Dear Diary (1)

(Okay, I am going to go on about this stuff until I come out of whatever it is... you don't have to read it)

There are times when I don't know how or what I'm feeling. These are not good, because I put on weight. If I weigh too much, my body fat is too high, so my blood sugar levels start to rise. When that happens, I can't think straight, my legs break out into blotchy patches and I get infections in my nose at regular intervals. This does not happen to you, which is why you can afford to be a little vague about how you're feeling. Also, you can get drunk Friday evening and I can't. Going to Meetings helps a little with this stuff, but in the same way that Paracetomol helps with a fever: when the effect wears off, I still have a fever. (You have a hangover.)

I know how I feel about the new office. It sucks. No-one liked it when we arrived, no-one likes now, and the people who have been there for a year still don't like it. Don't mention the blocked toilets, the ineffective aircon, and the fact that it looks like a modern-day workhouse, except with computers and strip lighting. It's run on "Workwise", which I may have ranted about before, which means no-one has assigned desks (not even the top management have assigned offices), and we put our bits and pieces away in lockers at the end of the day. Even in primary school, I had a desk. The essence of Workwise is that we are not supposed to feel like we belong there. Which sounds really... healthy and motivating.

I know how I feel about Shoreditch and the City: the City is an industrial estate and Shoreditch is a grim part of town with some mid-market shops and restaurants. It is not hip and the only thing it's on the edge of is civilisation. I'm going to do some posts on this when the weather gets warm enough to make street photography pleasant and you'll see what I mean. Soho, Covent Garden and the West End are home to me in a way that only central Amsterdam, the Marais / St Germain and the East Village / Upper West Side are. Spitalfields is not even real.

I miss walking through Covent Garden to work. Walking up Archway to get the Central line at Holborn is just about okay, but anywhere east of the Chancery Lane isn't. Walking through the City drains the joy from my soul and I have to use all my concentration to dodge the rushing drones. Anyway, a twenty-minute brisk walk to the office is one thing, a twenty-minute brisk walk to a tube station to take a train to the office is another.

This stuff isn't the mystery problem. Sex, women and relationships aren't the mystery problem either. A problem, sure, but not a mystery. Being the ACoA that I am, I'm missing the drama and dysfunction. The management are making remarkably sensible decisions around my part of the business. I got a good grade in my appraisal. The working environment might be physically shoddy, but in every other regard it's relaxed and professionally casual. Nobody is watching clocks, and it's the quality of your work that matters, not the quantity of your time. (Yes, I know, sounds like heaven.) Sick though it sounds, we ACoA's feel uncomfortable in such circumstances.

(Oh yeah... there's more to come)