commencing 25th august 2025
out of office
it’s actually been…kind of a chill week. i turned my out-of-office on and have been white-knuckling it a bit, because normally when i’m abroad that’s exactly when work decides to explode (see: oslo). but my emergency number has stayed completely silent, which is, frankly, fucking awesome. i have a bunch of invoices to pay off, but i guess that’ll happen. i’ve been away, and then i’ve gotten back and this week feels about a million years long. supposedly the more varied your week is the longer it feels, and maybe that’s to be believed.
and get this: i like florence. it’s been really nice to just mill about there and eat ice cream. i won’t pretend the holiday’s been without its difficulties, though. i had the meltdown of the century when we were nearly late for the uffizi - i was already exhausted from the past three months of (gesticulates wildly) all that, the general overwork and the non-boundary holding and the running some portion of a thing without really knowing how to and being scared of doing it all wrong, and my family on top of everything decided i should be the one to research and book our entire itinerary. the kicker? no one even blinked when i lost it. which got me thinking: maybe people don’t actually notice when i freak out? like, i live in the shame space permanently, but no one else seems invested enough to flagellate me as hard as i flagellate myself. i want to be whipped. i want to evaporate. how can one person manage to cringe five seconds after the act, every single time? idk. but i do. constantly.
so yeah - that meltdown, plus we got fined for a dropped bus ticket before the meltdown which really did not help me to not have the meltdown, and i had one of the worst allergic reactions i’ve had in over a decade and spent five hours throwing up everything i’d eaten all day into a bag. it was… not a glamorous day. also, i feel like my parents are doing weaponised incompetence? because it’s like…you guys literally do surgery. you learned how to do surgery and were actively practising of one of the most difficult and most intense professions on the planet, and here you are pretending to me that you don’t know how to use google maps or translate. like, i’ve seen you do it. i know you can do it. i know you do it when i’m not here. why is it up to me unless i’m literally crying into my hands on the side of a road? why does it take me being that level of emotional for it to not be the main option? my dad even tried to be like ‘you should have said you couldn’t do it’ and it’s like I DID. I SAID I HAD TOO MUCH ON TO BOOK YOUR HOLIDAY ITINERARY FOR YOU AT LEAST FIVE TIMES. fine, whatever.
but. i also saw a bunch of really cool statues, some caravaggio paintings, went swimming, and ate a frankly irresponsible amount of good italian food. so the mileage truly varies. i also went to see the leaning tower of pisa, which was sorta cool but also too warm for my own good for sure. also, we have no kitchen. i landed back and went to the gym and did some errands and then a man came and ripped out our entire kitchen on saturday morning. now it’s literally just a hole. it’s the first thing i see when i come in and i keep getting jumpscared by it every time i get home. it turns out that thanks to me being anxious about booking a countertop appointment too early this entire process is likely to take a month or so now. but i guess it is what it is - most of it will be ready in the next 5-7 days and we can move all our shit back into the room. we just won’t have running water or the ability to use a hob downstairs for a while. which does really suck, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.
fun (london-based) things i did this week:
went to see the life of chuck and freakier friday in cinemas with will. the bright side to our kitchen getting totally destroyed on friday is that i’ve not really had much in the diary because i wasn’t sure how overwhelmed i would be, so i’ve had time for the cinema.
went skiing! turns out after you learn to ski pizza the only way to progress is to stop skiing pizza. i’ve made a lot of progress, which is cool. i’m aiming to get two more ski days in before october when the summer season ends and the prices double. after that, i’ll be back in like, march.
will and i went on a tour about the secrets of central london. it was unfortunately quite dry and non-interactive, but still sort of interesting, i’m just not sure i remember anything much.
i guess in the next few days i will have most of a new kitchen. crazed! it is not actually very tiring, but i am trying to give myself a bit of time because i struggle with change and with things like not having a downstairs tap and having half the room be covered in mess. xxx