Brain on the mend...

Everything changes, and everything must, eventually change. So my mood turned back up from a period of being down. Everything changes, and this is the hope to which I am currently clinging.

Recently, I've been very positive. On Sunday, I met up with a friend I used to work with, who left to become a teacher. He told me about how things had changed since he quit and went into teaching. His life is so much more... "real", his accountability firm and the rewards more than pecuniary. He sees his wife, he does DIY and cultivates his garden...

After a horrible feeling last week, I'm in a good mood. I have an interview at eBay this Friday, which I am really looking forward to. I'm really eager to do well with this one, as it's actually a job I want to do! Who knows if I'll get beyond the first interview, but hey I've got as much chance as anyone I guess.

And I got offered a job from a software company, which was nice even though I don't want to take it. The job's offering a near 20% increase on my current salary, but would involve a whole lot more travelling and demand most of my time again. The confidence boost is good, though. It settles the mind, and stops me thinking too negatively.

I'm also getting active again - I played squash with my brother, and it was great. We played for a good hour, full speed, and I ran for every ball, lunged at every bounce, until I emerged sore and sweating from the court, my buttocks feeling firm like mutton...

I haven't been able to finish my retrospective of 1996-1999. It stalled. Why? because the more I dig into it, the more I realise that 1996 wasn't all the beauty of my nostalgia. Yeah, I did well at college, and I had a great time drinking and socialising, and I played football three times a week... but I also cheated on a really cool girl, I started a fight and got deservedly kicked, and I felt loss for the first time. The not-so-good things have played on my mind, and I'm not quite ready to delve so deeply into it. So you'll have to be patient, if it's interesting at all...

I'm such a fucking freak sometimes...

Recently, I've been fucking things up completely, and it feels like everything is just coming out wrongly. I just can't seem to shake the doubt... the confidence, the empowerment that should be there has gone awol. I swear, right now I could be the narrative voice of a Coupland novel.

Maybe, sayeth the ego, I'm just at a juncture. Maybe, it's a kind of millenial moment, but without the dates.

Whiskey is a temporary reprieve. A dry havana provides momentary removal from the confusion of the heart. I picked up my neglected guitar, played a few chords, plucked the remnants of a tracy chapman ballad, passed out, woke, made awkward calls, ran out of battery, poured more whiskey, plundered the stack of cd's, put on ben folds five, made an unsuccessful booty call to a forbidden peach, flopped onto bed and mumbled myself to sleep.

Why does everything seem so complex at the moment? Why are there so many variables? Why can;t I just pass for what I need to be right now?

And the irony is, it could all be so simple! I could just get lucky, the stars could align, and I could end up not feeling like a freakish detail from an edgar allen poe story.

And I miss driving fast. Since getting busted, I have been forcing myself into 70mph hell, when I want to just put the foot down and feel the surge of motion and growl. Damn the pigs... damn them.

Mid-Week Miscellany

So, I got busted for speeding yesterday.

I was driving back to London in my A3, pulled out into the fast lane, saw an open stretch of motorway gaping into the distance and put my foot down. The car surged forward, and I got that wash of satisfaction that only speed can deliver. I was just checking my rear-view to slip back into the middle lane, when I saw the flashing lights behind me. The cops tailed me for a few yards until I stopped on the hard shoulder, walked me to the back of their unmarked sedan, made me watch a video of my offence, then slapped me with a £60 on-the-spot fine. My first prosecution! Not my first run-in with the law (a few youthful misdemeanours).

So, tomorrow I must turn in my licence at the local police station for it to be endorsed, with three big black points on it for the next four years. It was going to happen - just a bummer it had to happen this week!

>>>>

I have an interview at Amazon, on Friday. The job is managing their books product line for the french site. It's the first product of my registration with a recruitment network, in my attempt to move on from the consulting world.

Whilst I am quite attracted by the idea of looking after something to do with books, and in French no less (I studied French Lit as one half of my undergrad), the prospect of conversing in French at interview chills me somewhat. It has been a good few years since I had to string more than a few paltry sentences together, .

Having managed to hustle the next couple of days off of work, I am plotting my strategy and style . So, here I am, sipping a concoction of Absolut Mandarin, ice and cranberry-orange juice, thinking about what the fuck I am going to say about myself in this interview... Apart from the fact that I love books (duh!) and I'm a fairly capable manager... If I'm honest, I don't think I am going to get the job, because I just don't have enough commercial experience. But we'll see!

I would never laugh...

I saw Abby's list of songs she likes to sing drunkenly into her pillow, and was moved to write about my own experiences of singing drunkenly - mostly in an effort to get laid.

Since Maverick and Goose burned "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" in Top Gun back in the Eighties, it has become a cliche. Hackneyed as the idea may be, in my erstwhile experience, singing drunkenly to a similarly drunk girl can be the best thing to make a long night of it. Horizontally, if you know what I mean... (wink, wink - better than wank, wank, right?).

Drunken singing was once effectively my pulling technique - I had neither the soulful baritone of a Barry White nor the falsetto of a Jeff Buckley. But I could belt them out with the best of them.

So, unlike the wet rags weeping silent poetry into their glasses, when I wanted to get into a particular girl's underwear, I would get myself mashed and then launch into a heartfelt yell of musical lust.

Hence, I disclose to you my top 5 favourite songs to sing to the willing girl, be it successfully or in failure:

"End of the Road" by Boyz II Men

(Success factor: 10. She fell into my arms, we forgot the limits of youth, and left our teenage years behind. I was only 19. Still the ultimate seduction song)

"If I Ever..." by SHAI

(Success factor: 8. I found that ladies love the line that goes, "I just want to be the one to serve you / Sometimes I feel as if I don't deserve you".)

"Foxy Lady"

(Success factor: 7. Works for chicks who have a thing about their looks - outright declaration of the purely physical attraction, animal, pheromonal...)

"Do you realise?" by Flaming Lips

(Success factor: 5. Almost worked once. Failed otherwise.)

"Wonderwall"

(Success factor: 4. I have a spot for this song - it defines my first year at university, and my realisation that maybe Oasis wasn;t the best music to try it with a girl)


Ah, sweet memories of the nineties and the turn of the century... Makes me think about that Howard Stern skit, where he made a woman climax by getting her to straddle a HiFi speaker and then mumbling into a microphone. Now, if I ever get to work out that audioblogging thing...