YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'VE BEEN GOOSED
"This is how it goes: not with a bang but a whimper. And with a whimper, Jack, I'm splittin'."
...and the longest days of the year drift in a fug. Dreary grey cloud, thick with rain, sour as three-week milk. It doesn't get dark at night - the sky never dips beyond mid blue. At the moment I still enjoy the miserable weather but really it's just the same as in Australia. The killer is monotony.
I've signed up with a temping agency in Inverness who send me out to drive vans for Lynx in Elgin or Inverness, map-reading and address queries or Not At Home or "Sign here and print your name, please." Strange memories wait on every corner: you can't go home again. The stressed man with crazy hair at the pharmacy at Raigmore - "I can't accept this, I won't take this, this needs to go somewhere else!" The door goes slam. "Fuuuuuuuuck!" screams Donnie at Lynx. "Fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard!" He smashes the scanner off the desk in time with every word.
I've given up on looking for proper jobs since it occurred to me that I don't actually know what I'm looking for, or indeed what a proper job is. A career. I'd like to travel more, but any further journeys will have to be funded by work on the road - which is not, in itself, a bad thing. I harbour fantasies of a pub job in Fontainebleau where I boulder by day and pour beer every night. That's about the limit of my ambition, and way beyond the limit of my French.
We've won the pub quiz two weeks on the trot, although last week was an embarrassing victory. Eight of us won by half a point over a team of two, but Thursday was better - Jon, Ewan, Kate and myself earning a drink and a fiver each. Zinc - Nixon - Elton John. The tiny dancer in my hand.
...and the longest days of the year drift in a fug. Dreary grey cloud, thick with rain, sour as three-week milk. It doesn't get dark at night - the sky never dips beyond mid blue. At the moment I still enjoy the miserable weather but really it's just the same as in Australia. The killer is monotony.
I've signed up with a temping agency in Inverness who send me out to drive vans for Lynx in Elgin or Inverness, map-reading and address queries or Not At Home or "Sign here and print your name, please." Strange memories wait on every corner: you can't go home again. The stressed man with crazy hair at the pharmacy at Raigmore - "I can't accept this, I won't take this, this needs to go somewhere else!" The door goes slam. "Fuuuuuuuuck!" screams Donnie at Lynx. "Fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard fucking bastard!" He smashes the scanner off the desk in time with every word.
I've given up on looking for proper jobs since it occurred to me that I don't actually know what I'm looking for, or indeed what a proper job is. A career. I'd like to travel more, but any further journeys will have to be funded by work on the road - which is not, in itself, a bad thing. I harbour fantasies of a pub job in Fontainebleau where I boulder by day and pour beer every night. That's about the limit of my ambition, and way beyond the limit of my French.
We've won the pub quiz two weeks on the trot, although last week was an embarrassing victory. Eight of us won by half a point over a team of two, but Thursday was better - Jon, Ewan, Kate and myself earning a drink and a fiver each. Zinc - Nixon - Elton John. The tiny dancer in my hand.
posted by real sly shady at
2:58 AM
4 Comments:
Could always do an Orwell and become a tramp for a bit. Mind you, it's not like in the old days...
Someone else suggested that - 'Down and Out in Inverness & The Alps', I think it was. There have been worse ideas.
Now now, there's no shame in working at the Goose. It's happened to the best of us from time to time.
Be strong, brother Simon.
Of course you could just get "any" job in the interim. Just to fund your way through life while you consider your destiny....
Jem
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