32 Days a Rookie

Today has been a shit day. Not shit in the grand scheme of all the shitty days I’ve had throughout my life. But not the best. Nowhere near.

Wake up at 4 am with massive stomach cramps. Take 3 too many Naproxen. Try to take a shower. Water is freezing. Sigh. Trip over lurking black cat. Get clawed in the ankle. Cry in pain on the sofa. (Stomach. Not the miniscule scratch) Remove peas from freezer. Zap myself with those.

Wait. Numbed tummy. Wait. Tablets finally start to kick in. Crawl back to bed. Tabby cat sits on head. The black one has forgiven me and now thinks I am dying of a horribly slow, agonising death and sits on my back. Just to be sure I’m breathing. It’s my own fault for being so damn dramatic. I curse myself. The white one wants kisses. Of course he does. Morning cat breath in my face. Then, he wants biscuits. Loudly. And, he is not going to stop yowling until he gets them. We’ve been here before. Sigh.

Remove felines, crawl out of bed. Get biscuits. He doesn’t want those ones. Sigh. Find the Purina.

I’m up. There are no two ways about it.

Might as well do some work.

Teams chat.

Tabby lies flat on my left arm.

15 messages. It’s 5am. I didn’t go to bed until 1am. Scratch head.

3 reference requests for universities from students. One of whom wants to go to Cambridge. She absolutely could, she’s amazing. But do I really want her life dreams in my silly undersized hands? Sigh.

10 random teacher questions.

Reply with one hand.

“Where’s the powerpoint for the lesson on the holophrastic stage?” In the shared folder. Labelled 3-Intro to Holophrastic. “Can I work from home because all my classes are on a trip?” No. I’ll get fired. Next. By random question number three, I half expect, “Dude, where’s my car?”. I swear these people think I’m bloody Google.

Final two. "Sick. Need cover". Sigh. Godamit. Everyone hates cover which means by proxy they hate you because you’re the one ultimately responsible for giving it to them. Set cover. Send grovelling apology messages to my victims.

Remove Tabby from now dead arm.

Try to make myself feel better. Mouse on over to Vocal. Determined to read something good. Start to read Mathew Fromm’s high fantasy piece, "Fallen Empire"

I’ve been waiting for it with eager anticipation. Read it. I'd like to say its so good. Brilliant. Amazing. Though I am sure it absolutely is all of those adjectives. And many more.

Not a word taken in. Nothing. Disappointed. Headspace zero. Will read when I get home.

6 am. Time for shower. If they turned the heat on.

They did. Something at least.

Shower.

Trip over lurking black cat. Get scratched on the same ankle. Higher up this time. And it itches. Sigh.

Ping –ping –ping –ping.

Italy trip: 15 photos of kids and teachers sunning themselves in Capri. Download. Make a video. Find unassuming teacher who shows up as being, ‘available’ at 7am to correct Google’s Slovak. Post on Instagram reel. Make collage for Facebook. Post that.

My day started as it intended to go on. Painful and busy. And largely pointless.

Manage to sneak on Vocal a couple of times though. Have a few in comment conversations with the fabulous Rachel Deeming.

Then, she goes and posts her Venice piece. FFS.

If I didn't like her so much. I'd hate her. She can write ANYTHING. Well we all can but I mean WELL. Brilliantly actually. Annoyingly, irratatingly, wonderfully brilliantly!

And so there it was in my head. Venice.

It's all I could think about.

I’m in pain.

“That’s it. I’m going home”, I announce to our shiny, new, assistant. I don’t often but I can occasionally get away with it. If I act confident enough. I deserve an Oscar for this one.

By two p.m., I’m nestled back on the sofa with my peas and two of the three overly protective felines. The girls. Biscuit boy hasn’t even noticed I’m home.

I spend a glorious 20 minutes or so vanishing in to the back alleys of Venice and riding Gondolas under the bridge of Sighs.

Sigh.

Boy wakes up. Yowling. Biscuit time.

I check for notifications. Nothing. Feel useless. And stupid.

Back to work. Dissect Cambridge exam entries. Again. Inspection next week. If I’ve screwed the timetable up, the school will be in huge trouble. Paranoid. I’ve checked the thing every day for a month. And made the assistant check it 3 times before that.

In between, I read, ‘Toastie’ by Kristen Balyea.

Think "What a brilliant Haiku and that is a great fucking idea. A toastie will make me feel much better ".

I work until 5 ish. Toastie time. Except, of course the owner of the school rings about some cunning plan to ship some poor, oblivious Brit into flying over to give our students some STEM workshop thing. For free obviously. His son goes to university there. Very persuasive young man. If he wasn’t going to be the next Einstein, he would make a brilliant politician. So would his dad. “Great idea” I say, like I mean it. He rambles. I listen. Take a few notes. “Have a lovely evening I say”. I don't really care if he does or doesn't to be honest. But that's by the by.

The toastie is bloody burnt to a crumb of charcoal. Of course it is. Chemistry? Or is that physics? I don't know anymore.

The last slithers of cheese invested. Squandered. And the entire house stinks of bonfire. And there is no way in burnt toastie hell I am leaving the house again today.

I’m in pain, tired and now hungry.

Crawl into bed. Phone rings. Almost immediately. The mother.

“I’m still at work’ I say. A little white lie.

I’m up. Again. There are no two ways about it.

Check Vocal. Nothing. I’m tired, I’m in pain, I’m hungry and now I’m fucking invisible. Great.

Facebook notification. Hmmm. A question.

“What are you celebrating today?

"Fucking kidding me?" I think. I want to write, “Surviving the day” But I haven’t yet. So, that seems a bit premature. Plus, that would probably make me sound like an emo. 5 year old kid with a bubble gum wrapper tattoo of a hummingbird on my neck and a chip the size of a tinder block on my shoulder. I refrain.

I need a glass of wine.

Think. Celia. Think.

Find wine. It’s a corkscrew jobby. Of course it is. Sigh. Rummage for corkscrew machine. It’s gone AWOL. Smack the neck of the bottle hard on the craggy bit of wall in the kitchen. It feels good. A little too good. Miraculously, for today, it clean smashes and I don’t lose any wine. Or a finger.

Pour.

Think.

Check Vocal. Stats. Mouse on over to my first ever Top story. Ophelia. Hmm.

I liked that one. I thought I was being all dramatic and shit. But in reality it’s just a bit shit. But still. It kept me on Vocal that first week when I was entirely ready to burn my notebooks in a ritualistic fire. And possibly myself as a sacrifice to the Goddess of failure, whoever she may be. I didn’t get that far. That notification made me think twice. Thanks Ophelia.

That was it. Lightbulb moment. An almost entirely appropriate response.

Today is the 18th of September. I check my documents. My first post on Vocal was the 18th of August.

Boom. That won’t make me sound emo. Or weird. Well maybe a bit, but better. Much better than my initial response.

So, after I got this Top Story, I was feeling all Benji F, “Woah - you can do anything you set your mind to”. So, I set my mind to writing every day on Vocal. Which I actually did. Most of it’s shit. I apologise for that but I stuck with it. The goal was just to write. Try different styles. Share. And that was the biggest thing: transitioning from being an in the closet scrawler to a pen wielding hippie was one of the hardest things for me to do. But hell yeah. I’m just a little bit uncharacteristically British, dare I say it “proud of me”.

And that’s what I replied. "One month on Vocal and I published something every day".

So, today has been a shit day. I’m hungry, invisible, tired and now marginally less in pain. But I acheived something I set out to do, and in the grand scheme of shitty days. This is not so bad. Time to crack on with a new month.

And settle in to read Mr Fromm.