Paying Rent, Bills and Attention

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This is the first chance I've had to update my blog (well, technically I created the chance - I'm at work at 6.30pm on Monday, press week) since christmas, when life was very different. Back in those golden days, I had almost two straight weeks of pure loafery to get through - compounded by a sheer rock face of food to eat my way through, coming at me from my boyfriend's parents and my own, being as it was, the christmas period of traditional gannetry. When I wasn't shovelling food into my mouth, I was usually sleeping off the effects. It was great. But I knew my days in Loaferville were numbered. And now here I am, not a month later, working for the man, or rather, at this point, using company resources to convey working for the man to whoever is still clinging to this blog.

You might wonder, this is a travelblog, a blog about travels, but I am not travelling anymore, so why am I still writing it? Well. Isn't life a journey or somesuch bullshit? I've only literally put roots down even though I've been back in the country for nearly four months now. Some might say I found it convenient to be living out of several bags, on a temp job, between various couches and spare rooms - because it is harder than I thought to really stop travelling, even if you've physically stopped. Now the journey (hmm, that sounds well bullshit - I spose I must be a hippy) is more intangible, more about being in a new phase of my life or something, learning how to adjust to this evolved version of me, what from the old me and my old life I want to carry over. What's totally new in my life this side of my trip is, of course, Alexis. He becomes more important to me every day and spending time with him becomes more important to me. Whereas I used to be so ferociously about preserving my independence, at the expense of a relationship, I think I'm beginning to find a balance. Alexis is so easy going and friendly, everyone he meets takes to him instantly, and thats made introducing him to my friends and my parents much easier than I had anticipated. Having him around is amazing.

I started my new job, as deputy editor of a magazine called Financial Director, on the 7th Jan, and the weekend before that I moved into my new flat in good old Brixton; but I only literally found the time to unpack in the last week - I'm still far from done - and I only had one or two evenings so far where I really felt at 'home' - to do small stuff like prepare some dinner, cook it, eat it, wash up, and have time to read a book before crashing out. I am sharing with two others - randoms as they call them in london - a girl who is a professional concert pianist, Marisa, and Tim, another journalist. Both are much quieter, more private people than most of my former flatmates, and this is good for me because I really couldn't be bothered with those flatmates who need to prove how much of a big party their lives are and suck me into that, as you tend to get in many flatshares.

I've not exactly been out partying or catching up with my neglected friends. The time just goes nowhere, it seems. But it's been good. I have a good attitude I think. I stick to stuff and get on with it. I try to get as much sleep as physically possible - on the bus, getting into bed at 9 or 10 after work (getting an hour of reading in if I can handle it). At the moment I know I need to give myself space and time to adjust to having full time employment (which is very mentally engaged), having a new house, or any house, and oddly, I don't really feel so much that I miss a lot of socialising which was something I enjoyed a lot in my last year before travelling. I miss my friends but I've finally had time to entertain the Twins as they deserve and managed to convince them that I do love them even if I've hardly seen them - last Friday I finally managed to organise to cook a proper meal for them and for Alexis at my house, like a grown-up, and everyone had a good time - but I know that there is no rush to start all of that and maybe I would prefer to take it easy this year. I still want to dance but I'm sure the chance will come up, and I do have to see Chris' band play soon or I'm just a bad friend for not making time - they're also loads of fun so I want to see them. Just need a lot of time and space now to settle back into real life, and luckily I have the best support from the Twins and from Alexis, just to chill and hang around at my own pace. Maybe I've gone back to being a more quiet type. But yeah, my mind is slowly snapping back into attention paying mode, now that I have a job to do and rent to pay every month, as well as loans to my dad and the bank to pay off.

I'm enjoying my new job a lot. I've not yet seen through a full campaign (the whole process of producing a magazine, from planning to execution over a month) but I tried to get stuck in as soon as I landed, which was half way through the Feb campaign when most of the copy was commisisoned. I've written some easy slide-in pieces from research press releases and published our weekly e-mail newswire twice now, and we are on press week now (press week being the final week for a campaign where you proof all the pages and make sure there are no mistakes, before sending the whole thing to the printers and holding your breath - usually rushed and pressured, very exciting!) so I am helpig my editor edit - proofing pages mostly. This is a professional team of people who don't need to be told to develop the requisite passion and interest in the job to deliver high quality results we can all put our names to proudly - from our editorial assistant Rachael, who writes here and there when she can find time between PA'ing for all our editors and managing a pretty heavy homelife, to our art editor who creates some of the most striking and genuinely talked about covers I've come across, to my editor, whose mantelpiece needs extending to hold all his awards and whose knowledge of the market is rare among editors in my experience - I'm in a place where I am half senior and half totally junior and I'm learning so much every day. I was as nervous about coming to work here as I was excited: Incisive has been since 2003 the owner of Risk Waters Group, the very first publishing house I worked for in my career, and when I came to London as a youngling with nothing but my GNVQ and my vintage t shirt collection - and the place that fired me after just a few months in my researcher (junior writing) job on a credit derivatives magazine. I honestly had no clue whey they were killing me off then - and six years on I'm none the wiser, but I think it was probably that I just didn't fit in with the hundreds of party boy yoof types that typify working in the media, being a very shy person at the time, and a total non partier. My work was published as written, and praised at the time, so I knew it wasn't that. But I took the knock extremely hard back then - I never forgot my publisher saying to me in the meeting in which he delivered the news that 'you will never make it as a journalist'. A lofty verdict to make on someone's deepest dreams, with barely a handful of campaigns under their belt - a lot of power to excercise on someone then so inconsequential and naive. That could have killed me off and I never forgot the humiliation or the sound of being sent to death row, career wise. Anyway, the extra short stint with Risk was brought up in my second interview here and an explanation sought. I could only look my interviewers in the eye and tell them the truth: I didn't know why then and I don't now, but all I can say is judge my CV against the verdict I was given back then and you'll find the judgement wrong. At the time, though I concealed it, I was very afraid of that experience condemning me to having no chance with this job. But the interviewers looked me straight back in the eye and accepted it. So second chances to exist. And I had taken that rejection and turned it into a good thing by deciding to say fuck you to it. (Deliciously ironic was the day I was getting on the Central Line to get to the MT/MCA management writing awards, just a week before I was due to fly out to my trip, and of all the blasts from the past I could run into on that day, the very guy who decided to sack the girl who he thoght would never make it in journalism. He later emailed apologising for his decision! but it was long since vindicated, however conversely, by my achievements as a result of it.) It was at that awards lunch I was seated next to one Andy Sawers, an unknown to me - and the editor of Financial Director magazine, who later gave me this job when his deputy quit at precisely the right time - when I was looking for my next challenge, the right challenge, not just a job. It's quite nice to sit back (when time allows as it has only just begun to do) and look at how a chain of events spanning almost a decade can culimate in something good. If I had gotten my own way - my dreams on a plate - so many good things wouldn't have happened. Its the same with my trip. Now I'm beginning to see the bigger picture of how things came to pass, because for the first time since maybe 2006, I am beginning to find some time along the mentalness to sit down and think. And so far there is only good stuff to think about. That said, I'm not a fan of too much calm. I think it will be a busy year. I have a couple of trips planned already - with any luck Alexis and I are off to Berlin in the next couple of months (so far involving flying into one German city to stay with his brother, and taking a train through some others to get to Berlin and fly back over four or five days) - and then I have Tuscany for Cheryl's wedding in June. My editor is taking 12 days holiday in April and will be switching both mobile phones off while in Antigua, so that means I'll be stepping into his shoes to cover him. So I have to concentrate now to see how he does things and be able to take a magazine - and a team of three consummate professionals - to press successfully and produce a beautiful magazine for him on his return. I like him so I hope to save him the trouble of a heart attack and present him with anything less - and most importantly, I dont want to present myself with anything less.

x

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Photos

She Works Hard For The Money. So Hard For The Money.
At the Incisive Media awards last week with the team.