Friday round-up, I mean Roundhouse: just keep thinking about the Dresden Dolls

Work. No, that's an order.

Ms Baroque has been editing as hard as she can for ten hours a day, and the tide of documents is rising. There's no food in the house; lunch is thus costing £6 a day, to say nothing of the crucial morning coffee, to say less of the disgusting sushi-&-cheeseburger-fest in Victoria Station the other night after a (yay!) drink after work with the new pals.

On the plus side I did get the TV working again. By the time I came in and got something to eat (bowl of spinach and broad beans, with some bacon which wasn't off; a roll, taken from the freezer and put into the toaster oven; quite a large amount of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream) it was well past 9, and I was just, starkly, unable to:

• answer emails,
  
• type out the poem I'm working on, which exists only in one incomplete hard copy and has been untouched for days
• do anything else involving a screen
  
• speak to anyone
• make the bed that needs making for me to sleep in.

I was, on the other hand, able to:

• cut my finger badly on a brand-new and very sharp kitchen knife, trying to make carrot sticks out of a carrot from Morrisons that has absolutely no flavour left in it anyway
• ring Telewest and, as I say, get the picture back on the TV - it was something to do with the SCART leads...
• watch three episodes of EastEnders
• take Jon Stallworthy's biography of Louis MacNeice off the shelf - being in possession of a brand-new commission to write about it for a special MacNeice edition of the Contemporary Poetry Review - and look at it vaguely for about three minutes whilst thinking of all the other research I need to do
• sleep on the couch for the third night in a row

The yoga teacher says my kidney energy is very depleted. Tell me about it. He asked if I'd been feeling tired lately. Ha! I said: "Exhausted": I honestly thought I might cry.* He was giving me an acupressure back massage at the time, (see, life not all bad) and when he said, "Yeah, I can tell," I suddenly felt I might cry (this also happens in the yoga class, when you lie on the floor and they're saying, "just let the earth hold you - you don't have to do anything").

(The other thing that did the same thing to me this week was when a New Work Pal, asking all those questions, says, "and do you have a new partner?" I go, "No-oo...." and she says: "OH! Why not?? I thought you would, you're so sweet!" Well, tell me about it. I know it's not me that's not sweet.)

The other day I stumbled across this bizarre and amusing thing: Baroque in Hackney automatically-translated into French (or something very like French), which it alarms me that someone might read. My favourite part was the rendering of my friend Jen Pepper's name to "Poivre de Jen". I will try and type out the insanely long URL soon, to make a link. Mean time:

"Deux jours dans être arrières au travail, donc, et se sentir comme je « n'ai fait rien » - la signification ce qu'exactement, je ne sais pas, sauf que moi ont des piles de factures et de papiers et doivent aller voient la banque au sujet de quelque chose mais ont été trop fatigués pour courir autour en mon heure de déjeuner, et n'ont pas toujours une bonne liste de magasins pour envoyer des poésies au loin à, qui a besoin faire mal - pendant deux jours dedans, comme parole, j'ai presque édité un document entier ; J'ai eu quelques grandes grosses idées dynamiques et ai commencé à les vendre autour de l'organisation ; J'ai écrit un bon début sur un amusement (oui !) la nouvelle poésie, que je pense sortirai tout à fait ambitieux mais tombe mon stylo ; J'ai finalement trouvé ma citation de Primo Levi (j'ai dû acheter le livre, encore, et étrangement il n'était pas facile de trouver) et le mettre dans l'article, que je peux finalement envoyer outre de la finale édite au rédacteur ; J'ai lu ce grand article, concernant une force de police au Mexique tournant la marée sur le crime en enseignant leurs dirigeants à lire ; et celui-ci, qui me confirme dans ma haine de Starbucks ; J'ai été dans l'encore un autre de ces arguments au sujet des ventes de poésie contre « quels lecteurs veulent » etc. ; J'ai lu un certain Auden (ce lecteur veut Auden) ; J'ai lu une pile des poésies qu'un ami m'a envoyé ; J'ai texted Dieu de roche de 15 ans en France (aucune réponse ; il est de retour samedi nuit), et suivi les autres à la maison de leur père ; et j'ai été pour après-travaille la boisson (mon premier verre de vin en 10 jours !) dans la barre d'hôtel de chardon à la station de Victoria, qui est un endroit de fab à se réunir pour des boissons, réellement. Vous obtenez ce grand sentiment démodé d'hôtel, qui est toujours un tonique ; Je pourrais avoir été Mlle Marple, s'asseyant là. La fois prochaine je prendrai le tricotage..."

In other news, six phone calls in, I know the name of my eye consultant's secretary (Bernadette) and may be closer to getting a) a new prescription for the Poison Eye Drops, in case of emergency, and b) an appointment for the laser thing I missed when I had flu (which seems delightful, in comparison, in retrospect). They are making ominous noises about me having to go back in to the clinic again first, which I wish they wouldn't. They seem to have no idea how much it upsets me every time and just sets me back all over again.

* note from future: gall stones.

HOWEVER! In a major coup and thanks to my charming and kind friend Sarah, I had better go get dressed, and make it good: because this is where I'm going tonight.

And now I must stop typing before I get blood on this keyboard.