plastic bag by my side for all to see, and feeling slightly rebellious, I walked inside.

I wasn’t hit by an aura of money and class when I walked in. My first reaction to the building was how antiquated it seemed. Attempts had been made to bring the tiled entrance hall and old chandeliers up to date with some abstract art on the walls, and a large wooden carving in the lobby, which I’m fairly sure was of Vishnu. I’d apologise for my potential inaccuracy, but I doubt it was positioned there with worship in mind, and I’m sure the person who bought it didn’t have much preference as to which oriental god greeted their guests, so I feel unlikely to have offended them by not being 100% sure. Given its setting, rather than looking trendy or up to date it looked, frankly, colonial.

Preparation for the night began after a quick ‘touch up’ in the ‘powder room’. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone use that phrase without a hint of sarcasm before in my life. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. I slapped on some mascara, more to fit in than out of actual want, and then had nothing else to do really, so sat in the corner and watched everyone else put their faces on. Had a sandwich too. Ham. It was good. The time then came to set up the registration desks, and circle round the ballroom to make sure all the programmes were laid straight on the chairs and to straighten up after the catering staff, as apparently they can sometimes be ‘slapdash’. I got chatting to an old Spanish waiter during the sound check (‘It’s like being in the movies, no? I don’t feel like I’m at work, I feel like I’m in the theatre!’) Positive as the old guy was, rather than make me feel happy and jovial about my surroundings he just reminded me that he was being paid to be there. That sounds very very very ungrateful. And it probably is. I tried to stifle these thoughts, but being completely truthful, that was my gut reaction. His use of the word ‘movies’ and ‘theatre’ in a comical foreign accent, while wearing a white, Manuel-style waiters jacket again made the high-ceilinged ballroom, complete with columns and red curtains, feel intensely old fashioned. I wondered how long he had worked there. And whether his father or his grandfather had come to the States, from Puerto Rico, or Mexico, or Dominica. References to the euro-zone and the economic crisis aside, the whole night could just as easily have happened 60 or 90 years ago. Despite not feeling that the awards were much to be proud of, I was still irked that no women were being honoured at all.

In fact, greeting guests, I noticed very few women entered the reception at all without a male chaperone. I noticed a lot of things which I found very strange actually, for example, about half an hour after registration opened, a woman asked me if I knew of a discreet place she could change her shoes. I was flummoxed. There was a chair right behind her. She had tights on. How much discretion was needed? In fairness, she didn’t realise she was asking someone with what I must assume are lower standards than most for such proceedings. Leaving Reading Festival early one year with two split wellies, I found it necessary to sit down in the edge of the concourse at St Pancras International, get out my shoes, dry socks and baby wipes from my rucksack, and clean and dry my muddy feet before getting on the train home. I still maintain such action was preferable to squelching the length of the world’s longest champagne bar. I directed her to the restroom with the look of a confused child who’s just been asked the square root of pi.

I probably found the whole evening more absurd than it actually was, because I was thinking so hard about how to fit in, analysing and trying to identify accepted behavior with almost autistic precision. I wasn’t sure the British Ambassador, or the chairman of Standard Chartered would appreciate being welcomed to their awards dinner by a smirky girl who drops her t’s, so I tried my very best to be a refined and well-spoken New Yorker. I’m not certain how well this went. I will admit that I’m not the most comfortable of people in any sophisticated situation. I’m the one who feels uncomfortable being waited on in Pizza Hut. (‘No no, don’t worry about rectifying my order, that’s an extra walk for you … Well no I can’t drink the apple juice, but I’ll just drink from the water jug … well if you’re absolutely sure…’). No matter where I am in it, I never deal well with hierarchy. Which is why I warmed instantly to the guest in the red bow-tie who chatted openly to me and high-fived his wife when she pronounced my name right. It’s a pity he’s probably one of the men responsible in the current breakdown of the western economy. 

I’m conscious of appearing (as JP puts it in the new series of Fresh Meat) as a ‘money racist’. I mean, I was brought up knowing Margaret Thatcher to be an evil woman before I even knew who she was, and I do find it hard to put down an Irvine Welsh novel... As a Brit, I’m preoccupied with class, right? But class and money are not inextricably linked. I don’t begrudge these men their hard-earned millions. I begrudge the extra tens and hundreds of millions they made after that, by exploiting their political leverage and crippling the banking system. I begrudge their continued flippancy towards the downturn they’ve created, and their steadfast claims that it takes ‘courage’ (rather than a blind sense of entitlement) to uphold the values they extol in this current climate. When I booked my plane tickets home for Christmas, I was faced with a big banner from Virgin Atlantic: ‘Did you know you’ve just paid the highest air-tax in the world, to the British government? Make a difference, sign our petition today.’ This was news to me, and the knowledge didn’t make me feel robbed. It gave me a warm feeling of patriotism. Don’t give in to the bigwigs, Dave. If I can afford it, they can. 

No I Will Not Grow Up, Mum

The other day, I told my mum that I wanted to run away from New York and go back home, because the city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and my job is massive pile of corporate EW. She told me to grit my teeth and get used to it; there’s nothing actually badly wrong, it’s not forever and, in all fairness, I’ve had it pretty cushtie up 'til now - I have to grow up and face the real world some time.

This is all, ostensibly, true. I can’t give one factual, unemotional reason as to why I should definitely be at home right now and not in my blazer and pencil skirt in my central midtown job. In fact, saying that I’ve had it cushtie up until now implies that my current situation is a decrease in circumstances, which it most certainly is not. Career-wise, I have gone from speaking to graduates on the phone about library buildings and to eccentric London folk about old coins, to speaking to executives and directors of an array of international companies about … well nothing much. Their chat is shit. And this is where dear mother, at the risk of sounding like a bad teenage record stuck at 1968, I have to disagree with your sage advice. I will not grow up, and as for ‘the real world’, well that’s just a ridiculous concept that icky people like David Cameron and George Osborne use in suspect rhetoric about union strikes and NHS cuts. It’s a semantic device employed by people when they want to make an opposite point of view look absurd. I mean, nothing could undermine the notion of reality more really, than the implication that there’s a second, superior and intangible universe operating within wider society, that only people that hate their jobs are a part of. I’ll continue in my blissful muggle ways if you don’t mind.

When I first arrived in the states, before I found a house, I was staying in hostels. In these places a high number of my dorm-buddies were permanent travellers, who at 23, 26, 28 had not yet ‘settled down’, and had no plans to. I’m not advocating this as a permanent lifestyle, and I doubt they would either, but my point is they were still adults. They still had an amazing amount of experience under their belts, and all taught me loads. And they were very, very happy. Despite the fact that I am and adult, I’m also young, and it’s almost inevitable that I’m going to make mistakes. Although, I think that’s what you’re meant to say after you’ve made a mistake. It’s probably not the same to use it as justification for doing something that you’re pretty sure is going to turn out later to be a mistake. Which seems to be what I do. I’ve let myself skip school, drink too much, smoke, treat boys badly, jump of high things and so much more, purely by saying to myself before-hand ‘well, we all make mistakes!’ in the same off-hand tone someone might say ‘well, it is fair-trade!’ to justify spending £5 on a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. There might have to be a cut-off point one day. This may not be a practicable system for life. 

It’s funny really that I’m feeling so homesick for England and tired of New York, because there’s probably something of an American influence at play in my sudden, sentimental desire to drop everything and run. It’s not very reminiscent of the British stiff upper lip; the culture that I miss so much. Ironically, it’s probably in part the Romantic, openly emotional side of American culture having an effect on me that’s made me frank, sincere and dramatic enough to see upping and leaving the country as a viable option.

And, in all fairness, I can’t say I’ve been putting maximum effort into fitting in. Being Englishly reserved and reasonably unwilling to talk to strangers is a general handicap, but it’s one that I’ve not been particularly active in trying to rectify. A slightly moody, reclusive version of myself is emerging, one that doesn’t have very much interest at all in making friends in this ludicrous city, where no one has a washing machine or t.v. but nearly everyone has a really small dog which they actually carry around in a bag (I know, I thought it was only Paris Hilton too). But if that’s what it’s doing to me, why should I make the effort to stay? I’m a nicer person in England. So yes, it’s all on me. I do not blame you, New York City, but I want to come home. The corporate environment is no place for a girl like me. And if I’m going to do something I later regret, now is the time. Sylvia Plath ditched it all in, and she did alright …

oh, wait …  

Today I Made a Boo Boo at Work

The title of today’s post is but one more in an ever-increasing line of examples demonstrating that I am not mature enough be to working in a grown-up environment. (Some others include me having my own fist-bump with the UPS man and screaming loudly in the lobby when the doorman gets me into the elevato-LIFT!  Sorry, lift – last minute.) 

Today I did something I feel I have to share to deflate the bubble of awkward swelling in my head. Because at the moment, I feel a bit like you do when you’re on your own and you fall down in the street. There’s nobody with you to help you up and share in your misfortune, so you have to just furtively sneak back on your feet. People walking past can’t laugh at you, because let’s face it, it’s London; they wouldn’t stop if you were David Cameron (in nocturnal reptile form) standing in the middle of Westminster Bridge, shooting fire out of your eyes, screaming ‘desist in your futile pursuits humanfolk, the end is nigh!’, while flickering your black lizard-tongue Anthony Hopkins style over your next prey. So you can either be the weirdo who just stacked it in the road and hopes nobody saw, or the weirdo who is laughing wildly to themselves in public. You hope to at least catch the eye of someone who’s slightly amused, otherwise you just have to keep on walking, hiding your red face until you’re pretty sure everyone around you is a new stranger that didn’t see you trip 10 minutes ago.  Anyway, I digress.

So this morning, I’m leaving a voicemail for some important executive at some big investment firm. This guy doesn’t have an assistant, so it’s not my usual girl-to-girl ‘can our CEO come play with your managing director for an hour or so next month? No, of course he can come here, we would be happy to have him. They get on so well together after all, don’t they?’ Instead, I’m leaving a message directly for this actual man, and I’m probably getting ever so slightly tongue-tied. Anyway, I’m nearly at the end of my message. Leaving my contact details, almost home and dry. Just got to sign off and hang up. And what do I say?

‘bye bye’

Yes, ‘bye-bye’. Not the formal, sophisticated ‘goodbye’, or the quick, simple ‘bye’, both of which would have been fine. And not even the slightly twatty ‘bu-bye’ which, when not suffixed by ‘now’ or ‘darling’ or both of those, is passable. No. I hadn’t decided on a sign off, and while my brain was passing me the one syllable ‘bye’, my mouth had clearly prepared itself for the whole two syllables, and was unstoppable after the first. The result of which was that I put equal emphasis on both ‘bye’s, ending this train-wreck of a voicemail with an expression last used in the plural, voiced by Toyah Willcox and prefixed with the phrase ‘time for tubby-’

‘Uh-oh!’

So there’s my verbal stack in the street. And with it another name is added to this list of powerful New York businessmen who have probably stopped returning my company’s calls on my account. Unfortunately I couldn’t share it with my adult worker type ‘colleagues’ because they wouldn’t laugh. I’m therefore sharing it here.  Let it serve as further substantiation of my immaturity, awkwardness and whimsy which will one day earn me the official government classification ‘unfit for office’.

Although, while we’re on the subject of phrasing...

I have to deal every day with Americans using ridiculous lexical inventions like ‘FYI’, ‘going forward’, ‘diarize’ and ‘vaca’ without a hint of sarcasm in their tone. It’s hard for me to accept this and continue as if nothing absurd or laughable has just happened. Just saying. I feel like I’m in an episode of some naturalistic satirical* comedy like ‘Veep’ or ‘The Office’.  

*Is that an oxymoron? Comments please nerd-types. 

My Summer in Lists

In the interest of providing some background to stuff to come, I thought I would begin by briefly bringing you all up to speed on the last couple of months through the medium of LISTS.

WHERE I HAVE BEEN IN THE LAST FOUR MONTHS

1)      Birmingham, UK

2)      St Albans, UK

3)      East Williamsburg, BROOKLYN

4)      Harlem, MANHATTAN

5)      Bushwick, BROOKLYN

6)      Bed-Stuy, BROOKLYN

7)      Back to Bushwick

(Pheew!)

WHAT I HAVE DONE IN THE LAST FOUR MONTHS

1)      Sat my second year university exams

2)      Passed my second year university exams

3)      Said many a goodbye (tearier and more slurred than I had perhaps hoped for)

4)      Made many and introduction

5)      Been made to leave my first NY apartment by my once Vegas bouncer ex-karate champion landlord

6)      Seen the Manhattan skyline light up the night from many a Brooklyn roof.

7)      Spat water/thrown cans/paper off many a Brooklyn roof

8)      Stuck my head over the edge of many a Brooklyn roof

9)      Run away from a pitbull

10)   Started work at BritishAmerican Business’ snazzy offices on the 20^th floor of a midtown building

11)   Had my laptop, camera, ipod and headphones stolen

12)   Got the subway into town and got sushi at 2am

13)   Found a new apartment which is nice and the landlord seems to be allowing me to stay (touch wood)

14)   Stood on a fire escape and sung Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, the Beatles and Frank Turner loudly into the Brooklyn night, because England keeps my bones. (And we have the best music).

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT IN THE LAST FOUR MONTHS

1)      I have the most fantastic friends in the world.
I mean, I can only really say that with authority over the bits that I’ve travelled. But from ET to GMT, they’re the best.

2)      Despite having a ‘postal service’, American’s don’t understand the noun ‘post’. You can post some mail, but mail some post and they won’t have a clue what you just did.

3)      I will never, ever be ‘street’

4)      Having a padlock on your bag is of no use if you don’t put your valuables in it

5)      Having nothing of value is strangely liberating

6)      I will always need my mummy. 

THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW I WOULD MISS FOUR MONTHS AGO

1)      Cadbury chocolate.
I never bought the stuff, but it was nice seeing it there in the shops. Hersheys looks grim.

2)      Spray deodorant.
It exists, but just doesn’t seem to be a very big thing. There’s not much of it in the shops. Apparently hygiene products in a spray can is weird over here,  but cheese? Perfectly usual.

3)      English misery.
People here are positive, friendly, confident and enthusiastic all the time.
It’s fucking tiring. A bit of cynicism and negativity wouldn’t go amiss, dudes, you're making me uncomfortable.

THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ACHIEVED WHEN I LEAVE

1)      Be able to speak Spanish

2)      Be able to play the guitar

3)      Be able to pull off wearing a cap