Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How far have you been?


I have an article to write and a press release.

There's an email from my best friend in my inbox from over a week ago that I haven't even read yet, let alone answered.

I have a stack of work a mile high and about fifty books to read.

I am fighting a war of attrition with my housework.

I need to book a flight and sort out jabs, passports and who knows what else for a trip to Malaysia.

Yet I'm still writing my blog instead of dealing with my commitments.

A voice in my head says, "What are you doing, Dave?"

Building on an ever outwardly spiralling cycle of avoidance, I spend most of the evening at the cinema with my friend Stephen. We go to see The Watchmen.

I enjoy it immensely, apart from an absurd 15 minutes when it seems as though the Director popped out for a few cigarettes and left the janitor in charge to co-ordinate the most terrible sex scene I've ever seen in my life. In the main though, it's visually intriguing, compelling entertainment, with some great characters - albeit they were probably even greater in the graphic novel.

Equally, if not more enjoyable than the film is the brief dissection of it afterwards with Steve, who read the graphic novel as it came out in the mid-80's when he was 15.

"I remember being sat in the playground next to my friend, who was really into science, and asking him, 'Is it really possible to exist in more than one body at once?'"

He laughs.

"It was the perfect age to read them."

As we walk through Gunwharf to the taxi rank, I interrupt him as I stare at the scantily clad females walking past in various states of undress and several different neon colours.

"Is there an eighties re-union happening here, or is this really how people are dressing now?" I ask.

"This is really how they are dressing now," Steve replies, barely glancing at the jailbait striding past us clutching faux confidence, and if it's survived this far, the last moments of their virginity.

"Shit." I answer, "I feel like I just arrived from Mars."

By the time I reach home, I feel a sinking sense that the world has gone to hell in the proverbial basket of hand. We're all doooooooooooomed. I cheer myself vaguely by reminding myself it was ever thus.

My life has too much in it and I am still locked into the habit of accepting more. Along with Ben & Jerry's, it's one of my hardest habits to break. Well, that and a habit of falling for the wrong guy. Or maybe the right guy in the wrong universe (if you're a believer in the parallels alongside us, that is).

The problem is that so much of the work I'm offered is just so damn interesting. The other problem is that it that I'm rarely getting paid for the interesting stuff. Fortunately there's a way through this, to achieve, as the great Sally Jones always advises to make this chaos work for me.

Of course, the main issue is that in order to achieve that I'm going to have to, yep, you've guessed it. Do more work.

This is Sarah, reporting from the world at large, signing out to commit herself to her ever-expanding workload. It may be a late one. I need that whisky now.