Flexi-time, did you ever know?

On Monday I was in work by nine and I felt so damn good having slept so damn well that a bag of liquorice allsorts spilled out on the road struck me as a work of art and I took in the sight with all the delight of a child with a bag of sweets. The weather was mild, the streets were dry, and I was about as full as I can be of life on a Monday morning. Ah sleep. It really does a body good.

Predictably I've abused my new-found friend and have tapped into my sleep/happy-reserves over Monday and Tuesday nights coming in shy of the oft-recommended eight hours thanks to my delight in going out for a social drinky most week nights. I would have offended my aforementioned new friend more gravely were it not for the services of my old pal flexi-time who not only doesn't mind getting stood up, positively relishes it!

"Flexi-time, today I praise and thank you. Not only am I still in relavtive favour with sleep, I also managed to take a little break on the way to work this morning while I waited for the rain to subside. Frankly, you're only smashin. If only you weren't so friendly with work. That work is so damn boring and time-consuming! Well I know you guys go way back and I'm only using work for money so in many ways you have the moral upper hand, but....but....but....oh I can't criticise you. You're wonderful. The very wind beneath my...eh...shoes. Did you ever know that you're my hero? "

"What do you mean you thought you were my hero? No, Quasi-Mojo, you're not. You're a naughty stinky monkey. Don't look at me like that. You know what you did..."

Croquet in Cambridge (law-di-daw)

Myself and Quasi-Mojo took a trip to Cambridge, England this weekend to visit Diarmuid, play Croquet, and soak up a little of the life we'd like to have (and probably could have were we just a little more adventurous and willing to do the research to make it happen - which so far we're not).

Q-M rode for free as neither Ryanair, National Rail, nor Taxi Drivers charge extra for imaginary monkeys. Nonetheless, Quasi-Mojo declared loudly and repeatedly on our flight that he was not going to pay for his seat as he shared it with a six-year-old boy who kicked, grabbed, and otherwise molested him as if he were "some kind of unthunking gunk." He finds it difficult to express himself sensibly when he's bemuddled. I wouldn't have expected it, but he's actually a nervous flyer and does sit down for take-off and landing - not sure what he got up to during the flight as I was asleep but he usually finds some entertainment (the fewer questions asked the better) with the crew.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying croquet so much. It's quite a clever game and requires a fair bit of skill and finesse, but it happily proved to be both friendly to novices and cruel to more experienced players. Throw in pims, bad-losers, trash-talk, strawberries and cream, and more sandwiches than you can shake a croquet mallet at; and you've got yourself a very fun day indeed.

The formal dinner was attended with mixed degrees of formality from the expensive tuxedos (not that there are any cheap ones) with fancy cuff-links and shiny shoes to the post-fancy, perhaps even meta-fancy (or some other kind of ultra-modern-fancy that defies the usual coherence of lanuage for the sake of hyperbolae) which consits of something like ripped jeans with a tuxedo jacket. I also saw one guy in a skirt/kilt that I think was made from a shawl with a hat pin in it; very Jude Law (or equivalent) indeed! Personally the only innovations I made to the norm was wearing what was an entirely second-hand ill-fitting tux (bar the bow-tie which was new and fitted rather nicely thank you very much), the cuffs of which were linked with safety pins thanks to the 'you-always-forget-something factor' which unfortunately could hardly be mistaken for the deliberate fasion vrais-pas (?) mentioned earlier. From what I could see, the women were more traditionally clad - which I appreciated because I get confused rather easily. Hmmm. Well let's not turn this into a 'Hello' column. Moving along...


Very much like my last visit to Cambridge, it was the experience of the people I had the privilege to speak to and hang-out with that I valued most. I find Diarmuid's associates very interesting and receptive and surprisingly mute on their areas of research. Naturally,in the spirit of politeness and genuine curiosity, I did ask a lot of the time but it is generally something that isn't really considered socially important. This may have worked in my favour when one way or another it became suggested (possibly by me but that's beside the point) that I was an orphan, a juvenile delinquant or both as a result of my contact with bon jovi (I promise this stroy makes sense - it would just take too long to explain), but a stronger pssibility is that it was a sufficient deviation from the Cambridge norm to leave me looking quite sketchy and undesirable indeed. Funnily, my only regret is attempting to salvage some dignity and clarify the rumour. This attempt was poorly executed, and Quasi-Mojo mocked me at length for attempting it as it betrayed a certain soft-spot I was politely consealing as one usually does, and led to Quasi-Mojo continually doing kissy faces and conspicuously caressing a certain individual in an attempt to embarrass me. Thankfully I've become accustomed to his ways and talented at ignoring him when necessary.

Well let's not lose sight of the important things. Everyone in Cambridge is just delgihtful and I was taught a new word: defenestrate. The meaning of this word essentially is to summarise the cumbersome description, 'to throw out of a window'. Quasi-Mojo also learned something new: that he can stick paper with a (now patented) mixture of his own bodily secretions.

Didn't go punting in the end but a fine time was had by all.

Quasi-Mojo's response

Q-M was idly reclining on the reception desk as I was writing the last blog. He stuck his head over the monitor to read what I was doing. I can't imagine how he can read upside down so well and at such close proximity. Where do you learn a skill like that?

Anyway he went back to recling on the counter beside the door and recited the following in soliloquy

I don’t know how many
Syllables there are so
Why don’t you just shut...

At this point he demonstrably (if you know what I mean) extended his right hand and closed over the door.

Quite poetic I thought.

A little Haiku Help

Is it seventeen
Syllables in a Haiku?
I can’t remember now.

Sitting in a pleasant breeze
The work phone keeps ringing
It all comes to me.

Then there is silence and
Stillness takes the breeze
There's nothing left to say.

A few notes on my second job since Q-M showed up again.

There can be a culture in a legal practice of everything being of great urgency and importance. This was certainly the mind-set I was endevouring to cultivate in the firm I was working in because I felt that a high level of professionalism was owed to our clients.

Ideally, staff in a legal firm should also be well paid because they work so damn hard. But this is rarely the case for the less experienced administrative staff members like myself who literally get paid peanuts. I might have been able to abide poor pay for the sake of experience were it not for two things: firstly Quasi-Mojo pottered around all day inconsiderately eating the very peanuts I was working so hard to earn (he likes to throw them high up in the air and catch them in his mouth - but when he misses - approx 40% of the time - he leaves them scattered about the place so that he can do a protracted ant-eater impression when he has a good number), and secondly I really didn't get on with my boss.

I suppose a lot of legal people treat others in terms of maximising their own financial return from them. Their self-respect is entirely based on driving hard bargains and screwing people. Interestingly, they actually feel like it's their duty and not merely their entitlement. It's amazing to watch. I'm still incredulous.

Anyway, in the workplace it manifests in excessive demands, tantrums, and pathological buck-passing. My guy was kinda funny peculiar. He had (and you'll be forgiven for thinking this is a joke or an exaggeration) no concept of the alphabet and had chosen (yes chosen!) an albhabetic filing system. This necessitated my going into his office to pull files from his shelves any/every time he needed one. In the beginning I didn't really question this - it seemed like a plausible story - but then he started giving out because he couldn't find the files I had pulled for him and LEFT ON HIS DESK! So he suggested that I email him to tell him when the file he is looking for is on his desk. Then he just couldn't find anything - I'd hear his blissfully obnoxious voice over the telecom: "I'm missing my cheque-book/keys/brain/whatever."

When stuff went really really missing it was hilarious. I kept a meticulously ordered office and so looking for stuff was just a matter of my glancing into my office. This infuriated him and he would always insist I lok in my office when the only logical possibility would be that it was in his. Quasi-Mojo was really funny one day this was going on and he helped by doing his thinking then having-an-idea face and then investigating everyone's nosrils and ear cavities.

He was also pretty great at doing a boss impression. For some reason he associated this guy with a rhinosorous (sp?) and would roll up a piece of headed paper (as it's more expensive and the boss hated to waste it) and make it into a rhino nose. He'd scrunch up his face and shrink his neck and get all angry and charge at things. But he also did a very good boss-on-telephone impression that I found very witty - especially when he did it while squatting on the boss's head. He's such a good friend (if i can call him that). It was a shame I was so busy and had to ignore him most of the time but it's great to look back on it now and it did make my days seem a little less intense. But if i'm honest, i didn't (and still don't at times) approve of Quasi-Mojo's irreverent attitude.

When I left that job for one that paid more and didn't require me to do much work (unfortunately), the guy wouldn't give me my P45 which would usually mean that I'd have to pay emergency tax. But as it happened, I didn't have to pay that much over the odds. I knew that he was doing it out of spite and malevolence but I didn't want him to sit around and not know for sure whether or not I knew why he was refusing to issue the document. I suppose I wanted some way to allow him to reflect (on some level) on the fact that he was being a big meany and to explore his justifications by confronting the issue. Convincing him to send the damn form was not the issue as I knew he would not issue it until the Revenue Commissioners contacted him and I had already reported the matter to them. I'd like to blame the monkey but it really didn't have anything to do with him.

After a number of phonecalls to his office (he refused to speak with me each time) we had the following email exchange - read into it what you will:


Dear XXX,
As you know, I have been on to your office a number of times enquiring about my P45 and am obliged to pay emergency tax on my earnings until after I receive it.

You can appreciate that this is a great inconvenience to me and I
would ask you to attend to this matter; give me an indication as to when it will be done; or indicate why you did not want to attend to this hereto.

Yours sincerely,

With the greatest respet James, there are matters which have kept me out of the office and I must say I didn't appreciate any harrassment from yourself in relation to the matter.

I am under no obligation to explain anything to you in relation to the matter.

The matter will be attended to on my return to the office.

XXX,
Let me just say briefly that it certainly was not my intention to make you
feel harassed as a result of my contacting you but I did wish to stress the importance of the matter and am glad that you are attending to it now.

Regards,

James I'm not obliged to make an explanation to you as to why this matter
wasn't dealt with.



I could explain my perspective on the psychology of this exchange at length, but I'd rather leave it to yourself(ves). Let it be what it is - however dubious my own role may seem at first glance.

I still haven't written anything about when Q-M showed up again. Sorry I'll get round to it eventually.

Fast Forward: Things I hear at work that make me smile

I work in an environment where I feel like (to butcher a biblical metaphor) my light has been man-handled (well, woman-handled moreso)under a bushel. I'm particularly powerless/unmotivated to do anything about this as I am a temporary employee and I'll be leaving in September. Any attempt to burst forth from said bushel or even set it alight from the inside would not be very productive. Quasi-Mojo usually cheers me up with his miming and his particularly distinctive version of yoga of which the main feature is the release of gas from his rectum. I believe the louder the release the greater the health benefits.

Anyway, I am also kept amused, even though I feel quite mean/weird in the process, by one of my colleagues' use and misuse of the English language. She has a penchant for adapting idioms and many of her adaptions are just delightful. Unfortunately I should have taken closer note, but here's a few that spring to mind that I heard over the last week or two:

"I'm sick to my back eyes with this..."
"I'll be losing money hand over heels here"
To me when some clever retort was made to me: "Cheeky is as cheeky does eh?" I asked what this meant but she declined to explain it.
"She sends me this form and expects me to make heads or tails of it."
"God. If they'd brains they'd be intelligent!"
"She was kicking mad"
"She's having a Mickey over there"
Refering to a middle-man type situation: "That's just putting a piggy in the middle of the process."


I'll write some others if they come back to me. The other fun thing she does is instead of using the past tense with 'should' she uses the present. So it's "That's not what you shudda doin'," and "I should have gettin those ages ago," and "You should've hearing what he's after saying to me," and that kind of thing. Magic.

I actually wouldn't have taken much notice of it if Quasi-Mojo hadn't taken to stopping what ever he was doing and clapped his hands while hopping from foot to foot every time he heard something unusual.

For legal reasons the above account should be filed under fiction.

I'll say more about Quasi-Mojo's reappearence in later posts.

For now,

Adieu

And then what happened?

I love to generalise when I'm explaining myself. It seems to make everything I say sound almost inevitable. Case in point:

Everyone has blanks in their lives. I could display what I have for you because I do have shrapnel: dismembered memories with drips of emotion and insight oozing out and drying up, but why bother? They've served their purpose, and I don't need to keep them. They can clutter a place so easily. I'll just mention them in passing if I find they are close to hand and worth talking about.

Quasi-mojo came to school with me when I was five but he stopped coming quite early on because he found it difficult to keep my attention and he found the whole affair so utterly distasteful. He said it took all the pleasure out of scratching himself, and that scratching himself was one of very few pleasures that he had.

He scratched himself a lot actually. In fact scratching himself was one of only two things that I've ever seen him do with his right hand: with it he held a cigarette and scrathed his considerable and prominent genitalia. It's always surprised me that the phrase 'himself' or herself refers so readily in our language to the activities involving genitalia but it surprised me even more that Quasi-mojo followed the convention. His left hand mostly gesticulated or interacted with the orifaces of his face and posterior.

So without saying too much about what we got up to before he left (I'll come back to it now and again later) I didn't see Quasi-mojo again until I finished my schooling. I remained in education until the age of twenty two and then I took a trip. I kept an account of this trip for friends and family; twelve chapters in all. Of course I'm about to say, "...and then we met again," but if you have an interest in that account before we continue our story, the twelve blogs from September to November 2003 consist of the very same. I called it a travelogue (as in a 'catalogue of travel' as opposed to a 'travel log' per se - not that there's an awful lot of difference)

When I met Quasi-mojo, the Monkey

Many children of many cultures share their beds with special furry friends and they largely agree that such friends make the finest, loving and most understanding of bedfellows. There comes a time however, when despite the love and understanding (displayed most often in terms of the availability of cuddles in the former case and being unpeturbed by bodily fluids in the latter case) these furry friends become redundant and, though it be harsh it also be true, are evicted.

I expect we are all somewhat au fait with the phenomenon. One way or the other, this is my story: I had a number of such friends as a child but unlike my peers, mine were either abducted, intimidated or otherwise convinced to leave. I don't know exactly what happened and I don't think I ever will (or want to), but one Spring morning when I was four I woke up without them and found by what I expected was no coincidence, a monkey casually squatting in profile on my bottom-right bedpost. He was smoking an odourless cigarette and turned his head to look at me as he inhaled.

If I'm honest, I hadn't yet noticed that my furry friends were gone, but I understood his meaning right away when he spoke: "We all need friends Horse, but no-one needs friends like those." In that wonderfully direct and beautiful way we all have at that age my response was to ask "Are you my friend Mojo?" He cocked his head back and laughed. Well, I say it was a laugh, it was at least comparable to a laugh except that it was a noise which also registered displeasure and repulsion. He looked at me intently but I didn't think there was any Malice in it. His response insofar as I can recall and from what I know now of how he goes on, was something like: "Now listen Horse, you are in many ways not a horse but you're close enough for me to call you Horse. I'll do you the courtesy of not calling you Boy or that other thing - like you wouldn't call me Monkey - but I think you even know already that I ain't mojo enough to be Mojo. I mean at my very best - and I'm proud of it I add- I'm only ever going to be Quasi-mojo."

Well you were a child once. You don't need me to tell you the name stuck.

An unfinished blog

My love-affair with a refrigerator named Jess started even before