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www.iwasaddictedtogoingintowork.com
I was addicted to going into work.
Well or something anyway, something like that.
You know, I was young, flying high, on a fast-track career path, I worked hard, I played hard, made the right kind of moves... would, let's face it, perhaps be going a bit far, on all kinds of levels, as a place to begin. There's an image round now, or at least there used to be anyway, this particular scene that appeared in the ad breaks, in ads for pensions and so on, for savings, investments and personal loans, of say an eighteen stone biker with a place in the suburbs, with a mortgage, a car and a couple of kids, someone outwardly suspect but in fact right on track, so it just went to show... I don't know if you've seen it, but either way really, I suppose you could say I'm exactly the opposite, a kind of inverse reflection, up here at the desk. Still you do all the same have to try and start somewhere, make some kind of effort, try and sit yourself down, so gazing out now at the mist on the street lamps, at the church on the corner, the grey slick of rain, at the rush hour crowds on their way out the station, the blood red sun sinking over the road, I'd say that as a line... well it just about works, for whatever it is that I think that I'm doing here.
Whch, at the moment, isn't really that clear. It's been three or so weeks and I'm still looking pale, pale, a bit strange in the light on the window, like Hugh Grant's mug shot that night in Los Angeles, would be one way of seeing it, the one he'd rather not talk about, the one I dare say he wishes we'd all just forget. I mean I laughed at the time, I suppose most of us did, but the funny thing is now, I think I know how he felt. At least I say that anyway - I do realise now I'm going out on a limb here, seeing as Hugh Grant's A-list, and I'm... really not, since sitting up here in the February twilight, typing this out with a view of the road, I'd say I'm somewhere sub Z-list, if that even exists. Still, it's a fairly strong image for the Twenty First century, that picture in a way, that half-dazed look in the glare of the cameras, that t-shirt, that haircut, those wide, staring eyes, a kind of poster shot really for a fast-moving world, a world that's speeding up daily, to the point where it's all going to get to you sometime, whether or not you end up on the news. Although, having said that, while Hugh Grant's career since that night in LA has been fine for the most part, mine at the moment seems a lot less assured. I mean to look at me now with all this stuff on the table, cigarettes, laptop, a few books and a beer, sat back at the desk in the last of the sunlight, by the cane chairs, the sofa, and the masks on the wall, by the frayed lattice blinds and the steps to the kitchen, smoke swirling up in the overhead spot, you wouldn't honestly think I was up to doing anything. Which in a way is very possibly true. And I'm really not saying that just to try and sound interesting. Which bearing in mind what I do for a living is probably just as well.
So being addicted, in any case, to going into work. Well as gags go really it's not all that funny, given what happened, how I got to this point. Pretty clearly they're out there, the acute workaholics, I used to know quite a few, used to see them around on the way out the station, round Holborn, round Ludgate, in the grey early light, but while that most mornings was about how I looked, still look around now, it's really not how I felt. Or to put it another way, it's been hard to movely lately for true-life confessions, for memoirs and so on, for celebrity diaries, for cris-de-couer, ghost-writes and what you call them, auto-bloke-ographies, real live people in real situations, that type of thing, and this to be honest isn't that kind of story.
Or at least it is in a way, in a roundabout way, just not in a sense that really fits the whole profile. I mean it's fair enough these days to read up on gangsters, on life as according to old school hard men, their morals, their values, their headcount and so on, but what they have to do, to get their stuff in the bookshops, is slip enough to get caught in the first place, if you see what I mean. So it's strange now to think this, in fact it's just plain disturbing, but as things stand, at least from one point of view, I'm not only more of a threat, I suppose, to the whole legal system, would be one way of putting it, but also better at it, than something like half of the true crime section, lined up on the shelves at a Borders near you. That I'm still not sure how it happened exactly, and a lot of it still doesn't really make sense... isn't round now really all that important - as obscure as I am here, as I must be by now, there's still a lot to be said for just not saying anything, at least for a while.
Still, there's a quote, I think, in Poe's The Black Cat, something on the lines of " For tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul... " It's not that bad exactly, I'd say tomorrow at worst I'll wake up around lunchtime, not sure where I am, trying to get up, get dressed and then get to the office, I've done that a few times, at least a couple by now, but... well whatever, you get the general idea. So there are one or two things I feel I ought to explain, that probably need to be out there somewhere, just not, ideally, where they'll make much impression. So I thought in the end I'd put this out on the net, with worldcom and so on, with the virtul pub, with everyone else who's just floating around here, the tens of millions by now, because what's one more in the scheme of things anyway, and who, let's face it, is going to pay much attention ? I mean as websites go it's got nothing much going for it, no angle, no backing, no market appeal. As far as I can make out, this is much the same thing as a drop in the ocean, or something washed up on a hot-crowded beach - unless anyone's after a change of employer and hits the wrong key, there's as much chance realistically, of it attracting much interest, And even supposing that actually happened, who's going to sit down and seriously read it when it's drifting through cyberspace, through the virtual marketplace, as I was addicted to going into work ? Unless, admittedly, they were up late anyway with no particular plans. Well it's either that I suppose, or somebody somewhere's just bored at the office, and killing off valuable company time, in which case either way we should all be okay here. And if not, well I could after all just be making it up, so... |
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