We moved into our new flat with minimal problems. We unpacked, froze some ice cubes, and sat down to do some ordering. Pizza, flat pack furniture, a robot mop, and broadband. Since there seems to be no such thing as a good broadband service we went with the devil we knew, or at least the one devil we knew that wasn't TalkTalk. It would be more than two weeks until the router arrived, but we decided we could maybe just about handle that.
Two weeks passed. We had our first house guests. We located nearby supermarkets, pubs, cafes, and the Majestic Wine Warehouse. We planned our housewarming. I made two bedside drawers, a bookcase and a desk from the flat pack. We drank criminally expensive champagne. Patrick had his PhD graduation. I set up my new sewing area and made a skirt. We booked the most ridiculous holiday to St. Lucia. We named the robot mop Steve.
Then came Internet Day.
I had to wait in all day for the guy to turn up with the router, which was quite daunting given my current habit of walking about 10km a day, so I prepared. Patrick bought me a new sewing pattern and some fabric, and I got some puzzle magazines and an old season of Project Runway. I was not going to be driven mad by one day indoors, no sir. At 9.30 I got a message saying the courier was on his way, at 11.30 I was working out fitting adjustments to my new top, and at 1.30 I got another message saying my parcel had been delivered. Except it hadn't. Nobody had rung the doorbell, nothing had been left outside. Using the last dregs of 3G I had for the month, I went into an online livechat with the courier company.
"Yes," they said. "It's been delivered and signed for by someone called Sam."
"There's no Sam here."
"Maybe it's with one of your neighbours?"
Thinking that okay, maybe they just weren't paying attention to the letter after the house number, I went next door to B, where a slightly surly man told me he didn't have it. In a bit of a state now because you promised me internet today, dammit, I phoned Virgin to complain. They told me they would call within two days to tell me if they'd found the parcel and arrange redelivery. The idea of going without internet for another week or more turned me into a rather less controlled version of my mother. I said things like, "that's just not acceptable". I asked to speak to a manager. I told them we would be considering cancelling the service altogether. But they were insistent. Two days for a phone call to arrange redelivery.
Anxiety Jen did not cope very well with this. I spent the rest of the afternoon pacing about, stress-eating crisps, crying embarrassingly, and composing poisonously polite complaint letters in my head. How was it going to take them two days to get back to me? The box was presumably on this road somewhere. Were they planning to retrieve it, take it back to the depot and redeliver it from there? It seemed farcical.
At about 6pm, as I was making plans to wash my face and go and knock on a few doors either side of ours to see if I could find this mysterious Sam, the doorbell rang. Standing there was a young beardy guy holding what was clearly our internet setup kit.
"Hi," he said, "is this yours?"
"I... yes."
"It got delivered this morning," he said. "I work down by the cricket ground, they must have got the road name confused."
"I've been calling people all day trying to find out where this got to, thank you so much." I took the box from him, torn between astonishment that someone would take the time to deliver this thing to our house after work, irritation that a professional courier had delivered thing fifteen minutes away from our house to a street whose name wasn't even remotely similar, and relief that I hadn't gone and knocked on ten people's front doors for no reason.
Patrick got home a few minutes later, also prepared to start knocking on doors and/or cancel the service.
"Internet!"
"Internet!"
"A lovely man brought it to me. It got dropped off at his office in the Oval."
"In the Oval??"
"I know, right? We'd never have found it."
We set up the internet. It didn't work. We called Virgin again, who I think put an "angry customer" note on my account, and they told us everything would be working within half an hour. Half an hour later I went to the registration page to be told "Oops, something's broken." We tried a few more times, but the something continued to be broken. We went to bed.
This morning the something persisted in being broken, so I called them again. The woman on the phone did something to the system, told me I had a lovely voice (which literally nobody has ever said before unless they're about to make a guess at my accent and want to pre-empt any offence I might take) and told me to give it an hour. The thing reset itself a couple of times, and then... there was internet. Shiny, glorious internet, beaming through our flat, glinting in the sunlight.
It's working. I am reconnected. I am going through a cycle: happy and relieved, embarrassment at how large a difference having the internet has made to my wellbeing, remembering that actually the internet is classed as a human right these days, happy and relieved. No more rationing my phone data, freaking out every time the number goes up. No more snapping at customer service representatives, which is an awful thing to do and I hate it. I can just be here, in my lovely new flat, with access to the whole world again.
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
Saturday, 6 August 2016
adventures in housing, part nine
When I originally ended this series in April last year, I was living fairly comfortably in a three-bedroom house share in North London with a couple of flatmates I'd already moved with twice. I'm resurrecting it today because I've just left, and we all know the sorts of things that can happen when I leave somewhere.
We signed on for a second year with the landlord who turned out not to be dead, though it was quite difficult to tell. The house wasn't ideal and there was literally nothing nearby, but we'd done enough moving and there really wasn't any reason for us to uproot ourselves. We complained a bit about it - the constant building work next door, the lack of anywhere to go for a drink, the fact that all the garden furniture was literally rotted through and the comedy pratfalls were going to get a bit less comedic eventually - but we were fine. We watched Bake Off together, hung a mask of Dwayne The Rock Johnson on the wall, and printed my flatmate's face onto fabric and made a bunch of cushions out of it. I was living with friends.
But things change. My boyfriend and I had, by this point, come to the conclusion that we were properly stuck with each other, and decided to move in together once my second year's lease was up. I told the others about ten months in advance, they were pleased for me, everything was still fine. And it continued being fine right up until one of my flatmates got kicked out of the country and sent back to Canada, thus disrupting my two and a half years of Good Flatmate karma.
We had to replace her, money being a thing the other two of us didn't really have, and we replaced her with an acquaintance of mine who had always seemed like a decent sort but took an apparent dislike to me almost as soon as they'd moved in. A strange sort of hostility set in after my first show - two days after the move-in date - and we spent the next four months in perpetual slight discomfort. Much as I knew I'd miss my other flatmate, I started spending less and less time at home.
July came upon us and my boyfriend and I started looking for a flat, having decided that his current place was a) way too small for two people and b) so infused with Essence of Him after five years that I was always going to feel like a guest in someone else's home. His previous flat-hunting karma meant that we found a place we loved on our second day of viewings, with loads of space and a light living room and a goddamn tropical garden, which somehow also managed to be 30 seconds away from a tube station and within budget. My previous flat-hunting karma meant that it wasn't available until several weeks after my lease was up, so I'd have to transport all my stuff to my boyfriend's place, live out of boxes for three weeks, and then move house again in the same month.
We took it. I've had way worse than this.
So as of today, I and all my stuff are packed up small and squished into a living room that wasn't designed to accommodate two people, everything one of those people owns and quite a chunk of the stuff the other person owns as well, waiting for our beautiful new flat. I'm still terrified it won't go through, because I am hyper aware of every tiny alarm bell ringing in my head, but they've taken all the deposit and rent money, which is either a good sign or a horrendously bad one. If all goes well, there will be a short coda coming in a month or so. If it doesn't... hoo, boy.
We signed on for a second year with the landlord who turned out not to be dead, though it was quite difficult to tell. The house wasn't ideal and there was literally nothing nearby, but we'd done enough moving and there really wasn't any reason for us to uproot ourselves. We complained a bit about it - the constant building work next door, the lack of anywhere to go for a drink, the fact that all the garden furniture was literally rotted through and the comedy pratfalls were going to get a bit less comedic eventually - but we were fine. We watched Bake Off together, hung a mask of Dwayne The Rock Johnson on the wall, and printed my flatmate's face onto fabric and made a bunch of cushions out of it. I was living with friends.
But things change. My boyfriend and I had, by this point, come to the conclusion that we were properly stuck with each other, and decided to move in together once my second year's lease was up. I told the others about ten months in advance, they were pleased for me, everything was still fine. And it continued being fine right up until one of my flatmates got kicked out of the country and sent back to Canada, thus disrupting my two and a half years of Good Flatmate karma.
We had to replace her, money being a thing the other two of us didn't really have, and we replaced her with an acquaintance of mine who had always seemed like a decent sort but took an apparent dislike to me almost as soon as they'd moved in. A strange sort of hostility set in after my first show - two days after the move-in date - and we spent the next four months in perpetual slight discomfort. Much as I knew I'd miss my other flatmate, I started spending less and less time at home.
July came upon us and my boyfriend and I started looking for a flat, having decided that his current place was a) way too small for two people and b) so infused with Essence of Him after five years that I was always going to feel like a guest in someone else's home. His previous flat-hunting karma meant that we found a place we loved on our second day of viewings, with loads of space and a light living room and a goddamn tropical garden, which somehow also managed to be 30 seconds away from a tube station and within budget. My previous flat-hunting karma meant that it wasn't available until several weeks after my lease was up, so I'd have to transport all my stuff to my boyfriend's place, live out of boxes for three weeks, and then move house again in the same month.
We took it. I've had way worse than this.
So as of today, I and all my stuff are packed up small and squished into a living room that wasn't designed to accommodate two people, everything one of those people owns and quite a chunk of the stuff the other person owns as well, waiting for our beautiful new flat. I'm still terrified it won't go through, because I am hyper aware of every tiny alarm bell ringing in my head, but they've taken all the deposit and rent money, which is either a good sign or a horrendously bad one. If all goes well, there will be a short coda coming in a month or so. If it doesn't... hoo, boy.
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
scenes
[in my therapist's office]
THERAPIST: But what you don't want to do is be accidentally fighting against each other.
ME: No.
THERAPIST: You see, it's like -
[his face lights up and he digs in a cupboard behind him]
Have you seen one of these? Do you know what it is?
[he hands me a finger trap, looking more animated than I have ever seen him]
ME: ...yes.
THERAPIST: Well, put it on, put it on! People think that they have to pull their fingers apart to get the finger trap off, but that only makes it worse! To get the trap off you have to push your fingers in!
ME: [removing finger trap] Here.
THERAPIST: Oh no, you keep that. I've got a whole drawerful of them. I just love watching people try to get these things off, it's amazing. I could watch it all day.
ME: ...did you become a therapist because of finger traps?
THERAPIST: Aren't they great?
THERAPIST: But what you don't want to do is be accidentally fighting against each other.
ME: No.
THERAPIST: You see, it's like -
[his face lights up and he digs in a cupboard behind him]
Have you seen one of these? Do you know what it is?
[he hands me a finger trap, looking more animated than I have ever seen him]
ME: ...yes.
THERAPIST: Well, put it on, put it on! People think that they have to pull their fingers apart to get the finger trap off, but that only makes it worse! To get the trap off you have to push your fingers in!
ME: [removing finger trap] Here.
THERAPIST: Oh no, you keep that. I've got a whole drawerful of them. I just love watching people try to get these things off, it's amazing. I could watch it all day.
ME: ...did you become a therapist because of finger traps?
THERAPIST: Aren't they great?
Tuesday, 24 May 2016
scenes
[walking along the road]
ME: Oh, look, the protein shop is closing down.
BOYFRIEND: [pulls face]
ME: Are you sad about the protein shop closing down?
BOYFRIEND: Devastated. Now where will I get all my useless chocolate and peanut butter flavoured gunk?
ME: Don't worry. We can order it online from... argh, I need a good protein pun.
BOYFRIEND: You can do it.
ME: From... Where There's a Will There's a Whey dot com!
BOYFRIEND: [looks at me]
ME: I win!
BOYFRIEND: Yes. Yes you do.
ME: Oh, look, the protein shop is closing down.
BOYFRIEND: [pulls face]
ME: Are you sad about the protein shop closing down?
BOYFRIEND: Devastated. Now where will I get all my useless chocolate and peanut butter flavoured gunk?
ME: Don't worry. We can order it online from... argh, I need a good protein pun.
BOYFRIEND: You can do it.
ME: From... Where There's a Will There's a Whey dot com!
BOYFRIEND: [looks at me]
ME: I win!
BOYFRIEND: Yes. Yes you do.
Tuesday, 17 May 2016
scenes
[on the phone to my grandmother]
ME: I just wanted to check you knew that I'm bringing Patrick to your birthday party?
GRAN: Oh yes, your dad told me. That's wonderful, we shall be only too pleased to -
[a thought occurs]
...you have warned him, haven't you?
ME: He knows, don't worry.
GRAN: Just as long as you have. And you'll bring some aspirin for him for afterwards?
ME: I'll pack him a proper emergency family survival kit.
GRAN: Very good. We shall be only too pleased to see him, then.
ME: Thanks, Gran.
ME: I just wanted to check you knew that I'm bringing Patrick to your birthday party?
GRAN: Oh yes, your dad told me. That's wonderful, we shall be only too pleased to -
[a thought occurs]
...you have warned him, haven't you?
ME: He knows, don't worry.
GRAN: Just as long as you have. And you'll bring some aspirin for him for afterwards?
ME: I'll pack him a proper emergency family survival kit.
GRAN: Very good. We shall be only too pleased to see him, then.
ME: Thanks, Gran.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
the unexpectedly helpful, part one
About a month ago, I performed in a burlesque show. I took a course where I learnt some moves and took some general advice from a professional, and then I picked a song, choreographed a routine, made my costume (well, I made the dress. My garment making hasn't progressed to corsets yet) and performed it onstage to a crowd of screaming people at a beautiful cabaret venue I've been to as a spectator several times.
I still can't quite believe I did it, because I was convinced I was going to drop out before the date rolled around. I was terrified. I was terrified of picking the wrong song, the wrong name, the wrong costume, the wrong moves, the wrong level of eventual nudity. I was convinced I would be the only one who was terrible. I did almost nothing but freak out about it for a full month beforehand.
My boyfriend kept saying to me, "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing." Which did not help. Not even a little bit. But what if I'm not amazing? What happens then? What happens if my jerkbrain is right about everything, just like it always tells me it is? Remember all those times when I thought everything was going to be fine and then it wasn't?
It was a week beforehand, when I was weighing up whether it was worse to completely bomb a burlesque routine or to pull out a few days prior, mess up the scheduling and let down all my friends who'd bought tickets, that I responded to "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing" with "No, don't tell me that. Tell me it doesn't matter if I'm a little bit shit."
"It doesn't matter in the slightest if you're a little bit shit," he said, without missing a beat, "it's a graduation show. Everyone who's bought a ticket knows they're there to support you, not to judge you. Especially since all the judgy people will be out of the country this weekend."
I didn't really take it in, though I continued asking him to tell me that instead when he told me it would all be fine. I showed up to tech on the night basically too terrified to speak and having visions of myself shaking so badly that the crowd could see it, wobbling on my heels and losing my balance. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my act would fuck up. I was the second to last act, and I am the WORST at anticipation. I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Then they turned off the main lights and the audience started filing in. My boyfriend offered me a glass of pink champagne. I took it.
"Oh, I'm not going to drink til afterwards," said one of the other performers, "I don't want to run the risk of messing up."
"Who cares about messing up?" said Amber Moon from somewhere inside me, gesturing with her champagne glass. "These people are basically contractually obligated to applaud whatever the hell we do."
"...yeah," she said weakly, and left.
I hadn't known who the hell my burlesque persona was up until that point. I'd picked the name on the day of our final submission deadline by looking at a list of cocktails, and choreographing my routine hadn't really given me any ideas. Who was Amber Moon? Some chick in a red dress and octopus pasties. But as I finished my champagne and dug one of my smuggled-in whisky drams out of my handbag, it became obvious to me who she was. Amber Moon doesn't give a shit. Amber Moon is cheerful and unconcerned and does exactly what she wants. Amber Moon doesn't worry about what other people think because she knows, at her core, that it doesn't matter.
Very shortly before my act, I passed my teacher backstage.
"Don't worry," she said, "it'll be fine. You'll be great."
"I'm quite tipsy!" said Amber Moon happily.
"Oh, me too," said my teacher, looking ever so slightly confused.
Amber Moon performed, and honestly I have no idea if I screwed it up. I changed about 40% of my choreography on the spur of the moment and I'd had two glasses of champagne, a gin cocktail and a glass of whisky. But nobody was filming it, so I can't watch it back and pick it to pieces. All I know is that I took my clothes off in front of a roomful of people and they all cheered. I shook my ass and they whooped. I turned my back, whipped off my bra and held it up in the air and there was a BIG DAMN NOISE of approval. It went well. It went well because Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon did not give a shit because she knew it didn't matter.
I've thought a lot since then about trying to harness Amber Moon in situations that aren't me stripping off on a stage. I know I can't just go "right, now I'm Amber Moon" because it's not always appropriate to drink copiously and shout at near-strangers. But maybe I can work on this as a method of dealing with anxiety. Instead of "let's think of every possible thing that could result from what I'm doing right now no matter how ridiculous" or "let's pretend that NOTHING IS HAPPENING" I could maybe try "so if the major cock-up happens, then what?"
I haven't worked through how this might work in less surreal situations than Burlesque Graduation Show, but I do not have the words to tell you how freeing it was to realise there is nothing my anxiety can say to me here and to ahead and do a really scary thing with no nerves or fear whatsoever. It has to be worth looking for.
I still can't quite believe I did it, because I was convinced I was going to drop out before the date rolled around. I was terrified. I was terrified of picking the wrong song, the wrong name, the wrong costume, the wrong moves, the wrong level of eventual nudity. I was convinced I would be the only one who was terrible. I did almost nothing but freak out about it for a full month beforehand.
My boyfriend kept saying to me, "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing." Which did not help. Not even a little bit. But what if I'm not amazing? What happens then? What happens if my jerkbrain is right about everything, just like it always tells me it is? Remember all those times when I thought everything was going to be fine and then it wasn't?
It was a week beforehand, when I was weighing up whether it was worse to completely bomb a burlesque routine or to pull out a few days prior, mess up the scheduling and let down all my friends who'd bought tickets, that I responded to "Everything's going to be fine, you're going to be amazing" with "No, don't tell me that. Tell me it doesn't matter if I'm a little bit shit."
"It doesn't matter in the slightest if you're a little bit shit," he said, without missing a beat, "it's a graduation show. Everyone who's bought a ticket knows they're there to support you, not to judge you. Especially since all the judgy people will be out of the country this weekend."
I didn't really take it in, though I continued asking him to tell me that instead when he told me it would all be fine. I showed up to tech on the night basically too terrified to speak and having visions of myself shaking so badly that the crowd could see it, wobbling on my heels and losing my balance. I was absolutely convinced that this was how my act would fuck up. I was the second to last act, and I am the WORST at anticipation. I knew it was all going to go wrong.
Then they turned off the main lights and the audience started filing in. My boyfriend offered me a glass of pink champagne. I took it.
"Oh, I'm not going to drink til afterwards," said one of the other performers, "I don't want to run the risk of messing up."
"Who cares about messing up?" said Amber Moon from somewhere inside me, gesturing with her champagne glass. "These people are basically contractually obligated to applaud whatever the hell we do."
"...yeah," she said weakly, and left.
I hadn't known who the hell my burlesque persona was up until that point. I'd picked the name on the day of our final submission deadline by looking at a list of cocktails, and choreographing my routine hadn't really given me any ideas. Who was Amber Moon? Some chick in a red dress and octopus pasties. But as I finished my champagne and dug one of my smuggled-in whisky drams out of my handbag, it became obvious to me who she was. Amber Moon doesn't give a shit. Amber Moon is cheerful and unconcerned and does exactly what she wants. Amber Moon doesn't worry about what other people think because she knows, at her core, that it doesn't matter.
Very shortly before my act, I passed my teacher backstage.
"Don't worry," she said, "it'll be fine. You'll be great."
"I'm quite tipsy!" said Amber Moon happily.
"Oh, me too," said my teacher, looking ever so slightly confused.
Amber Moon performed, and honestly I have no idea if I screwed it up. I changed about 40% of my choreography on the spur of the moment and I'd had two glasses of champagne, a gin cocktail and a glass of whisky. But nobody was filming it, so I can't watch it back and pick it to pieces. All I know is that I took my clothes off in front of a roomful of people and they all cheered. I shook my ass and they whooped. I turned my back, whipped off my bra and held it up in the air and there was a BIG DAMN NOISE of approval. It went well. It went well because Amber Moon did not give a shit. Amber Moon did not give a shit because she knew it didn't matter.
I've thought a lot since then about trying to harness Amber Moon in situations that aren't me stripping off on a stage. I know I can't just go "right, now I'm Amber Moon" because it's not always appropriate to drink copiously and shout at near-strangers. But maybe I can work on this as a method of dealing with anxiety. Instead of "let's think of every possible thing that could result from what I'm doing right now no matter how ridiculous" or "let's pretend that NOTHING IS HAPPENING" I could maybe try "so if the major cock-up happens, then what?"
I haven't worked through how this might work in less surreal situations than Burlesque Graduation Show, but I do not have the words to tell you how freeing it was to realise there is nothing my anxiety can say to me here and to ahead and do a really scary thing with no nerves or fear whatsoever. It has to be worth looking for.
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
scenes
[on the phone]
MUM: And I've got to go to their party this weekend and I'm dreading it.
ME: Aw, I'm sorry.
MUM: Your dad just doesn't think of these things. I don't want to spend time with these horrible people.
ME: It'll be fine. Just take a hip flask. Sneak in your own gin.
MUM: ...now that's an idea. I could take my water bottle!
ME: Yes! Fill it with gin, spend the entire night getting drunk and tell everyone it's your special alkaline water that you have to drink under doctor's orders.
MUM: What a good idea! You have excellent ideas!
ME: Please actually do this now.
MUM: Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to do it!
ME: Secret gin makes everything better.
MUM: You're a good daughter.
MUM: And I've got to go to their party this weekend and I'm dreading it.
ME: Aw, I'm sorry.
MUM: Your dad just doesn't think of these things. I don't want to spend time with these horrible people.
ME: It'll be fine. Just take a hip flask. Sneak in your own gin.
MUM: ...now that's an idea. I could take my water bottle!
ME: Yes! Fill it with gin, spend the entire night getting drunk and tell everyone it's your special alkaline water that you have to drink under doctor's orders.
MUM: What a good idea! You have excellent ideas!
ME: Please actually do this now.
MUM: Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to do it!
ME: Secret gin makes everything better.
MUM: You're a good daughter.
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