10:56am - 11:17am, Monday Morning.

In the office at work. M. and D. arguing over D. not drinking enough water. Tom sat next to me, looking at a Superdubpressure flyer. 'You're falling apart, you're going to die of a skin disorder. Ever hear of leprosy?'. 25 calls to mark. Still annoyed I couldn't download itunes. Tried three times. Got to 70% then it just freezes. have to buy a new power lead for my old lap top which has itunes on it. Hope it works. Jagged January annoyances. Unimportant but irritating. Left my cartridge pen at home so can't draw. Even more annoying when I remember I started a drawing on Friday I was quite pleased with (a gloomy looking man smoking a cigarette, ignoring a plate of chicken and apples).
10:56am.
Hastings Direct Recorder Client not working. Well, not the call I want to mark. facebook? No. Keep writing here. Halfway through a mug of chocolate. Look out the window; grey skies, brick wall, everything flat and lifeless. Winter. We're adrift on the nowhere seas of January now, away from the comfy Christmas islands, the consolation of New Years Eve waters, left the television specials behind now, the Boxing Day sales. Nothing but sea and choppy water. Drift and dream on these currents until the March waters herald the Spring coast.
These are the orphan seas.
Check the QA syastem again. Still not working, and no new sales to mark. Tom stretches, half yawns next to me. M. leaves the office. Hear a car outside, struggling through the air that tastes of slush and coldness that brings exhaustion.
Lost expeditions on ice floes. Arctic waters. Ice-cap dramas. Don't fall asleep or you'll sleep forever. Hypothermia dreams.
An explosion of birthday drinks at the weekend. One on friday night, two on Saturday night. Why does everyone seem to be born in January? Tom's birthday also, though he was laid low with some kind of jaw infection. Joe's birthday in a weeks time. My sister's soon as well.
Paced around town on Friday with Andy, joined latterly by Joe. Andy looking for a birthday present for Claire. Bookshops and record shops. Comic shops, charity shops and cafes. Buy old horror comics from the 1970s. 'House of Secrets', 'Ghosts' ('If you don't believe in the supernatural, we dare you to read these haunting tales'). Cheap cds in a sale. Neo-anarcho punk bands whose names I have forgotten. Spitting out a slightly false cockney defiance. Bat for Lashes first album, not as good as the second. Absess. Raw death metal. More pleasing than I thought. A band called Debase, I only bought because it was a pound. Not very good. Sub-Soundgarden style thrash. Nurse with Wound. 99pence. 75 minutes. Industrial jazz sound loops.
D's phone goes off. A nightmare cartoon music. He doesn't answer it. Maybe it is M.s.
Saturday hungover. Drifted through the cold day in my bedsit. Single room cabin fever. Watched 'The Reader' on DVD. Quite good, but not as resonant as the book by Bernard... Damn, what was his second name? Scheyrink? Schrink? Ventured out to buy food and The Guardian. Slushy ice. Light all unreal and hangover tainted.
Tidied my room. Slept until it was time to go out again.
Can hear people in the office next door. Talking about their training induction groups. The ghost sounds of opening doors, closing doors. Shuffling in the call centre. Go and check the QA system again. Finally have some calls to mark.
11:11am.
Woke up at just before midday yesterday. Wrote a piece about dreams. ventured out for more food and Sunday papers. Came back. Read more of '2666' by Robert Bolano. A masterpiece, though I am only a quarter of the way through. Slept. Strange dreams I can't remember. Joe comes round for a coffee in the eveni9ng. he woke up at 5pm. Outside and into The Temple Bar for a pint. Dark interior, and wood panelled walls covered with a random collection of paintings. Hypnotised by one, a sub-impressionist scene of a pale field, grasses frozen in their wind movement, a bare tree in the background. Then hungry. Fast food joint. Finally settle on Turkish House. The melancholy comfort of fast food places on a Sunday night. The friendly Turkish man tells us to 'come again, we are always open!'. Full up after my chicken fillet meal, I drink my coke and watch a silent Turkish soap opera on the television. After the Turkish soap opera, silent rappers seeming somewhat old fashioned come on. A display of break dancers and trainers with shining lights on the heel.
Go home, try to download itunes, sleep.
A dream of night-horses in my room. All I can remember.
Weekend done.
Lost now on the orphan seas of January.
11:17am.