Roundabout - July 24 2002

06.46am I have just woken up, the cats have been fed and I am
completely knackered. I get up at 6.15 am each week day and I am
falling asleep. It takes a while to wake up in the morning and build up
enthusiasm for work, but I go anyway as it is my job. I am testing the
app still, and the spectre of regression testing is hanging in the
balance. It is mind numbingly boring but it has to be done.

I wrote a poem to ... on the mobile, as it is something I have always
wanted to do. I can sit on the train and write some words that I feel
and send them, usually at Laindon where the reception on Orange is
pretty bad. But they always get thru.

"Thinking of you
I smile
I hear your voice
I smile
Happy together now"

The other part is that there are only so many messages you can store on
the phone and it is very hard deciding which to keep and which to
erase.

So the morning went, zip and I am outside in the street and I ring ...
and their phone is off. And I try again, but it is not on, and I panic
and I am leaning against the wall, thinking of all the things I said
and whether this means the end, and I am shaking and then I walk a bit
and I look in a shop window at music boxes which are so expensive, and
I can feel tears in my eyes, and so I texted them and asked if we can
talk and if I had said something wrong? And then they texted back and
said No, they had just switched their phone on, so I rang them and I
was so happy and relieved I babbled for a bit. The height of despair to
the depths of emotion in a minute flat. I wandered a bit further so I
am outside Marks and Spencers and I smile and I dig them and they dig
me. I sang them part of a song because thats another thing I wanted to
do, regardless of people in suits wandering past wondering why I am
singing into a mobile phone with a crazy look on my face. I went in HMV
and bought a stack of CDs to celebrate including a lot of Green Day.
Then I got my usual panini and latte in Starbucks, and I have the
pastrami, but they did have a Croque M'Sieur hiding. In the afternoon,
more testing, and a few more bugs found. I get the train and read all
the Green Day lyrics which although they are songs I am reading like a
set of poetry, and I dont know what they sound like. When I get off the
train my head is full of songs.

I get in and find out what Green Day sound like, and put on Dookie,
Nimrod and Warning, and Dookie is brilliant - its like I have heard
them before, but cant have done because I only bought the CD today. My
wife gets in from work (as she travels to London from time to time) and
we have something to eat. I have chicken soup. Then I go online, having
pointed out that I will not be watching Big Brother as when I am
chatting I lose the thread. ... tells me they got the packet I sent
them yesterday with the CDs in it. And they have sent me something too.
Although we are far apart we spend the evening listening to music, and
talking. Then I got disconnected and I couldnt talk to them for a very
short while, and then I can again, and then my wife is saying I have to
go to bed. Actually appeared and demanded that the laptop is shut down
like right now. Or else I will be sleeping on the floor downstairs. I
dont have a sleeping bag.

I am lying in bed and I smile for a bit before I fall asleep. I may get
a walkman tomorrow.

I am still figuring out what to wear to Reading, I mean its no big deal
but if it rains I dont want to be wearing sunny clothes and likewise if
it is sunny I dont want to wear clothes designed for extreme
conditions. I expect I'll end up wearing a surfing shirt in a
storm.

I just put the Jam Live at the BBC on, but played quietly. It is a
great album. What do we see when we look in a mirror? It it ourselves
as we are or as we hope to be? We all have to deal with emotional stuff
at some stage or other. It is like a dream I have from time to time
where I have to chose between two people.