Gogo, Didi and me

A continuation of my Dole Diaries. I promise a good kicker if you manage to read to the end of this instalment.
Tuesday, 3 May 2005
“There is the sight of my bed linen puffing and blowing on the washing line. Blossom petals and seeds like faery globs of lightness flutter in the air. 'It's like ectoplasm,' remarks a neighbour. Onto the daisy-strewn lawn, the smallest of the foxes skips, looks about and disappears. In the twilight, an avian couple sing in the rustling leaves. It appears people have forsaken their gardens to get on the road for Bank Holiday snarls.

Today is Tuesday, yesterday was a Bank Holiday. I am so out of the normal loop I didn't realise we were in for a Bank Holiday Weekend until Friday. The weather was uncommonly co-operative and much of my daytime hours were spent in the garden. I re-read 'Waiting for Godot' and realised how many of my thoughts are rooted in Gogo and Didi. 'We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?'

I have tried to keep my appointments. I have shown up. Actually, I'm the sort of person who, despite being punctual, has often reached destinations at the wrong time: San Francisco after Flower Power; university after the student revolutions; the stock market just when you shouldn't; bought a house months before interest rates rocketed and house prices plunged, and prepared to join the Dot Com Bubble nano-seconds before it imploded.

That was then.

Back to now. I don't know what it is, but I suspect I do know but don't want to face it. All weekend, I did not very much in the way of housework. I got the vacuum cleaner out, but exercised its charms only downstairs. Didn't do a multitude of housekeeping jobs that I could have done. Then this morning, a normal one, I'm in the bathroom swinging that nozzle about like a mad woman sucking up stray hairs and dust in the bathroom. I think it's because when everyone has downtime, I can have it, too. But when they're all at work, and I have none and this is difficult for me to accept, or change, then the energy I have goes into, yes, cleaning!

Wednesday, 4 May 2005
Irony the bedfellow of despair? Ironic that yesterday I did NOT keep my appointment. It's hard to credit that this has happened. With only one appointment in a fortnight, I miss it. Yesterday at 11:40 I was due to sign. I had noted it -- albeit in tiny writing -- in my diary, but as I have no calls on my time and because I'm in a slump, I simply didn't check my diary. I missed my signing appointment at the Jobcentre.

This morning I awoke feeling less than eager to get out of bed, and then suddenly the bolt of awareness hit. Yesterday I should have signed on. (Insert repetitive use of four-star words.) I leapt out of bed (this is not hyperbolic, I really did leap), ignored the instant dizziness, ran downstairs and checked my diary. Yes, I got that right. I am dressed in 10 minutes and as soon as nine o'clock strikes I am on the phone to check what exquisite punishment awaits.

I am told to come to the Jobcentre. I must see the Late Signing Officer. I take off with a thud in my heart. I eschew travel by bus (to save money) and run through the rain to Rye Lane. Then it occurs to me that I can hop on the bendy (and, most importantly, free) bus. What a Peckham thing to do.

This reminds me that last night returning from Goldsmith's College where I attended a free literary lecture (followed by free refreshments), I took advantage of the bus-driver's distraction as he aided a wheelchair user needing the ramp, not to pay my fare. Awful behaviour. But, I'm in the underclass and this is what we do. We are late or entirely miss appointments and we fare dodge.

At the Jobcentre I sit on the red and blue sofa clutching my number -- B17 -- waiting to be called. On the opposing sofa, an adviser with white cropped hair is helping a 'customer' to generate a CV. He can remember the first name of his previous employer. 'Jack,' he says, but not his last name. She patiently asks him to give it more thought over the next two weeks and see if he can come up with more information than this. She is kind and encouraging; ditto the advisor behind me who does not crush the dream of the ‘customer’, young and black, who'd like a career in music…or social work.

I feel dazed. Am I becoming stupid or am I suffering derangement (sort of temporary stupidity)? I think deep down there is depression, and it's so deep, I can't or won't or at least only occasionally allow it to surface. I am in that fuzzy place you go when there are no calls upon you. The no-one-nowhere-doing-nothing syndrome. A place without edges.
My number is called. The Late Signing Officer asks me why I missed my appointment and gives me a form in which I must write my reason. She faxes it to the Decision Maker, and I return to the sofa.

I while away the time perusing the comments' book placed on the table before me. One contributor warns ‘watch the cracks in yer walls'; another entry is in French and concludes with: 'jobcentre de merde'. Almost all the comments are less than complimentary. I think this is unfair.

I am beckoned. The Decision Maker has decided that my excuse for missing my signing appointment (an elaborate version of forgetting) is not good enough. It is rejected. I must fill in another raft of forms, many of them duplicates of forms I have already completed. There's the JSA4R(RR), the M12 04/04 and a Reclaim for Council Tax Benefit form. I will miss one day’s worth of benefit. I despair. But, I have no one to blame but myself. The officer is pleasant, almost motherly. I leave with tale limply between my legs. I can't even keep this simple stuff together. The centre cannot hold. I am stupid.

On the free bus home, I spot a tantalising offer written on a sign in a butcher's shop. 'Spend £20 and get 1 cow foot FREE.'”