tiresome

[helenic]

I have a new job in the Inventory Control department of British Steel Services, tapping 8-digit product codes into their database. I hate it but I stumble through the hours wordlessly, fighting a constant losing battle against a weariness that worsens by the day. While I was in Italy my previous employers decided they didn't need me any more, and that there was not much point my going back. I started this new placement the next morning, and haven't even gone back to the old place return my key. I'm sure I've left things in my desk but I'm too tired to cope with the drama of turning up there, hearing their explanations, saying my farewells. If I've left a place I've left it, particularly jobs; I very rarely want to think about it again.

Now I'm sitting on the top floor of these city centre offices and the raspberry & echinacea tea I'm drinking tastes like soil in my mouth. I watch the slow progress of the clock in the corner of my screen mournfully, although I'm not sure what it is I'm mourning. These golden September days, perhaps, days I should be spending reading my texts for next year, sitting crosslegged on my bed in the afternoon sun, a book in my lap, mentally preparing myself for term? Or is it my whole summer, divided between frantic escapes by train at weekends and an introverted limbo inbetween? Summers in your home town should be careless, relaxed, spent with old friends in city haunts, drinking and smoking. A ritual farewell to adolesence. (Or perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps the lonely emptiness Leicester holds for me now does have meaning, perhaps it signals once and for all that I don't have a place here any more.) It could be this melancholy is simply exhaustion; I'm tired of leaving those I love and facing a bleak week of work alone, I'm tired of missing people. It's tedious, and I'm sick of counting days - until I leave, until I see him again, until I once again pack my life into boxes and rejoin my real life in Cambridge, which I feel has been waiting for me during my long absence, holding its breath. I want to arrive somewhere and actually stay there long enough to be happy.

I'm being ridiculous, I know. It's just that I'm so bored of this now. My weekend with Iain was wonderful but I'm sick of coming back here, each and every time. I'm desperate to write about Italy but I can't find the words. It seems so far away. Maybe I'll feel better about all this tonight. I'm going to go get myself a coffee.

Comments

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Late summer is a melancholy time in any case. The clouds in the evening, if nothing else.

And I'll see ya in Cam. Dress all in black and wear a veil and a red carnation. I shall be identifiable by my shaven head and perpetual smirk.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I have neither carnation nor veil, but I always thought I'd suit one. A veil, I mean, I can see why those eastern chicks wear them - no-one's got a perfect nose and eyes always look mysterious on their own. Are you thinking along the lines of a smoke somewhere with good music, or just getting coffee, or smuggling me illegally into the Kings freshers events? Yeah, I only want you for your contacts. Are you going to be robed? I can't remember ever seeing a picture of you in trousers.

[beeswing.livejournal.com]

"real life ... which I feel has been waiting for me during my long absence, holding its breath."

That bears repeating if only to savour it.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking of one of those translucent veils that cover the whole face and serve the same purpose as soft focus in LJ userpics. But your version works equally well. Though it's good you warned me: I'd probably have found myself smoking up with some random girl just coming home from a funeral and too distraught to object, and wondering why some Islamic-looking type kept signalling me frantically.

All three of those are good, though I'd rather start off with solitary coffee; that way I can heartlessly seduce you before casting you aside like a soiled rag feel more comfortable.

I am not currently inclined to wear the robe in public. Too pretentious even for me, or will be at least until I am a Man of Letters and am hence able to swan about with complete disregard for the opinion of the common herd. Though I am fond of it enough to leap at the slightest excuse...

[verte.livejournal.com]

Yikes. It must be so much worse to actually have something or somewhere to crave. I'm sorry if the text I sent on Friday night pissed you off - I'd understand if it did; I just got all high-spirited drunk and happy (as much I am now).

Glad you had a wonderful weekend. I miss you a bit, which I wasn't expecting. Hope the coffee is good with sugar and foamed milk. I miss Italian coffee! Nothing you can get here is even slightly the same. Arrgh!

xxx

[kungfuchaos.livejournal.com]

oy! don't think you can hide your evil intentions using strikethrough forever :-)

robes in public are a dodgy issue... except when drunk and doing batman impersonations.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

not at all! I was just confused, I couldn't work out what you were talking about :)

I miss you too. I miss having someone to talk to, damnit. Leicester's lonely anyway without having to come straight from spending all my time with someone so fantastic. I miss italian coffee too; I'm not even touching the coffee machine at work, I'm drinking herbal tea instead. xxx

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I'm worried by the tone of your journal. are you okay? xxx

[libellum.livejournal.com]

hmm, those whole-face things are too weddingy for my liking. seeing as I don't have either, you'll just have to look for the brunette wearing ankle boots and an interesting scarf - either that or go by what I look like, seeing as everyone knows. That might work better. Coffee sounds good although Italy has spoiled me and I'll no doubt complain about how they don't even know what coffee is in England, damn plebs. As for heartless seduction, I'm always up for it, particularly when pretentious swanning in robes is involved. When you're an eccentric and dignified professor of philosophy, will you also wear carpet slippers to match?

[beeswing.livejournal.com]

Kind of up & down this summer, but fine. Hurrah for mood swings. I was at Bradgate again last weekend & thought of you. Such a haunting place, although more so in its winter incarnation. xx

[libellum.livejournal.com]

good, I was confused and concerned by your last entry. are you back up north now then? Everyone's up and down during summer, the sun makes us euphoric and we're not used to it, our subconsciouses try and compensate by springing depression on it. Besides, it's the season of Living With Parents, which is never good over the age of about 16.

And yay Bradgate! I might be there again this Saturday with Iain. It must still be quite green at the moment, but I agree: once the leaves have fallen and the bracken has died, nothing else has ever been haunting until you've seen it.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I don't have plans to become an eccentric and dignified professor of anything. (Well, unless I get a First, and then we'll see). And slippers aren't really my thing; I like bare feet. I may get a pipe though. And smoke jasmine tobacco in it.

If I have any time off from my busy schedule of writing lengthy and timeless prose fragments, conducting conversations with my cat and refuting Kant, I shall learn to blow smoke rings.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah... I'm back on the first of October.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

moi aussi. I don't know how many other people will be around then - I have an idea a lot aren't coming up until the 3rd, and freshers day is the 4th of course. So perhaps, if it's quiet, Thursday afternoon? Otherwise monday or tuesday, after I've fulfilled all the necessary demands made by my wonderful friends and assured everyone how glad I am to see them again and such.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted to learn that, too. I bought a pipe this summer and had a stab at it at Reading, but to no avail. Is jasmine tobacco as good as apple? All I've ever tried is menthol and cherry; I have much to look forward to!

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

Thursday is the 2nd, right? Sure. Although rearrangements closer to the time should be no problem either.

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

I don't know menthol, and apple I only know from the squidgy wet stuff one smokes in hookahs. Vanilla and jasmine are both very good, however.

[beeswing.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for the North. There's something romantic about coming here and getting out of the affluent South and past the suburbs of the Midlands and then the industrialised areas. & then tada, there's flat gold September countryside. Yes, I'm up here. xx