We sold out two shows on my birthday, one of which we’d been a bit worried about – how’s that for birthday magic – and my colleagues surprised me with a chocolate cake which I had not been expecting (birthday people at my company always get cake, but they don’t necessarily always get it on their birthday, and I didn’t think I’d have mine till next week because hardly anyone was in the office on thursday!).
And then yesterday was the big brochure copyedit session where we all gathered round the meeting table and went through next season’s brochure proofs with a fine toothed comb, and I discovered to my delight that I’m not the only grammar nazi in the office, and had colleague Tom to back me up on nitpicky issues like “Mothers’ Day” vs “Mother’s” (second is obviously wrong but no one believed us), and eradicating/inserting commas and apostrophes as appropriate.
We all then troop to the pub after work and Tom and I proceed to discover, on top of both being grammar, spelling and punctuation freaks, that we both love Mulholland Drive (literally exclaiming “I love that movie!” at exactly the same time when someone else mentioned it), that I am currently reading and loving one of his favourite books (The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas), that we both first picked said book up at the bookstore because it has a pretty cover, and that we both habitually judge books by whether their covers are pretty.
At which point Tom is like, hang on a sec, are you my long lost twin, only five years younger?! and we realise that we’re probably just the same person in two different bodies. It was all a bit creepy, and very funny. Did I mention he is also a bit of a techie geek and is the only other person in the office who knew what i was talking about when I mentioned how hysterical the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” literal video version is?
It was a good night out. I’ve never been to the pub with them before because I’ve always been busy on previous pub nights, and it was surprising, and refreshing, to be at a pub night where we were discussing Mulholland Drive rather than getting laid, which has been generally more of the norm at English pub nights so far. There was an impromptu birthday song and talk of Christmas and holidays, and surrounded by an incongruous conglomeration of wreaths, pine cones and pumpkins, chatting excitedly with the rest about my upcoming trip back, that festive, restless mood that has been welling up in me for ages now got even stronger.
This afternoon, following Japanese class and lunch at Carluccio’s with the usual suspects, was a hugely enjoyable board game houseparty involving a number of obscure but madly addictive games (mostly German, as they tend to be); tomorrow if the weather holds up will be a trip out to Brick Lane with Debbie in one of my rare East End forays. The next week promises to be a mad busy one as we start finalising the brochure and working on the big push for Christmas, but every weekend that passes brings my trip home ever closer, and I have had a lovely week past to see me through.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
exactly one year and two days ago, i moved to london with not a clue what my future would look like this time next year. how time goes by.
seven years ago, i was dinnering at suntec with the squad; i think we were at kenny rogers and i remember being surprised with a makeshift cake in the form of a corn muffin and a single large white candle (which i hung on to, i still have it somewhere) in place of the seventeen which would’ve been impractical.
five years ago i came to this country all prepared to spend my birthday alone – a far cry from the swensen’s firehouse sundaes and multiple dinners out of previous years – and the motley crew, whom i’d known barely a month, got me a chocolate cake from marks and sparks and made chicken curry in my Ingram B kitchen and gathered to watch the princess bride in my room after dinner.
the year after that was, of course, the year of the soopersekrit photo scrapbook project which thanks to a text gone astray i knew about all along; i can still so vividly recall standing in a doorway with ailin and jason and en qi like a beckett tableau as we all rather surrealistically instructed jason to go buy me a scrapbook from paperchase in a certain shade of purple. and then next year was the epic video – how could i forget?
my dad’s birthday and mine are nineteen days apart in october, so whenever i am back home on holiday, just before returning to england for the autumn, we always go out for a big family dinner to jointly celebrate. the japanese restaurants near home in sydney are amazing, we have had the birthday dinner in two different japanese restaurants for the past two years.
this year, now that i’m on my own and not doing anything special on my birthday for the first time i can remember, i don’t feel as horribly lonely as i thought i might; the memories from years past keep me warm in the lengthening nights, as does the knowledge from here and now that i am loved, that beautiful and worthwhile people out there think i am beautiful and worthwhile, that my friends and family are amazing, that i am going home soon, and that i could not be luckier.
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
An old, favourite poem – I am sure I posted it before but it must have preceded this URL, because I can’t find it in my archives. This morning’s NaNo-prep read of my old Victorian volumes threw up Browning’s name again, as it usually does, and I was suddenly reminded of this; reading it again, it is more poignant and more haunting than ever before.
Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, ’tis with such a heavy mind!
II
Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark’s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?
III
Ay, because the sea’s the street there; and ’tis arched by . . . what you call
. . . Shylock’s bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England — it’s as if I saw it all.
IV
Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
V
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, —
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O’er the breast’s superb abundance where a man might base his head?
VI
Well, and it was graceful of them — they’d break talk off and afford
— She, to bite her mask’s black velvet — he, to finger on his sword,
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?
VII
What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh
, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions — “Must we die?”
Those commiserating sevenths — “Life might last! we can but try!
VIII
“Were you happy?” — “Yes.” — “And are you still as happy?” — “Yes. And you?”
— “Then, more kisses!” — “Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?”
Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!
IX
So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
“Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
“I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!”
X
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.
XI
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep thro’ every nerve.
XII
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
“Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.
“The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be discerned.
XIII
“Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,
“Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
“Butterflies may dread extinction, — you’ll not die, it cannot be!
XIV
“As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
“Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
“What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
XV
“Dust and ashes!” So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what’s become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
Glee on a Friday makes me happy! Especially if it follows a long, arduous week which isn’t over yet – though, perhaps rather masochistically, I rather enjoy working the out-of-hours onsite events as they make a welcome change to deskbound labour, so I am looking forward to tomorrow.
Payday makes me happy too :) as does counting down to all the things I have to look forward to.
Mostly I am just feeling really, really tired these days. I miss having my mornings, and I am always too exhausted to do anything after work, so I am trying to both reclaim my mornings and get more done by reversing my day – waking up really really early, getting a bit of housework done, preparing lunch and dinner beforehand, and wasting time online before work so that I can collapse into bed and sleep really early when I get back from work. This went quite magnificently until I got home at midnight from the company birthday party yesterday and messed up my entire sleep schedule :/ so right now I just feel… disoriented.
It wasn’t a great day at work today. I just cannot concentrate on anything when I haven’t slept properly, and I am so much of a creature of habit, a part of me almost feels like I would rather give up having a social life on weekdays in favour of being able to get home and get to sleep at a fixed hour every night. Or maybe this is what growing older feels like when you’ve always been old for your age anyway, alas.
(But then again, as the 50-year-old head of the local fire brigade said to me last night with a wry smile, upon hearing how old I was: “Ah, you’re still a baby!” So true, sir, so true.)
i always miss you the most on weekends, and this past weekend was no different.
29 days, 29 days, 29 more long, cold, lonely london days where the nights stretch out endlessly and we’re short on light, less than a month now; i’ve one foot out the airport already, please let me go home, please oh please let me be home now. i need the solid reassuring marble of the kitchen counter and the smell of the garden, voices round the house, company round dinner, i need to go home, i need to touch base.
counting down constantly, every minute of the day.
electricity-saving ways of keeping warm as the weather gets colder that i have already investigated/put in place/will investigate:
I went to see Up in 3D tonight, one day earlier than expected due to a rare burst of spontaneity, and it was wicked awesome, but I will write more about that (and the other animated films I have seen/will see this week) another time.
What I really wanted to say was – the Barbican cinema, which is where we saw it, is 2 storeys underground and has no reception.
I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a genius way of terminating phone-pest behaviour during movies? Because it really bothers me. Texting and that buzzy vibrating noise are massive annoyances (let’s not even get started on actual phone ringing, and worse still, people picking it up and going “I’m in a movie!!” in what they think is a hushed tone but actually isn’t). I just think that unless you are a massively important VIP, in which case you can afford a private viewing of said film, there is no reason why anyone needs to use their phone during a movie.
So why is it not more common to just build cinemas with no reception? Singapore, take note!
I rarely post entire recipes, mostly because everything I make is yanked off the internet anyway and I can just link to the originating post. But I will make an exception for these truly mouthwateringly stupendous apple muffins from (where else) smitten kitchen, because I don’t think it’s so much a solo recipe as a technique.
The magic of this set of instructions is that gives you an amazing base for any kind of fruity muffin. I plan to try it with apples and blueberries, peaches, and bananas – unless my colleagues get sick of muffins first…
I have even converted the ingredients to sensible metric measurements, for your convenience!
Apple Muffins
Makes 12 large or 18 medium muffins
140g whole wheat flour
140g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
95g granulated sugar
95g dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, lightly beaten
236ml buttermilk or yogurt
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
Recipe Notes
i just had an 8-hour nap. possibly longer, as i can’t remember when i collapsed into bed, but it was definitely before dinnertime, or i would’ve been a good girl and eaten my dinner before crashing. what a strange feeling to stir from sleep and realise the day has vanished. what an exhausting day, and week, it has been.
i can’t remember the last time i was awake at 1am.
it feels strange, and quiet, and cold, though not all that much colder than when i wake early in the mornings. but there’s definitely now an autumnal chill in the air, the sort of crisp, decisive, pervasive cold that isn’t dissipated by sunlight. toes tingling, fingers balled into warm little fists in my pockets as i walk down the street, i can’t help constantly thinking of the warmth that awaits in a little over a month’s time. it’s not the only thing keeping me going, but it is the main one for sure.
happy birthday, daddy. 51 and you’re still the #1 man in my life. i don’t think that’ll ever change, because you’re just that awesome.
Me: So I’ve really been grappling with Databox… we’ve just launched a membership scheme, and I can’t get it to pull a report with all the members’ email addresses, I have to search for them one by one.
Charlie: You have to use Data Interrogator – can’t your box office help?
Me: I’ve asked the box office supervisor, she doesn’t know how -
Charlie: You know what? Send me an email, and I’ll tell you how to do it.
Me: (thinking OMG bless you i could kiss you right here in this hallway!) Thank you!!
Today was one of those days when it all just came together.
Charlie is the Box Office Manager at one of the many places where I interned before getting my current job, and I ran into him, as well as a number of other ex-colleagues and people I knew by proxy, at a training workshop today about digital marketing. I was reluctant, at first, to go for said workshop – purely because it meant a full day out of the office at a crazily busy period, on a day when I was expecting a hugely important brochure delivery, and the itinerary for the day sounded very technical and full of stuff about analysing visitor statistics and SEO optimisation. But my colleague talked me into going with her, and I am so glad I did.
It’s easy to forget about this and take it for granted, but one of the best things about working in the arts is how open everyone is, and how the industry is small enough such that the relationships you make stay with you no matter which organisation you’re with. It was heartwarming to bump into all these people I interned for who still remember me, and who are so willing to help me out with problems such as making annoying box office software do what I want, even though I now work for a different company.
And the seminars didn’t turn out as technical as I thought they might; a lot of ideas were shared and bounced around about how best to use social media, how to engage online audiences, the demographic they represent and how they interact with online as well as offline content. For myself as an individual, rather than from a work point of view, I am – as you can probably tell from my geekariffic interests – really particularly keen on this side of marketing. We don’t do a lot of it at my current workplace, just because it hasn’t been a priority within the department, but it’s something I really want to work on and push forward… I feel like there is so much potential there.
Anyway. Off my soapbox.
Throughout and after the day I had some good long catch up chats with old colleagues from various places, and met some great new people; like I’m sure I’ve said before I always think I dislike networking, but it really is good getting acquainted with others in your field and most people are genuinely lovely, so it doesn’t really feel like work chatting with them about the huge muffins served during lunch and the awesomeness of the mushroom soup.
“We miss you,” said Charlie to me as we headed out to the tube station together with other ex-colleague Christine, “come back!” I smiled and said I missed them too, we bantered about cobbling together the money to create a paid job so I could return. Fellow Sydneysider Christine, who lives one stop down the line from me, kept me company all the way home. We talked about Tim Tams, Sydney’s far superior public transportation, and our upcoming visits back to Aussie; she filled me in on all that had gone on since I left, listened to me ramble about things I missed, and told me it’d taken them nearly 2 months to find an intern to replace me and the new one wasn’t as good, which was just – awwww.
Days like this make me feel like the months spent interning and job-hopping were so, so worth it after all. It wouldn’t have been the same, had I gone straight into a steady job upon graduating and not had the opportunity to work in a variety of places, getting to know all these different people. You just can’t put a price tag on this feeling :)
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