Screen Junkie - A Diary Entry

Behold my diary entry for the evening:

Myeh. Trying and failing to conjure up a topic for a blog post, but annoyingly drawing a blank. Been spinning about in the snow with A all day, after he decided to show me where he'd seen the heaviest snowfall on his travels for work. I fricking love snow. Especially when it sits in trees, looking all picturesque-like.

Ended up seeing what felt like half of Wales because the shortcuts through the mountains were still blocked off. We were in the car for hours, but I did learn one exciting thing from the experience - I am surprisingly local to Tonypandy... All this time living where I live, and I could've popped over to have a drink with Fireman Sam!! Legend.

The spin was a much needed one. I got home and felt all relaxed from not having used my brain very much at all for hours. I was a mindless passenger, oohing and ahhing at the pretty, white trees. And then it dawned on me. I hadn't looked at a single screen for about 3 hours. Not even my mobile phone's!

I spend most of my waking hours with my eyes fixed to a screen, and in the long run, that's a lot of hours! I work at a computer for at least 8hours a day. When I'm on my lunch break, I'm furiously texting on my phone, and any free time I get at home is generally spent on the iPad, phone, standalone PC (retro chic, I know!), or in front of the TV. And, last night, I suggested that we go to the cinema... To go look at the biggest screen I can think of. Y'know, for a change!

Technology seems to be reaching a point where it all pretty much does the same stuff. Everything is "smart." Smart phones, smart TV... And my lovely iPad is definitely smart. Clever little thing, I love it so...

It's quite overwhelming, I think, that we're spending all of our leisure time moving from screen to different-sized screen for hours on end every day. And then we sleep. And then we wake up and start all over again. I'm one of those hopeless addicts who go to bed, intending to sleep but then waste up to 30mins checking Twitter on my phone before I feel up to date enough to nod off. It's a worrying, but common (or so I'm told... By people on Tumblr and Twitter. Perhaps not a reliable source) habit.

I find that after a few hours spent on the iPad, I feel like I've had fun, but there's always this residual, low-level stress that follows - some anxiety that the time I've killed playing Hanging With Friends and scrolling through miles of Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook feeds wasn't time well spent. But what else can I do? I can't leave the house, because, as all fellow poor people know, the outside world is an expensive place. And there's nothing else to do at home bar attend to the cleaning the boy and I have neglected for weeks in favour of the iPad and Xbox. The world outside of the Internet is just plain bleak!

Maybe the next time I've got an afternoon slash day to myself, I'll put aside some time to living a screen-free existence, like a peaceful, enlightened modern day hippy. See if it makes me feel different at all. I'm just going to nip onto the iPad for a sec. This has the potential to be a blog post...

Pant Soiling, Many Fucks and a BUGGERFUCK (aka A Day At The Office)

Welp.  I very nearly had a mental breakdown this morning.  Admin manager texted me at 7.30am to see if I'd picked up office keys as I was rota'd to do. The other girl, we'll call her S, also rota'd to collect some had forgotten hers. S and I had something in common.

"Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!" Cue much flapping and blind panic.  I'd inadvertently helped lock the entire early shift out of work.  Now, an understandably pee'd off admin manager was en route to let us in, even though she wasn't due to be in til later, and lived too far away to let us in for 8a.m, our opening time.  In her shoes, I'd be wanting blood.  Pasty, caffeinated office drone blood.

Flapping and swearing kills a surprising amount of time. So, now, fifteen minutes before I'm meant to be at an unlocked and buzzing (busy,not smelly) office, I'm still in my living room, twenty minutes' drive away, doing my best impression of an alarmed chicken.

So, i grabbed my bag, bellowed an "Agh, fuck!!" at A, in lieu of a goodbye, ran out of the door, Bambi skidded my way to the car.  Naturally, car was encased in a solid block of ice.  Wobbled back to house, grabbed kettle, splashed warm water on car, car cube melted, back to house, deposited kettle, back to car.

Car is cube again.

"BUGGERFUCK!!!"

Mad dash around car, spraying messy patches of de-icer on windows. Peeping through the patches, I race down the road, probably mowing down cats and schoolchildren I can't see.  I run a red light, and nearly kill myself skidding on some ice at a busy roundabout. 

But I make it to work on time. Ish.  One measly minute late. Admin manager hasn't arrived yet anyway, but S is there to greet me, also soiling herself over the bollocking to come.  Now, S, funny and chatty as she is, isn't exactly the office optimist.  She believes that things happen for a reason (reason being to make us suffer horrily), and by the time the admin manager turns up, our preicted punishment has escalated from stern words to immediate firing and possible death by stoning.

Admin M turns up and let us in, being too polite to eff and blind at us.  Instead, she takes the British route of talking very little and looking knackered enough to make us feel awful for dragging her from her slumber.  Fair one.  

We start work half an hour late, S and I waiting with trepidation, pooing our knickers in readiness for the Big M's (in hindsight, Big M not the best choice of label for the main office manager. Makes him sound like our pimp... Oh, well, I've used it now) arrival, which we've been informed will be at about midday. 

He's going to murder us, I think.  He's going to murder us dead.  

Stressed, I start to work with my head bowed apologetically, despite my co workers being sweetly breezy about having been made to stand out in the cold, unpaid for half an hour while the sun wasn't even properly up yet.

I am a hopeless people pleaser, and I hate hate hate being told off, especially when I know I'm at fault.  The worst thing someone can do to me is make me feel like I've let them down in some way.  I dread my bollocking, and feel like a five year old about to be told off in front of the entire school.  Exaggerating? I wish.

So, I work. And I work, and I work, and I work some more.  I'm like a machine, getting a whole day's worth of stuff done in a single morning, just to avoid dwelling and building up a humdrum chain of events into something of cataclysmic proportions. Holy shit, I think, I didn't know I had it in me to get this much done!

Big M rocks up.  I avoid eye contact for as long as humanly possible.  But it has to happen eventually.  And here it is...

"So."  He places his palms on his desk, forcing us to look down the row of computers and acknowledge his presence. "Girls.  You both managed to forget to take keys home last night..."

"Forgottolook mumblemumblemumble..."

"Sorry mumblemumblemumble wonthappenagainmyfault..."

"Okay. So, who's doing what today?"

What. 

That was IT?  After all that stress, all the palpitations and clammy fear, we don't even get a patronising finger waggle?  A clip round the head? Five Hail Marys? I feel numb.  Even a little cheated.  I'd invested a whole morning of sweaty panic over "okay"?!!  Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!

So.  What I've learned today:

1. Things are never as bad as you imagine they'll be.

2. Terror is an excellent motivator. I mean, it just gets shit done!

3. I might have a slight...just slight...tendency to overreact to trivial things.  Slight.

Just about to finish this entry, but I've had a text off S, which I feel I have to share with you guys. I'm sure she won't mind:

"You still in work?  I can't find my house keys xxx"

Lolz.

Uh oh. I've discovered audio books. Currently listening to Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson... It's like...reading, but you can, like...do other stuff at the same time!

Mind.

Blown.

Pee Mmm Tea

Woke up with the intention to exercise. Ended up feeling like I needed to be exorcised.

I am a great, big bag of crazy with extra "fuck are you looking at?! Go away!! I love you! Bring me food or I will kill again!! HUG MEEEE!" today.

Some of my fellow lady babes may recognise this colourful combination of emotions as PMT, PMS...or, as it is scientifically recognised, Pre Menstrual Shut-The-Fuck-Up-And-Don't-Look-Me-Directly-In-The-Eye.

I get it bad. Most women can experience symptoms of this fluctuation in hormones and appear to be carrying on as normal, but I swear I'm getting worse with age. I'm fine for a few months, and then out of nowhere, I go full Exorcist. I should have realised that it had crept up on me this month the other day in work when I binned an important order I had taken, and then proceeded to fling coffee all over the bits of paper with the super important bank details on.

"Oops, sorreee..."

And last night, when I went to the gym and stormed home after ten minutes on the treadmill because I was BORED!!! and didn't want to DO this SHIT anymore!!!

Anyway, it sunk in that the hormone fairy had paid me a visit today after my failed attempt at exercising earlier. I woke up in a fab mood, slung on my running kit that makes me look like one of those pink and black liquorice all-sorts, and drove (I know, I know. Shut it,smarty pants!) a few miles to the one place where I fancied a quick jog - the nice, flat, running track down the road. I arrived there to see that a football match was about to start. Fine, I thought, I can run around them.

Then a couple of man-children in football kit made some lewd, pervy gestures at my car. A storm cloud passed over my eyes, and I screeched round full circle and went the fuck home, swearing loudly to no one about football twats ruining my day.

Now home, I paced the house, frantic because it's a mess, and I didn't want to clean, because it's BORING! And then I wanted to leave the house, but didn't know where to go. Then I started cleaning. Then I stopped. Then I wanted to cry. Then I danced around the house a bit. Then I smacked my head on the staircase, which made me want to beat the staircase up.

Then I had some soup.

Then I was fine.

I know I'm not doing much for the stereotype of "bitches be crazy", so I'd like to add that despite the possessed qualities I've displayed today, I know for a fact that I can snap out of it and still make decisions and get by if I need to. Life doesn't stop when I feel like this. It's just a Saturday, I've been left to my own devices... And apparently my own devices would like to eat, cry on, shout at and screw everything around them today.

I feel like a circus in a wig today.

*weeps*

*giggles*

*gives you the eye whilst cramming choccie biccy into face*

;)

Amer-I-Can!!!

It's with a certain amount of glee that since starting this blog, I realise that most of my lookers (I chose lookers over readers because of how damn fiiiiine you probably are! *sassy finger snap*), are of the American persuasion.

Or I have one solitary American tuning in several times a day to see if I've done anything else worth pointing and laughing at yet. In which case, give me a minute, I've only just woken up... But I am about to go jogging, so that could be fruitful.

Whichever reason it is that I'm getting views from across the pond, I want to show my feels and appreciation to you. BY FLASHING YOU MY TITS!!!


No, not really.

I'm not especially great at being tactile (I.e if I go to hug you, someone will take a finger to the eye), so instead of offering a crushing embrace or an eyeful of pasty boob, I shall shout some American things at you, to bridge the gap between our cultures...ahem...

Sidewalk!

Parking lot!

Alooooooominum!!!!

That was good for me. Honestly, was it good for you? Don't lie to me America!!!

Oh, and fellow Brits:

*offers stern handshake*

*stiff upper lip quivers slightly*

I...um...tea?!

Becky's Guide To Life: Employment Enjoyment

Part 1: How To Suck All Potential Fun Out Of Your Work Day

1. Look at the clock every twelve seconds and complain about how it seems to be moving backwards.

2. Think and talk incessantly about food from the second bum is planted on seat.

3. Over think everything you say to your colleagues. They obviously all think you're a massive tool.

4. Complain about being bored whilst staring wistfully into space. Pick at nails.

5. Sigh.

6. Bury every bit of criticism management give you in brain for use during future meltdowns and "oh fuck, I'm getting fired!!!" Crises.

7. Avoid conversation with colleagues where possible.

8. Look at the clock some more.

9. Decide you hate any and all customers before you speak with them.

10. Fantasise about other, better jobs you could be doing right now because you're, like, so under appreciated in this one....pick nails and look at clock.




Part 2: Holy Beeps, Bruce, This Is Fun!! AKA How To Enjoy Your Job (even if you're not a cake tester or super hero.... Yet)

1. Take full advantage of spinny chairs. Wheeeeee!!

2. Doodle whenever the opportunity arises.

3. Laugh along at all the brilliant, ridiculous things your peers tell you. Feel inwardly chuffed when they laugh with (*cough*at*cough*) you.

4. Get stuck the fuck in. Whatever you're doing. Enthusiasm = faster hours (not too much enthusiasm, though. I once smacked myself in the face with a phone before I could bellow any "hello"s down it).

5. Smile. But only if you feel like it.

6. Build something out of paperclips/stationary... E.g binder clip robot

7. Make effort to recall weird customers, and later regale others with tales of their screwiness for mid afternoon giggles. Unless you're a psychiatrist. Confidentiality and that...

8. If someone brings in cake, love them forever, eat the cake, and spend the following week reminding everyone how good the cake was, so that people feel obliged to bring in more cake.

.......CAAAAAKE!!!

9. Drink so much coffee that you leave the office in spirit and enter a new dimension where everything takes on a buzzy, cartoonish quality (when in reality, you're freaking your co workers out by giggling and shivering at them).

10. Realise that, despite the ghoulish mass moaning about the pay, the hours, the boredom etc etc, you probably never would have had the luck to meet any of the people you get to spend at least 8hours a day with, faffing,laughing and eating, five days a week if you hadn't worked there. And you know for a fact, that wherever your life takes you next, you know you'll remember the good WAY more than the bad, and part of you might even miss it a little.


Aww.


Retch.

2013: You Can Do Eet!!

Happy slightly-belated-because-I-was-hung-over-yesterday New Year!!!

If your New Year's Eve celebration was anything like mine, you spent it in a friend's house, talking way too loudly and enthusiastically in your loved ones' faces and waiting for the moment you were allowed to set the poppers off. The things that go "bang!", not the...y'know...poppers... It wasn't that kind of a party.

...Mine had a round of The Big Bang Theory board game in it, so it was better than yours. Obvs. Or sadder. Depends on which way you look at it. Whatever, my team won! Give me a big, posh "hooray!"

I have great, big, sexy feelings about 2013. Yesterday, I had nauseous, hungry and sleepy feelings, but a dangerous nap in the bath in the middle of the day (because I like to live dangerously) followed by an early bedtime has left me feeling pretty optimistic today!

One of my favourite things about the new year is making resolutions I almost never...no, wait, never keep. And up until now, (and I think that this is what most people do too) they have mostly been based around making myself a bit less shit. Here are some familiar ones that might overlap some, if not all fellow resolut...ers' (?!) January to-do lists:

* stop biting nails
* be less wobbly/rotund/jiggly/skinny-impaired than previous years
* get off arse and exercise til lady-beefcake style buff
* be less socially inept
* kill less often

Sound familiar? ... The last one was a joke, by the way.

*hastily nudges hatchet behind sofa with foot*

In recent months, I've had the odd epiphany that has brought me to my temporary sanity, and looking at these old, pretty pointless and ultimately stress inducing goals, I've realised that if I were to choose a resolution from such a list this year, I'll do what I always do. And this means sitting on the sofa, wailing and fretting about not achieving my new "goals" for a while, and then biting my nails, stuffing myself with chocolate and sleeping because it's February and I'm not Wonder Woman yet.

This year I'm doing something different. I have allowed myself two achievements that I want bragging rights to by 2014, and neither of them involve changing myself too drastically. And I know that failing to achieve them won't leave me sobbing in my jammies about what a lardy, lazy she-klutz I am. And this lack of pressure makes them feel much more achievable. By the end of the year, I want to:

*run at least a 10k race
* get paid for at least one piece of writing. Any writing.

Easy peasy! And to make me feel even better about this decision, the fates have handed me a bit of luck already! My manager overheard me talking about wanting to write anything at all for money, and instead of firing me on the spot, he's arranged for me to meet a freelancer friend for advice and lunch on Friday. I love advice! I love lunch!!

Mmm. Lunch.

But, seriously, handful of mostly anonymous readers... My soppy bit of advice (you listening, self?!), stop trying to change yourself and just get on with just doing stuff. Less worrying, more scurrying!

2013.... The Year of Doing!

*nods self importantly, gets up with purpose, heads to fridge*

Hands up who's got their sexy hair on today!

Not you, Becky. You can put your hand down. And go and put your paper bag back on. *rolls eyes*

Liiightbuuuulb!

I am a sporadic but embarrassingly enthusiastic diarist. I had a lot of fun being incredibly vain and reading my old diaries during my time with the fambly over Christmas.

So I've had an idea.

I just haven't decided if it's a good one or not...

I may or may not go back to my mum's soon and make a weekly thing of dredging up some undiluted, unedited cringe from my written past for your entertainment and my total humiliation.

Good idea or potentially crippling embarrassment for me?

Hmm. We'll see.

Ermagherd! Terpwreteeeerr!!

Look what I got off of Santa!! ....aka my two frickin' GENIUS sisters! I love love LA-HUV it!


Now...can someone tell me where the "blog" button is?

I Am Charlie Sheen

This morning, I sulked like a toddler. I hid under the quilt until I had to be coaxed out with coffee and food by the live-in boyfriend (we shall call him A. Because it makes me sound all bloggy and him like an exhibit, or a specimen). The reason for my tantrum was that I've convinced myself that no amount to trips to the gym will get me running a mile in under 10mins. I have nubby little legs and lungs apparently borrowed from a 4 year old smoker. I was told to drink my coffee and to stop being so bloody defeatist.

I used to be Sheen-esque in my abilities throughout school. Winning. All the time. I competed in everything that didn't involve too much physical exertion...I may have been a winner, but Wonder Woman I was not. I did shit that I would never have the lady balls to do at the ripe old age of nearly-twenty five. Here's some stuff I won before my confidence was castrated:

* poetry competitions
* art competitions
* story writing competitions
* poetry recitals, in Welsh

The last one is the biggest WTF of the bunch for anyone who knows me now. Bearing in mind that the only way you could get me onstage now is by clonking me on the head with a bat and dragging me on, I used to not only get up on stage, but also stand in front of big groups of grown ups and belt out verse at them IN WELSH! Not even my first language!! And I used to fucking WIN at this!!

And now I'm moping because I don't have the rights to brag about being able to run a mile in under 10 minutes. Something I've not even attempted!

I write pages and pages and pages of fiction, poetry etc and never get round to editing them so I can send them away for publication, just in case some nasty publishers don't like them. Fuck that!

I will bet myself actual money - because, that way, I will always win (winning!), that if I actually get off my fat, many arse and, y'know, TRIED, I'd do alright for myself.

I'm obviously still an insufferable show off, because why else would I blog? And I'm still just as jammy - I just don't try to recognise it anymore:

* I got a 2:1 degree with minimal effort
* I rent a house for peanuts and spend the spare change on myself
* I live with a boy, who, after a year, still doesn't seem to realise just how many annoying habits I have (shh, don't tell him!)
* I work with people I really, really like
* I'm a Caucasian, Western female, who is at least acceptable looking to wider society (I.e people don't run away shrieking "Godzillaaaaaa!!" upon my approach.
I'm already winning at life, so maybe, just maybe, with a little more effort, I could storm this motherfucker!

I'm off to the library to start editing my world-changing novel.








.... I'll think about the gym.

What do gay horses eat?

Haaaaa-aaaay!

To paraphrase the great Kate Nash;

This, dear blogosphere, is my face. You might have followed this blog before (unless you were busy, you know, washing your hair, I get it..) , and are now noticing that since I ran away and cheated on you guys with Tumblr, all my old posts have been taken down from here.

Its mish mash of poetry, nonsense and short story snippets have gone (but can still be found on www.tumblr.com/rebeccawrites), leaving in its wake a lovely, pristine and clutter free blank page.

Phwoar. I love a good blank page. *rubs knees*

But it won't be blank for long! Mwahahaha etc etc. Soon, I will decorate it with a diary-esque puddle of thought vomit in reaction to my daily comings and goings for your entertainment, titilation, revulsion or all of the above!

I hope you enjoy being word vomited on, because it's about to get messy, you bad ass mother hubbards!!



Soon, Blogspot.








Soon.