Snow

I’m tired. Really, desperately, longingly, menacingly tired. I’ve managed to copy out one drawing from my notebook. I fell asleep twice while doing it. My mind can’t hold thoughts together for long, so I’ll copy some of my jotted thoughts out too.

***

There’s no snow in Manchester. Just rain and mild temperatures. The spirit of Christmas has yet to make itself known to me. I sit in an office devoid of novelty lights or tinsel. The wall chart in front of my desk tells me all about the disappearing rainforest. I find it hard to sympathise. Does the rainforest have a chart about my disappearing hopes and opportunities? It should.

***

The city is full of building and rebuilding. In these days of remote control, why do cranes need operators who climb up to the very top to control them? I look up in the dark morning sky. They have even sold advertising space on the cranes. From this distance, it seems to be for a sanitary towel. Interesting choice.

***

Beautiful new office blocks, full of beautiful people. Bright people. Good jobs. Why can't I be one of them? I walk pass the CityCafe. I see beautiful people eating breakfast. My boots are leaking.

***

Informed that for this year's office Christmas meal, we will be going Brazilian. I've told them that I'm not shaving down there for anybody. And I don't care if it is Christmas.

***

Lunchtime. More rain. I tire of onion. Waterstones has some beautiful new editions of the hardback Everyman classics. Tempted. Badly tempted. But I resist. I need to solve the problem of my damp feet.

***

Tried to make small talk in Clarks as I waited with the sales assistant for my new boots to arrive. I make a good quip. She says nothing. No response. I feel a fool for trying. She’s a strange shade of orange, like some new line of leather they’re trying out.

***

My new boots pinch. I bought brown boots. It’s a rebellious act in the sense that I refuse to buy black boots ‘for the office’. If they don’t match my trousers, so be it. I like boots and I like brown boots.

***

Why do new boots require waterproofing? Why do they want to sell me the spray in the store? I already have two cans of the bloody stuff. Why can't they just waterproof them as part of the manufacturing process?

***

Overheard on a train home: one woman speaks to her two friends about a wedding she attended. The subject turns to the photographs of the wedding reception.

‘They were black and white. Very nice. I love black and white but they had this picture of them drinking from a champagne glass. They were both in black and white but the glass was coloured in. Pink. Real classy.’

I smiled a wry smile. I thought it a classy smile.

***

I continue to doodle. I have more ideas for jokes than I have time to draw or write.

***

On Piccadilly Station, a man dressed as an elf hands me a plastic bag with some free eBay wrapping paper inside. It reminds me that no matter how bad my job, I don’t need to dress like an elf.

***

I fail to understand the eight hour working day that doesn’t include lunch. Too many people work through without a lunch break. I’m tempted but eight hours in front of a monitor isn’t healthy. With an hour's break, it means I’m up at six, on the train for seven, in the office at eight, home at six. Feels like twelve hours. Not eight. I don’t understand.

***

It’s just above freezing when I’m travelling home. I see five girls waiting for a train. They’re dressed in ballet tutus and little else. I admire their dedication to the cause. I just wonder what the cause might be. I wonder what will happen should they meet the elf. Love at first sight, I should imagine. That or more free wrapping paper.

***

I’ve filled my old leaking boots with superglue. They need to last until I break in my new pair. The more I play with superglue, the more I’m fascinated by the stuff. I read the other day of somebody spreading superglue on a public toilet seat. Some man was stuck to the seat for over an hour. Terrible practical joke. You really can’t beat the one involving cling film.

***

Is there any point going to sleep early? It’s a trade-off between making the most of my own time and feeling exhausted in the morning. I go. Reluctant. So very reluctant.