Marilyn

Listen to this as you read, it'll convey the mood.

So, this is what I was listening to as I was walking down the street today. Or, rather, what I was listening to as I did my best Tyra-esque hips-swinging foot-stomping model walk down the road. It was, may I say, sublime.

Or that's what I thought. It happened to be quite a windy day today and I was wearing a dress, which meant that I had more than a slight Marilyn Monroe situation going on and had to keep hold of it to maintain any scrap of dignity. Given my generally jubilant mood I was grinning away and sashaying my way down the street without a care in the world - I giggled coquettishly as I struggled to keep my dress in place and my hair was windswept and sexy.

Or that's what I thought. I happened to catch a look at myself in an office window as I swept by. What looked - in my head - like a fresh young thing flirting with life, looking chic and waltzing her way to work, actually resembled some deranged and bedraggled dowager clutching at her petticoats and chortling madly at some imagined lover and leering wildly at passing traffic.

Of course, then I imagined how I'd blog about this tonight, so then I got the giggles even more and ended up literally cackling my way down the street to the utter bewilderment of the surrounding businessmen. Women with children were actually backing away from me.

Other than that, nothing much else to report. Bon Jovi tomorrow morning I think.

pinstripes

So, for the last almost-5 weeks I've been working in an office in the business district of the city (in a very beautiful building, if I do say so myself), and I've come to a somewhat surprising realisation. I like the whole "business person" thing. Weird, eh.

Like, walking from my bus stop to the building with all the other suits in the city (not that I've been wearing anything particularly close to a business suit - hey, I'm an English student, I'm doing my best). Dunno, I just like it. I have to walk through this tunnel under a railway overpass (it's nicknamed the "Dark Arches") to get to the building, and there's just something quite nice about walking in a big line with other people - feeling kind of... Important.

And the bizarre thing is that it's not something I've ever imagined myself doing. The image of my future life in my head involves graduating uni, stumbling into some delightfully creative and bohemian job - probably through sheer chance - then meeting a nice chap who finds me charming and my love of old tobacco tins and teacups endearing, he'll propose to me in a creative way using an unusual and interesting engagement ring, we'll have a wedding with a red velvet cake then live together in a house with mismatching crockery and shelves and shelves of space for our books and films. We'll scrape together enough money to live on and we'll have flowers in milk bottles on our mantlepiece. And that's my plan so far really.

So this is why I was surprised to find that I liked feeling all businessy. It's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but just for this short while it's felt good to feel that I can do something. All the worries about the recession, and lack of graduate jobs, and student debt, and my non-vocational degree, have made me worry a little that maybe it doesn't happen that way. Maybe I won't just fall into something I can imagine doing for the rest of my life. Maybe I won't meet a bloke who loves Withnail and I as much as me. Maybe we really will have to scrape enough money together to live on, and perhaps there won't be as many books and films as I imagine. Maybe.

This sounds miserable, but really it's been reassuring these past few weeks. It's made me think, yeah, even if it doesn't go exactly as planned, even if all these things don't fall into place, even if we have to build our bookshelves one year at a time, maybe it'll be ok. Because here I am, working in the last job in the world I could ever have imagined myself doing (hopeless with numbers as I am), and I've enjoyed it.

It's made me feel hopeful. As though as much as I think I know my plans, and as much as I imagine it all out in my head, maybe things won't work out as I thought. They might even be better.

last night

I fell in love with Newcastle again. Me and a couple of friends wandered through Chinatown to get some spring rolls, then down to the quayside to The Red House - my favourite pub ever.

Newcastle at night, I just love it all: Grey Street with its curved buildings and the Theatre Royal, the cobbly streets as you get closer to the quayside, the Geordies dressed to the nines on their way out, the little lights along the river, the queues by Monument to get into the clubs, the nine-things-to-do-in-Newcastle benches.

What a place - what a home.