Observations

Isn't it sad when people don't notice things that could brighten up their day?

I was temping in Central London one summer and worked with a woman who had never noticed that the London Centre of Tricology was on Wigmore Street even though she'd walked past it everyday for the last 14 years.

I spotted it on my first day there and remarked that maybe the street should be renamed Wig-no-more Street but she didn't laugh, or even titter.

Walking down the street the other day I saw a white chihuahua sitting up on the front seat a moving car. On closer inspection I saw that it wasn't a chihuahua, it was a white cat, sitting up looking around without a care in the world. I was in a foul mood but that made me smile. Sometimes we need these things to remind us that the world we live in isn't mundane and dull, it's a fricking mad house.

One of the cleaners where I work was talking to me yesterday and mentioned that his next door neighbour had worked for the military doing something secret to do with bomb testing. I also work at other sites and recently received a lecture from a security man telling me that I mustn't repeat anything I heard or saw on their site. If I did then I would get done under the official secrets act. Apparently the company made flight simulators and weapons guidance systems for the military. How exciting does that sound?
I didn't see anything exciting though, I just sat on in a windowless gym and watched fat men sweating all over the cross trainers all day.
Initially I found the situation depressing, but when I think about it I have to laugh. There was me, sitting and feeling sorry for myself in a boring gym and next door there were people working on top secret military projects. It through into sharp relief the feeling I have always had that there was something exciting and possibly wonderful that existed along side the dull and mundane that dominated most of our lives.
This makes me feel that even though I'm a cynic to the bone and share a beer, cider or glass of wine with Despair most nights, nothing can extinguish the pilot light of hope that there is an exciting life out there and one day I'll find it.