Monday Blues and Friday Jazz…

On the lift up to the office on a moody Monday morning, when all you want to do apart from satisfy the urge to kill is to stand quietly in your spot until that grating voice announces ‘2nd floor, lift going up’, get to your desk unflustered by hellos and questions like “how was your weekend?” give me a minute for fuck sakes

In an ideal world (mine) people would be satisfied with a nod, a glance or a smile and wait until preferably after lunch to address me, never call my extension, only contact me by email, do not pretend to give me pressure with such things as ASAP and at your earliest convenience because to me that means:  after I come back from the gym ON Tuesday , also refrain from asking for a read-receipt because you know I will never give you that satisfaction of knowing, when talking in the office, speak at a low volume that is acceptable at the cinema or the  library, being on a trading floor is no excuse and when I am having my lunch at my desk and say sorry I am at lunch, I am usually not joking.

When later on you meet me at the water fountain, if I stand behind you queuing up it is not your queue to ask me about my weekend or give me the weather report because I really don’t care, I always carry an umbrella and spare pair of knickers

If you catch me on a good day, I promise to tell you how my weekend went as quickly and unenthusiastically as possible so that you can start telling me about yours, because we all know that’s really the goal, I promise to listen, nod and say wow cool if you make it quick so I can go back to my desk and mong

Fellow considerate, polite and interested parties; I ask you; should I consider it a rhetorical question from now on or bore you with my weekend details until you never ask me again? Or just suck it up and be nice! This is definitely a rhetorical question, I already know which way am going…

Sarah: how was your weekend?
Me: I don’t really want to talk about it; it gets a bit repetitive after the 2nd time
Sarah: well who did you tell; I’ll go and ask them
We both laugh because it’s ridiculous

By Thursday, comes the next question “any plans for the weekend?”
Are you just being polite or do you really care about my weekend? and if my plans are awesome, are you going to invite yourself along? Are you going to be jealous and start making up some story about “ice-skating in Somerset house with Will and Kate?” or my favourite “I was in Paris for the weekend” is that right? Did you get the Eurostar from Victoria then?  Did you see the Coliseum?

By Friday, it’s a freaking circus of happy people and I am the clown, I am happy but only smile on the inside, I NEVER ask anyone if they have plans for the weekend because I don’t particularly care but I will happily chat to people as long as I get to talk about myself avoiding small talk because small talk is a waste of time and is only cool when I do it like: soooo you’RE tall!

This Mondays favourite water fountain subject: Clocks changing followed by Halloween talk– oh dear lord!

Dz-chick....strong coffee please!!!

If the shoe was on the other foot!

A homeless man sits on the stairs of my station exit, he sits in a far corner away from the stampede of the commuters but he remains an inconvenience for us despite our best effort to remain humane and generous, we cannot help but feel he’s in the way not because he physically obstructs our way but because we feel guilty we did not acknowledge his pleas for spare change.

He sits there with two Café Nero cups, one jingles with coins and one I hope has coffee in it but never got close enough to find out, I often make a point of stopping and offering a chocolate bar or a banana or some change with a “promise you won’t spend it on booze?”, but over the years any naïve effort to donate gets eroded by cynicism and distrust and you wound up saying muttering a wimpy cowardly sorry

How many of us walk by a homeless person every day and how many of us give generously or give at all? And moreover do you even notice them or have they become part of the background for you like the red telephone box or the Big Issue guy.

I often think, if I lost my job and had no money to pay rent and no where to go, would I not become homeless? How many out there are one pay-check away from being homeless?
Nobody is safe from homelessness; we might be lucky we have friends to count on and still have parents we can run back to, but a lot of people are not be so lucky and empathy is not everybody’s cup of tea…

What have you done to help a homeless lately? Do you feel it’s your duty to help? Most people believe the people on the street are homeless by choice or as a result of their substance abuse and addictions or for being ostracised by their friends and families, we are too busy judging instead of helping them.

Though we judge them and ignore them sometimes, we do have a kind of relationship with them, there is always a local homeless everybody gets to know, squatting by the cash point near Tesco or by the Tube station, cuddling up to his dog, the dog has a dummy or a cuddly toy and they sit there with their sad faces, making us (maybe it’s just me) melt at this sight and dig a little deeper into our pockets or lunch boxes. When you think you’ve given enough for the day or not in a charitable mood, you say sorry and it always amazes me how they remain polite (in London anyway) and smile and say thanks, God bless. Thank you for acknowledging them.

You know what I think, I think the homeless community in London specifically hold secret policies about how to be a London homeless, they seem to all be in agreement about how to treat us “punters”, they know being rude or ungrateful wouldn’t work, so their “elders” must have sat down and decided on what’s the best way to do it, after all a homeless person can only be saved by person who isn’t.

You might have had a different experience walking down Edgware road or some other street where a number of beggars (they are not actually homeless) who work the streets cradling babies and begging for cash to supposedly buy nappies and milk or get a train home or save enough for a night in the shelter etc… when you say sorry they either follow you until you cave in or they slur profanities or even spit at you (that’s assault you know), these organised gangs of professional beggars I do not empathise with or even acknowledge, because there have been reports (according to Westminster Council) of growing numbers of professional beggars who earn up to £300 in tax free cash a night to supplement their day jobs or re-do their kitchens (daily mail – I don’t read it I promise).  Thus ruining it for the genuine homeless and needy people who actually in the streets freezing to death, but if you are a well-meaning giver you have to learn to make the difference and make sure your hard earned money is being put to good use.

Dz-Chick …. cursed with empathy

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205553/Professional-beggars-earning-200-night-supplement-day-job.html

Philanthropy for single women

A blank page presented itself to me as I flicked between my screens, and I felt I had to fill it with my thoughts, after all, it’s been a while and I need to let them out or I shall go mad…fasten your seatbelts folks!

Latest life changing decision, purchase a flat in this impossible market turmoil, rent it, pack up and leave, move back to Algeria…as I fantasise about this with a friend from work over a cup of coffee in the kitchen, she confesses that all her friends are doing the same especially in view of the recent termination of their employment and their barren love life, they unanimously decided London was the issue. “we just can’t meet anyone”, “there are no men available”, “men are not interested in relationships anymore” despair… as I stood there looking at her, my mind wondered back to my fantasy apartment, “yeah stone grey walls would be so cool” I start thinking about the walk-in wardrobe when she yanks me back to the topic at hand, annoyed I inform her of the veteran status I acquired on the subject. I am the original single girl.

I have been raising the issue since Eisenhower… or since 2007, but have yet to come to any kind of solution as to this predicament, but surely when you live with something for so long it becomes like second nature, l fear single women will mutate and grow male genitals to compensate for the lack of men in their lives/systems like that kind of amphibians (frogs to be precise) that jump gender if in a predominately female population as a life saving or procreative instinct, with all the chemicals we consume and all the hormones pumped into our system through everything we consume, it could happen, it’s all part of evolution*

To conclude, if you are single and don’t seem to see an end to your dilemma (if you consider it a dilemma), don’t come complaining to me, do something about it, go back home and marry your cousin, change sexual allegiance or move to Utah and jump on the polygamist wagon or give priesthood/nunhood a go but don’t come to me for advice. I am the case study.

Dz- Chick …..let the soul of my relationship-dream RIP

I think, therefore I am single!

Couple on park bench by Heidi Mallot

Upon a beautiful Indian summer day in London;
The wind in their hair, the sunshine on their skin, their eyes locked in a loving gaze, their fingers tangled and bodies in a tender embrace;
Me; sleeping on the warm and moist grass at a stalking distance, lips pursed tight on a flat line, my gaze burning into their backs through my sunglasses, I feel my toes digging into the ground, my toes hurt. Is it a pang of jealousy I feel, I wonder, or perhaps just irritation at the display of affection, I ask myself what is so annoying about public displays of affections, I wonder, if it wasn’t that it reminded me of what I don’t have. They’re a couple, I am not….Ok I am bit jealous.



I too want to embrace someone so lovingly, I want to have someone to love, to call when I am upset and vulnerable and ask for a hug or have something funny to say like the day my friend got utterly indignant because the shoes in the Vintage store were all used, or the day my boss asked me why I was talking to him in Arabic when I said “ca marche”



Then, it annoys me to hear couples use the “we”, “we can’t come”, “we don’t like Thai”, “we liked the movie”, “we’d love to see you”, since when being in a relationship has made people joint at the hip and their brains mashed together, what is wrong with being two individuals but with shared lives, beds, holidays, house, accounts etcetera.... Is it a misconception that men long for that separate togetherness and find needy women as attractive as cholera or is that an urban myth I clang to, that that has led me down this doomed path to perpetual singledom.



I want to be the girl who never says things like “we’ll try to make it” and who has her own car, apartment and keeps her maiden name, and I long to be with someone, who shares her Indian summer days in the park, her life, her plate, her thoughts, her everything. perhaps the answer really does lie in the question.


Dz-chick....wants her cake and eat it too