On money

Which I will never understand.

When I came back to the UK, I left the contents of the joint savings account behind. I thought I was being fair, when actually, I was being stupid. I had enough money to rent a flat and equip it.

I hadn’t brought anything beyond clothes back with me, so I needed everything from teaspoons to bedding. Think of your average wedding list, take off all the gizmos and gadgets, halve the quantities. That’s probably what I bought. I decided that it was time to stop waiting and I bought myself decent cutlery and glassware. I didn’t compromise out of necessity, I bought only items that I liked, and if I couldn’t find what I liked, I went without.

In the first year, I overstretched myself by renting a place that was a little too expensive, once I’d adjusted back to how high the cost of living is in England. So I moved somewhere cheaper, with the aim of building up my savings. My belongings spread a thin layer in the new place, enough so that friends who were visiting would look round and say ‘You don’t have much, do you?’

The car needed fixing, I ran out of domestic oil, the cats needed treating at the vets. And this is how the pattern has continued. I had no safety net, and the thin, perpetual edge of anxiety that relentlessly accompanied that knowledge had become my norm. Earlier this year, I thought things were taking a turn for the better. I looked at my savings account and thought, ‘That’s ok.’ I relaxed, and bought a new laptop because mine was so old in laptop terms that it had to be put out to pasture.

Then the car needed fixing (twice), and I hit someone else’s car in a car park. I left them a note on their windscreen, because I thought I was being fair. I was probably being stupid, because that cost me hundreds. I’d be hoping for karmic payback if I believed in it, but what I actually believe is that shit happens and it keeps happening. Yesterday I took Belle to the vets. They decided to keep her overnight, and when they told me the estimate for figuring out what’s wrong with her, I said fine. I had a quick mental image of the balance in my savings account, and I knew they could take me for every penny and I’d pay without a second thought.

I believe, simultaneously, that saving is essential and that my own decisions make it pointless.

I booked a flight to the US last week. Was it the sensible choice in the current circumstances? No. But if I wait for a good time, it will never happen, because there are no good times. There is only either now, or a second later when the next small crisis has landed. I won’t live my life snatching at interstices.

So, I’ll be paying the full rent on this place, my car insurance is due for renewal, a service is looming. I’ll gradually acquire furniture that I like, the cats, will, undoubtedly, need to go to the vets, and it would be good to fill up the oil tank before winter. All of this will happen, because it has to. You start again, and then again, and if life feels simply ‘a drag from numbered stone to numbered stone’, well, that’s because it is. But sometimes, briefly, there is time to look up.

On anonymity

If I must go out into the wider world, I prefer not to have to engage with it. This might be another tick in a box on the List of Introvertisms, or it might just be me. I don’t know, and I don’t much care, but floating around in the general tide of humanity, getting on with my own thoughts and being quite unnoticed, is soothing. I like being invisible, safely bobbing along inside my hamster ball. I’m fortunate in that I don’t look particularly approachable (hopefully because my mind is elsewhere rather than because I’m a hatchet-faced virago, but whatever), so it’s rare that someone I don’t know tries to strike up conversation, unless they’re the kind of nutter who is simply talking at whoever is occupying that bit of space at the time. That’s fine, because it’s nothing to do with me qua me and doesn’t require acknowledgment, let alone anything as tiring as a response.

Cities are, of course, great for this kind of unnoticed existence. There are simply so many random people that no one gives a damn who any of them are. I wouldn’t want to live in a city precisely because there are all those people all the time, but I like wandering around them. My favourite parts of various trips have been the solo walking times: double the anonymity because I’m not in my own country. This is also one of the great things about road trips, that if you keep your itinerary vague, no one knows where you are. There’s probably a multi-syllabic German word for revelling in the sense of being deliberately displaced and unfindable; it would be a useful addition to my vocabulary.

Recently, I joined a gym, and in the few times that I’ve been so far, I’ve been enjoying the anonymity there as well. I don’t know a single person, there’s no pressure to engage in jolly chit-chat with the receptionist and I can communicate with my trainer by writing notes on my training card. It may not be everyone’s idea of a welcoming environment, but  it’s contributing enormously to my willingess to go. Mens sana in corpore sano indeed.

Music Monday: I got a little beer money

Trashy country music treat coming right up.

C’mon, c’mon, baby I’m buyin’…

Tips for Oxford restauranteurs

Before we go any further, let me just ‘fess up here: I’m vegetarian. (Waits for uninterested restauranteurs to go away, which, based on their menus, will be most of them.)

Guys. I’ve eaten in a lot of your restaurants. I’m willing to spend a decent amount of money for a good meal, and I don’t eat out as often as I could because there is nowhere to go. When there’s only one option and you know what it is before you leave the house, it makes dining out a whole lot less of a worthwhile experience. And you know what happens when I don’t eat out? Neither do the people who might have eaten out with me. And you know who, should they choose to invoke it, has veto over the choice of restaurant? I do. All I have to say is ‘The veggie option is crap’ and my friends will happily look elsewhere, the wacky theory being that we all get to enjoy our food.

Also bear in mind that it’s hard to get my repeat custom when the choice never changes. Some restaurants revolve their menus monthly or by season. They come up with four or more vegetarian options per year (blows kiss to Cherwell Boathouse). That, and 25 years of vegetarianism means I know it’s not hard, which means I know you are just being fucking lazy.

So now, after another over-priced, mediocre offering, this time from The Trout at Tadpole Bridge (who even said ‘Ooh no, the risotto isn’t very inspiring, is it?), I can’t stand it any more. Here are a few questions to ask yourselves when putting your vegetarian option together.

1. Does it contain goat’s cheese? FAIL. We have all eaten enough goat’s cheese to last us a lifetime, except for those hapless vegetarians who don’t like goat’s cheese and are therefore presumably just getting the green salad with the couple of allegedly sun-dried tomatoes that go with it. Extra fail if both your starter and your main course are founded on goat’s cheese (cough *Quod* cough). Also, the way to turn a goat’s cheese starter into a main course is NOT to double the quantity of goat’s cheese. Dear god, are you trying to drive us all to cardiac arrest?
2. Is it a risotto? FAIL. I don’t care if this year’s fashionable risotto is beetroot, risotto is a lazy choice and honestly, unless your risotto is amazing (and I can tell you it isn’t) I can do better at home.
3. Is it based on butternut squash? FAIL. The squash family itself is large and varied; the butternut is not the only member.
4. Is it the same as every other restaurant’s vegetarian option? FAIL. I’m gonna be kind and assume I don’t need to spell out why, but if I do, see if you can put crayon to paper and ask me.
5. Is it a tart, tartlet, or quiche? FAIL. If it’s a goat’s cheese tart, then EPIC FAIL. Give up  restauranting and become a goat farmer. You eat all the goddamn cheese.
6. Would you choose it? By which I mean, is it a dish that if you saw it on a menu you would actively prefer it, not just eat by default because there’s nothing else? If not, then FAIL. Because if you wouldn’t, why the hell should I?
7. Is it halloumi? PASS, but only because I’m throwing you a bone here. You have about a 12 month window before halloumi becomes the next goat’s cheese.
8. Have you eaten at a decent vegetarian restaurant, such as Terre a Terre? If not, FAIL. I am part of your market. Research me. (Terre a Terre has a pass on the halloumi fail-by date because their entire menu is built of vegetarian awesomeness that even non-vegetarians will eat! I know it’s a shocker, but you see what can be achieved with some effort and thought?)
9. Is it based on grilled vegetables? FAIL. If I never see another ‘chargrilled’ red pepper again, it will be too soon. I will shortly be petitioning for ‘chargrilled’ to be accepted in  thesauri as a synonym for ‘cold, slimy and slightly burned’.
10. Is it mozzarella, tomato and pesto anything? FAIL, and I might have to punch you for failing with such breathtaking idleness.

That is all. Go away, and think on your sins.

 

 

Music Monday: I’m going to Jackson

Johnny Cash and June Carter, giving it some.

Music Monday on Tuesday

Woke up one morning with this in my head, bought it on iTunes and played it repeatedly in the car. Still in my head, so now sharing the ear-worm. Also, I thought I recognised that diner. Nice use of Hopper.

Go West

I’ve been thinking about the US a lot lately. It’s been way too long since I was there and I’m pining a bit for my other home and life. First, someone at a company I used to work with got in touch, just to see if I had any interest in moving back, and if so, possibly to talk about working for them. Nice to be wanted, right? Then I had to go to the US Embassy to get some papers signed; and later that same day, one of my friends asked what it was like living in America, shortly before we headed off to a leaving party for someone who was moving to New York.

The weather isn’t helping. Or rather, it is, because as I looked out of the glass box I work in, at yet more unbroken grey sky lashed by rain, I had a sudden vision. I saw my bare left arm, angling out of an open car window, right hand lightly resting on the steering wheel, with a view of open road and blue sky ahead of me and much the same showing in the rearview mirror. I  thought about driving endless miles through mountains, prairie, farmland, losing track of days and time zones; stopping at gas stations for water and snacks; pitching up at night wherever chance took me on a loosely mapped route. Waking up and searching for coffee to get the day started right while I pore over a map to chart the day’s route. No plan, no routine, no place to be for any particular time.

I went back to my desk and Googled a map of the US, then looked at the states I haven’t visited: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama. There’s nothing about any of them that particularly draws me, except the roads through them, their possible status as starting point or halting place on the blue highways.

I’m thinking I might take a week to do some driving.