It's starting to become below zero now, my lips won't stop bleeding in the cold and I cant stop peeling at the dry skin. Blood seeps out evermore and there is a faint taste of iron every time I wet my lips. At least I can finally wear my jacket, or is it a coat? I bought it last year, back when university still loaned me money I'd never pay back in my life, I put it on to go out, and I took it off as I began my interview.

...

"Do you have any questions for us?" They asked after a singular line of questioning. My last interview they asked like 20 before we got to this section, today they only asked one. No way I bombed that badly?

“Um, yeah. So, what's the uh, the work culture like here?” I muttered out, as I sipped once more from my water bottle, mouth dry. Again.

They paused as they thought of what to say. Two older white woman, one who looked to be in her 30-40s and the other in her 50-60s, the words assistant manager and their names on a small plastic tag clipped to their right side of their chest.

“That's a good question!” the younger woman responded as she looked to her older colleague for help. A faint smile found its way on my face, obviously its a good question, that's why I put it on my notes app yesterday.

“Diverse.” The older woman said in support. A few neurons fired pathetically somewhere in my brain as I felt a small jolt in my body and a twitch in my eye.

“People with autism, people all around the world we have them here.” She said with a spry grin.

“That's right, we're like a little family.” The younger woman chimed in with greater confidence this time. The neurons began now to fire with great veracity, a chain explosion of activity suppressed with a weak smile.

She said it.

“Yeah, we treat each other like a family here." The older woman added.

They said it twice.

"I have to warn you, this is a fast paced environment, you'll be on your feet a lot. I'm telling you because not everybody knew. In the past people used to complain that nobody liked them but that was because they didn't work hard. As long as you work hard you'll have a good time.”

With dead eyes and a fake laugh I replied. "I'm a hard worker."

Very soon after this the interview ended and I thanked them before they escorted me out the back and into the front of the store. Into the cold once more. Left of the store was the bank of the same provider as my debit card and I finally deposited the money in my bag from cash that I have hidden in my room that essentially amounts to my entire life savings from various red envelopes and birthdays. Now, I am no longer in overdraft.

Thinking more about the job, I'm definitely rejected aren't I? They never gave me a date when they'd get back to me, matter of fact they didn't even say they'd get back to me.

Whatever the result, I think today I'll reward myself by doing nothing all day.

I've been feeling lethargic these past weeks as a result of my going to bed at 3 am but my insistence to wake up at around 9 am and as such I feel like I've been tiring easily.

Worked on my website past few couple days, ended up actually getting quite a lot done, more than I thought I would, I didn't realise just how annoying it would be to have to make a little pixel book each time I read something new. I've been reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon but haven't gotten around to adding it on my bookshelf because I just can't be asked. I also got got around to adding a new self portrait and finally figured out how to scan pencil drawings better and make them more clearer. I actually did two but accidentally overcooked one and came out too detailed and not stylised enough. I also figured out that I can colour digitally which has been pretty cool but on a mouse, pretty slow. I don't know why I was so scared of using colours but its not as daunting as I thought.

I've got a new job interview on Friday, hope it goes well, not getting my hopes up. I think I might start selling old clothes to get some money, earlier today I received a letter in the mail from the bank about my overdraft status asking me to deposit money within the next 3 weeks, it is what it is. If this job doesn't go through, and chances are, it probably won't I might start trying to look for work at a temp agency, see what odd jobs I can do to get as much money as I can.

Its starting to get cold in London, thin layers of ice sheath the pavements in misty mornings and life around the house is untenable without socks. Its crazy that this time last year I was in university. Recently I've been thinking about university and I came to the realisation that I retain very little information, scarily little information about the content and modules I did. The things I can remember are how to structure essays and dissertations, but actual lecture material? I mean, I try to think of something on the spot and I come up blank. Incredible, truly incredible. Maybe I'll look at old lecture notes in my spare time. I mean, what else is there to do.

I finally got the email, no need to make the call, looks like unemployment will continue. Disheartening but what can you do, with this free time I must make the most of it, I can't just wallow doing nothing. Here, now? I must try. Try life, try living, I cannot keep being afraid, its untenable, pathetic even.

Made plans to go out with two friends on a day that I thought was Thursday but turns out it was Tuesday. Usually when I go out I give myself a day to prepare in my mind but I found out it was Tuesday on Monday and I dreaded going. I don't know how some people do it. One of the friends I'm meeting with showed me his calendar once and I don't think he's never not doing something and not just multiple times a week, multiple times a day doing different things, meeting up with different people, if I go out even once, that's me sated for a couple weeks. Truly, there is a diverse world of people out there.

I ended up forgetting my notebook and camera at home and I've never felt so naked. Most times I go out I don't end up using them, but not having them felt off. We went to Central London, talked about jobs, about masters, about future and the near past. We always seem to talk about the same things but it never really gets old. I said I thought about doing anthropology in an off comment expecting derision but instead I got support. I didn't say anything further and the flow of conversation moved on but quietly I was sort of shocked. Why do such good friends have to also say stupid things sometimes? What weird friendships I have, and what a weird friend I am.

I've been writing in my blog a lot recently because I have so much free time and on the off chance I do get up to something that isn't rotting at home all day, why not write about it? That being said I want to get better at writing and be a better writer and I feel like this isn't doing much. I want to push myself, but recently this whole past month I feel like I can't write anything at all, and believe me I've tried. I can write 500 words in a couple minutes for my blog no problem, but outside of it I struggle even writing a sentence. I write about myself a lot so I've been trying to get away from first-person, but to no avail. I don't know why I write honestly, but ever since I started I know that I can never stop.

I've sadly been neglecting my physical journal and just my general morning routine in general. I had a months long streak of setting aside 30 minutes to an hour each day to read or write in my journal but since I got really sick last month its all fallen apart and I really need to recalibrate myself once again.

I'm literally just saying nothing now. Nothing pertinent to anything at all, DAMN am I bored! Sometimes I feel like I'm writing too much about myself, about my life. But I figure, If I died tomorrow, I'd at least have this to know that I was alive to the world.

With great consternation I am still broke. Matter of fact, I am still in overdraft yet I continue to spend money. Why? I control myself for the most part, but I did not need to spend £20 on stationary goods. At least the stickers and the Moomin 2026 calendar was cool.

The job I interviewed for on Tuesday said they'd get back to me by the end of the week to know if I got the job or not. Its the end of the week now and I still haven't gotten a call back. I don't know if I have it in me to restart the job search. Since the interview, this week has felt like such reprieve not applying to jobs all day. Now, envisioning doing it all over again is not what I view as a good time. There are worse problems to have though, I don't want to be seen like I'm complaining. I am, but I at least know I shouldn't. I'll give it two more days until I give up and call them myself. I'm most likely already rejected by then but maybe they'll at least tell me why.

Whatever it is, I have to get some money somehow. My teeth are starting to hurt. Not largely, and it comes and goes, but dental pain is a funny pain in that the way it hurts you differs than a flesh wound or a sickness. It pulsates unseen, trapped under an enamel cage, each time it hurts I fantasise ripping the tooth out in one clean go, a mass of pain to alleviate the small aching ones. Though if the fantasy went any further than that I would then be left with a hole where a tooth should be and carrying a whole lot of pain.

My wisdom teeth grew out during lockdown and I neglected going to the dentist while in university because nothing noticeable was going wrong and I am lazy and now the consequences have bit me. My fillings I had in 6 years ago have eroded and sweet food aches my molars. My first pay check will go to the dentist. If ever I get a job and get paid.

A few days ago I went out to get coffee with a friend, another expense, but I don't feel guilt spending money to spend time with friends. As I got off the station at Liverpool Street and walked to the café I was awash with a sea of quarter-zips, I had never seen this many all at once it was sort of amazing.

As to the meeting with my friend, to be honest, it was nice, but I felt like my heart wasn't in it all the way. I didn't say what I thought, I said what I thought I should say and through that level of abstraction I end up saying nothing meaningful at all. I did talk about Zohran's win, being inspired but also kinda jealous here in London, I talked about my job interview and asked her about hers. As the coffee shop was already full we got our coffee to go and ended up taking a walk from here to the place she was staying at, and I realised she knows more about Central London than I do, someone who has lived here all my life. As she spoke I just nodded and agreed on things I have really not much idea about.

I never really have a good time in Central London, there are good places, but walking around is never fun unless I'm with a friend. There's just too many people and on top of that I hate being seen as a tourist in a city I call my own, a city I know deep and intimately, the walls of a council home and the rattling of football cages, all that is London to me is foreign in the centre.

I had a job interview today, and if I don't get this job then something truly is wrong with this world. Perhaps my best showing ever, I answered what I wanted for the most part, I kept a smile, I was confident, maybe my people skills really are getting better?

I've been letting self doubt cloud my mind a lot recently, for some reason in my mind I thought that I was the only one all the way up until they mentioned that other people were also interviewing. Hearing that, my confidence dropped and I sat there in the staff room waiting for my interviewer steadily losing what momentum I built up in my mind. They were late, and as I stewed I for some reason thought of Nathan Fielder's 'The Rehearsal' and thought, what if I pretended I was confident in myself and I actually believed I could get this job? I think it kinda worked.

I didn't panic, not even once, I was stumped on a few questions like "what are your hobbies?" and all the dumb innocuous ones that don't mean much but all the important ones, I said what I wanted to say. I didn't fall over my words like the last interview and I didn't completely shutdown like the interview before that one.

On the way home, the bus route took me to some places that were near my old house where I grew up from ages 0-7. Not far from where I am now, but I haven't travelled this way in a long long time, and I let myself indulged in a little smite of nostalgia.

Made plans to get coffee with a friend while she's in London for a week or so, then bought tickets to some event in a bookstore on the same day, maybe one day this will be like skin to me.