It's 3pm, and I'm half dressed (bottom half still in pyjamas). Today, I have:
- visited three job sites, and seriously considered pretending I can speak Polish and have a degree in Business Economics
- applied for four jobs, none of which I am qualified for
- applied for two jobs, both of which I am over-qualified for
- applied for six jobs: none of which I actually want
- cut a piece of bread so badly that it got stuck in the toaster, burnt and filled the house with smoke, and then I got shouted at "for trying to kill all the appliances again"
- 'poked' at least four men on Facebook, just because it feels like human contact
- had a long conversation with the cat, who took that as her cue to follow me around the house, crying and trying to sit on my chest
- rung my recruitment consultants to explain, again, who I am and what my name is
- asked my mum if she's finished reading my manuscript yet, so I can start editing: she hadn't
- watched the last half of One Tree Hill on E4, and then the first half of it on E4+1, and then spent at least ten minutes trying to work out what was going on
- taken my grandad to the hospital
- picked him up again
- looked at my brand new wrinkles for 12 minutes in the magnifying mirror and wondered whether I was able to see the actual physical onslaught of time and age happening in front of me
- wondered whether one day I will look like a Skeksky from The Dark Crystal
- refreshed Hotmail 248 times in the hope that something good was in there. It wasn't
- asked mum again if she had finished my manuscript. She still hadn't
- shouted at the cat to leave me alone, and then - when she did - shouted at her to come back because I was lonely and bored
Something has to change, because I've had enough. My plans - to find work, earn money and then bugger off around the world for an indeterminate amount of time, while my book becomes a multi-national best-seller and I'm totally oblivious because I'm teaching children in Indonesia - are going to hell on a hand-cart, as my dad says. I'm not just unemployed anymore: I'm unemployed. Frankly, the only thing stopping me from watching day time telly is the fact that I hate day time telly more than I hate boredom - I'd rather be talking to the cat - and I'm not just happy to take my grandad to the hospital because I'm a nice person and it's raining: I'm happy because it's something to do.
So: the plans are simply going to have to change. If life isn't going to bend to me, I'm going to have to bend to it: and so help me God, if I don't do it now I'm going to go absolutely bonkers.
When dad comes home this evening, I'm going to target him with an investment opportunity: enough money to take a TEFL course (Teach English as A Foreign Language course). I will, of course, pay him back when I'm earning: but, more importantly, it will almost guarantee my departure from the house before the end of summer. Which, I'm sure, will make him reach into his pocket quicker than if I put a rocket there: if I'm irritated being here, I think it's fair to say that dad is even more so, as I almost never do the washing up and insist upon playing music he hates far, far too loudly. I also type very loudly, very late at night, and thus dad keeps dreaming about tiny tap-dancing mice (probably: I haven't asked him).
I'm going to do a course, and then I am going to leave. I am going to go and do something, because the recession is showing no signs of loosening its strangle hold, and I simply cannot sit in my pyjamas for the rest of my life: it will kill me. And if teaching English in a strange place is what I need to do to start living again - start experiencing, start seeing, start actually being a part of life, instead of watching it from the sidelines - then teaching English in a strange place is exactly what I'm going to do.
So that's how I'll spend the rest of today. Researching. And possibly making a cake to butter up my dad.
In a minute, obviously. After I've told all this to the cat.
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