25.04.06..11:04 am

Briefly, quite casually in fact, I mentioned last week that I'd been offered a job and was about to accept it. I did. And with it, brand new hopes of kitten ownership and moving back to Stokey and a promising career in publishing should the professor thing not work out all bubbled and burst in me. Of course, it was all contingent on them allowing me to grace my current employers with the courtesy of four weeks notice, and though I'm heading off to Aiya Fucking Napa in June, I didn't think anything of it. I banished the niggly thoughts of "Holy shit!" and "Is this really what I want?" to the back of my mind and waited as instructed til Monday (yesterday) to find out what the managing director had to say about my request.

He said no. They'd had a think over the weekend and decided, in view of the wedding in Aiya Fucking Napa, it was the 9th of May and that was final.

At first I thought, Fine, I can deal with this and told the guy who would be my immediate supervisor that I was sure there would be no problem, but I'd let him know.

I walked away from the cafe I'd sat in, and doubt seeped like a growing storm. By the time I'd reached Ocean Secondhand Books I knew it was wrong. There was no panic, just an ever-growing sense of heaviness. It was too forced. Too rushed. Like going out with someone and having a fantastic time until you get in the cab and they start pulling up your skirt without warning. The lack of 'rightness' weighed painfully within my chest, nestled between my lungs and my heart. It just wasn't right, it wasn't good, and it was in direct conflict to all the things I'd told myself in gearing up to hear the 15th of May would be fine.

I called him back. I told him my current employers won't budge. It makes no difference.

Their refusal leaves me stranded. Heavy with self-reproach I slide. I reach from the iron girder of hte fence behind me, my fingers miss. I knew he was talking, even though I couldn't respond. The air about me twisted. Like an acid flashback. Even the trees seemed to get tighter. Somewhere inside small explosions began going off. If I was able to think at all I'd have noticed the pain in my left hand which was now caught in a crook in the fence. I hadn't breathed, I simply sank.

There was a brief pause in the line. For a moment I thought my mobile had cut, that we'd said our good-byes and I'd missed it. My lungs posed ready to start up again when he reiterated their position. Shortly, completely, with no exceptions their demands were final and I had only the choices they presented.

"I'll have to get back to you," I said.
"I'm sorry to put you in this position," he said back.

Liar.

Later I decided that I hoped my voice had been calm. I can't remember hearing it.

And that was yesterday. The funny thing is that in my excitement of last week there had been a grain in me that knew it wasn't right. I don't know why I keep using that word, but there you are. Nothing about it seemed right. That the guy who would be my supervisor had to ask his MD if I could start a week later than asked. That the, industry standard, four weeks notice was an issue at all. That I've had but one interview and was offered the job. That surely I'd not used all my resources. That I'd be leaving in the middle of term so suddenly. It was the abruptness of it all. None of this seemed right.

My parents had both pushed for me to take it. "Don't make mistakes you'll regret," they kept saying. But, I argued, what if taking it is a mistake? I asked other people, Matthew, Zanna, R., people I trust. They all said I should take it. They laughed at the reticence in my voice, all saying it's a great opportunity! it's a foot in the door! take it! So I did.

Yesterday afternoon, after I had spoken to the editor a second time and was told definitely the 9th or nothing, I called my Dad. From my mobile. The heaviness hadn't lifted and I didn't know what to do. He listened with more patience than I gave him credit when I dialled. He didn't like that they wouldn't allow me to give my current employers the consideration of four weeks any more than I did and proclaimed them bastards, "the lot of them!"

Mum called almost immediately after Dad and I hung up.

"Emmms, you're doing the right thing. Go with your instinct. Really you've known from the beginning; if you had really wanted the job it wouldn't have mattered when they want you to start, you'd have wanted to start a week earlier than even that."

She told me to sleep on it regardless and that, come the morning, I would know what to do.

This morning I awoke with a clear head, unmuddied by anxiety or distress, heaviness left, and called to withdraw my acceptance.

I called Matthew after I'd hung up and I could hear his relief over the phone.

"Good for you," he breathed. "You're making the right choice. ...How do you feel?"

****emmms

19.04.06..8:35 am

Was it rainy and miserable to commiserate the Catholics' loss/God's gain of Jesus where you were this weekend? It looked like the arse end of a lead pipe all Friday, most of Saturday and a threatening part of Sunday down here and it stunk. Stunk? Happy Easter!

(I should add a brief note here that while such exclamations may appear slightly pedantic and/or needlessly offensive, it was my fucking birthday Friday and our housewarming party Sunday and it was pretty goddamn inconsiderate of the skies to be so disobliging.)

Right. So it's been a while. Less my being a witless wanker on the writerly front, more my being deeply entrenched in a flat-hunt/flat-fing/flat-loss cycle for a month before safely entering the FLAT FOUND HURRAH! phase and realising there's merely a week between find and move.

What was that?

So yes, one month ago yesterday, Matthew and I emptied one flat and filled another. Somewhere in the process we realised that all the furniture we enjoyed before didn't actually belong to us and had to go out and buy our own; so now I am joint-owner of more bookshelves than humanly necessary and the most delightfully crap TV stand ever. We bought it off a pair of Stoke Newington Pikeys (and before you think I'm being all racist or national frontist or any other ist, let it be known that they are IN FACT Pikeys and quite proud of the fact. They are dodgy fuckers too, spitting in the face of the Guy Ritchie Pikey with a little too much ease.) It took them four days longer to deliver than originally planned and I could hear them cackling as they sped off while I stood gazing at the jagged edges of the snapped once-central bit that held the back brace together, blank bemusement spreading. Two of the support bolts that hold up the top shelf were missing too. And when I dismantled it to give it a clean I realised the 'character' I so fell in love with was actually the product of a Frankensteinian marriage between two broken bits of cabinet slapped together with a lick of yellow paint.

I made a half-hearted attempt to inform them of their mistakes, but in the end opted to let the TV slide minutely with every bus that rumbles down the hill and swear never to be brought in by Wile E. Pikey again.

I have to admit though, there is something rather wholesome about living on a council estate with Pikeys selling 'used' furniture just down the road. Twee Crouch End is far more twee than Twee Stoke Newington. In Twee Stoke Newington the plethora of second hand bookshops and young, professional couples pushing their glowing, healthy babies in perambulators the size of tanks rub shoulders with the kosher bagelries and halal kebab shops, the slowly rambling, aged Orthodox Religious couples with their wealth of grandchildren with unusual ease. Here Twee Crouch Enders have had an entire demi-mountain range place about them spcifically so that such dangerous shoulder contact need not happen. The difference between the Crouch End valley and Stroud Green/Finsbury Park (which you may recognise as my haunt from a couple of years ago) is stark and startling. The hill literally stands as a divisive shaft between a normal, London cultural 'melting pot' and nervous small town mentality. Crouch End far more whitebread and less charitable than I remembered. For some reason I remembered Crouch End as being a sort of bohemian haven, a Stokey-in-the-Hills if you will. I think my niggling distaste for the people of Crouch End is, perhaps, a mite unfair as most of my time here has been spent haggling with Tesco's employees about their draconian adhesion to the old licensing laws and being shouted at by newsagents.

I hope I'm wrong about these initial observations, it will be intolerable to live in such curtain-twitching surroundings for very long. On the other hand I did stumble upon the Ally Pally Farmer's Market on Sunday, which has raised my opinion of the place tenfold. And apparently some guy from some black metal band who bites the heads off pigeons on stage and claims to be a satanist lives on the other side of the valley, so that makes it a little more interesting as well.

In any case, the internet I promised last entry didn't come until this week. For reasons that were never fully explained to me, The Telewest Bastard Phone Company (tm) needed to get permission from my landlord to enter the building. Fair enough, however they didn't tell me that. Or at least not until I called to tell them I'd been waiting ten days for their call and what was going on. It was at that point that I was also told that despite two attempts being made on getting me hooked up already, they hadn't done the logical thing and slotted me in for the next available appointment. Instead I was stuck back at the end of the queue with everyone else. And no I didn't leave them for BT because, as I explained above, bum sex is fun.

Whatevs, the bottom line is that I'm now a full member of the internet club again and I will cling to that. Like a cliff-jumper that changed their mind. Like one of those kids from Brat Camp that doesn't like heights. I will cling.

We are now inundated with nooks, and have several crannies at our disposal; all the south side wall slant at 45degree angles. There are two walk-in closets and a crawl space under the floor that runs the length of the flat, and a sort of weird flat closet off the living room that looks very much like it's about to lead into something, but disappointingly goes nowhere. We've just enough room for a studio for Matthew, albeit a cosy one, but, by Matthew's reckoning, no room for a kitten. What with the internet (hark, the angel chorus) being returned happy and healthy to my awaiting bosom and the boxes finally unpacked, it all seems pretty blissful.

Although, really, it wasn't blissful at all until last Thursday when Matthew bought the last bookshelf we will need until June when I'm allowed to start buying books again, and then on Saturday we added a wall-to-wall shelf above the kitchen counter. The former is only funny because it's true, and as soon as June comes I'm going to be right back to having no money and no time to read. We stuck it in the closet in the living room to give people something to ponder when they come round. The eight boxes containing those books I could not bear to part with have now all a home. As far as I'm concerned, this is simply good sense rather than obscene squirreling: if I am to be a professor I will need many books of many genres and there is no point in buying them all again. You see? I'm thinking of my future. Mind you, the further eight boxes-worth I've been eyeing up in secondhand shops across the city are jostling nervously in my mind and I'm almost inclined to agree with Matthew that all my 'planning for the future' amounts to is being reduced to putting bookshelves in closets.

The latter is not funny, but divine, glorious and deparately necessary. Whomever it was that made the final decision as to which fitted kitchen was to be fitted is a moron. For no reason at all we have a metre deep counter and no shelves anywhere. As to the two (teeny) kitchen cupboards built in beneath the counters, both were deemed too large and cut unceremoniously in half by Retardo the Kitchen Wizard. It would seem that the extensive storage space of the rest of the flat is enough.

In any case, the shelf in the kitchen was constructed by my dearheart's own sweet hands Saturday afternoon and has since ladened itself with all our kitchenware beautifully.

I would like to point out for the record that I did try to help. I made scientific measurements and notched pencil scratches in the timber and pointed out that the drill bit being used was plenty big enough, but beyond that I'm afraid I simply wasn't allowed to partake. It should also be noted that this is not because of any chivalry on the part of my dearheart. It was not the state of my delicate fingers or fraught nerves that with subtle glances he refused my participation. Drunk with power and sawdust he banished me to stare moodily at the kitchen wondering when I could have a go. Unfortunately, any tools I had would have been left in Canada except for a lonely screw-driver and some duct tape, thus I was unable to go out and buy some timber of my own to play with sulkily in the corner while Matthew drilled along merrily making such useful things as shelves.

Regardless, all these little preparations are to serve the additional purpose of impressing all when they stopped over for hot cross buns and an egg hunt Sunday evening for our housewarming/birthday/Easter Wahoo! party which turned out to be a tremendous, drunken success.

Except for the part where I sprained my left ankle. Three days after spraining the right ankle whilst (possibly illegally) dumping large items of rubbish in the estate next door. But that's decidedly another story. As is the fact I was offered a job yesterday morning, and in twenty minutes time will agree to take it.

****emmms, is walking on air

25.03.06..7:08 pm

Not dead, just moved. Feeling vaguely smug with myself for having managed to pick up a series of kitchen needs for under �14 during an afternoon trawl through charity shops. I'm now the proud owner of

1 enormous frying pan, actually a gift for Matthew so he may cook meatily and not contaminate my stuff
1 wire-mesh strainer, large
1 wire-mesh strainer, weeny
1 standing cheese grater
1cream and red enamel saucepan with lid and......
1 set of Salter scales that are at least forty years old, are in imeccable condition and at any other shop would have sold for three times as much as I paid for them IF they were feeling generous. HAHAH!

I've been eating weird combinations today, it's as though my palate has become a radar for Foods We Will Eat in the Future. After the triffids attack, or the next monkey they elect into US presidency 'accidentally' pushes the red button. It's one part PMSing gluttony, with a hefty lug of "there's nothing else."

For lunch I cooked up a savoury porridge consisting of porridge oats (obviously), sauteed mushrooms, finely chopped red onion, roll-cut spinach* and torn watercress. Prepared in my new saucepan. It was actually delicious because I liberally salted to counteract the rather natural sweetness of the oats. I'm now at the office and just finished off a peanut butter, honey and peach sandwich. Also very delicious and not remarkably out of whack, although last night I got accused of being a vegetarian for eating a similar sandwich (banana instead of peach) while sitting at the door downstairs. Now I am a vegetarian, so that much didn't bother me, but I was a little surprised to hear that eating a peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich would automatically register you as a non-eater of meat. Is there something intrinsically vegetarian about such a thing? Was it the introduction of honey to a peanut butter and banana sandwich that did it, or banana to peanutbutter and honey? Should I have tossed a slice of (veggie) ham in there to counteract the balance? It may be worth noting the dude with the accusatory tone in his voice was also Australian. Could there be a clue in that? Do Australian vegetarians subsist on a diet of pulverised legumes and the innards of hives and banana skins? I'm very curious now. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

*By "roll-cut" I mean prepared by stacking the spinach leaf by leaf, rolling it into a tube and then slicing off slim rounds top throw in the pot. A woman I used to work in a kitchen with showed me this method. There's nothing in it that makes it particularly better than preparing it any other way, but I have a fondness for the spirals it produces and the way the spinach is magically transformed into long noodly strips that tangle exactly about your fork like seaweed.

On Tuesday I will have internet at my home again so I don't have to sneak into the office at night or stare longingly at internet cafes who's prices I can't afford. I'm thinking of getting a broadband wireless box, but I don't know much about it. Does anyone out there have one? Are they any good? Does it really free up your life (and time!), or does it give you headaches because of the increase in cybersprung wavelengths leaping all over the place? I have vague and horrifying visions of my flat becoming home to a mess of infrared laser beams, like an invisible brain cancer-causing spider web.

****emmms

14.03.06..8:06 pm

Last week, Thursday it was, Matthew and I walked into a flat near Finsbury Park and fell in love. It was more than we could afford, it was further than we wanted to live, but the space! The light! The storage facilities! The dinner parties, the soft buzz of people eating home-made pizza and the slick scrape of cork against wine bottle that filled my ears! The built-for-two power shower that kissed my temples! And how often do split level one-bedroom flats in converted Victorian terraces come up? (Actually, if the past three weeks of trawl are anything to go by, I�d say one in six.)

Slowly I mentally dressed the space with my belongings. Everything fit so well. The deep mahogany bookshelves we once nicked from a rubbish pit was already basking under the window as I sat at the dinner table musing thoughtfully over my next deadline. Same story, no? But the agent who had patiently allowed us to see a different flat three times before ultimately turning it down promised he would be able to barter the landlords down. So in love were we that Matthew and I almost decided on the spot to quit our dithering ways and get down, get funky right there in the living room; hell, the estate agent could join in for all we cared, such was our joy. Sadly for our long-suffering estate agents the faffage gene won out.

We decided to sleep on it. Or at least, I decided to honour the other four appointments I�d booked for the day and Matthew decided to go to work and we promised to let the dude know by the end of the day. Given the impending urgency of securing a flat, you�d have thought we�d go for it right there. But no. We both lack decision-making skills whenever anything so remarkably huge as finding a place to live rears its resolution-requiring head.

An hour later, at the top of Crouch Hill, every thought of home and comfort I�d found in the multitudinous crannies of that flat fell by the wayside. I entered my next appointment and the expanse of a living room as large as the flat I�m currently living in actually took my breath away.* The current tenant was there, a work-at-home film critic wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and a black bra; hair curled and damp, skin aglow from bathing, she invited me in. How many wet dreams could be made with that image alone? The rich emerald of a thick carpet wrapped itself around my feet when I took off my shoes and gazed about trying to hold my excitement. Swayed by the gently sloping ceilings I clutched the edge of a sofa and took it all in. I hesitated by the door until she smiled warmly and told me to wander as I liked. Three cavernous cupboards and a secret passage behind the wall later I was hooked. Not a converted Victorian terrace, but the loft space of a converted Victorian manshion. It just could do. Three stairs lead from the living room the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, a glass door separating the levels refracting light hither and thither. The kitchen might be pokey and have an electric stovetop, but the bedroom could be used as a studio for Matthew with the living room being so huge and I�d always dreamed of showering under a skylight�

I left half an hour later having chatted with Marie about film and books and doing PhDs in London; she told me about the other people in the building and about how she got into freelancing. And as I walked to Archway the two flats were battling in my mind. One�s more accessible, the other�s bigger; window in the bathroom versus ventilation free; gas hob, electric hob; garden view, city skyline. One we can afford, the other we would have to haggle.

One Matthew had seen, the other a glimmering hope in my mind alone. So I called up and demanded another appointment the following morning.

If my excitement was palpable, Matthew�s was anything but. His critical eye criticised everything but the fact we could live there and still afford a pension. He marched about, made his decision, thanked Marie for having us and that was it. On the way to the bus stop he ran down every high point I had for the place. I rang him after seeing the last (actually roach infested) hole I had booked to see and he was willing to concede that the living room was huge, but still his answer was no. He rang me later than afternoon and admitted I may, possibly, perhaps have a point about using the bedroom as a studio and setting up a futon in the living room. If we could find a screen or something so I could work in the mornings while he slept. On the off, I called Jamie at the agency to book an appointment to see the flat again Saturday morning. She had two viewings books, the first at 10am. Then Tony from the other agency called to say there was a hitch with the first flat. The current occupiers were buying, but no papers had been exchanged and they weren�t sure when they�d be able to move out though they still wanted tenants. A game of telephone tag ensued.

Just after four Matthew texted to say he�d changed his mind completely and that if it was still going he wanted the flat in Crouch End.

*FYI, I did honour the three other appointments and they all sucked my ass. One was a shoe box, the other looked like mouse droppings had been scattered decoratively across the kitchen floor and the third I waited half an hour for someone to show up before leaving.**
**The last one was right around the corner from where I used to live with ex-flatmates Jo and Fat Emma, so that kind of put a downer on the whole thing in any case, but having to wait really pisses me off when it�s my money that will be getting El Absentio his commission.

And so on Saturday at 10am Matthew and I marched up and down Crouch End Broadway trying to find the estate agent�s office. At 10.05am we were thrust a bunch of papers by Someone Who Really Does Not Like Her Job. At 10.15am we were settled in a nearby caf�, papers signed and reference requests sent out, giggling nervously because NOT ONLY had we managed to find a flat but we�d secured it as ours. Hopefully. References willing.

Actually, there is a lot of reason to be concerned. Both Matthew and I had finally starting saving again after our trip to Canada and it's all going straight out the window. We do have our deposits to come in, so that will help a little, but it's not much (over �200 less than what we need for the deposit for the Crouch End pad). Which means that the bank references could easily go against us. Which would mean we�d have all of four days to find a new abode. Which would be unbearable.

But we�re trying not to think about that. If thousands of people across Britain making far less than either of us can find flats and be given the key, we can too. Right? What we are thinking of opening a joint account for house finances and that sort of thing.

I know. suggest a joint bank account -- MASSIVE STEP FOR BOTH OF US -- and he�s all, feh. A year and a half ago Matthew could not have been LESS ENTHUSIASTIC about us living together at all. In fact, if I recall rightly, he adamantly refused to even consider it on the basis that �we were moving to fast, and he just didn�t think we were ready, and no! No, no, no, no!� So a MASSIVE STEP FOR JUST ME, THEN.

I've been looking online and there's not much information about how to do it. Just a load of bank jargon on how hip their branches are and how they won't be letting you down like those other Corporate Machines. No, no. "We've got the inside scoop on personal relationships between staff and 'client'," they cry from the rooftops. "We know how important it is for you, our dear customer, to be loved and coddled and have all your financial queries carefully attended. JOIN US!" Except that they have none of the information I want. So this week, instead of trawling through estate agents and grimy flats not worth the vermin piddle sprayed on the carpets, I'll be trawling through banks and slimy financial consultants trying to hand them back the bush they're beating and find someone to just answer my questions directly. Nice.

As it stands at this very moment, no one has told us we can�t move in on Sunday. Fingers crossed.

****emmms

03.03.06..12:05 pm

Matthew and I are looking for a new flat, so money has suddenly become a HUGE issue, namely that we haven't got any. It's so depressing.. We found the perfect flat (a different perfect flat from the one before) -- enormous, beautiful, loads of storge -- and about fifty pounds per month more than we can justify (as opposed to 100 pounds more with the last). This sucks. The real problem is that it was already mine. In my mind, I could see myself waking up there, curling up on the sofa, making breakfast.. I had my next few years planned around it in my head. We put in an offer and they turned it down. Too low and, to quote the agent, "the landlady felt it wouldn't be beneficial to accept that price at this time." She suggested calling back in a week to see if it's still on offer because the landlady may change her mind, but it all seems so unlikely. Bums. Worse than that, but I'm trying to remain marginally stoical; all the same I cried and cried when we got the phone call.

The other flat we've found would be alright, and for a while I was actually really excited about it. But then I saw the beautiful one that we can't afford. The problem with the second is that there is nowhere near enough storage space and Matthew and I are by no means nomads. We have a ridiculous amount of stuff, most of it books that I can't do without if I am to be a top notch professor, and though that plan doesn't even start for a couple of years, I've got to think ahead, right?

So now I'm looking for a new job AND a new flat and it's all so draining and I just feel like I'm letting Matthew down for not having done both already. It pains me. Physically pains me that we can't afford the flat we want.

I need a job. If anyone knows of anyone in need of an editing/researching lackey let me know. I need something. ANYTHING! For fuck's sake I will go back to TEMPING if it will help us. Temping! And you know how much I loooooved that.

What a mess. What a fucking horrible mess.

****emmms

28.02.06..8:36 pm

Why is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLAT IN LONDON also the one totally out of my price range? Conversely, why have I MASOCISTIC TENDENCIES, thus allowing myself to make appointments to see THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLAT IN LONDON when I know I can't afford to live in it?

Also, I've posted my recipe for Eggless Pancakes. Even if my day's ended on a Poo, I'm Poor note, at least it started full of pancakey fantasticness.