Why is this? Why is it that in almost all of the work environments I’ve been bosses like me and few coworkers do?
1. Because I suck up to bosses?
2. Because I do the job so well that other coworkers feel threatened? (ha! This would make a fine excuse, like the answers celebrities give to interviews: “And what do you consider your worst quality?” “Well, my honesty and perfectionism will be my downfall”.)
3. Because I am a cold person who does not talk to other people in the office much when they talk about the reality shows they like and what they had for dinner and I come across as being too stuck up and like I don’t need anybody?

I find myself in many work environments simultaneously (another godlike quality I have: I am everywhere) since I left my job back in 2005. Today I found out something nasty a colleague said about me to a friend. It had nothing to do with work matters. It was about me personally. I am not going to go into detail but it was rude, uncalled for and an extremely unprofessional thing to say.
The thing is, even if I am a very annoying person, I work from home. I see most people I work for about once a month. Therefore I am invisible and cannot be seen as threatening even if I was extremely good at my job which I am not. Not because I am stupid, but because work is not my number one priority. Also, although I appear cold and don’t know how to be around people I don’t know very well, this wouldn’t make an impact either, since they seldom see me. I hardly suck up to the boss. To me, the boss is another person I don’t know very well. Therefore a no-go area. I try to do most communication by email. Email is god’s gift.
Which leaves me with the question: Why say something insulting about a person you work with –even from afar- when you know they are going to find out? Especially when you LOOK LIKE A BULLDOG?

That felt good. 

I am going to vanish until the 7th of December. The truth is we are adding some new products to the deli and I also have to be in Richmond because we are moving to new premises. But this time I am glad to be leaving. I’ve had a very difficult week and because weeks always come with people packed in them, I’ve had some difficult people too.

If I find some time I’d like to go to Kew Gardens again to see the snow dome and Father Christmas if I am lucky. I am going to have my wishlist with me in case he is in a good mood. I also want to see the interactive Christmas lights at Regent Street, because I’ve heard that they react to movement and music. And I want to go to the Nordic Bakery too.

I may need Santa’s sleigh to manage to see everything though.

P.S If you’ve been to any of the things I want to see and you think it wasn’t worth it, let me know okay? See you soon, hopefully with renewed Christmas cheer and faith in the human race.

Yesterday, as I was searching for fresh information on theme parks in Europe, I stumbled upon an old article of mine on the same topic (journalists always recycle their articles, fresh food costs a lot, and newspapers tend to get what they pay for). The problem is that my article was found in a blog, signed by its owner. It was identical from the first to the last word. The article had originally been published in a Greek travel magazine more than 5 years ago and now here it was, all the words I used to like back then and me being clever and ewwww. Except that it was supposedly written by that blogger.

The funniest thing is that this was a travel blog, the proud owner of which is a writer who has written some travel books too and has revealed his real name to the world. He is so confident of his copy-pasting abilities that he has published an interview where he is both the interviewer and the interviewee. This interview baffled me. He has posted it instead of an "about me" paragraph.  In it, he asks himself questions (like we all do) and he answers, starting his sentences with phrases we use in actual conversation, when we need to buy time to think, like: "Erm, that’s a difficult question" or  "I honestly don’t know what to say" or "Look…" and "Let me think about that for a minute". Hey, take your time, it’s not as if you are wasting anybody else’s.

Shame on me for having sent him a polite but threatening email (if he can hesitate answering his own questions, I can be polite AND threatening can’t I?) asking him to take the article down (in order to rewrite it for another publication, yes, got a problem? It was MINE). Eventually, he took it down, without answering my email though.

I had to call Blondie and leave a message on her answering machine when I read the following in his lengthy interview with himself:

"What is the purpose of this blog? (Jekyll asks)

This blog is a compilation of all my articles that have been published in the Press…"(Hyde answers)

and further down:

"What is the most important moment of your career?

I’d say that it is the acceptance of my work and its public estimation, this is always the most important moment. All that combined with the challenge of the next step. "


I am a filthy viper for saying that but I think you forgot to thank your mother and your fans.

What I was working on, among other things, was handmade gifts-things for the holidays. I turned to my muse for inspiration, although in one case, I just did what she had done, exactly.
I thought about this for a magazine article because that’s the one thing that annoys me in Christmas. That you have to stand in queues and buy things your friends may not need/want/like. That spoils the fun, doesn’t it? So why not make something yourself? As horrid as it may look, nobody is going to tell you off.
Joking, my real solution is this: Give me a list of presents you’d like Santa to bring you. Yes, Gina, I will publish mine this year too. I think it won’t be as long as last year’s, but maybe it will be more meaningful. It won’t be just spiritual things though. That wouldn’t be meaningful to me.

However, the one gift I want from my friends and M is time. I would like more time with them. More things to do with them with an open heart. Open heart: not thinking too much about the hows and whys. Pure, silly joy. We have been thinking for too long. Much longer than it’s good for us. It sounds like a cliché but that’s what I want. Perfumes are clichés too, but nobody complains when you ask for perfume. We are running out of time, whereas there is too much perfume in the world. So, if you can sign a cheque for me for 24 hours with you, I’ll be grateful.

  

Back to the things I made:
Coasters and placemats out of felt
Tablecloth and napkins with iron-on motifs
Mint Pot-pourri
Christmas stockings
Lavender wine
Homemade mustard
Red pepper pate
Bath syrup
Bath salts (from scratch with coarse salt, the best)
Sugar body scrub
 

I also made a few small cards to go with the gifts. But I am saving those for an actual Christmas post. No grumpiness for the rest of the week, promise.

The last couple of weeks had been so bad I had taken to eating breakfast on the bus.
As a result, I have been wondering why nobody has thought of buses with breakfast tables and even a small canteen, for people who have no time to have breakfast at home. Because let’s face it, I can’t have dried berries for breakfast every day and at the same time I can’t carry my coffee pot and toaster with me.

However: The Christmas season is over and I am happy. It’s over for me and others who work in magazines, I mean, because the Christmas issues are ready by now. I can’t tell you how sick of Christmas I am at this point. I need some time away from Christmas and wrapping presents. And by wrapping presents, I mean wrapping empty DVD cases in fancy paper for the photographs. The mind boggles from all the fakeness.

Tomorrow I am going to tell you about the things I made and did and about my new hobby: reading the ingredients on shampoos, conditioners and other cosmetics. I am not joking when I say it is an extreme sport.

Before I make the rounds to your blogs to see what you’ve been up to, I need to tell you about a new club/bar I saw on my way to my mum’s, that only adds to the fabulousness that is Athens, the motherland of surrealism.  It’s called Lord of the Drinks. One drink to rule them all, One drink to find them, One drink to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

A card I had made some time ago to wish me Happy Summer Holidays. Ha!

I am shattered. I know people should not take out a page to write "I am shattered", but maybe this rule was made for people who did not need to say "I am shattered" so much and who did not need someone to look at them with pity, mercy and/or compassion and tell them: "it’s okay, take a rest, go to bed".

Song of the day: Breathe me - Sia

It is getting boring, I mean, me, checking in to say “I am leaving tomorrow”. It is true, I am leaving tomorrow, and I haven’t updated you on all the times I went away this month. But I am going to have a laptop in London and I will try to update from there. And post fresh photos.
I’ve been very busy with the e-commerce business for which many of you were an inspiration. If it goes well, I promise you, free pasta forever.
My heart grows bigger and I feel love for the world again. I decided, my problem is me, so I am going to try and solve me. But other than that, things are fine.
I really want to start posting every day again. If I remember correctly it made me feel sane.
Off to London now. This time I am going with Blondie, M and my son.
Expect postcards. Don’t forget me.
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