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.
You know your sanity is at a low, low ebb when you find yourself opening your food cupboard in search of your green tea, murmuring “green tea green tea green tea green tea green tea” under your breath repeatedly while staring blankly at the open cupboard, and doing so for a few minutes on autopilot before actually getting the green tea out to make your drink.
-is mildly mortified-
*
It always comes down to the people, doesn’t it?
I like my colleagues. I very much like my marketing manager, who is acerbically wry and suitably jaded for someone whose job is to churn out appropriate rubbish for the press, while still managing to be really personable and easy to get along with – no mean feat for a cynical person – and this is fortunate, because he’s my line manager at the moment. The other interns, and the temp development officer who just started a week after I did, are very lovely. We chat easily on pub nights and are beginning those slow, slow agonising painful steps towards getting to know new people.
Nothing changes the fact, however, that my nakama are all far away. Some are closer – some are close enough for spur-of-the-moment visits, frequent or infrequent, and I am very grateful for that; more and more though my thoughts keep dwelling on the people I love who aren’t here with me in London, which is… all the people I love.
I keep thinking, I want to see ____, I want to be with ______, I wish _______ were here, I really want to hear from _______, I wonder what ________ is doing now (insert various names as thoughts wander). Sometimes it’s people I’ve not seen or talked to for ages, sometimes people I’ve chatted with just lately, sometimes, even, people I’ve seen lately; maybe it’s the recent memory of the meeting that puts them oddly in the forefront of my mind. There are friends with whom I feel I have only kept up a friendship because we have both made the effort to keep in contact somehow, there are friends with whom I know I’ll always fall right back into intimate conversation when we next speak even though we’ve not talked in months and months, there are friends (this category is largely Yorkies) whom I feel irrationally very fond of despite the short, short time we’ve had to get to know each other. I think of all of you, often. I miss you.
It’s a strange addiction: the more I keep thinking of people, the more I can’t stop. It’s like the thoughts themselves provide some phantom company; a summoned shadow of the person missed that makes me feel, for a moment, like they’re there.
You can’t make me dance around
But your two-step makes my chest pound
Just lay me down
As you float away into the shimmer lights
sq
cui
LcT