Over the last week I’ve been holding down a full-time job while working a couple of hours a night trying to polish of a piece of freelance work that even now is still lingering around my head. And over the next week, I have yet more to do. I’ve only been managing five or six hours sleep a night at most. On Thursday evening, when I was trying to prepare for an interview the following day, it all got a bit too much.
I was cooking some pasta with my flatmate Kate. When I picked up the pan I splashed my hand with boiling water. Reacting on reflex my arm twitched more, splashing more water onto my arm and onto Kate’s sleeve. I started swearing – my arm was hurting, and part put down, part threw down, the pan. Filled with horror about Kate’s arm (which was completely fine), I started apologising profusely – looking at all the hot water on the floor and the mingling pasta shapes, and running my arm under the cold tap. I had a sudden flash that I was clearly simply incapable of running my life to even the slightest degree – a feeling compounded by not getting the job at the BBC and the last six months of fighting for money and worrying about bills. A minor emotional collapse followed, only calmable by a substantial couple of shots of neat vodka. The following day, I felt fine – and managed to get to my interview in plenty of time, smart and collected. Only to discover that I’d prepared by looking at completely the wrong site. I came home early that evening and promptly slept for twelve hours.