Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Henry David Thoreau

I play the “what if” game with myself. It isn’t so much a regret party - more a wondering who and where I would be if I had zagged instead of zigging. I have talked about this before about how the most innocuous of decisions can change your entire life.

My saying yes to the museum date with the IT guy at Yahoo (Stuart). If I had said no would I still be in Los Angeles? And if still in LA, the next question is would I have gone postal at my office and be in jail serving life?

If I hadn’t been a good Catholic girl, going to mass while I was at University, would I still consider myself a Christian?

If I had not taken the internship in the amazingly disorganized and completely FUBAR literary department at the now defunct Group Theatre in Seattle, would I still be actively involved in that scene?

I wonder if it is the small part of me that still thinks I am a writer that does this. That has this urge to play with the dramatic action dominos and knock them over in another direction. The thing is, if I had zagged, I would be curious about the zig.

I do have certain regrets, most of them around my being a lazy bitch. Not being serious with my writing, not being serious with taking care of my body, not being serious about keeping my long distance friendships healthy. I have long lists in my head about things that I need to do, that I want to do, but somehow let time get away. (I really need to call my Grandparents. Haven’t spoken to them for months and months.)

I think I’m a floater. It’s not that I wait for things to happen to me or that I wait for people to take care of me or sort things for me or carry my over packed luggage - Good fucking god I hate people like that. It is more. . . I just get by leading my life of quiet desperation.

I’m not sure why I do this.

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One of the bloggy joys that those of us that engage in this self involved hobby get to do is sort out the spam from the actual comments.

It is usually for a variety of things. I’m sure you can guess the usual suspects.

Today however, I had some spam for Best Cat Litter Boxes.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think they may want to rethink their online business model.

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Stu: 2.45 for a pint of diet Pepsi. Am I missing something?

Nicole: You might as well drink.

Stu: I was thinking the same.

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People joke about the state of people’s teeth over here. The sad thing is, a lot of the stereotype is true. . . but not completely. I do have dental insurance through work, but I need to pay up front and then get reimbursed so I have just been lazy and haven’t gone. . . which is really bad. Two years without a cleaning.

I must admit I was also bad in the US where I would only had to pay my co pay.

Not good.

Well. At least if my teeth fall out, I won’t stand out too much.

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My snoring was so bad from my cold/bird flu/ebola virus he slept on the sofa last night. . .

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IMG_1519

Originally uploaded by treefrog girl.

You weren’t kidding Jen. It’s a lovely, lovely place. I want and will go back. After all, I still haven’t tried a deep fried Mars bar.

Click on the picture to see my set of pics on flickr. To see Stu’s pics, click here.

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Two years. On Monday it will be two years that we got hitched. Crazy. . .

It has gone by so fast. Looking back at those old entries I really don’t know how I got everything done.

Stuart doesn’t really like marking occasions so I was just not going to say anything about the two-year watermark. Last year I had tried for us to go out and have dinner and hang out in the day and it just made him grumpy so I wanted to avoid that. I think he just doesn’t like being told that he needs to do something for certain things. I think it is connected to his anti getting gift thing. I was really okay with that this year. My plan Monday was to kiss him, tell him I love him and not do anything special.

Tuesday he IM’d me telling me to not make any plans this weekend. That he was taking me on the sleeper train to Edinburgh for our anniversary. Such a surprise. I have been wanting to go to Scotland and specifically Edinburgh for ages. And I love the fact that we are going on the sleeper. It leaves at 11ish and we arrive at 6:30- 7 in the morning. We come back on Sunday night and arrive in London in the morning so I will go straight to work Monday.

I love the idea of going on a sleeper train with our own little sleeping area! It’s like Some Like It Hot, only without Marilyn Monroe, cross-dressing and gangsters. I said that to Al and he said that obviously I have never been on the sleeper.

The only bad thing is this damn cold, sore throat thing. I have meds from the doctor and I am popping over the counter pain meds so I will muddle through.

It was so sweet of Stuart to surprise me. It will be a nice weekend for us.

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My new favourite show is The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle

The bit that had me rolling tonight:

Are the windows tinted?

No. That’s just how Slough looks.

Oh God. It looks like Eastern Europe.

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Ok. I know there was never any doubt that I would get my Indefinite Leave To Remain visa but it is never fun to deal with that stuff. It’s done. Sorted. I have it in my hot little hands.

My hands are hot because I am sick. Again. I have drank enough orange juice to support Florida and Spain.

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Next week we are having a big presentation thingy around the travel vertical. Lots of agencies and customers will be there to hear our insights and a few of my colleagues have been shitting themselves.

In my new role I have helped facilitate a presentation training class (more our coordinator did everything, but I’ll take the credit) and a voice class. The voice class was suggested by a trainer in a sister organization and it seemed to us a great think outside the box solution.

The lady running it was really great- used to be an actress and it was obvious that she knew her stuff. Rather than just make us do crazy vocal exercises, she explained the physiology behind breath and what makes our voice work and why something as small as correcting your posture can affect the quality of your voice.

Anyone with a bit of acting training knows that voice class isn’t the quietest thing in the world.

At one point, from the meeting room next door where there is a small strip of glass where you can peer into the next room, we saw a hand waving. Then the hand went away. Then the door of the meeting room opened.

Bah-Bah-Bahhhhhhh!

It was my bosses, bosses, bosses, boss. The head cheese, the big enchilada. No, not that big boss. Or even the other one but she is big enough to inspire fear.

“It sounds like a Shakespearean play in here.”

The voice teacher was not sure what to say. We all stared.

“I’m Blah Blah-Blah”, the big boss said in her American accent.

The voice teacher twittered hello in her poshy British vocal trained accent. She had no clue who Blah Blah-Blah was. She could have said her name was Cheese Sandwich and it would have been the same difference.

“I’m waiting for a phone call.” And the big boss left.

Now there was more helloing and what are you doing than that, I just can’t remember it. The subtext however was quite clear. We were being told to shut the fuck up.

Thankfully the voice teacher didn’t catch that and she kept on.

When I was walking the teacher out we ran into Blah Blah-blah.

“That sounded interesting!”

“Yes, for the travel day we’re trying to support the people presenting so they are as ready as possible.”

“Yeah. Next time I’d like to maybe join in.”

“Sure, sure. It was good fun.”

“A bit noisy.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah. I thought I had made myself clear.”

It took everything I had to not say, “I’m sorry. How silly of me to be concerned about my people being as ready as they could be next week. I should have found another meeting room for a three hour class for ten because we know how easy that is or even cancelled because you have plopped yourself down in a large meeting room when there are plenty of smaller rooms intended for one.”

I wonder how long it would have been before I got my P-45?*

*pink slip

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