Sometimes, you just sit and stare at your screen and you don't know what to type. You don't know what you should do, and you end up looking for distraction. I'm not talking about posting to Sinister. I'm talking about work. I fluked my way into a small job at a small company -- called S&M Ltd -- and I have no idea how to do it. I impressed the boss at first by whipping up a couple of programs on demand, and fixing a few problems that had been puzzling him for months. But now that's over I have to get into the real work, and I'm stuck. I just don't have any clue. The code I'm supposed to be editing is just one big hairball of 6437592 different files with no manuals or instructions, and I'm out of my depth and drowning. For fuck's sake, all it does is sell insect repellent. Over the Shiny New Interweb. Oh, and bagpipes. And jewellery. And scale models of distillery equipment. As it happens, though, I'm on holiday at the moment. The boss wanted to go away for the weekend (to go to a party and pester TV producers with game show proposals), so S&M Ltd has shut down for a few days. I hope none of the computers fall over whilst I'm gone. I have to keep logging in every few minutes to check the site is still online, the mail server isn't overflowing, and orders for insect-repellant aren't disappearing into hyperspace. When I get home I'm dog-tired. I sit in bed and can't sleep, because too many things are on my mind. When I'm at work I sit pretending to work and looking out at the hills and the garden, and I dream of things. I know I've not been at my best lately, because I've been dreaming of the ocean again. I dream of going to a beautiful beach up in the north-west somewhere, looking out into the Atlantic. I dream of getting into the water and starting to swim, aiming for the horizon, heading west and swimming until I pass over the edge of this world and into the next one. I know none of you reading this actually think I'd ever do it. None of you think I'm being serious. At night, though, or in the office, I think I'm serious. There's nothing to stop me. I have no family, not that I still see. Noone would care if I left. Noone would notice. I *am* going to do it eventually; it just might take time. See, you think you have friends who will support you, you think they're one of your best friends, but one day you turn round and you realise that for months they've been telling you that they don't care any more. They've been telling you for months and you were just too dumb to realise. When it gets to that point, you may as well start swimming. The Isle of Avalon lies somewhere out in the western ocean. The mythical apple-orchard of paradise. I want to try and find it. love love love caitlin -- "When life gives us lemons, we just sit there and sulk about it, in the corner of the room, in a fetal position." - Matthew Henderson, on the Sinister mailing list. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+