Today might be the day I get replaced.
I’m sat on my bed, mug of Earl Grey steaming into the frigid air – because it’s a cold, cold day and the central heating has barely sanded the edges off it – and Barry Coward’s Oliver Cromwell is fanned open beside me on page 102. There’s a sleeping-bag draped over my feet to keep them warm (I’ve just pulled it out from under the bed, ready to stuff into a rucksack, and so it was the nearest potential footwarmer). The house smells of hoover, and I’ve got heartburn from drinking my breakfast smoothie too fast.
(Orange juice, grapes, a banana, a pear, an apple, a Happy Shopper Extra Creamy raspberry yoghurt, a reckless scatter of raisins).
In a little while I’ll finish writing this, take a cursory lap of the tiny corner of the Internet you’ll usually find me in, finish my tea, stuff my “Orkney Bus £42 Return” ticket-bookmark back into Barry Coward, and start preparing to be replaced.
At midnight on December 12th, I cease to live in this house. I’m moving to the other side of York, into a huge, beautifully bay-windowed room in a house with two good friends who will become my new landlord and landlady. They’re archaeologists and they move around a lot – so they need a responsible, reliable tenant they can trust to look after the house while they’re away. However, they couldn’t find one, so they picked me instead.
My new house is about a third of the distance closer to the city centre, but at the other side of York – an area I hardly know at all. So it’s a prime opportunity to do some of this. And it’s much nearer the train station, which I’ll be using more frequently in 2010.
But at the end of the weekend, I’m going back to East Yorkshire to look after my mum, who has just had a major operation. I’ll be there for a couple of weeks, I reckon. And I move out Dec. 12th. So it’ll be tight. (However, I’ve been inundated with kind offers of help via Facebook – so the actual moving won’t be a problem – it’s the timing).
While I’m away, there will be potential new tenants turning up to have a look at my room. One of them is going to replace me. This won’t be my room any more – it’ll be theirs. I want to tell them how it’s been a good couple of years in here, during which time I became a freelance writer for the first time.
I want to tell them about the time I was quite drunk and clambered into the wardrobe to see what it would feel like. Or the time my Xbox fell off the recessed shelving and landed on the side of a big bowl of dressed salad, flipping the contents all across the room and making everything smell like a Greek deli for a couple of months. Or the spider that became my friend in the summer, with his own special corner of the room, catching mosquitos and scurrying happily about until Autumn hit and the food dried up and one day I rolled up a magazine and…chased him into one end, trapping him until I could get him outside and slide him onto the hedge.
(I like to think he’s still out there, full and happy. I don’t know how long spiders live. I haven’t looked on Wikipedia. I refuse to).
Bye, room. And bye, this Me.
It’s been fun.
(But next year will be very different).
Image: audioeric
Oh I got replaced a little while ago.
I used to be this programmer guy living in Milton Keynes in the UK but I’ve been replaced with ME 3.7beta which is the latest version, only available in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. ME 3.7 gets an upgrade on the 29th with the addition of Mrs ME 3.0 (due to incompatibility problems with Mrs ME 2.0 and the total failure of Mrs ME 1.0).
A brief clip from the ME 3.7 beta brochure to whet your appetite:
Currently the available language option is still British English although we’ve done our best to incorporate the US Language Value Starter Pack to make interfacing with American users less trouble-free.
We’ve also added a right-hand-road option to the vehicle and roadside controls although we’re still ironing out the bugs in there – hence the reason we’re still referring to it as a beta.
You may also find that if you power up your ME 3.7 Beta in the UK the time display will appear to be 6 hours behind – this is normal and will self-adjust in 2 – 3 days.
Thank-you for choosing the ME range of computer programmers.
For the record, everyone, I’ve been following the development of the ME 3.7 beta from afar, and it sets an impressive example of how to do it right. Admirably adventuruous and inspiring sane.
And it will work beautifully with Mrs ME 3.0. A happy marriage of technology.
As an app that started development in Brit OS and has recently shifted to using the larger, much-vaunted America OS, have there been other incompatibilities or things that needed workarounds developing, on top of the time display and road-orientation glitches? (Because as a Brit OS user, I do of course view them as glitches rather than viable alternative approaches).
And is it more expensive to run on America OS? Or cheaper?
Sounds like some great new developments ahead. Good luck with the logistics, but I’m sure it’ll all fall into place one way or another. Hope your mom recovers well and quickly.
Thank you.
Fingers crossed she does. She’s had more than enough to deal with – and it turns out that during an earlier operation she had, there was a screw-up that has either aggrivated or directly led to the problem that had her in surgery this time. Eeee. Life.
As for developments….you’ve got some of your own. Sounds like 2010 will be an exciting new chapter for you as well!
which ‘other side of York’? how far away from where you are now?
i will be over in Hellsville next week sometime so coffee/beer may be in order.
Coffee or beer would be grand. We can tour the fleshpots of Hellsville. Which sounds very Mad Max. Which is strangely appropriate. Mad Max in green wellies, perhaps.
It’s beyond the train station, Holgate area, edge of Acomb, so it’s round the ringroad and another 15 minutes on a journey from the Hull direction, I believe. But it’s not in the centre of town, so it’s out the way of the worst snarls of traffic. Nice area, too.
I say this after experiencing my first bit of “trouble” in York. Was walking to the shop just a while ago – and a woman shouted at me (initially “BOO! HAHAHAHAH” and then “come on then, COME ON THEN”. Battered out of her tree, but spoiling for a fight and with something in her hand – I didn’t linger to find out what, just turned my back and walked off while she told me she screamed “I’LL &^£$&^! ‘AVE YER, COME ON”.
So all of a sudden, I won’t miss this area on this side of town. It’s supposed to be the roughest part of York. Abruptly, it feels like it.
i have been to Acomb a few times in the past. much nicer area. where you are no is sooooooo easy to get to though, crap for parking, drive is way to narrow, but easy to get to.
still, it’ll be an adventure (of the not really adventurous type)
let me know when you need tranport, as long as it isn’t next weekend (which i know it isn’t) all is well.
Grand. I’m back in Hellsea now, so if you’re about, come say Eyup.
I’m thinking I’ll be popping things back and forth on the weekend of the 5th & 6th December, if that’s any good for you…? Going through to York just for the day, coming back late afternoon or evening (I’ll probably still officially be here looking after my Ma).
no problem. i have a golf match on the morning of the 5th, which kinda ruins that day. but i can be available all day on the 6th if you like. i will even give you a lift to york and back!
Closer to Brigantes?! Good move.
In every sense. Yes.
And…nail on head. I hardly know town these days. But now I’ll be a lot closer to being part of it – and I’ll walk through it every weekday, on the way to work. Looking forward to it.
How’s you daan saaf, sir?
Did your xbox survive its topple into the salad?
I hope your mom gets well soon. Your new place sounds lovely!
It did indeed. Microsoft build those things tough.
Yes, still works fine – or at least it did a year ago when I last played on it.
Thanks for your good thoughts. I hope everything goes like clockwork and that I’m blogging from my new room this time next month! (Sat in the bay window with a panoramic view of the city, cup of coffee, easy chair, toasty radiator….perfect).
ok this post was so dramatical, and i loved it. at first i thought you were saying you were being replaced in the workspace and i was worried. because as a recruiter, i hate hearing about layoffs. but it looks like you have some GREAT things coming up in the year, you get to hang with your mom and really, all this is happening around dec 12? that’s my birthday. a great day to start a new You, methinks.
Nope, they haven’t slung me out the door just yet.
(When the time’s right, I’d rather leap through that door myself).
A recruiter, you say? The mystery that is Lan acquires another plot-twist.
And the 12th is your birthday? Uncanny coincidence. Then I shall raise a glass to you as well as to my new house / housemates.