Explaining my absence: just your typical first-world problems

‘I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you’re just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling emotion to whatever degree, for a limited amount of time and so on, on this tiny rock orbiting this not particularly important sun in one of just 400m galaxies, and whatever other levels of reality there might be via something like brane-theory [of multiple dimensions]…really, it’s not about you.’

Iain Banks, in his final Guardian interview, published 15 June 2013

‘I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death.’

Christopher Hitchens, ‘Mortality’

This will, no doubt, soon turn into a bit of the theatre of absurd.

I’m not that old, but I always feel it.

Hypochondria also runs in the family blood, mainly from my father’s side. The slightest niggle or pain, and we’re suddenly dying. My father, last I saw him, was worried sick that he smelled like a fish and it was the sign of some incurable ailment. My sister and I tend to be pretty similar, paranoid that any sign of discomfort in the lower abdomen is the first sign of a terminal illness, and that suddenly death is about to swallow us up whole.

In my first post of the year, in early May, I mentioned, yet again, my disdain for computers, the physical incapacities of my arm and back (and foot and leg and…and…and…), and various other complaints that explained my absence from writing. I swear, the forces are conspiring against me to quash this blog once and for all.

But I won’t be defeated: I’ll clench my teeth, fight through the pain, get over my hatred of all things technological, overcome self-inflicted stress and inner torment, and I will write, goddam it, I will write.

I spoke before of my computer being a ‘useless piece of shit’ and how every computer I’ve owned has been crap. Here’s a roll-call from the past 11 years, or when I stopped using a desktop and started using laptops:

1. Sony Vaio: piece of shit, keyboard and touchpad gave out

2. Compaq: piece of shit, innumerable problems, culminating in a hard-drive crash when it fell off a stool onto the floor.

3. Apple MacBook/IBook (I don’t know): big piece of shit – Skype didn’t work, videos didn’t work (whether Youtube or midget porn), most of the hard drive capacity was mysteriously unusable, and more than anything, I just don’t like Apples.

(I took this to one of the so-called ‘Genius Bars’ at an Apple shop in a New Hampshire shopping mall, where they examine Apples and sort out any problems free of charge. They couldn’t work out what was wrong with it. And then the guy, in classic stoner-like fashion, uttered this immortal, confidence-inspiring line: ‘Looks like you just got a bum Apple, dude.’ Why the hell would I ever buy another Apple?)

4. Dell: piece of shit. Of course, it didn’t help that my sister dropped it, destroying the monitor/screen just a few months after I bought it.

5. HP: my current piece of shit. Freezes all the time. Blue screen of death. Super slow. Keyboard crapped out a few weeks ago. First external one broke when I got annoyed and snapped it in half over my leg WWE-style.

Hell, the best, most trouble-free computer I’ve ever had? My first one, a Commodore 64, back in the 80s. I’ve never had it so good since.

Look, this is a nasty vicious cycle: computer sucks – pain unbearable at times, making it hard to sit still and write – stress because of it – computer crapping out – more stress – more pain because of stress – want to smash computer – more stress leading to more pain – and so on and so forth.

The result is the usual inertia.

But to do something about it, instead of whingeing? Yes, I’ve thought about it. I want to write, I need to write (need is a dangerous word, but here is entirely appropriate, and needed), I feel better – emotionally – when I write. But the computer…Christ, how to overcome that?

A solution: give up computers for a year. At home, anyway. (and then write a book: ‘My life away from computers; how I resorted to being a Luddite in a computer-obsessed world’. What a smashing idea!)

That’s half the solution. But the trouble is, I can’t give up the computers at work, there’s no way around that. And those cause me just as much stress as my laptop.

Those who know me best would laugh at this, but my colleagues often comment on how calm, collected and relaxed I always seem at work (cue ridiculous laughter from my nearest and dearest who know the truth). Yet, my frustration has started to visibly manifest itself lately – I can hardly keep my angst in, as I bang my fists and utter all manner of workplace-inappropriate expletives. And all over the littlest, most minor things.  

This is all too ridiculous, really.

But then I specialize in this kind of shit. ‘Life is far too important to be taken seriously’ (Oscar Wilde) – I’m trying to be amusing about the serious things and serious about the amusing things, and if I can pull that off, I’m doing something right in life.

And yes, these are first world problems to the extreme.

Banks and Hitchens and death: theatre of the absurd, continued

I’ll confess that I’ve never read Iain Banks and know little about him. But when he was diagnosed with terminal gall-bladder cancer a few months ago, he persisted with his writing and kept up his Stakhanovite work ethic, writing and writing until the very end last week. Similarly with Hitchens, who when diagnosed with throat cancer, almost laughed it off and vowed to fight and write to the very end, which he did. The result was ‘Mortality’, a slim tome of death-induced ruminations and ramblings. Love him or hate him - and believe it or not, I’m somewhere in between – Hitchens was not only a prodigious, but an extremely gifted writer with a flair for both the absurd and the [melo-]dramatic, with dollops of acerbic wit, sarcasm and irony interspersed between.

Shit, if they were able to persist and fight through the pain, then so will I!

I’ll say no more of this, other than that on some days…no, most days these days, just sitting still long enough to get anything done is a victory. I’m not talking about computers, but about my far-from-robust physical constitution, with my host of physical ailments. All no doubt hypochondria-induced.

A lesson in persistence and getting what you want: never give up, kids!

Our coursebooks sometimes feature a letter of complaint writing section. Students often ask me whether it’s useful. I usually say no. So we don’t do it. How many of them are ever going to need to write such a letter? Or even an email? Especially in Kyiv, where the concept of writing a letter of complaint is an alien concept.

My father used to have this habit – maybe he still does, I don’t know – of writing a letter of complaint after every flight he took. Even if there wasn’t a problem, he’d concoct something, all in hopes of getting some freebies. Much of the time it worked. Dishonest? Sure, but he always had some way of justifying it.

(My father has also been known to look for the number at the bottom of bus timetables and then call them to complain if the bus is 10 minutes late.)

Following that cue from my old man, I’ve long done the same thing, though these days the art of crafting a nicely-written letter and then posting it off are long gone – a succinct, terse email is the normal way to go. If there’s a minor problem, I exaggerate it, if there’s nothing, I invent it: broken seats, video screens not working, smells emanating from the toilet, soiled seats, flight attendants’ body odour, the film was offensive, the food was disgusting, I had to sit next to a crying child, there were shards of broken glass in my meal, etc. The funny thing is, when there have been genuine problems – like BA losing my bag for 2 weeks – I’ve got nothing. But when I make something up out of thin air – voila! A voucher for 20% off my next flight, a free gift up to $100 from duty-free or even a buy one, get one free voucher. Virgin Atlantic has always been the most generous with their offers.

Apologies for the humblebragging, but…

I’ve been travelling all my life. I’ve piled up thousands upon thousands of miles. Yet somehow, through all these years and all these miles, I’ve only managed to get one free flight using air miles. One. And it was a one-way, not even a return! These damn miles either expire or mysteriously vanish. I don’t know what happens to them. Probably comeuppance for all the times I’ve cheated and lied my way to freebies.

(Disclaimer alert: a lot of flights over the years were paid for by the US military – good ‘ol American tax-dollars at work, thanks! And I often flew at very low cost on my friend Andrew’s American Airlines passes, including first class at far less than the cost of a standard return economy ticket. And with my upcoming flight to America, I got it half off because of credit card miles. So I should stop complaining. But I won’t.)

Recently, Virgin tried to steal away my miles, as they expire without any activity for a 3-year period. The problem is, I bought something that would give me mileage credit a good 3 weeks before the expiry date. But because they weren’t credited to my account until 5 days after the expiry date, I lost them. I was probably half a flight away from a full, transatlantic return fare, so I was mildly irritated, to put it mildly.

I wrote letters. I got negative responses. I called them. Negative. Online chats. Negative. More emails. Negative. Ignoring all the rules about decorum and civility, I used aggressive language. I even resorted to – gasp! – USING ALL CAPS TO GET MY POINT ACROSS. I was desperate and wanted my miles. This also goes some to way explaining how I’ve frittered away my time over the past few weeks, and the stress that this caused me (even though my computer has nothing to do with this, I’m still going to conveniently categorise this as ‘computer-induced stress’. Yes, it’s actually a real, serious ailment, look here.)

Finally, a result. A long apology. A polite request that I didn’t need to use such filthy language, and that I can desist in attacking them with such venom and spite. They relented, and said that on this occasion only, they’d reinstate my miles. Glory, glory hallelujah!

I wrote a brief message back, thanking them, and rescinding my threat to boycott them forever. I had told them I had a blog with a readership of thousands of influential travellers. I now told them that I would say what a nice company they were, and encourage my readers, followers and friends to only fly with Virgin.

So, please, when travelling, please consider Virgin. And then write them some nasty letters demanding freebies. And never give up.  

‘I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.’

TS Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’