Wednesday, 19th September, 2007

Oh That Is SO Unfair

photo

Yarr! 'Tis a Fine Day

Oh. Sorry. I really can't keep that up. Not for an entirely ephemeral post about the ups and downs of today, anyway.

It was pissing it down when I left Lancaster this morning. My head was in a peculiar place — slightly confused from the intense (but instantly forgotten) dreams of the last hour of sleep.

'S funny, isn't it? You have a completely uneventful night and wake up at 5am, chug down a cigarette, slump back down again, and suddenly you're immersed in Bizarroworld™

Coming over the top of the Addingham Bypass, small chinks of light were peeking through the clouds, and by the time I'd passed the oddly still windmills (it was blowing a gale — think of the 'lecky they could have made) the sun was streaming down ... and it stayed that way for most of the day.

Today has been a mixture of up and down — not in that order. I'd decided to throw my head into CodeWorld™ and try and make an easy-to-use contact management system for this new site Ive been developing. An interesting challenge (to say the least) seeing as my understanding of the YUI libray is sketchy at best, and thoroughly bodgetastic and shit at worst.

But hey, I burried my face in my screen and tried to code — all the time muttering "Why? Are? You? Not? WORKING?!" to the text.

After what I can best describe as an "irritating" meeting with my colleagues (and I bet this is the night they decide for once to have a brief check on what I've been up to...), I figured I'd try to get some way closer to that perpetually strugglesome intent of mine to Live In Leeds™ by visiting the lettings agent that a few people had recommended.

It wasn't far — just a quick trot up the road — but despite my initial enthusiam, I was brought back down to earth with the realisation that all of the 'nice' properties had gone, and that there was a scant choice between run-down terraces in Student Land™ and ghastly 'City Living' towerblocks — that you just know are going to be derided as The Biggest Architectural Mistake Of The Twenty-first Century™ in less than five years time.

And then came the cat-issue.

I dunno what it is about landlords and agents. They seem to have some kind of prejudice against the most wonderful creatures on earth. Every single agency I walked into were all smiles-and-handshakes until I let the words "I have two cats" slip out of my gob.

Much sucking of teeth followed, along with things like "Oooh. 99.9%¹ of our landlords won't take pets"

By the time I'd got back to my desk, having wasted (a) a good hour being told the same thing, and (b) £1.10 on a packet of M&Ms (see above), I was (unsurprisingly) in a bad mood.

"Fuckingstoopidfucking antifuckingcat bastard letting agents", I said, to the unfortunate student who just happened to be in my room. "What have they got against cats?"

"For fuck's sake"

Just to spite myself, I decided to have a poke around an online classified ad site that someone had recommended to me. I don't really like text-only things when it comes to choosing property — I find the 'pot-luck' approach to be fraught with dangers for a social-skill-lacking mid-thirties transvestite, unable (as I usually am) to say "No" to people.

I fear (perhaps unfoundedly) going to visit places, then having to make elaborate excuses for why I don't like them, or (even worse) saying that I do like them, then living there for five years because I haven't the guts to offend the landlord by moving out.

But I called a couple of the numbers anyway.

"Oh hi. I'm interested in your flat"

"It's gone. Sorry"

...

"Hello, I'd like to come see your flat"

"Sure"

"Can you tell me a bit about it? Im trying to find somewhere that's good for me and my two ca..."

*durrrrrrrrrr*²

...

By this stage, I was furious — not helped (incidentally) by the coding I was trying to do inbetween the phone calls going really badly. The things weren't even dragging, let alone dropping.

I got through quite a few on the list — each with the same response...

Actually, can I just break from this for a second? You might be wondering to yourself (a) why I consistently admit to prospective landlords that I have cats, and (b) why I don't just find some alternative arrangements for them.

Well:

(a) I lack the ability to live easily with Hidden Secrets™. It's not some kind of noble 'I like to do things by the book' affair — it's just an absolutely mobid petrification with the concept of 'being caught'.

(b) To bastardise a song lyric by Marvin Gaye: Wherever I lay my cats, that's my home. I've been realising, recently, that it's not necessarily Lancaster that I call "home" — nor is it this house. It's the company of my kittens. They really are that-much-like children to me — to the extent that they're family.

But then, I think you probably knew that.

...

The coding wasn't going well. And the list of potentials was exhausted. But then I hit Refresh.

There, at the top, was one I hadn't tried — and it had pictures From the looks of it, it was rather nice — a large, 2-bedroomed ground-floor flat, well within my price range.

"What the fuck", I figured. And called the number.

"Blimey! That was quick. I only just posted that", she said.

She told me a little bit about it — where it was, what kind of neighbours it had, that sort of thing. It all seemed OK, so I popped the question.

"How are you with the idea of pets?"

"Hmm"

"(Oh shit)"

"Dog or cat?"

"Two cats. They're very lovely"

"I think you'd be OK with cats. I used to have one myself"

...

I'm going to see it tomorrow evening. I've been told by some people who were still hanging around as I was leaving that the area is "chavtastic" and "suburban" — which (I must shamefully confess) put a bit of a downer on it.

But I was thinking on the way home, that really, all I want from a flat is somewhere private and quiet, good for the kittles, and less than the two-and-a-half-hour commute that I'm used to.

And in regard to being "chavtastic", well, I kinda already live by The Marsh FFS.

I took the fact that it was part-furnished as a bit of a good omen — it has sofas, but no bed (and I have a bed, but no sofa³). But I guess we'll see tomorrow night.

I did (I have to confess) neglect to mention that I'm a smoker. And I totally left out anything about me being shit with money.

I didn't want to chance my arm

...

The code, BTW?

For some reason, everything slotted into place after that. It drags, and it drops. And it does it rather beautifully. This is possibly the best website I have ever put together

...

One final thing. Sorry. Bit rambly.

Driving around the one-way system in Lancaster, at the end of a weird day, I passed a man dressed like a pirate!

Yaaaaaaaaaar!

¹ You know, I really hate how that phrase — "ninety nine point nine percent" — has come to mean "nearly all".

² That was supposed to be the noise of someone hanging up

³ One that you'd want to sit on, at least

The code — I have to say — isn't remotely elegant. It's a hodgepotch of copy-pasted then heavily-hacked JavaScript. But It Works™.

I'm hoping (in the not to distant future) to get someone in to help me with these things. But for now, I'm content making 'proofs of concept' and hoping that at some point, someone wil Fix The World™ for me

Yes, yes, thank you for those