Exhaustion thy name is Full Time Work

I am zonked. I should be in bed right now and know I will regret it in the morning but I've just finished up the last of my NPG work and LB is cooking us a late light dinner while I fight the urge to rest my head on the keyboard.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new pair of shoes

I think today has been what people refer to as A Very Good Day. My first day of work at South London Gallery began with some auspicious advice courtesy of Oval tube station:

It was a fairly apt piece of advice given the day I was set to have which was one part fabulous, one part hugely enjoyable, one part enormously promising and five parts overwhelming. They weren't joking when they said I would be leaping in from day one but apart from a small moment of panic threatening to manifest itself as quiet tears I was so into the day and may have resisted the urge to skip with excitement when I left this afternoon. I love the people I'm going to be working with, I'm excited about the challenges to come (which will probably be tomorrow...) and I feel I acquitted myself reasonably well in the face of what was a massive information dump and an expectation of immediate competency.

Things seem to be coming together and I'm not even going to be snotty about it and say "at last".

Last week was a lot of fun, after the interviews and tests and offer of The Job. There was champagne with girlfriend Jen on Tuesday and a charcuterie board to drool over at Fernandez and Wells in Soho with Tors on Thursday. This was before we took in a so-bad-it-was-excellent movie and consequently made the Ashton Kutcher-inspired decision to host a Razziefest, as well as an Oscarfest, next year. And then on Friday, LB and I had a date with some posh bar food at St John's in Smithfield and some joyous Australian theatre at the Barbican courtesy of the Belvoir's touring production of The Sapphires. Seriously, nothing says happy like Motown.

Before my rendezvous with the Lovely Boy I had a rendezvous with the Lovely Selfridges where I may have done some pre-job purchasing of new shoes and trousers. So Good. Oh I've missed shopping. sigh... Seriously, nothing says happy like a bright yellow shopping bag.

This afternoon I went to the NPG for a meeting and farewell afternoon tea for my lovely editor - a chance, I figured, to have a relaxed conversation with the Managing Editor and the Head of Publications and impress upon them my commitment, my enthusiasm and my so burning it almost needs an ointment desire to see this bloody book published. Boy am I glad I went. Just before leaving my lovely editor gave me something of a parting gift - namely a contract guaranteeing my name in print with all due credit and details of PAYMENT to be made to me in thanks.

It turns out 50,000 words is not an insignificant contribution.

It's not a huge sum of money in the grand scheme of things, but I am beyond happy about it and feel not so much flattered or grateful as honoured really, as strange as that sounds, that the value of my work and efforts have been recognised. I mean, I'm not an idiot, I know the no doubt impending sticky issue of copyright probably had something to do with it but I am so happy and shocked that I don't even care. I'm even happy to wrangle my way through the self-employed tax return nightmare that being paid will no doubt involve.

It has been A Very Good Day. Surprising, satisfying, inspiring, promising. And it's only Monday. God only knows what Tuesday will bring.

A little thing called a job

I don't really think anything less than an excess of exclamation marks can come remotely close to conveying the dizzying enormity that is the offer of full-time employment in a role that comes VERY close to ticking all the boxes of My Dream Job. We're talking contemporary art, museum education, writing, fuck off massive brilliant challenges, five of the best art institutions in London-nay-the-World and PAID. Yes, paid.

flowers of congratulations from the ever lovely LBB

The test of a personality

So I got a second interview. I think this is a good thing. It's certainly not outright rejection and it gives me a chance to feel like, if I get offered and then take the job, it was the result of a considered decision - by them and by me - and not a knee-jerk reaction to what has basically been 12 months of unemployment. The interview is on Tuesday afternoon and yesterday I spent nearly three hours completing a psychometric test in anticipation of said "informal" interview. A personality test, basically. One can only hope I don't fail that. I could handle a rejection on the grounds of technical incompetence but not because I'm not a morning person.... We will see....

Drunk spaghetti and brownies for breakfast

The interview was yesterday. Apparently I should find out today. Who knows. I'm currently in two minds over whether to pick up the phone when it rings or let it go to voicemail. Immature? Sure. Chicken shit? Absolutely. I really would love this job and it would be an incredible experience and I think I acquitted myself reasonably well but I do have form in being completely unable to predict these things. One thing I do know is that if I do get it, I will be thrown in the deep end with no idea of which way to swim or which stroke is going to get me there fastest. We will just have to wait and see.

It's been a distracting kind of week - and I'm not referring to the piles of clothes in need of washing, the sink of "rinsed" plates awaiting scrubbing or the films of dust needing, well, dusting. But they have been distracting me too. I mean there's been less multi to my tasking and as a consequence the last week has been a jarring montage of frenetic interview research, little to no book writing, ad hoc tidying, wedding details and eating. Lots of comfort eating.

A purple letter kind of day

I know you can have a red letter day, I'm assuming by right of reply you can then also have a blue letter day... but throw the two together and my question is this: have I just had a purple letter day? A splash of blue, a hint of red and we come out somewhere in the middle?

The day did not start well. After a you-really-should-know-better telling off by my hairdresser last week that I should only wash my hair every other day this morning began with a shake of my not so shiny swishy hair and a brief moment of thanks for the Pantene stocks I never invested in, what with their now significant drop in value... Anyway, the half hour I should have saved from faffing with my hair was wasted on trying to find clothing that would see me through eight respectable hours at the gallery and five rather grotty, beer stained hours at the bar. Basically, I left the house feeling frumpy, grumpy, sans good hair and late.

A Cornwall weekend

I'm a little bit in love with Cornwall. In part I blame the drive down. Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon - speeding through the English countryside it was all I could do to arrest the Mr Darcy fantasies that seem to go hand in hand with rolling green hills and muddy country lanes. No doubt getting further and further away from London also helped but there is just such a romance to the unavoidably quaint surrounds of everywhere-that-isn't-London-or-the-Midlands. The little cottage we were staying in, that belongs to a work colleague of Lovely Boy's, was built in the 16th century - the gentle slope to the entire structure and the hobbit-esque doors adding a quirkiness to the humbling history of both the building and Boscastle village.

If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.

Or in my case. If you can't say anything interesting....

Welcome to the last week of my life. My conversational skills are atrophying at a terrifying rate, thanks in no small part to the all-engrossing, co-dependent relationship I've developed with my computer. I'm struggling to finish sentences, think of words, articulate generally, which would be a bigger problem if I had anything of note to talk about apart from, well, the all-engrossing, co-dependent relationship I have developed with my computer. Thankfully LBB is fast becoming accustomed to my vagaries dressed as cute quirks. If I leave my glasses on I can almost get away with the mad, vacant professor look...

I am rather looking forward to having this finished in a couple of weeks time and regaining some semblance of a life. In the interests of full disclosure, the whole balance thing has never really been my forte but even I'm beginning to realise that all this solitary time in my head is sending me a bit loopy. I cannot wait for Cornwall this weekend. Some fresh air, some quaint English seaside towns and the chance to bust out the six 'mixed tape' CDs we made for our Mallorca road tripping back in the days before Lovely Boy earned his new moniker.

I have about 10,000 words to write before then and a job application to complete if I can manage to change brain gears in time. With any luck I'll have worked out how to re-activate my previously rather sophisticated out-loud speaking skills by Friday too. But one shouldn't hope for too much.