annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Quite sweary - soz.
My phone has been a complete and utter bastard all day.
Item 1. When I arrived at art group and tried to pay for my parking via the app, it made me log in, for about the third time in a row, which made me LIVID, because I can never remember the fucking password, so I'm sat in the car typing crap into this poxy phone, waiting for emails, trying to think of a password I haven't used, that I stand some chance of remembering AGAIN when I could have been inside, pouring out my troubles to a kindly listening ear and then doing some painting. I did have a sudden realisation that I hadn't even vaguely tried to remember the last opassword I'd used, on Wednesday, when I went to the acupuncture clinic, because by the time I'd come up with one that suited all their fucking criteria, with the upper case and the numbers and the minimum cunting characters. I was LIVID and had to take a deeeeeep breath and let it all drift away. So today I've at least repeated the password to myself several times and we shall see how we go. Then, when I got home and had a moan about it to Bloke, he says he hasn't had to log in since he set his identical app up and he tries it on my phone and it doesn't fucking ask him to log in. Bastard bloody phone.
Item 2. After completing and submitting the application form I had miles to cover, and, went walking on the city beach
listening to Joe Jackson on my headphones
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwt2dxx9yg&w=560&h=315]
when suddenly the sound cut off and I looked at the screen and pressed buttons madly, but a picture of an empty battery and a charger briefly appeared before it went black again. I was surprised because I didn't think I'd used it so much, but I'd taken loads of pictures (and even a video), on the beach and in the park at lunchtime, and I was listening to music, so whatever, and I settled down without it. Which was weird to be honest - I hadn't realised quite how significant an item my phone was in distracting me from my life, let alone what peculiar behaviour it's generated.
Like, I see things in terms of their photographic possibilities almost all the time. Which is cool up to a point, but I was almost jolted each time I wanted to take a picture and couldn't because the camera was part of the phone, so also dead. Crikey, I thought, and made an effort to just be in the glorious sunset, blah blah blah. And I couldn't talk to anyone, or text or Whatsapp and no one could contact me. Which has become unusual, to say the least. It reminded me of when I was teaching and my kids were becoming teenagers and I had them at school calling, "Miss! Miss!" at me all the time all day then, "Mum! Mum!" all evening when I got home - the only peace was invigilating GCSE exams which felt like falling into a lake of beautiful silence - I used to dream of being a van driver, off with a list and stuff to deliver or collect, and nobody knew where you were really, and if they wanted you they'd have to fucking wait. And then some bastard invented mobile phones and that illusion was shattered, but today I was alone - I was going to say in a true sense of the word, but of course I wasn't, I was on the beach in the city, so there were masses of people about, but I've just noticed it's 1.30 am so I'm going to finish quickly. When I got home and plugged the phone in, it took a while to come on, but then said 39% charged, so what the fuck had that been about?
Item 3 which I'm still pissed off about and asking for help with - I can see the pictures on the phone, but the only ones I can get to the laptop are the ones I uploaded to instagram - all the rest just vanish, including the video. I've just uploaded that to instagram and tried to post it here but it says I have to upgrade - why is that?
So I'm well fucked off with the phone, but less so now I've written it out and remembered being on the beach and being so so so glad to live where I do and to be able to go to the city which is my spiritual home and how lucky to even have a spiritual home, because I am what some people call a bit of a weirdo. In fact many people, most people in some areas, but in my city we like weird, albeit in a quiet British way. And there we were, hundreds of us, on the beach on a bitterly cold January afternoon as the sun went down and the seagulls squawked and the starlings gathered into a great big cloud. Cool.
Bed now. I am grateful for: help; praise; beach; solitude; city
Laters xxxxx
1:50 a.m. - 21.01.17
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