In the current climate ...

If I hear the phrase 'in the current climate' once more, I'm going to smack someone silly. How boring is this credit crunch shit? 24/7 ad nauseum. OK, it's a story, but it's not the only story. And it's not the end of the bloody world. All those folk with masses of money saved up and all it does is cause them stress. Octogenarians queuing at the banks to move their millions. Why are they still saving? They're queuing and complaining about the cold and they won't even part with some of their cash to buy themselves a coat. What the hell is going on?

I'd be the worst person to have working in a bank branch at the moment. With people lining up to take their money out, I wouldn't be able to resist doing my best Jimmy Stewart impersonation and saying: "Well, I don't have your money ... it's in Bill's house... and Ted's house." I'd think that was hilarious, but I'm not sure anyone else would find it funny.

My gran called me the other night and was asking if my job was safe. "Gran, you don't need to worry about me. I live two doors down from a sauna, I'll never struggle for work."

I was walking along the street today and The Scotsman headline board had the headline "Is Jenners feeling chill of Icelandic collapse?" Oh for fuck sake. Calm the parochialism. HBOS, RBS, Jenners... no doubt The Scotsman will relish in telling us the next victim of the credit crunch is Sean Connery, haggis or the See You Jimmy hat. Oh no, not our comedy hats. I say again, for fuck sake.

I went out to the cinema with 'date guy' last night. I still like him. The cinema was really busy but I spied a couple of seats. However, when I got along the row I noticed that a girl was sitting with her legs stretched out across the seats - effectively taking up three entire seats. I looked at her and smiled but she just gave me a 'challenging' look. I said "excuse me, can you move your feet please?", but still she just stared, daring me to do something. I love a dare, so I smiled and sat on her shins. She quickly changed her mind and withdrew her feet. Don't mess with me little girl. After the film,'Date guy' and I went for some drinks and he walked me home again.

Seasonal Accounting Defecit

January is the worst month and if I could, I would replace it with a better one. A month in Jamaica perhaps. But since I can't, I've developed my own method of coping with it. This includes booking a week's holiday in Santorini (with a moped and 5 days of scuba diving) and the planning of a 5 week round-the-world trip with stops in Las Vegas-San Francisco-The Cook Islands-New Zealand-Australia-and Kuala Lumpur. The only downside is that I'm about to start pushing drugs to school kids in order to fund this.

I drew a life map to help me discover/focus on what it is I want to achieve in the short-medium term. This is what I came up with:

• Fitter (happier) healthier - my gym sessions and seed consumption, I feel, is an excellent start.
• Get a grip on finances - desperately needed since I have no concept of budget - at all. I once queried with exasperation the price of my weekly grocery shop. The checkout assistant leaned forward and pointed out, in conspiratorial whisper, that I'd spent £16 on fruit juices. I now drink a lot more tap water and blend my own smoothies. Still, there's a long way to go.
• Travel - This is mainly why the point above is so important. I want to be able to take at least one fantastic and far-flung trip every year. This year OZ, next year South America.
• Writing - Must, must, must finish writing book. Fingers crossed this will lead to Jessica Fletcher-style life of glamour, wealth and intrigue. Though, hopefully, point 1 in this list will mean that the glamour is less mauve tapered trousers with elasticated waists, and more Nicole Fahri evening dresses. And that, facially, I won't resemble an over-stewed teabag. (Note to self: extra suncream whilst travelling.)
• Back to Uni - For a conversion course in something more useful like psychology. I've realised I quite enjoy talking to people and it would be good if I could do this for a living (if Jessica Fletcher thing doesn't come off right away). I figure if I become a psychological counsellor, I'd have a job I enjoy more and also a potentially fantastic source of information for my books.

So that's pretty much what the life map looks like. I think the financial stuff underpins it all though, so I'm currently looking at ways to boost my income. I underwent a financial review at my bank last week. I'd pre-empted the pain by doing a thorough review myself beforehand - scary stuff. At the bank, I was asked a series of questions about my aspirations. Luckily, I'd already mapped out my life and knew that "maintaining current lifestyle and travelling" was all I was really interested in. They asked how much I'd need for my holidays and I took a rough guess at about £3K - £4k. Needless to say, their little graphs came back with a shortfall in the short-, medium- and long-term. But this was obvious as all I'd done was tell them that I wanted to spend more money than I actually had - duh! So I need to get a pay rise of more than 5K (after tax) or work an extra 20 hours a week, every week, for a year. That's actually quite depressing, because the first one doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hades and the second one would involve more work. Hmm.

That said, I do feel a whole lot better for knowing what I want and what I have to do to achieve it. Which is about all there is to smile about given the utter shitness of this weather.

"Bollocks" ...

... is what I said when I got off the phone from Emergency 5. Apparently, my laptop has "motherboard trouble". Even I knew this was bad news. The advice is to get a new laptop. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.

The art of ... choosing a toothbrush.

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to buy a new toothbrush every three months - at least that's what the manufacturers and their lap dogs the British Dental Association tell us. Although, I think I can stretch a few more months out of my toothbrushes as, despite the fact that I brush my teeth about four times a day, they remain pretty much in pristine condition. Some people's toothbrushes seem hell bent on giving us their own special interpretation of the parting of the Red Sea; the bristles lying almost flat out in anticipation of Charlton Heston's crossing. But not mine.

Anyway, buying a new toothbrush had been on my list of 'Things I need more urgently than a Mulberry handbag' for a few months now. It was number 632, I think. Having been somewhat sidetracked in my endeavors thus far, i.e. kept forgetting, didn't visit supermarket for three weeks as had enough tins of baked beans to survive, etc, etc, I eventually got round to it this weekend. Whilst ambling round Sainsburys I remembered and made a sudden 90 degree turn into the dental hygiene aisle. The other shoppers were not impressed and looked like they were fighting the temptation to commit a bit of trolley rage.

Arriving in front of the toothbrushes, the first thing I noticed was that there were millions of them. I'm not kidding. They took up almost half of the entire aisle. Trying to remain calm (muchness scares me), I began to scan my options. I could go by brand; Sainsburys, Oral B, Reach, Colgate, Aquafresh, Sensodyne, and probably Nestle too if I read the small print and followed the audit trail; or by price: 99p to £6.99. £6.99? £6.99? For a toothbrush? £6.99 for a toothbrush?; or by features 'n' functions; plaque control, whitening, gum stimulation, tongue scrubbing, tooth-picking, pulsating; or by colour, firmness or good old lucky dip.

When did it all get so massive? I felt like shouting out 'I just want a toothbrush. Why are you making this decision so hard and time consuming for me?' I think it was the first time I'd ever wished I lived in a Communist country. But saying these words out loud would render me a total fraud because I don't just want a toothbrush. The souless marketeers have me right where they need me. When faced with all this choice, of course I don't just want a toothbrush. I want a life-enhancing, oral hygiene product. And I want it to be firm. And I want it in pink, but not that pink, no no, I want it in that pink. Yes, that's right. Thank you.

In the end it came down to a choice between two almost identical brushes. Each had thickened rubber gum massaging bristles (in pink) on the outside. Three different types (and with different purposes) of bristle in the inside as well as a 'whitening circle' of bristles at the head of the brush. Each also offered a built-in tongue cleaner. The only difference was in the price. The Oral B option was £6.99 and the Reach one was £4.50. This is the kind of decision I like.

'Lisa, you can have this item for £6.99 or you can have the same item for £2.49 less.'

Duh, even I in my brainwashed consumerist state can work this one out.

I felt rather pleased with myself, and life in general, as I walked home with my Reach toothbrush nestling inside my shopping bag. Then I experienced mild anger as I reminded myself that I'd just spent £4.50 on a fucking toothbrush. Four pounds fucking fifty? On a toothbrush? Then I brushed my teeth, for like 12 minutes, and my new toothbrush was really, really good.

And after all, I always squeeze an extra couple of months out of my toothbrushes anyway, so I'm the real winner right?

Right? ... Hello? ... You guys? ... Right?

The administration of life...

... sucks like Nancy Reagan (i.e. big time - allegedly) . I loathe having to acknowledge/deal with shit like this. I am one of those people who never actually opens anything that looks dull (i.e. in a standard-sized white or brown envelope with black type visible through the window); unless, of course, it is my birthday in which case I open everything including the neighbours' mail and my curtains. I tend to pile boring-looking letters on my desk and then throw them in a drawer after a few weeks or moments before my parents arrive (depending on what comes first). This causes less problems these days in that I do all my boring/important stuff via the internet so am less likely to miss something major. I have even asked a few of the orgainsations I have dealings with to communicate with me solely via the internet; which is great because it causes me less personal inconvenience but I can pretend I'm doing it for the environment. Some organisations are really proactive in this area (non-paper comms not the environment - although if they're smart they can pretend it's for the environment too). In fact, my old friends in the international arms trade positively refuse to communicate with me via letters - I love those guys; they really, y'know, get me.

I forced myself to tackle the whole paper work/clutter thing this week and I've done a pretty good job so far. I learned that I only need (loosest sense of the word) to keep wage slips for 3months, and bank/credit card statements for 6months - this meant that there was a lot to discard. Normally, I discard bank/credit card statements, and in fact all sorts of personal mail, into the bin rarely opened and never torn - not even in half. I've been led to believe that this is fucking stupid and I should commence shredding. Although, that said, I did see a trailer for the new Harrison Fogey movie and it showed a shredded document being painstakingly stuck back together by the baddies with a pair of tweezers and a big light so I'm not convinced my identity is totally safe. Mog lent me her shredder (she used to be an auditor so I knew she'd have one) and I must admit there was something disturbingly pleasurable about running certain things through it.

I read somewhere that a half-assed cleaning/clearing job is worse than no effort at all, so I felt compelled to organise and file all the remaining stuff that is actually important. Someone recommended I head out to Big W to buy some box files, storage boxes and other crap like that. I duly obliged, but immediately regretted it. The place was massive and almost devoid of people. The rows of (what can only be described as) stuff went on and on and on. This weird music/noise that sounded like dead souls moaning was playing quietly as I nervously walked down to the stationery area. I got everything I needed at a very excellent price so in that respect at least Ican't complain. But it was a very, very odd place with very, very big bags of sweeties.

I've also been advised that I should be saving 10-20% of my net salary each month. I'm pretty sure that's what I've been spending on my credit/storecards each month, so I'm going to have to sit down and budget and basically get my ass sorted.

I realise that this seems so anal and boring and, therefore, nothing like the girl you know, but needs must people, and I'm pretty hopeful that once I get this rubbish fixed out, I'll be even more fun and relaxed than ever before. Bet you can't wait!