My mobile always has to have specialized ring tones. Has to. The handset I'm currently using doesn't because it's a trial handset, but I get a new phone next week to dick around with, so I'll be putting special tones on it.

And at Christmas I'm one of those people that you love to hate-I have Christmas songs as ring tones, and my SMS notification is a jingling bell. I LOVE Christmas.

Snow Patrol's "How to be Dead" is my general ring tone.

When my managers ring (and they are listed in my phone book as "Dickhead I", "Dickhead II", and "Half-Ass"), the theme song from "The Godfather" comes up (I couldn't find the theme to "Wicked Witch of the West", which somehow felt more appropriate.)

When Angus rings, it typically plays "Tainted Love", but I'm getting tired of that one.

And my project managers? When they ring it plays Schroeder's piano theme from Charlie Brown.

I like to know who's calling at all times, which doesn't really compute, as 75% of the time I don't answer the phone anyway.

************************************

I bounce around the house. My work laptop is making groaning screaming pains of agony. Angus (aka the Best Help Desk Ever) is dilligently trying to get it to work but hope is slim.

"Did you know that your work pc only has 256MB of memory?" he asks.

I stop bouncing.

"That's not very much, huh?" I reply.

He looks up at me.

"I have this Blondie song in my head," I say cocking my head. This is not unusual, I often have a song in my head, only I hate Blondie. "I can't understand what she's saying though," I add, mostly because Blondie often sounds as though she had the tendons holding her jaws together removed. I am so desperate to know what it is I hum it for him. "Do you know what she's saying in that song?"

He stares at me. "I don't know, I don't know of any Blondie songs where she sounds like she's in so much pain."

************************************

One of my colleagues and I are sitting through a presentation on the coming state of things in the company. Things are looking as though we are going to be working at 150% until the rest of my natural life, or at least through those quality years when all of my pubes are still dark.

Peter looks dazed at the content on the slides.

He leans over to me and whispers, "Jesus, Helen, what do you think?"

I keep my eyes straight ahead but bite my lip. "Do you think that when ants broadcast the news every evening they report the amount of ants killed per day? Like a little Walter Cronkite ant straightens his antenna and looks at the camera, shuffling his papers, and says: 'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today 3,595,056,679 ants were killed. And in further news, Farmer Ted's grain is in, the rave is all set for tonight!'?"

Peter looks at me. "I think you need to take a few days off."

I nod, somehow unsatisfied with his answer.

************************************

Our local delivery man stops by-he delivers a box I had ordered from Lang. I squeal with girly glee and race upstairs to show Angus.

"Look!" I shout. "It arrived!"

He grins. Internet commerce is big in this house. "What have you bought?"

I rip open the box to show him 12 Christmas ornaments and a new 2007 calendar I bought. I rip open the packages and exclaim with such joy you'd think I'd won the lottery. "Look, look!" I shout, holding the tin ornaments in my hand. "Aren't they pretty?"

"Helen," Angus says patiently. "It's July. It's currently 35 degrees-(that's 95 to those in the F land)-outside. Why are you buying Christmas ornaments?"

I look up, my legs folded under me like a monkey. "Christmas is 5 months away," I explain, looking at him as though he's lost his mind. "I like to be prepared. You know, like when GI Joe attends a Barbie tupperware party."

************************************

One of my project managers has his revised project plan on the whiteboard, and he is walking us through it.

I bury my head in my hands.

"You don't like it, H?" he asks.

"Dude, your project plan is such a disaster the Red Cross wouldn't give it a blanket," I reply.

************************************

I walk down the tube hallways to the Jubilee Line, which leads me to my therapist (all roads lead to therapy). My long boho skirt drifts around my legs and the heat of the day hasn't penetrated into the tube station yet. People are rushing around in a hurry, jostling and stressing for whatever meetings mark their Outlook calendars and their minds. I pass a young man busking in the station, a guitar strung around his neck. He is singing "Mad World" in a clear and perfect voice-it's one of my favorite songs and he's doing it justice. I flip 50p into the hat at his feet. He stops playing and smiles at me.

"Thanks," he says, smiling.

"No worries," I reply. I smile back and remember the words a busker once told me. "Take it easy. We're all looking for a new god."

************************************

The fan is blowing cool air over us, but the sheen of the night is such that it's still too hot to spoon together. It's too hot to move, too hot to canoodle, too hot to touch.

From out of the dark comes Angus' voice. "There's a whole series of coincidences, some of them very small, that led to me meeting you. If just one of them had changed, I wouldn't have met you today."

"So you do believe in destiny?" I ask, smiling.

"No. I believe in coincidences," he replies.

"And are they good coincidences?" I query.

"Yes," he says kindly. "I am very, very fortunate."

And so he touched me anyway.

-H

PS-Houstonites and Dallasites, can I get a little help? Angus' brother is in Houston and Dallas in two weeks and is looking for a good camera store with staff who have a clue and decent prices. Angus and his brothers are looking for a specific lens, which they're having problems getting over here. Can a Houstonite/Dallasite recommend a good camera shop?

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:23 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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