Procrastinating again.....

What a crap radio station. They had played Eminen’s ‘With or without me’ four times. It was a different version than I had heard before, without lyrics. Strange I thought. In fact it sounded like the ring tone on my phone. Now my phone was making me feel stupid. How many times will I miss answering my own phone thinking it was a song on the radio? Instead of blaming the advances of polyphonic ring technology maybe I should look at myself. Maybe I should change it to a standard ring tone that just beeps or rings. More importantly, and more worryingly, if I can’t remember the ring tone of my own phone either nobody ever phones me or, more likely, I am too stupid to own a phone in the first place.

‘4 Missed calls’. I have leant to nullify my anticipation when seeing this sign. I know now without thinking that this is only one call. One real missed call and three calls from my answer phone telling me to stop being stupid -it was not the radio, it was your phone ringing. “Number Withheld”. This meant one thing. It was the job agency. The procrastinating mood I had been in before was quickly transformed into a thinking mood.

“Just giving you some feedback from the company, they said the final interview went well and they are going to give us a decision by next week”. In many ways I wanted the message to say “To be honest they thought you were well out of your depth, we thought your tie was ‘soooo nineties’ and we noticed you picking your nose outside, we just don’t think you will fit in”. Why would I have wanted this? Well, it would have removed the choice. Right now I had too many choices. Don’t get me wrong choices can be good. It can be nice choosing between a Toffee Crisp and a Mars Bar. It’s not that bad picking a double vodka and Redbull over a pint of Stella. It’s easy choosing between strawberry jam on my toast or having marmite. It’s nice to have choices. It’s just the life changing choices that I am procrastinating about.

This time it’s choosing between living and working in London or staying in Bournemouth. It’s about having a proper career in a successful company as opposed to a easy life in small local company. It’s deciding whether I would prefer to work from nine till seven and getting home in time for bed or sticking to what I know and being able to walk home at five thirty. Do I want the bright lights of London or the blue rinse pensioners of Bournemouth? Would it be better to stay around with my friends or seek new acquaintances? I then complicate myself even more, what about working in Sydney or Canada? And the more I think about it, the more I procrastinate. It seems my ‘leaving it to fate’ method gets a little unstuck when you have to make decisions. Fate hasn’t left me with a sole choice, but lots. As I walked back through the streets of London I was grateful for the distractions, I’ll think about it later.

Distractions like Christmas. A huge forty foot Father Christmas to be a little more specific. Not in a shopping centre. In the garden of a small house to the right of me. Not only was the white bearded man bigger than the house itself, it was actually outdone by the twenty foot illumined reindeer standing next to him. And then I walked past the next house. To say the neighbours were competitive would be an understatement. This house had a larger fifty foot Father Christmas, three thirty foot reindeer and a light show you could see from space. One nil to the Bennett family at number thirty two. And they are not alone. The current favourite for ‘most stupidly decorated house at Christmas’ goes to a family in Scotland. They have over one million light bulbs in their front garden light show, connected by fourteen hundred feet of cable. Just why seemingly normal families try to make their homes look like fun fares for thirty days of the year always make me wonder. Maybe I should make more effort? I don’t even put the paper hats from the crackers on my head at Christmas let alone spray my windows with fake snow.

Right, time for really important decisions. What the hell am I going to write about.