Valley of the Trolley Dollies

Some recent twittering with directors commentary:

One day ago: Dreading this week at work- final week of a typically half baked project. Still, shoulders back. Smile on. Work the runway, bitch….

And you know what? yesterday, after all that dreading, was fine. One of the things I’d been fretting over - the need to organise and persuade half the Istanbul office to attend a video conference in a weeks time - went off fine. No probs. A -OK. The other bit, is simply a case of getting someone who’s trying to avoid me, and nailing the MoFo down on a deliverable for this weekends Big Implementation. And if it’s not done? We’ll manage. No, I’ll manage.

About 12 hours ago: Gym. Spin class instructor says ‘we’re going up the side of an alpine hill.’ No, love. We are in an airless basement in EC3. With no aircon.

‘Nuff said. Silly cow. Bruno and I rolled our eyes and took our heavy(ish) weights into another room. I discovered I have the weakest triceps on the planet. And there I was thinking my shoulders were puny.

About 12 hours ago: Ooh. The Moroder version of ‘Cat people’ is legend. Perfect for a city heatwave.

And it is. From Bowie’s moody, broody and borderline hysterical performance (one of his last decent vocals) on through the throbbing electronic soundscapes. Not forgetting the beautiful Irena’s Theme and Jogging Chase, which was on every home made mixtape I did in my teens. Oh, dear: Was it my home taping that finally killed music?

About 11 Hours ago: It is pitch dark in Maidenbower. Big storm coming.

Eerie. Still. Silent. A darkness that seemed to be hovering in front of a bright bright light. Nonsense, I know, but it seemed like the world was waiting for something…

About 10 hours ago: O my lord. Its the rapture.

And this was it. Forked lightening. Roaring Thunder. Very primordial. And then the sight of all the Christians on Magnolia Lane standing outside their houses, stark naked, and turning into pillars of light that sped upwards. I claim the rapture. D claims an open-air Methodist wife-swapping orgy struck by lightning.

He may be right, because post rapture, all my fellow investment bankers are at their desks. And surely, if all the good, holy, saved people have been taken up to the left hand of the Lord, this place should be empty.

Oh, wait…

So. Very. Tired.
This week, I have clients in from South Africa and Spain, and it’s my job to make their stay as productive and enjoyable as possible.

So yesterday, in between exaining some of the finer points of English contract law (Just call me Lionel Hutz) and sorting out access to email for one of the two SA people (the other one’s profile is still lost in the ether, I managed to completely redraft a service agreement between the offices, take them on a meet and greet (which was good for me, since I got to m+g some London guys I’d not previously met) and enjoy a leisurely sunshiney River Cruise to the House of Commons and back.

Then last night was dinner, at which I ate too much and the conversation ranged from Life under Franco to career paths at Feng Shui Bank, New world wines,the Eurovision Song Contest (dumping Ireland’s Turkey - like Brendan Behan does Euro. On Acid - was a disgrace) and, of course the Champions league final, or whatever kickabout was going on in Moscow.

What? I am a homosexual; almost all of the above are topics on which I can freely discourse. The last, however? I’m. So. Tired…

Is my life really this dull? A couple of one-line postings about a trip to the cirque du soleil, various recountings of dreams (and – really – is there anything more tedious than a complete stranger recounting their unconscious fantasies? Especially when those fantasies seem to revolve around 50 year old kidnappers singing dancers), pointless conversations with a man who’s paid to spend time with me (did I mention Hookers in that post), and then silence…

 Makes me wonder: Why did I begin blogging? Because I started reading other people’s blogs, and their lives were so cool and eventful and filled with great stuff, and I wanted that? Is that why? Maybe.

 Because, in the run-up to one of the single most important days in my life, I wanted a way to get my shit together, to try to make sense of  where I’d come from, and where I was going to? There was that, too. A great deal of that, to be honest.

 As a way of recording that wonderful wedding day, and the heady summer days leading up to, and following on from it? At the time, most definitely; I really hadn’t considered what I’d do when life got quiet and there was less to talk about.

Because, despite my culture-snobbery, I wanted to be part of the ‘look ma, I’m famous’ generation that was spawned in 1992’s “MTV’s The Real Life,” suckled in the early “Big Brother’s,”  and “Wife Swaps,” and has come to maturity with an entire schedule of T.V.  shows, magazines, newspaper columns, and, yes, blogs, filled with normal people – the sort who’d once have been referred to as boringly normal people – flinging open the doors to their normal boring lives, allowing, as the genre has developed, the editors to edit out much of what makes them boring and normal, so that everyone is, nowadays, a freak. A famous Freak. A “Look Ma, I’m Famous” famous freak.

Did I want to be Kerry Katona Crazy in Love? Was that it? And if I did, and I’d bothered to set up a counter, would I be destroyed to discover that nobody ever comes here? That, after all, I’m not famous, or very widely read, but that I am, in fact, whistling into the wind, some latter-day Lear’s Fool, but with less funny jokes (and if you’ve ever been obliged to read some of Lear’s Fool’s jokes, you’ll know how bad that is!)

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