Since my last post I have turned 35, started a new job, gained three pounds, received and ridded myself of tonsilitis, and partaken of a family vacation.
My birthday was by far the least eventful of my adult life. Kicked off by an email from E*TRADE wishing me a happy birthday, serving also to remind me about the shitty investment I made courtesy of an ex-lover's "hunch" about the stock market and concluded with a mini existential shiver spawned by the fact that I'm the age my mother was when she birthed me as well as the age when conception becomes physiologically more risky and complicated (and in my case also immaculate/further complicated by singledom). I woke up and had some cereal, then spent the day in inductions at my second day of work, before going out for a bite to eat with my lovely (former) fiancé (number two). I swapped birthday cake for tuna tartare on a rice biscuit. And you know what? It was one of my best birthdays ever. Because in the absence of any kind of extravagance I was deeply happy and grateful for everything good bad and ugly that had led me to that moment of feeling unfamiliarly at peace. I also got a birthday card with a tenner in it which is just the best.
I moved out of Fartford (!!) and into a great new flat in London that is perhaps just a bit noisy but totally worth the excitement of the neighborhood. My bedroom faces the courtyard of the building so I started sleeping with earplugs because the neighbors have a habit of exaggerated late night sexual intercourse. My bike hasn't yet been stolen and only once in a while does the hot water tank stop working AND the engineer pulled an entire ecosystem out of our laundry filter last week which means the spin cycle now works like a breeze! Still can't figure out why my towels have gone from soft to irreparably crunchy after a single wash, but there is a tequila bar opening next door in October so it really feels like divine intervention has befallen upon East London!
My new job is great although partially if not totally indirectly responsible for aforementioned weight gain secondary to the alcohol consumption that is expected though not explicitly written into my contract. Sometimes at after work socials I have to lie about the fact that I'm drinking gin and tonic when it's actually just sparkling water with lemon because at the end of the day I am still a doctor and trying not to die of end stage liver disease which in my personal and professional opinion is really one of the worst ways to go. I guess it also seems that the whole of England was traumatized by a few isolated hot days this summer and consequentially left the AC and fans on maximum despite the office temperature being colder than the Soviet Vostok Station. But I fucking love my job and the people with whom I work and it's the greatest decadence to actually have time to drink a cup of water in the day and then pee it out!
And then there was the family vacation in Greece. I haven't had one of those for 17 years and it was as lovely as it was cataclysmic. Start with twelve family members of a common surname of which myself and my 23 year old cousin were the only two not coupled up. I always thought the piteous attitude implied with flying solo was too cliche to matter but now I have changed my mind and wholly committed to avoiding romantic or family functions in the future where it implies holding the candle. Loneliness and boredom aside, this country still requires toilet paper (which is ONE-PLY AND VERY COARSE) to be binned rather than flushed, there is also an infestation of stray cats and wasps that preclude one from eating a meal in peace. A simple lunch of french fries requires a racket that electrocutes those satanic pests, if you're fast enough to catch them.
Then on Friday the 13th the ants invaded all the walnuts and cereal, and the electricity went out due to a fire on the island (suspected arson!) This for some reason also meant that the pump on the pool stopped working, causing the water level to go down by almost half in a few hours. And then the water supply to the villa went which meant no handwashing, no pooping, no showers. My aunt had to wash my cousins hair for her with sparkling water. I guess I didn't mind that part as much because it gave me an excuse to pop a squat and go for a whizz behind the tree in the backyard. Peeing in nature I find really connects me with the universe. On a positive note, when I developed a wicked sore throat and diagnosed myself with tonsilitis, all it took was walking to the local pharmacy and demanding a course of amoxicillin which they gave me for €1.90. I mean, this kind of uncomplicated healthcare really suits me.
Now the winter is coming and I'm starting to dream of the next escape, somewhere with no ants, a functional sewage system, less subject to arson, and where I can pee in nature.
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