Friday

I’ve had a ridiculous few days and I’m feeling a bit disorientated - more than usual.  I’m at home with a Vincent Price film on in the background after working 11 hours for the 4th day in a row - and tomorrow will be the same. Work is far harder than it should be, I’ve been let down really badly by someone technical and I have a couple of very difficult clients I need to deal with very carefully. I’m basically working harder than ever but I seem to be losing money hand over fist. To make it worse - a big project I’ve been working on for weeks has ‘gone toxic’ - not a phrase I usually use - but it’s possible I may be about to lose enough money to pay my mortgage for a year. And. It’s not my fault. I’ll probably talk about this another time.

Being tired and run down is starting to make me depressed and bad tempered - something that hasn’t happened since before my accident. I’ve found it quite difficult to keep up with this blog over the last couple of years - I’m not the same person I used to be and there is no point pretending I ever will be. I have bought of killing it - physically and metaphorically - partly as a gesture and partly because ‘he’ really is dead. I even thought about writing in the third person until I felt more comfortable with who I am. I still have to work that one out. To be honest - I’m frustrated more than anything else. I’m still struggling with writing by hand and my perception of what is written on the page or screen regularly seems at odd with what is actually there. Aggressive spell correction software makes things much worse. Don’t ask me to look at numbers, there is no point.

I’ve been dealing with my mortgage - I have secured an offer from by current lender that is actually very good. Fixed for 5 years at less than half the rate I pay now - the valuation they gave me was much more than I expected and I’ll be paying about 200pcm less for the same term. At the end of the 5 year fixed period I will be in position to sell everything and buy a flat for cash (probably) or at least be almost solvent. It’s actually everything I wanted - and I don’t have to go through the accounts stage so I can legitimately make a loss last year - which will save me a lot of money. I think it’s all OK - but I have to go through it all again in detail over the weekend. I tried talking to my brother about it but it wasn’t making any sense to me. I did think about going for interest only for a couple of years - but I can’t face that - it’s everything I scoff at.

I really don’t know where things are going with work - I honestly need to take a break from it all. I can see my future in this industry getting shorter and shorter.

3 people have been openly quite hostile towards me this week for no reason that I know of, it’s a bit weird - we’re generally quite friendly - but there has been the same odd ‘edge’ across all of them - they all know each other. I’m not being paranoid. It reminded me of being in school.

I had to spend some social time with the worst person I’ve met in years this week. I now fully understand the expression ‘virtue singnaling’ - it was excruciating. Smug white middle class privilage is a real thing.

My greyhound is showing his age more every day - it will be endgame soon. My whippet now needs to piss in the dining room at least 8 times a day. I will never be able to let anyone into the house again as long as she lives - and even then I’ll need to replace the floorboards.

I am struggling with the thought of getting through tomorrow - if I don’t get paid by someone I’ll literally be penniless. Which is quite absurd, as I don’t spend money (I live on nothing) and on paper - I’m somehow in excellent financial position,  I work 6 days a week, owe less money and have more equity and assets than at any time in my entire life - but can’t afford to by a loaf of bread. It’s fucking stupid. I don’t even have a credit card.

One of my clients sent me a crate of craft beers as a thank you. That hasn’t happened in 20 years. Nobody ever says thank you.

I have a client meting tomorrow, and then I need to deal with a lot of work and a couple of really difficult things that will probably upset me. At least it’s Friday.

I don’t know why I bother worrying about anything - the world is in Chaos, The Trump disaster is crawling towards an endgame - and it will be messy. I can’t bear to think about what happened in Spain today.