Book of Life, Volume Thursday

Chapter One -the Morning
The frequency with which the crisis that the NHS consists of and the inability for the government to educate children efficiently dulls my morning. I refuse to turn on BBC, and instead listen to Radio 4 for a max of 30 minutes before switching to cd choice for the morning. Today, Badly Drawn Boy, yesterday, the Thrills. Yet when i start mentally complaining about the lack of variety in the news, i think but i am really happy it isn't a London or US based terrorist incident that is on the news.

I ordered my Americano for breakfast today, and i could not make the barissta understand that i wanted no milk in the americano, i was going to add milk at the office (non-sweetened soy milk, i am cutting out dairy and wheat for a while until i get bikini slim). milk? no, just room for milk? what kind of milk? no, just leave space in the cup, i will put the milk in. i get the cup of coffee, and an additional cup of milk. no, i don't need this, i am going to put milk in at my office. smile, tip the guy because it isn't his fault. and it is funny.

G (ex work crush) came by to tell me that he has done something silly. he forgot his shoes today (he cycles in). so he is wearing his office mate's extra pair,which are 3 sizes too big. he looks clownish. it is funny. this is not the first time he has done a space cadet drill. he has told me he has been doing this frequently. when he said this i said, well, maybe you have something on your mind that you are not grappling with effectively. he looked at me strange. i think he may fancy someone.
Chapter Two - guy update
I have not heard from the previous Friday night guy O (the Timberlake (nb i have decided that any younger than 29 guy i go out with will be monikered a Timberlake after Justin) with gorg. house in fulham) If this was the US, i would assume that means, there is someone else or not interested, but no, this is the UK, where, more true than not, the guys are insecure, shy and lazy. the percentage of each changes. A single girl cannot forget the truth, which is if the guys we wanted to get to know called us, and the ones we didn't like did not call us, we wouldn't be single. So, here comes the bread crumb effect, i am going to text to see if i get a response that will lead to meeting up again. I would rather know that he is not interested, than just know nothing. For instance, had not heard from Swiss Investment Banker and I knew that he had been back from holiday for awhile. So i texted him hello; he came back with text that asked me out for this weekend. My confusion is this: if one has the intent or the desire to meet up with someone, then why isn't my phone ringing? why do i have to be the one to, frankly, ask myself out on behalf of you. I feel like i am their dating PA.

End of the Men Chapter. Final Chapter - work.
If my life were divided up in pie shaped diagram, then i would divide it into thirds: family, work and relationship/social. I am immensely blessed that my family life is wonderful and there are no concerns or tensions. My social life is on auto-pilot and involves minimal tension or inattention. Actually, i have been busier than usual which means i do not have enough time to myself, to really exist in happy zone. With my move of flats impending, i am about to go to silent run mode and keep thing on the DL for awhile. I need some me time, which usually consists of good books, dvd, gym, cooking frenzies, silence but for music reflecting my mood. The last slice of this analogy is work. Here there be monsters. I walk up to that door, begin to open, and then shut it. so many questions, so many paths and answers. Do i like what i have? no. why not? because i am inherently a non-lazy type a personality that gets bored quickly. but, i have a cushy job that pays well and allows me to have a busy social life. um, what exactly more do i want? uhhhhh. i don't know. i have never been a person to define myself by my career. should i start? or, even if i do not pick that road, should i find a more challenging job that pays more? but is my quality of life and current amount of free time too valuable?

i continue to grapple. i foresee this as being my summer quandary.

Wanted: dream therapist

I had a series of very intense dreams last night. Vivid and recurring dreams have followed me through the years. I remember some dreams I have had at the age of 10, and I have different dreams that happen at the same places. I call them my Dream Sets. For instance, a dream shopping mall that I could draw out for you. It is not the same dream, but I will have separate dreams at the same dream place. I do have recurring things which are symbolic in my dreams. Like dinosaurs. And horses. I grew up showing horses (jumping and dressage) and my parents still own a stable full. So I can see why horses appear in my dreams. I was not lucky enough to own a brontosaurus, so that confounds me.

I think I have isolated horses as symbolic of my relationship with men. Here is a description of one portion of my dream from last night:

I am at my parents, on a ladder, repairing the house; my horse is wandering around the yard; I am supposed to keep an eye on him because he likes to wander where he could get into trouble; specifically, if he came onto the porch, he could get frightened and jump off the ledge, falling to his death. I am working on the house, and sure enough he comes up to see me, and gets into a predicament where he has two places to go, either walk back off the porch down the steps, or possible fall down off the porch, which looks to be a deadly drop off, and would be fatal. I try to get off my perch so that I can take him by the halter and lead him down before he scares himself and goes the wrong way, but I don't make it in time, and he falls off and dies. I start freaking out, calling for my parents and asking them to call a vet, and crying and saying I am sorry because I was supposed to be more responsible and make sure that it did not happen.

Cool, clammy, opaquely grey Monday aside, the dream has coated me in a film of subconscious phlegm. I thought I would start the week off as happy as I was on Friday, but instead I am tired (footnote) and bewildered.

Footnote: I am utterly knackered because I went out both nights this weekend, which I rarely do. On Friday I had a date with the youngster I met a week before last, at the all night long café in Fulham (the guy owning the house with balcony). I had a really good time but it remains to be seen if we explore further. He is much younger although the gap wasn't a tangible presence. But perhaps I was merely the thirtysomething woman box to be checked. On Saturday I met my ex and his friends with two girlfriends of mine. I have to stop meeting him out for drinks because he always gives me the I still love you speech and I need to give him space (nb I am not the one orchestrating meeting up, but I do need to say no from now on). But I am really proud of myself because despite lack of sleep and hangovers, I managed to declutter flat, clean room, go to gym, do laundry and fulfil my retail therapy prescription at Harvey Nics.

Lucky Dip

I wish. However, I do fantasize about what my steps would be if I were to win the lottery. It is fun to think about; you get in this dreamy-creamy state of being, because you fool yourself into making assumptions that money = everything is o.k. Kind of like dreaming of what it would be like if you were in a healthy and passionate relationship. I hear they exist. Never had one but, the search is fun as long as you keep moving.

My first call would be to a solicitor specializing in tax planning for high net worth individuals, the second call to Coutts to get a financial planner. My third call would be to my parents to tell them the mixed blessing that they have, in which I actually will not be moving back to the US for a very long while, but I can visit more frequently, to the extent that there will be a time limit owing to tax residency status concerns.

Then, I would divide up the ways in which I want to use my winnings. Category A is Humanitarian Theme. Category B is I heart Me.
Category A
Create a restaurant in London that has inventive organic food, excellent customer service, a small, intimate and cohesive ambiance and do not go for a Michelin star or pretend to by pricing it as such. I would ask my friend Emily to be head chef, provided her husband doesn't mind repatriating for a few years. Query, Category A or B?

Maybe not a Category A, but send a Mi Cocina restaurant from Dallas Texas over here. We need you!

Fund two trusts that will annually give to charities. One trust will give to animal charities (WWF, Battersea Dogs), the other to human charities (Cancer Research UK, Stop Obesity in America, etc.)

Give some money to all my relatives including my miserable grandmother, my only living grandparent which is ironic because she likes life the least of all of them. She was fabulously beautiful when young, but refused to grow old with grace. It is like she kicked and screamed and threw tantrums the whole time, trying to make others as miserable as she. Could anything make her feel better? I would find out what I could buy for her to make her remaining days happy. Go ahead and by the fridgerator full of box wine, cartons of smokes, and cat food for her Missy. But perhaps a really nice luxurious flat and a private nurse in the Caribbean for her? My sisters and I live in fear of becoming her.

To bring me down to earth and so that I don't become a constant sighting on OK or Hello, within a few months of setting all this up, I will take at least ½ year to work on a nature preserve and farm in South America. I speak some Spanish which is why I chose South America over Africa.
Category B
This first instance of B almost broaches Category A, but I would set my sisters and parents up with fat trust funds. I would then book a family holiday for all of us. Probably an equestrian Safari. Then (and probably after 9 months as i would need some downtime after a couple of weeks with the family before hanging out with them more...)I would book a girls holiday for the four of us (mom and sisters) in the South Pacific, at a luxurious resort and spa, where we could take cooking lessons, and art lessons, and yummy cultural things like that.

Pay of my enormous law school loans and outstanding university loans. It costs kidneys to get educated well in the US.

After I quit my job and when I come back from working in Costa Rica, I am going to buy property around the world, oversee my restaurant with Emily, and begin my business idea. Of course, to run these businesses, I will have to be uniformed in Chanel, Prada, YSL and Dolce & Gabanna suits. I wonder if I will do as well without the 'succeed or starve' motivation?

Purchase cottage outside Devon coastal village as discussed on previous post; write there when not managing businesses.

Have a decadent weekend long massive party at a xyzShire country house with massive garden; fly my sisters and (the few) friends from the US in for it.

I have not mentioned men. I don't think I need to put them on the agenda. I am sure by just taking care of me, they will involve themselves somewhere. But yes, I was/am having fantasy of hot matthew mcconeaghy looking guy being my lover whilst in Costa Rica. Phew , this was so much fun I am flushing. Back to work!

achtung, and babies

this is my life. not sure why.
off to germany tomorrow. hamburg to be precise. hopefully, lots of rest and walking.

i had a date last night. lovely bloke. maybe too lovely? i need a little edge. but you can't pre judge from just one meeting. he texted after, so i think we will go out again.

but, at 11:30, i get a text from a girl friend saying, at pangea, come meet me.
i go. because i am A. stupid, B. always up for a possible fun experience, C. love the thought of a possible adventure, D. have a drinking problem, or E. all of the above.

i go. actually, we only have a few drinks at the club. meet up with her Italian colleagues; strangely he brought a friend who was a plastic surgeon and used to work in Dallas; we had a proper laugh over Dallas stuff.

hang on. what am i doing? it is 2 am and i am in a club in mayfair.

3 am and we leave and go to Fulham to a 24 hour brunch place, which is heaving with sloanies. end up chatting to the tables to either side of us. there is an american venture capitalist to one side of us. i get his card because i want to network about my business idea. his friend begins flirting with me to anger his female companion. they seemed to have a Friends With Benefits relationship. Then he asked for my number to invite me to some massive dinner party. you just must come darling, its to die for. oh my, i would love to go to your stunning party. blah blah.

the guys to the other side of us, Oxford grads and 25 ish, invite us to have wine at their place. time: 4 am. we go.

to a gorgeous house, where we drink chablis and go to the roof terrace to watch the sun come up. my friend has passed out, but i know i have to go to work so, 6am, the host walks me to Kings road and helps me get a cab. switch digits, blah blah.

i just want to say i don't think this is normal; it is surreal. sometimes, tipsy on wine, i listen to all the talk going on around me, and i think, i can't believe that i am a part of this. 4 years ago, bored off my ass in dallas, without a social life, knowing that i could make it in a bigger pond. and now i have a economy class ticket to the london lifestyle, and get to witness so much regarding human relationships. just to watch the movement is fascinating. i think i am addicted to it, which is why i make the decisions i do, which in hindsight i can't decide whether i made the right decision.

Out There and Back

warning, you might want some caffeine
second version, because the first was scaring people off...

This morning I was reading an article in the Economist about more stunning revelations about the nature of dark energy in the universe.

I find topics of this type absolutely fascinating. Which is ironic because I almost failed Physics in uni. I dated my lab professor, a sweet, naïve little theology student, in order to pass. Tutoring is great.

I digress. But apparently the universe doesn't. According to the article, only 30% ish of the universe is made up of matter that our human senses understand. The rest is dark energy. And of this dark energy, a portion is dark matter. Scientists are using orbiting space crafts dotted around the universe to pick up signs, on a nuclear level, of dark energy. And they keep learning more about this substance, rather than it being disproved, by inferring what it is like based on the behaviour of matter we can "see" or test from a physics perspective.

My mind begins to explode with different lines of thought which are connected to discoveries such as this (caution, assumptions are slippery when wet). As living beings, we define our experience through our senses. Yet our senses do not pick up a majority of what the universe, that thing that we live in, consists of. Are there living beings out there that have senses to pick up what we don't? I believe in God, not the Judeo-Christian God, but a less humanised spiritual power that created everything. But I also believe in other non-human beings, such as angels. I do believe that God has scienter.

So, for me, when reading information about dark energy, I think, why did God create us (and not in the Genesis version) with senses that are so limited. Along that theme, why is it that our brain's capacity limits us to understand intrinsically the way the universe works, the full breath of meaning of the big bang, the size of the universe, in the same way that we can feel a piece cloth under our fingers? If you can grasp the concept of the size of the universe, please tell me how you do it. Are there other beings that can accept and understand all? For me, I would make an assumption that angels do. But what about beings that exist in the world of ours (non-dark energy), but can co-exist or sense the other.

Does anyone else think that it is phenomenal, that of all the substance that makes up the soupy universe that we exist in, we can't detect a majority of it? It is like being on a boat and knowing there is something beneath the blue green waves but you will never know what. Anyhew....
I know it is but Tuesday, but how often do you ponder the origin of the universe? Let's all watch Donnie Darko again and discuss. Or your favourite movie exploring multi dimensional themes.

Date Update

The title is taken from NYC Elle's blog.
Well, I didn't really have much expectation for the Lamborghini Season party last night. I got an invite because i drive a Lamborghini. just kidding. Actually, last weekend i met some gay guys who work for one of the firms sponsering the party. they sent me an invite. Got some numbers. Met some interesting people. and some not so interesting.Got lashed. Woke up with my girlfriend in a hotel room, both of us very late for work. as you do. The guy whose hotel room it was missed his flight back the the US. The looks we received as we left the hotel were scathing. The irony is that other than being drunk and passed out, we were well behaved lasses. Which i am sure disappointed the guy.

Neither of us can remember how we met him and his friends. Nor do we really recall the exact supremely dodgy club we were at in Soho at 3 AM.

So i potentially have two dates from that night.
And, M, the guy in Portsmouth who I met skiing, is coming up in two weeks. I am quite excited about that. Funny, spending time with someone for a week, without the pressure of dating, allows you time to take in information without feeling a time pressure to judge. I really liked getting to know him. And my goodness we actually hung out and talked all week long, thereby organically founding a rapport. and gasp, i still liked him. this rarely happens. Maybe these reasons are similar to why people fall in love at work.

I was on the treadmill at my gym the other night, watching the large screens. Mostly i was focusing on the news. But my eye was caught briefly by the sports channel tuned TV. there was a presenter on there. he was familiar. i know that shape. that slightly receding hair line. that stance. he has four of my cds. it was Speed. working. i laughed and almost fell off. He looked very good. he actually looks better on camera than off. it did feel weird. and i reminded myself of why i broke things off. the double book weekend may have been the final straw, but i wasn't falling in love. I told Tommy, my ex through which i met Speed, via text that Speed was on TV in case he wanted to watch. Tommy, being Tommy, decided to send him a text from an unknown number that said" Speed, i love you, i watch all your shows, my boyfriend does too, but doesn't know that i watch to see you." apparently he texted back.

I was quoted in my home town newspaper, the Dallas Morning News. An article on the subject that i deal with came up on my RSS, and i emailed the author. She quoted my email. Local girl done good. One of my friends is passing it to the partners I used to work for. They gave me the silent treatment during my two weeks notice period.

G and i went for a 45 minute walk today to celebrate the sun. we chatted here and there, every once in a while we would lapse into winding each other up. He was telling me about him going out last night, and getting lashed. And i said, oh really, and how many hearts did you break? he said, that isn't nice, take that back. huh? i thought that was an odd reaction to say to a jest. so i refused to take it back. i said, what? i won't take it back why can't i say that to you, and he says, you can't, you shouldn't say that. odd. not sure what that meant. i also told him about seeing Speed on tv. i have never, ever spoken about men with him. he doesn't tell me about any dates either. he said, why did you break up? i said, long story short, he double booked me, and chose his mates over me. he said, that is harsh of you. hmmm. then he said, sounds like it was serious, and i said, no not really, i think it looked more serious on paper than it felt. Is anything really that serious until you have a boyfriend? and then he says, careful, you are sounding bitter.

i don't want to be bitter. i will not be bitter.

This week I have decided to pilfer from other blogs. I am going to use titles of other blog posts as my titles, and then write accordingly. I hope this does not make any author mad. If so, let me know.

From We Three Bitches (effecting a degrees of separation theme from last post of mine)
Naked Drawers

She stared hard, willing the image to stick to her brain, taking in the emptiness of the space, the faded-ness of the gingham contact paper lining, and the images, like transparent film, of what those drawers have held at different moments. She knew she did not have long. The men in the van just called to say they were around the corner, caught up in traffic.
Why did this feel melancholy? It was only a piece of furniture. A beat up tabby coloured chest of drawers, generic wood, whose mirror had never been found. She envisioned the replacement, trying not to slide in the back of the van. In contrast it had clean lines and warm fine, fine grained wood, with more space and a mirror. Say good bye to the chest that belonged to the little girl. With her clear and unencumbered view of the world. The stuffed bear that used to hide in the third drawer, the flower and lace socks; the mini bras. They disappeared eons ago. As did her mother from cancer. And her father from the pain of seeing his wife die.
It was time for her to live and if she could not move somewhere, she could move the things around her. She stood there for a moment. Listening to her breath, one, two. She could hear the sound of her fingerprint sliding over the edge of the top drawer. Three, the door buzzer sounded, and she turned her back on the chest to go answer the door.