Fuck this, I'm going to Hogwarts.

So a while ago work actually discovered my blog, so this will inevitably get back to them, but oh well.  To be honest, depending on how much of my blog they read upon discovering it, they already know far too much about me anyway, at least enough to know the Hot Tour Guide story...

Ugh  Is what I'd like to say, just ugh.  Work, frustrating me no end at the moment.  We are launching a new show in January, in fact we held the auditions for it yesterday  (8 hours of watching people audition on only 2 hours sleep also earns an ugh, but that's a different matter). We also have very busy month in December, with almost double the amount of shows, as we are often doing full shows during the lunchtime period, as well as in the evenings.  For the January show, there was a big back and forth about whether we should close beforehand or not, and eventually it was decided that we would indeed have a 2 week dark period, in which to rehearse for the new show, the kitchen to get their times sorted, and for me to completely overhaul, rewire, and reinstall in several cases, the entire technical system, which is kind of a mess.

We already had some full nights booked for this dark period, so it was decided to honour them, fair enough. And although I don't know what cut off mark they used to declare 'full', this now means that 7 days of the 2 week dark period we are open and running a show.  What show I don't know as the contracts for the old show will have finished, and the new show won't be ready but *some* form of show.  This means that we have no more than 2 days in a row dark at any time during this 'dark' period.  During which, we need to have a complete PAT test; I need to take down all the lights, re-lay all the dmx, cat5 and power cabling, in the main room; reinstall all the lights in new positions and potentially install some new additional lights, which would further involve running in and rearranging the power and data cabling daisy chains; regardless of new lights or none, almost certainly repatching the entire system; potentially installing new LED drivers as the current set-up means they are not, and cannot be divided into architectural zones, so you can either macro every LED in the building, or none at all; on top of this I need to basically rip out the entire tech room, dispose of several obsolete bits of equipment, rearrange and redesign the layout of the currently useful equipment, replug the entire sound system from scratch; update the pc lighting software and try linking the control pc and dmx interface into the wireless hub so that i can remotely control it; and then of course, FINALLY, I need to TEST all of this work to make sure the damned thing still actually operates, and perform the inevitable troubleshooting that will be required.

Now whilst a lot of this work can be worked around our need to function and commitments and such, needless to say, a lot of it equally needs us to be closed, and thus not require it functioning, for more than 2 days.  As it is we're closed Mondays and Tuesdays in a normal week, so actually, we've gained very little, at least from a technical perspective.  Being open only 3 or 4 days a week and for relatively short periods puts them in a better position to conduct rehearsals, but they will want lights, and sound, and the absence of technical equipment being all over the entire venue floor in order to do that, so I am no better off than if they'd just bothered to stay open.

Ugh.


Beyond this, I'm having issues with time off in work.  Now I understand I was brought in especially for managing and producing this new show, so its important that I am involved with it as much as possible, and time off is a luxury I am not likely to be able to afford, especially in the few weeks either side of our gala reopening night.  I do get this.  But I asked like a month ago for some time off, some in likely earlyish february, as Terence is coming over, and aside from the fact I would obviously spend 24 hours a day with him given the chance, he was really really good to me over the summer, and spent loads of time with me and took me out loads and cooked and everything, and I'd really like to return the favour, and that's going to be hard to do if I'm gonna be in work 1600 - 0200 every day.  He doesn't know for certain if/when he's coming yet, which obviously complicates matters, and I realise getting a full week off around then just isn't going to happen, but 2 or 3 nights would be nice.

There's then one or two nights I might need off mid February.  I might be able to swing these, but until the reason I need these nights off is set and the date in place, I see no real reason to try and swing these.

And then moving on into March, it'd be hugely advantageous for me to get a week off for a project I'd like to be involved in, but even though we should be 8 weeks into the new show by then, so everyone should have it down fine, I have heard nothing about whether I can have this off despite asking a month ago and I really need to know sooner rather than later, and I still highly suspect the answer will be no.

Ugh.


Work isn't completely oblivous to the fact that they will be monopolising my time, and I will likely be working 90 hour weeks again in January and February (on the basis the show takes up 1800 - 0000 minimum, which is already 30 out of 40 contracted hours a week, and that's before I actually do any set up, rehearsals, maintenance, forward planning for special events and other such things during the day), I have been encouraged to take as much time off in December as possible, and bar the need to do some lunchtime shows, I could probably take virtually the entire month off more or less, which is nice and all, but not that useful.  Taking time off in advance so they can make me work 90 hour weeks doesn't really make up for 90 hour weeks, and I don't want a month off in December, I want a week off in Feb and a week off in March, because that's when I have things to do during those weeks, rather than just taking time off because it's convenient for my workplace if I do and there's nothing for me to be at work doing.

The time off is all rather pointless anyway unless I can get someone to cover me.  Ideally, I would love to hire someone part-time for 20 hours a week, this person could cover the shows I couldn't do, take over some of the more basic maintenance and upkeep that is all too time consuming, and would be especially useful for special events where as an example, the other day I was in work for 15 hours on a Sunday in order to do a wedding reception.  Being able to take 8 hours of an extra person would help immensely.  In a perfect world of course, the place could actually do with 2 full time technical staff, but there's no way in hell I'd get that.  Then again, I don't think there's any way in hell I'll get the budget for £500pcm worth of staffing costs.  Getting £10 for a tin of paint here is enough of a struggle.  Hell they still haven't even let me set up trade accounts with the suppliers so I keep having to use my own money and charge it to expenses, when we don't actually have any form of expenses at this company, they just grumble at me and then EVENTUALLY pay me out of petty cash, but that relies on me having the funds to spare, and the funds being within my means rather than some of the bigger purchases I would like to make.

Ugh.


I don't get paid enough for this shit.

Muscle Memory

My body is wierd.  Obviously this should come as no surprise at all to anyone who knows me well enough to read this blog, but occasionally, I get reminded of this fact in rather overt ways.

You should all by now know the convoluted nature of my love life, and that whilst I love Chris, I don't miss the other boys any less as a result.

Your body notices things subconsciously, if you wear a necklace every day you notice that you're not because of  the slight difference in weight, freedom of movement, and comfort (or discomfort).  Given the same requirement or circumstances over a continued period of time you develop muscle memory, which equally takes a long period of time to change or lose.  That's all fine, I get that.

When I get into bed some nights, and put my arm around Chris, my body notices something... not wrong, just different to what it expected.  The body it's over isn't as scrawny as it was expecting, I can't feel the entire spine and ribcage; or my arm isn't as high up as it thought it would be, because chris sleeps on his front rather than his side.  The boy I've just put my arm around is Chris, and not either of the other two it might want to be cuddling up to.  But what's constantly wierd about this is that I haven't gone to bed wishing I had Terence to hug or whatever; I've gone to bed thinking, "yay, getting into bed with boyfriend"  and then "snuggle up to chris time."  I'm very obviously and consciously thinking about the fact that Chris is the guy I'm with.  And then I put my arm over him and there's a physical body driven response that goes, huh, "that's odd... oh yeah..."  What further confuses me about this is that I haven't spent that much time with the people who aren't Chris; just a few weeks with each of them.  That shouldn't be long enough to develop that kind of muscle memory, and given the amount of time apart, and that it's Chris I get into bed with every single night, it certainly should have got out of that problem.

Like I say, it's not that I'm going, "oh, chris isn't the person I want", it's that my body just doesn't seem to be expecting it, despite all rather obvious signs to the contrary.

I'm Spinning Around...

I can't get enough of these songs at the moment:

Timo Descampes - Like It Rough  Obviously the title should give something away as to why I love this.  It's the official song of the upcoming Judas Kiss movie, which I can't wait for.  ANd as a bonus, the music video has Brent Corrigan shirtless, and being bitten by Timo as a vampire in it XD

Katy Perry - Firework  I actually hated this the first time around.  I mean what the hell is with the sparks shooting out of her chest, could she get any more sexual metaphorical?  But then the second time I loved it and since then I've been hooked, this is probably the song I'm listening to most at the moment and could play on repeat over and over again.  It sends me manic, which is great.  I love when I find a song that can do that.  Lesbianism and cheesy popness aside, I'm really really into this song.  Plus, it has gay boys kissing in it, and that's always nice to see in something mainstream.

Glee Cast - Teenage Dream.  Another Katy Perry song technically, after like 5 singles that I LOVE, I think I'm forced to concede I am now truly another Katy Perry fangay.  Aside from the acapella arrangement of this being fantastic, something about a hot boy basically begging me to grab his arse in song form just gets me going, mmmm....

Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts  This is a lot more downbeat that all the others.  The music video is wierd, I get what they're trying to do with the formal slowed down dancing, but I don't it works to be honest, but the song is still constantly in my head, and it's a great bitter angry burned by the person you trusted most kinda song.

American Hi-Fi - The Break Up Song  Terence is to blame for this one.  He constantly reminds me of all the crappy teenage bands I used to <3, because he still listens to them all (one of the many reasons we get on, we will both happily rock out at the top of our very bad singing voices to New Found Glory, The Starting Line, etc).  If you're the one that broke up with someone and your ex is pissing you off, listen to this, or send them it as part of an angry i-hate-you mix tape.  It says it all really.

Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are  Chris hates Bruno Mars, I kinda love him.  Like Katy Perry, I know it's really bad overproduced pop, but I just find it so uplifting.  This song just describes love to me; how its stupid for the person you love to be worried around you, because you always think they are the most incredible person you've ever met; they're amazing, and all the little thing that they hate most about themselves, are the bits of them you find the sexiest.


But that's what I'm listening to these days kids.

EDIT:  I forgot to include the following:

Enrique Iglesias - I Like It.  I also have to confess to being a secret Enrique fan, the man's damn hot, and he does awesome jumpy music (this one, Bailamos, Escape, etc.) and can then go right to the other end of the classic ott love song (Hero).  This is one of my songs of the (late) summer, that happens to still be ticking over in my head.

Anarchy in the UK

I used to have a picture from one of my anarchist websites.  3 frames, with a cartoon illustrating each of the following

A single person asking for change achieves nothing.
A large group might get a response
But simple direct action gets immediate results

This last frame was illustrated by a little anarchist setting fire to the giant man of government standing in his way, thus causing giant man to yell and run elsewhere.

Direct Action, and Civil Disobedience, are complex terms.  How they are defined, the context they are used in, how they are understood and interpreted by others.

It's #demo2010 today and between 20,000 - 50,000 (or 500 'radical socialists' if fox news deigns to give it a 15 second segment) students, graduates, researchers and lecturers have taken to the streets to protest the proposed changes to university funding and teaching cuts.  It is expected to be the biggest march since the Stop The War protests (which I was at and was pretty fucking phenomenal).

The right to protest, the right of freedom of assembly and the right of freedom of speech are things I will gladly fight to the death for, and I'd be a pretty crappy anarchist if I didn't staunchly believe in these things.  Any society that purports to be a 'democracy' of any kind, whether accurately or not, must allow its citizens these rights (amongst others).  Protest rallies, marching, striking, petitioning, whether I personally support the cause or not, is all admirable as far as I'm concerned, and whilst, like every other Londoner, the clockwork regular tube strikes and inevitable transport chaos piss me off no end, I will never support those who would restrict any person's, union's, or body's right to strike freely.  Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety and all that jazz.

As is inevitable with protests, there is always a minority who cause 'trouble'.  Be it because they genuinely are that angry and frustrated with society, or because they got bored of chanting and only recognise 'anarchism' as the outdated, defunct, and offensive definition that means rioting and looting at will.  And that is what gets reported and is what people remember years down the line.  It tars the entire group with the same brush, and certainly in this country, violent disobedience is not tolerated; it tends to go down a little better in European countries for some reason.

Civil disobedience is allowable, that covers simple protest, and striking, because those are disobedient in regard to the rules you have been mandated to abide by in a particular context (such as conditions at work).  There is also the less reasonable and accepted methods; rioting, mobs, etc

Direct action, is also, a fairly allowable thing, peaceful direct action has existed for a long time.  Slow-downs, sit ins, picket lines to mark denial of entry during strikes.  And again it has its less tolerated examples: assault and arson being two.

It's stupid to ruin something respectable with a few ignorant actions using the wider cause as a defence for wanting to be simply uncivilized.  It's stupid to become so wrapped up in the chaos and destruction and anger of what you're doing you ignore the reasons you're (supposedly) doing it in the first place and start throwing fire extinguishers off roofs.  When people from the NUS or UNITE or whatever call for civil disobedience or direct action from their members, they refer to peaceful protest, but some use that as a defence to argue their counter productive actions are justified and called for.

But then again, how counter productive are they?  Simple direct action gets immediate results.  It is not laudable, it shouldn't occur, though it also shouldn't be the case that 16 million people world wide need to protest a war, but sometimes it is, and those violent outbursts, make the events so memorable.  People remember what happened in Greece because it was aggressive.  People remember the Boston Tea Party because it was an unoffical declaration of war from a nation feeling severely oppressed that was a key point in a chain leading to a formal declaration of war.  Direct action, in the not-always-peaceful definition of the term, does get results.  It gets you noticed, for better or worse, and it gets results, for better or worse.  Protesters throughout the ages who have been jailed, reproached, and criminalized for their actions, and suffered for it, have often been the pioneers of those who have brought about a change for the better for the rest of us.


I do not, will not, and cannot condone the actions of a few violent, ignorant individuals whose aim is largely to break some shit and feel all powerful and important for 2 hours whilst the news helicopters circle above and before the riot police club them into submission.

But I do not believe that the action of a lot of people shouting loudly about how unfair life is and waving some placards they made the day before will ever achieve much of any import.  A protest march is important, it galvanises people, it gives them something to believe in, it is representative of how unpopular a cause of action is, and in many cases, gives people the means to pool together and achieve legal recourse to defend their causes by forming into a group.  But if 16 million people shouting can't stop a war, and if legal recourse can be appealed and retried and appealed and retried all the way up to that nation's supreme courts (and beyond in the case of EU nations), taking years before any significant change is finally agreed upon, I have to believe that direct action, sometimes peaceful, and sometimes not so, is the way forward, because it has so often achieved results where mere complaining to those who are oppressing you in the first place, not surprisingly, results in fairly little being done, beyond maybe a small but ineffectual concession if you bitch long enough and loud enough.

Do I think this protest, or the rioters at Millbank will actually change anything about the proposed funding legislation.  Not at all.  But I stand by every single damned one of them for having the courage to make people notice.

Hypothermotastical

My house is freezing cold.  It's been freezing cold for about 2 weeks now, the house is affirmedly in winter mode.

We have sash windows.  I hate sash windows, they are largely single glazed, and have no form of proper seal on them due their design and are completely insecure, so basically, the only advantage over just having one giant hole in your wall, is that you stuff doesn't get wet when it rains.  The wind and the cold however, that comes right in.  You can try to mitigate the heat loss from sash windows by using massive thick heavy curtains, but then you have to have massive thick heavy curtains everywhere, and as this is a rental house, the permission to put the relevant things in the wall.  The bedroom has blinds, the living room has light cotton drapes for privacy, the hallway and the kitchen have nothing.

How about central heating, invented a good 2000 odd years ago and installed in most properties these days, certainly any property I'm going to be paying money for at least, it is designed to circulate heat throughout your house, and thereby raise the ambient temperature to something comfortable, especially in the winter months, thereby eliminating the need for open fires in every room, or the wearing of furs.  Good idea yes?  Well apparently not allowed.  Every time I turn the heating on, my flatmate turns it off as soon as he notices.  Everytime I put the heating on timer, it mysteriously doesn't come on at the right times, because someone has turned it back to the off positions.  What's ironically funny is that my old flatmates from the last 2 years used to do this, because they were worried about bills and money, and my current flatmate was hapily bitching to me about this approach of theirs all the time.

I am currently wearing 4 layers, my entire body is shivering and cold.  My hands and feet are worse.  I have that cold numb ache throughout the entire length of my limbs.  If I try to warm myself up, my body is so cold, as it warms, it develops that stabbing pain you get from cold burns.  I get this even if I try to drink a cup of tea, and my internal temperature is seemingly so low, that even green tea, which I serve properly so about 20 degrees C cooler than 'normal' tea, gives me that horrible burning pain sensation from having something that's too hot as it travels all the way down my oesophagus.


I pay my rent, I pay £50 a month in bills, that's £150 a month for the three of us, £3300 per year.  Allowing about £800 for water rates, that gives us almost £200 a month to spend on electricity and gas, obviously the usage of both goes down dramatically in the summer months, so lets say £150 allowance for summer months, £250 in the winter.  And yet we are seemingly not allowed to have the heating on when it's cold.  I went through this for the last 2 years.  I got a space heater, and had it running almost constantly our house was that cold.  The second you turned it off everything froze again. My last house was in fact so bad, the pipes had to unfreeze every day when the hot water did come on, and we had water leaks in the floors and walls constantly.  So therefore I used the much more expensive electricity, rather than the sensible gas as I wasn't allowed to use the central heating, but my flatmates could hardly say no we're not going to use electricity either.  And I seem to be in the same position in my new place.

I don't understand people.  Chris, is a generally warm person, and he feels okay most of the time, but he admits he's a warm person, and he still shivers for a good while whenever he gets into bed each night.  My flatmate complains how cold it is in the house.  As I said, I've already put a jumper on, and a thermal layer, and a vest, and a t shirt, and jeans, and joggers over that.  I'm doing my energy bit, I'm not being lazy.  But we're not allowed to use the central heating?  What's weirdest is that my flatmate isn't even here most of the time!  And yet somehow he still magically manages to turn the heating off constantly.  Either that, or Chris is lying to me, in which case he's in major major major trouble.

I admit, it's 3 in the morning, it's going to be cold anyway, and I'm ill at the moment, so I'm probably worse than I could be, but I get home at 11pm, at which point, if the heating had been on timer, it should have been on solidly since 5pm so the house should be pleasant, and good until at least 1am or so, as we're all up late all the time in this house.  But no its freezing 24/7/.  And if I'm ill, surely I should be allowed to put the heating on to facilitate not being ill for longer?  Because an ill asthmatic who develops hypothermia every day is obviously a better situation than using the heating.

And it's mid October.  This means it's nowhere near as bad as it's gonna get.  And we have a good 4 5 months of this to go through.  I'm struggling not to completely break as it is anyway; at the moment, this is the thing that is actually going to push me off the edge and I will actually pull a jack.  seriously, I've already done all the planning for it, it's literal a case of whether i choose to do it or not at this point.

I don't even have any refuge at work, for some reason the a/c is left on despite the fact we're ALL sitting there shivering and no-one takes their jackets off when they get in.


Like I say, I don't understand people.  And at the moment, I have nowhere to go, work as enjoyable as it is, simply doesn't pay me enough and I can barely afford to stay till the end of my contract in march, let alone go beyond that, however much I might want to.  And being at home is often unpleasant depending on how my head feels like relating to Chris on any given day.  Add the fact that I'm just as cold, if not actually more so at home all the time, and the best i can do is come home, go straight to bed to try and keep warm, and get up as late as possible before heading to work, and I'm going to resent being in either place before long.

Names changed to protect identities.

I have 2 friends on facebook.  Or rather, I have one friend, and his ex.  But their recent status updates amuse me.  For the sake of discretion, we shall call them person A and person B.

Statuses in the last 24 hours have gone as follows, proceeding chronologically as you progress down the screen, obviously:

[B]: is fighting for love and things are looking up.

[B]: dinner and a movie with [A] :-)

[B]: had a great night with [A]:

[A] (posted 5 minutes after that last one): There's a reason you can block your exs on Facebook.  Now can I block them out the rest of my life.





Ah.... isn't it great when two people have completely different perspectives on how a night went, and you can get a sick perverted pleasure out of watching the one you don't like squirm because of it?

Yeah yeah, we all know I'm a bitch, that's old news people.

Friends are the family you choose... so why do I see them less?

I've noticed over time, that I tend to me the more proactive one when it comes to maintaining friendships.  I still let a lot of things slide, and I still neglect friendships that I shouldn't, and with certain people, we are quite comfortable not talking to each other for months and then randomly picking up where we left off, but generally, I'm the one who tends to start facebook or msn conversations just to say 'hi', I tend to be the one bugging people to come over, or invite me over, or go out, or whatever.  Normally, this doesn't bother me, I can deal just fine with that kind of thing being more reliant on me; maybe I feel the need to maintain contact more, and I'm sure my friend's shoulder more than an equal share of the burden in other aspects of our relationships.

But it does get to me, when I seem to go through extended periods where I don't see anyone and no-one even bothers to say hi to me in three months.  I say three months because I got back from the US almost exactly 3 months ago.  With the obvious exceptions of Chris, my family, and work related peoples, I worked out I've seen 7 people out of my friends in those months, and out of those, one was in fact from the US visiting, and 3 I've only seen by virtue of the fact they live with the fourth.

My friends in the US, and some of these people I only met for 4 days on a crazy 4th July weekend this year, will talk to me on a weekly, if not daily basis, despite the fact that they are 4000 miles and 5 hours time difference away from me and the only deep bonding experience between some of us is both trying to avoid errant fireworks and walking naked for a mile and a half through knee deep coastal waters.  And yet the multitude of people who live in the same city as me, can't even make the cursory 'we should meet up sometime' comment that we both know will never actually happen.

For the last 3 weekends I've posted on facebook and twitter saying is anybody around to do something, and the only person I've had ANY response from is the same person I see all the time anyway.  Don't get me wrong, I love him, I will gladly spend 80% of my social time with him, but I do need to feel he's not the only person in my life aside from the boyfriend.  This is just depressing.  It means currently, my life consists of work, trying not to fight with the boyfriend, and when I get so sick of those two I can't stand it anymore, Joel.

Sure, shit happens, people get busy, people (like me) are flat broke, they have their own problems and depressions to deal with, etc etc, but in 3 months my social life amounts to a lot of time with Joel, and 3 one off meet ups with some other people, which I'm grateful for, and I enjoyed seeing those people, but that's it.  Oh and one drunken phone call about 2 weeks ago.

I'm kinda sick of it, I don't want to have to work this hard to maintain one good solid friend in the entire city.  Even counting the friends I don't talk to much and am fine with that (my best friend being the major example of that), that brings the total count to maybe 4.  In the entire fucking country.  How to win friends and influence people my ass.

The modern day catharsis for this dilemma has become to have a facebook friend cull, unfortunately I think if I actually did that at the moment, I would struggle to even retain a full handful of UK-based, non work or family related friends.  So not surprisingly, that's not going to make me feel a whole lot better.  I haven't yet decided whether it'll be more depressing to get a slew of panicked 'hey hows it going are you ok read your blog post' messaged from people who have shown no interest for a while tomorrow, or to get nothing at all.  Whatever happens, I think at the moment there's a very firm extra point in the 'reasons to move to the US and pull a Jack'* column




Mood:  Depressed - work work chris work joel work work chris work work work chris work work joel work etc......
Music:  Jack's Mannequin - Entire Spotify Discography


* 'A Jack' is a manoeuvre by with you start a brand new life; you cut all ties from your previous one, abandoning all friends, workers, landlords, family members, acquaintances, creditors, et al. suddenly with no prior warning or indication.   This goes so far as to uping sticks, with only so many possessions to your name as will fit in a suitcase, moving to an entirely new part of the country, changing your phone number, email, deleting facebook, and all records of your previous life insofar as is possible without the exorbitant cost of counterfeit passports, but sofar as changing your name, thus giving those you left behind virtually no method of tracking you down within the 5 minute attention span of the average 2010ite, and making it a reasonable hassle for those who insist on pursuing it past that limit.  The move is so named because my friend Jack pulled it off, and aside from pissing off a lot of people who he didn't care about, has arguably been a rather successful stratagem.