Its kinda weird whats happening right now.. at this very minute…. at fifteen minutes after noon… here… now….

I’m sitting here in a nice new (to me) office in the commercial department looking out over a great (kinda) view of the city… watching people walk by on the street below or moving around in the offices opposite… bustling along… getting on with their lives… I think about what type of life they may have.

Theres this guy in an office on the other side of the street.. I can see him now… hes only a young guy.. always nicely dressed.. (today its a red striped shirt) I think we’ve nodded and smiled at each other in and around the area… yanno.. parking our cars and walking to our offices… Well right now.. I’m watching him…. as he drinks his coffee that he got from the cool coffee maker that sits on the window sill on the other side of his office… (we don’t have that luxury). I’ve noticed that he always actually stops what he is doing to drink his coffee… not drinking it on the run like I do.. he actually stops and drinks it.. enjoy it… sometimes he drinks it leaning on the window sill looking out of the window into the street below.. sometimes he walks into another office next to his and talks to a couple of guys in there who share the room.. and occassionaly he goes into the office on the other side of him where a lady works.  I think shes his boss.. I’m not sure why I think this… its just that he goes in and out of her office a lot.. and she has lots of meetings… Anyway… as I sit here looking at him I can’t help but wander what type of life he has… how great it is… if it is great… whether he goes home at night to a loving family home… or to a lonely house with no one there but a fish tank and leftovers…. or does he still live at home with his parents or is he miles away from his family… trying to cope.

I dunno.

I tried to see what he was looking at whilst he was drinking his coffee and it looks like hes people watching too… but looking down at the street. Theres a lady walking along the street with two children… one of the children is in one of those expensive three wheeled buggies… the other walking along earnestly beside her… trying to keep up. Are they both hers… I don’t know… they do look well organised… so might be a family…. but then what kind of family are they. Is she struggling to make ends meet on benefits and handouts.. (is that where she has just come from.. the Benfits office around the corner??) or is she really out on a secret Christmas shopping mission whilst her husband is at work…. earning thousands in some job that earns them loads but keeps him away from his young family… does he secretly wish he could jack it all in so that he could stay home and watch his children grow up??? Probably… isn’t that what we would all love to do???? Be comfortable enough to stay home so that we can enjoy our loved ones… 

It occurs to me whilst I sit here gazing out of the window watching all these people… that they are all going about their daily lives… getting on with it… and what would they think my life was like if they saw me… what conclusions would they draw from the way I am dressed and the way I behave. I don’t know.
I don’t think that they would guess for one minute that there isn’t anywhere in the world I would rather be right now than in freezing cold Oregon curled up in bed next to My Boy… fighting with him and Brodie the Wonder Dog for the covers… wanting to be there so I can dive out of bed when he gets in the shower to run downstairs and make him coffee and a quick breakfast for him to enjoy before he goes off to work…
Do you think they would even speculate that I met a man over 5 years ago and lost my heart to him within 6 months of meeting him… would they ever imagine that hes 5,000 miles away from me…. would they dream that I’m devoted to him.. devoted to making this work… but that I’m starting to get scared because I feel my life passing me by without him… I don’t think they wold ever imagine that in their wildest dreams.
I’m sitting here… in suspended animation almost.. not going forwards… only able to look back on memories that have been replayed in my mind so often they almost seem like the repeats on the tv.

I sit here… and wait… just waiting.  Waiting to get on with the rest of my life… waiting for him.

How is it that no matter what time I go to bed.. no matter where I sleep… be it on the couch or my bed… I wake up almost every night between 3.30 and 4.00am.. Its been happening for weeks now…. no months.. and it really doesn’t matter how tired I am… once I have woken up I stay awake and restless until my alarm goes off at 6.

Tonight is another example of how its been going recently… I went to bed at just after 10pm… battled with my wheezy chest for about an hour before finally falling asleep… and then when I started to stir between 3.30 and 4… my cough became so irritating that I couldn’t even stay in bed and rest.. I would have woken HB up…. so… rather than lie there… I’m here.. reading the news.. drinking tea… and writing in my journal….

Its 5.00am…. I’m going to drink my tea and rest my elbows on the Kitchentable

Its now 5.23am.. I’m eating treacle tart and drinking another cup of tea. I’m sure thats not good for me… but then again my appetite has been so squiffy this past week that I’m pleased I actually WANT to eat something at this time of the morning… and it does mean I’ve got the rest of the day to work it off….

As I sat down this evening to write in my journal I was full of anger.. annoyance.. disappointment… disillusionment… and I wanted to rant. I wanted to moan and complain and whine about how I’m feeling about being let down again and again and again by the same person over and over but I stopped myself and, as I sat looking at the screen… I realised that the reason I didn’t want to type the things I was bursting to say was because I didn’t want to open myself up to the ridicule of people who I can’t even to claim to have a fleeting acquaintence with. The few (around 5) regular visitors to my journal. I didn’t want any of them to say quietly.. under their breath.. as they read what I was saying.. “sucker… fool.. idiot…”

This made me start thinking about how much I have changed the way I write over the years since I have been putting my thoughts on the net rather than in the privacy of my paper journal. I have copious journals… I’ve written my thoughts down intermittently for just about as long as I can remember. I have a couple of archive boxes packed tight with all my books I have written in over the years.  I still have one that sits in one of my drawers under my bed. I last used it in Oregon in July of 2004.

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So HB wasn’t feeling so hot this morning when she woke up so she climbed back into bed and an executive decision was made to stay off school today which means I stayed home too… In my experience if I hadn’t called the school to tell them that HB wasn’t attending today they wouldn’t have noticed she wasn’t around. From my understanding of HB’s school.. if a pupil doesn’t turn up for class no big deal is made about it and they are just marked absent. Now… if my daughter doesn’t turn up for class how do they know for sure that she is home??? How do they know that she wasn’t hurt or in an accident or worse still picked up by someone on the way to school. They don’t… but…. and this is the bit that really infuriates me… the school doesn’t call anyone to check where a pupil is if they don’t hear from a family member.

Somehow I ended up reading about RFID Tagging on Wikidpedia today *snores* and followed a link.. and another and another… you know how it goes and I ended up reading this old post on The Register.

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Its been an incredibly shitty week… not helped by my childish attitude towards the whole office situation at the moment…

But rejoice!!!! HB is home… and its sooooooooooooo good to have her back…

We celebrated in the time old fashion of pizza and Ben and Jerrys Cookie Dough whilst she regaled me with the horror story that is staying with SD for a week…. in a caravan… in the rain… in Mullion… in Cornwall…

Shes pleased to be home.

And I’m pleased shes back….