Watch it

I have, for a number of months, had a little black watch, which has travelled with me and my wrist at almost all times (minus showering). It has, amongst other things been taken along to Ghana (more on that later). It is fair to say too that it has taken a fair battering on the way, and during these few months it has had to be put to rest and resurrected with the (sometimes not completely voluntary) help of my local Argos. The first time it the strap broke I took it back to the shop accompanied by my fellow, who was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which it was exchanged, without a receipt, for a shiny new one. The second time it broke (I'm was beginning to think cheap watches are not necessarily the best investment) I took it back again. I had (again) lost the receipt, which I was rather annoyed at myself for. My fellow had a facial expression of vague scepticism at the thought of my being able to exchange the watch AGAIN without a proof of purchase. He was right that it was a little more of a struggle. The woman at the desk briskly informed me that I could not have an exchange because I had no proof of purchased. Initially I dejectedly stepped away from the desk. But then, something inside me said no, I was going to push it, and I was going to get an exchange. And that is exactly what I did. The woman firstly protest and then I asked to see the manager and somewhere along the manager overruled the decision in favour of an easy life. I got what I wanted and the woman at the desk just looked down and gave me the watch (and no receipt). I was left with a shiny new watch and another little mark on my morality. I couldn't help wondering where the line is between getting what you want and just being nice.

It's not the first time ive given thought to watches mind. I've always thought that analogue has something that digital will always lack. I realise that the likely audience will disagree in majority. It's just that you can see half a day, wrapped around you wrist. You don't just see 3:19, you see close to half past, you see that appointment at 4. Perhaps it's just my sense of numbers which is lacking.

There is also the moment I realised that stopping my watch does not stop time and that a watch doesnt really measure time at all. I really have my watch to thank for many of my most taxing questions. Read.

Before expectant silence

I wanted to leave a little note before I shoot off. I’m going to Ghana for a while, I’ll be back soon with pictures. I don’t really have anything of worth to say but it seems these things come along at their own pace (apparently I should consider revising my use of a reflexive pronoun, feel free to offer suggestions). So what’s happened? Erm, I passed my egghams, always a good thing. I’ve finished learning about lungs and hearts and guts and soon it will be on to babies and women and nutty people and such. I’ve done a project which I’m told was excellent but I’m not so sure, it’s probably a relative measure. I’m in the process of moving out of my house and moving in to Nowhere in Particular. People are moving away, I will miss them. I’m not much better at playing the guitar than I was many months ago but I have written some songs and had a play around. I’ve been here for nearly three years now, I would say Manchester is my home. I do, however, hold the view that we collect homes along the way, we never lose them, and only need reminding in the right way and it all comes flooding back.

It feels like I’ve reached a little bit of a ledge in life, when lots of things change all at once and you feel like you are about to drop into someone else’s life. I don’t know where I will be in a few months; come to think of it I don’t really know where I will be tomorrow. I can try and imagine, but it’d just be an ersatz reality.

As a complete aside Word is playing with me (again). I typed the word visage and then searched for a synonym, one of which it gave me was phizog, a word which quite frankly baffled me. It then told me wasn’t a word! Apparently it is ‘British slang for face’, who knew! Microsoft works my arse.

Have your cake and eat it

I don’t want to buy cake; I don’t deserve it, I’ve had it before and it’s not fair. I don’t want to go out drinking, I don’t want Birthday presents, I don’t want you to love me, I don’t want new shoes. I have to be missing at least one thing.

The world should be fair, right? I realise it isn’t, but that it’s most people want I think. It isn’t fair though. If it was fair something bad would have happened by now. I do enough bad things to deserve something. Some of those bad things are to test this point precisely and they never seem to work. I leave things around that I would steal and they don’t get stolen. I’m cruel to people and new people come and tell me they love me. How can you make someone feel as though there life is not even worth living and be made to feel that you are everything to another. I don’t get it. I’m more than tempting fate, I’m demanding fate, I want some karma. Otherwise this world is unpredictable, anything could happen at any time and that is what most people avoid thinking of for most of the time. Why do they drive to work everyday through rush-hour traffic at nine? Because then they know what tomorrow will be like.

I don’t want cake, so I don’t buy it. It’s not the guilt of being fat, because I’m not, and even if I was I’m hardly going to be prosecuted. No it’s a deeper guilt, a guilt of fortune. Why am I so fortunate? So I set these false limits, and that is what they are, entirely false. If I want cake I can have it, as Jarvis Cocker pointed out. I’m just a little rich girl, at medical schools who has decided she doesn’t want everything she can get. So what happens? I decide I don’t want the cake. A pretty thing arrives and says he’ll get the cake, then apologises for not letting me eat it immediately. Gets upset because he’s eating cake and I’m not. I eat cake. The battle is already lost and I’ve already won a thousand times over.

Please, tell me what the answer is.

Asking for trouble

The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run


You can’t ask a question without making an infinite number of statements. Take the question ‘Do you love me?’ Now this is not one of the best-out-of-five format that I am used to, and I must say it’s lucky that I haven’t be asked, or don’t remember at least. But there seems to be example after example of these questions and it’s taken much practice to even begin to consider the number of things that are being said when a question is asked.
At work I have learnt to hesitate a little and allow the chance for an answer before I’ve asked.
However, on one of the other hands there is the issue of not asking, and I can also see the side that says that you if you don’t ever ask you might never get. Of course if you do then get whatever it is that took your fancy, you have to live with having had to ask. For some this is less important, because other things get said anyway, and those can, apparently, be just as good for them. Don’t forget though there are other comments being made and you’d be a fool to miss them.
But what if you do ask directly and you still don’t get? Then you have to live with having asked and also having gotten nothing at all, except maybe a vague excuse for a reference.
Perhaps you get what you are given regardless of what you ask and you just end up frustrating yourself and others in the process.