Michael Forrest
Wed 31 Jan 2007
.. apparently my idea about how to improve the technical perception of our company is 'move of the year' and everybody's very excited about it.
I'll tell you what isn't working: two of the clocks in my flat died in the last 12 hours. Don't bother with those "Pure" DAB radios - they crash and then fail to wake you up. Or if you're already awake, you can't see the time until you touch the 'snooze bar'. So you lie in bed waiting for Radio 4 to come on and then after a while you start to think 'hang on a bit... something's not right here' and then realise it's crashed. And get out of bed an hour late. Happens every time.
Michael Forrest
Tue 30 Jan 2007
Haven't had 'em like this before. Not too keen on reality recently.
Had a surprisingly eventful weekend that involved going to a party in a warehouse near Pudding Mill Lane. There were trapeze artists. There was acting. Then there was dancing to Wonky Electronica. I went on my own - vaguely knew a couple of people who were going, but mainly through myspace / msn. Didn't find them until about 4am.
Stayed up well into the next day listening to obscure Stereolab, Mouse On Mars and Sun Ra tracks with Ommm, who is a very pleasant chap.
One week ago I had a vision of looking for a place exactly like that to try out some sort of Sunday morning after-party jam thing - it's very odd that one week later I have actually managed to put myself in that position from cold. Not sure my sound would work that well in that setting though - it's too 'scary' apparently. But I'm trying it in Filthy's now anyway.
I must resist the decline into single-male-living-alone-squalor. It's not cool. I missed the bins for the first time on Sunday. I will do washing-up-based penance this evening. I want my flat to stay in a state that I would be happy to bring people back to.
Um. I am ashamed that I felt humiliated for falling in love and it going wrong. I will have more faith in people next time. I have had nothing but sympathy and support from everybody, and I hope I can pull myself together before it's dried up. I'm still in a total funk, but I really do appreciate for the first time in my life that I am not alone.
Michael Forrest
Wed 24 Jan 2007
Performance review went entirely promotioney. I don't know if I was worried about it - I don't think I was.
I realised on Monday that all I felt like doing was playing out some improvised music in a place where I felt relaxed. I started off by trying to find a squat or something - to do it on a Sunday morning at an after party. Didn't get much help, and then remembered how cheap Filthy's was to hire. So I got the ball rolling on the same day. Emailed, spoke to the landlord, sorted it out for next Wednesday.
A frightening number of people have said they are coming... Which is good, I guess, but they will have no idea what to expect. I've felt like I could do something like this for years - when I used to play the piano for hours, I imagined myself in a concert hall or something. Seemed fairly ludicrous, but it made me at least try making music solo (I never used to think I could do it on my own).
Recent events have given me the confidence to go out on this limb. I will prepare my instruments, but I won't prepare the music. It will come as it comes. I hope. As long as I can get into the state that I can get into at home.
Michael Forrest
Mon 22 Jan 2007
God - this job is so far away from the types of life-or-death situation that my legacy brain cares about. I thought my holiday would bring me back refreshed and ready for action. I'm still fragmented and bored, unfortunately. Could there be anything less important than making a video of someone's face look like it's spraypainted onto a wall? Could there be anything less important than working out some kind of flexible markup language for a content managed Flash banner? In the wake of the last few days, it's very difficult to give a flying cack. I can hardly remember what I used to find interesting about this job. I liked being immersed in a challenge. Now I'm floating about a jagged collection of problems that I need other people to solve. Maybe I need another holiday. Or maybe I need a change. "A change is as good as a holiday" as a someone tritely put it to me the other day.
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