Ducks and Satellites

So, go on, who found the 'I've got a Ferrari in me yet' corny? OK, I'll be the first to say that I did. Although at the time of writing I meant it and still agree with it on re-reading, I still blush when I see it sitting there. On the internet. Being read by people. But that's the beauty of this. A little bit of honesty spewed out in a corner of my bedroom onto the World Wide Web. Maybe I should have thought a bit harder about my relationship with blogging before setting out on this little project. Oh well. Too late now.

It's about six months since I started writing this. I recently flicked back to the very first posting in which I triumphantly announced my departure from newspapers. Beginning on a note of panic, cleverly/clumsily disguised as self-deprecation, I had no idea what was going to unfold in the coming months but what I was definitely setting myself up for was a torrent of honesty. You can't really start to write something as self-indulgent as this without being honest. It's short-changing people. If you're going to talk about yourself, don't lie - it just spoils things. So, the Ferrari comment, that was me. Sometimes really honest just isn't cool. Hence the invention of punchy headlines and compromising press photos. Putting your thoughts to music also seems to add a cool shine to them. A recent musical obsession of mine is a very nice Australian lady called Kate Miller-Heidke. She writes about how ducks don't need satellites and about falling in love with the journalist who regularly interviews her. Yes, ducks and satellites, you did read right. I suppose it is all a bit odd but I enjoy her alternative reality. I can relate to it.

Having time does do strange things to your thought processes. You can allow your mind to wander. In fact, after a while, it wanders of its own accord. After about the first month of behaving rather hysterically about my unemployed situation (that was around the time of the one million emails a day to media organisations), I ran out of things to do. There were times in the week when I just had to sit back and let people answer my calls and respond to my emails before pouncing on them again. It was in these moments that I began to develop an interest in things outside of job-seeking. I remembered that there was an International Slavery Museum in Liverpool that I'd always meant to go to and that I had a few books I'd wanted to read for a while. I began walking to places too. In fact, just walking for the hell of it. A friend recently commented on the walking: "Saw you stomping down the road the other day! Was waiting at the traffic lights and there you were! You're a funny one." As if walking had gone out of fashion and I'd been caught in the act of extreme uncoolness. Leaving out the people who have cruelly commented on my 'dossing' (Ouch. Sore point), others have been perplexed as to how I have filled my days. They forget that, in their world, a weekend is framed by five days of work, rendering the weekend a 'holiday'. In my world, there is no such framing technique which means that there is only time - no weekend of holiday. You have to create a week. I have so far managed this fairly successfully. Monday to Friday I'll make my phonecalls, send my emails, fill in my application forms, do all my panicking. I'll only wander around the shops on weekends, as well. That is a weekend activity. Of course, money is rarely parted with. But that's not the point. It's about keeping up with the rest of the world. "I see they have new blazers in Topshop" is the kind of knowledge that feeds light-hearted chat on the phone. What is on BBC1 at 3 is the afternoon does not. Which I why I, thankfully, never gave in to the daytime TV temptation. It only loses you friends for, not only do they resent you for being able to watch it, but they can't discuss plot-lines or topics of the day with you anyway. So it's pointless. Enter museums and galleries. They have been a pretty healthy substitute for me of late. Although, admittedly, the free museums and galleries of Merseyside, while fairly great in number, do not six months of unemployment fill. But every little helps, as they say.

But however much you try, there's always the guilt. You can sit at a desk 9-5, stare at Facebook for the duration, leave at the end of the day, and legitimately bemoan your tired eyes, sore feet and buzzing head. "God, what a day! I'm so glad to be home!" you'll cry. I've done it. And yet no amount of emailing, panicking and head buzzing justifies your existence if you're unemployed. You can complain about not having a job but about nothing else. The sole purpose of your life is to secure that job. However, the longer the unemployment goes on, the less patient others become. 'Oh come on' they muse sceptically 'surely it's not that difficult.' But the transition from busy newsroom to very quiet corner of bedroom is a tough one. I can hear the sceptics guffawing. But that's the honest bit.

Some things remain the same; I'm still writing, for instance. About myself and not other people, but still writing. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if I had a greater readership now than I had six months ago. Secondly, the balance in my bank account is, give or take a couple of pounds, in exactly the same condition as it was back in December mainly as a result of me shedding my London rent. I'm not rich. In fact, I am poor. But I have read a bit more and seen a bit more than I saw in all of my working time. I've discovered a musician who sings about ducks, I've lingered over some art, I've walked. And I've written this blog. It has been my alternative reality. A reality that has not been easy to stomach in many ways but which, in other ways, has furnished me with some opportunities that may otherwise have passed me by. I only hope that, when September comes and I launch myself onto another educational institution, I will remember what it is to enjoy time in the ways that I have done over the past few months.