Off the top of my head

It’s been a long time since my last entry. Every time I write in here, I promise myself that I will write more often. But then everytime I write I want my entry to be beautiful, whole and perfect … and I rarely have any ideas for entries that strike me as more than bitty, potentially entertaining, but flawed. And even when I have those ideas, I don’t make time to write them down. So instead of a structure, I thought I’d give you a selection of the thoughts rattling around the head of a rumtumtugger in January ’07

1. I had new year’s irritation. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it for a week or two. Perhaps irritation is too strong a word. New year’s grumbling feeling of dis-satisfaction. Once I’d realised I was dis-satisfied, I had to pause in order to locate my dis-satisfaction. ‘Why aren’t I a writer?’ This was the name of my dis-satisfaction, and once I’d named it, it began to grow, ‘Furthermore, why aren’t I a journalist?’ I used to do some journalism. I used to write a weekly column for (the teenage page of) my local paper when I was seventeen. I even did some proper, grown-up freelance journalism in my gap year before university. So what happened to that?

Obviously I know the answers… I’m not a novelist because I haven’t finished the second draft of my novel. I’m not a writer because I never write anything: not even in here. I have a half-dream of writing a blog so splendid and devastating that it would spread like wildfire by word of mouth, and be an overnight hit, spawning instant book deals, and fame. I do rather feel that to do this might require me to actually put some words together occasionally, though…

2. My hair is very long at the moment. I also have a new pair of glasses: slightly funky ones, with blue rectangular frames. With my long, long hair, and blue glasses, I feel as though I look like someone else. I don’t know who that person is, but I think she looks quite trendy.

3. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the toilets at work the other day, and before I could stop myself, I thought, "Jesus, when did I get fat?" (But I am still too much of a food-lover, and too lazy to do anything constructive about it)

4. I bought a light-box. Finally. Having promised poor Jack every February, in the midst of weeping ‘because my life is a mess’, that I would buy one for the following year…. Jack finally forced me to buy one in the autumn. I’ve been putting it on every morning while I sit at my desk. I have no way of knowing if it’s helping. I think it is. Perhaps that’s what counts.

5. Whilst not job hunting today (on the Guardian jobs website) I found an advert for my ideal next job. It sneaked up on me, and jumped out and bit me on the nose. The person specification may as well have said, ‘And your name must be therumtumtugger’, it was completely uncanny.

In truth I am probably not quite qualified enough for it. But I increasingly think that I don’t really want the jobs that I am qualified for. I found a job today that I know I could do. But it would be just like my current job – so why move? I think I might apply. But then I might not. I’d be a fool to apply. I’d be a fool not to apply…

…which brings me neatly onto…

6. Jack and I are still trying to have a baby. Which obviously means I shouldn’t really be thinking about applying for other jobs. I should be thinking about maternity benefits, and other such sensible things.

7. Jack and I got a cleaner. I am racked with guilt at how little she earns, even as I simultaneously rejoice in the fact that our house is not only clean, but that I didn’t have to do it.

There. Not a great entry. But a start? I will resolve to come on here at the weekend and write all about trying to conceive, which has been, I have to say, completely bizarre….
In the meantime, I will leave you, with love, as ever,
therumtumtugger
xxxx