I miss sleeps

First day back at work. I spent most of my time perfecting my 'performance artist's impression of a 'tut' through movement and facial expression'. It went down a treat (by which I mean most people left me alone all day). I don't even know why I found it so depressing going back, (well, apart from the fact that I can't spend 70 per cent of my day sleeping anymore) but, given that I only have a few months to go before I get to spend a whole chunk of time not washing my hair very often and panicking that I'm not going to catch my train in many different timezones and countries, AND I think I may even have a new work pal to gad around the place with (all thanks to not being a miserable curmudgeon at the Christmas doo... Imagine! A friend! I might even be able to have conversations with more than myself and the items of stationary I've given names and character traits to on my desk. But this is very tentative so let's not get out hopes up too high eh? I'm still me after all).

The mystery of my work-related melancholy was puzzling me until I got to the bit in this book that talks about how great primary school was (albeit with lashings of irony and insightful humour). I realised that the dull ache I have in my stomach when I think about work matches up exactly with the dull ache I get/got in my stomach when I think/thought about school. I'm not just talking about the usual 'uh-oh it's Sunday evening and I haven't done my homework yet' dull ache that everyone got, this was a special feeling that I'm not sure everyone recognises, the; 'oh Christ. Not that again. Haven't I been through this torture enough yet? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE SEVEN MORE YEARS OF THIS TO GO?!! I've already been putting up with this crap for six years already! That's more than half my freaking life!'

School was literally just something I had to plow through before I got enjoy the good stuff*, (save for a brief time just before I left my first secondary school when it all kind of alright. I often wonder what would have become of me had I stayed in an environment where I fitted in... I doubt I would be nearly as bitter and twisted but that's part of why I love me so let's keep it all the way it was. For now). Most of the top five memories of my childhood come from managing to find increasingly sophisticated ways of skiving off school and getting my mum's undivided attention for a whole day. Other good memories include; finding outfit combinations for my Barbies that were fashionable and flattering (the play part of the Barbie escapades holds less allure. Normally those slutty little Barbies just ended up having sex with the better looking Ken doll I possessed. In fact, I can't remember one situation; fashion behemoth Barbie, professional artist Barbie, famous singer Barbie, that - in the end - didn't just denigrate into a tawdry show of her minxing her way into Ken's pants. The male readers may find this surprising but I know for a fact most of my friends had similarly whoreish Barbies. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not me being some kind of precocious sexual deviant anyway. I digress, point is I liked the dressing up aspect the most), finishing Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo, the rather sophisticated imaginary games my brother and I used to play - including one that started with me as his mother, him having to kill me to save the future of his planet (can't remember why exactly but do know there was a complicated ritual involved as it was part of a religious ceremony) and then me getting reincarnated as his crime-fighting buddy going around as renegade's to keep the planet from being overrun by 'the bad guys'. At the end we both died and then were always reincarnated again as brother and sister who went and had a picnic (usually consisting of kit-kats and Ribena). If I heard an eight and a four-year-old came up with that now I'd be extremely disturbed and worry for their future selves - particularly given that it sounds like an elaborate plot of a schlocky sci-fi film from Eastern Europe (and this is just the pretend world that I can remember. I dread to think what other twisted shit we came up with at the time... ). It does, however, lend credence to the fact that the 'me' that I recognise as 'me' hasn't changed from when I first remember having conscious thought. The inner monologue that analyses everything for me (darn you inner monologue, darn you to heck) and has always kept an objective eye on mine and other's actions, is the same as it always was. Outwardly my appearance and output of expression (i.e. I use bigger words now) have changed dramatically but I think it's just that I have learned to articulate all the crazy shit that goes on in my mind box better. Noone else ever seems to talk about this though. Childhood is thought of as a completely different landscape inhabited by alien-beings that have no real connection with the adults they later become, save for the space and time dimensions they happen to occupy remaining more or less similar. Yet, the older I become the bigger the feeling of relief that all those years spent not feeling 'quite right' were just that I wasn't the right person as yet. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very clearly but imagine that all the thoughts I put down here were in an eight-year-old's head... because I'm pretty sure a lot of them were but I didn't know what they were or how to manifest them. For a brief time I did wonder if all that 'not quite right-ness' meant I was a big gay lesbian but, luckily for my parents, in fact I'm not... well, maybe mildly, but let's not go into that now.

That wasn't the point... The point is that none of my happy go-to youth memories were formed around school. Above and beyond being a freakish child, part of the reason I hated school so fervently was that I just seem to have a natural disposition towards despising all institutions. I don't like being told what to wear, how to act, where and when to do things, and I certainly don't like rules that have no logical basis - which is what made up most of the school codes I was expected to swallow (I'm more than happy to accept rules that I don't like, or don't benefit me personally, if I can understand why they are there). Not that I was a rebel, I just got on with it and hoped no-one pointed and laughed at me too often. And yet, when I need money I always seem to find myself in an office job. The more astute of you may realise that offices ARE institutions. Particularly those affiliated with the Government. Now, I get what Lucy Mangan is saying, given that the book itself is a nostalgic look of what it is to be a girl and that most geek girls loved primary school. But I hated it. I guess I've always craved being free to do whatever the hell it is I want to do but experience shows that, when I'm left to my own devices for too long, I get progressively insane and lazy. I have this idea that if I could just live then I'd be spending my time creating - painting and writing to my hippy-heart's content - but in all honesty I know I'd just get R.S.I. from too much Guitar Hero and get sucked into watching Come Dine With Me marathons. Although, at the moment, that lifestyle doesn't sound too bad. I need to weigh up my options on this score a little more methinks. Queen of the Dole Queue does have a certain ring to it after all.

*i.e. sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, being comfortable with my freakness, etc.