i think the first brit colloquialism i picked up when moving here must have been
"burning the candle at both ends"
i've been going and going and going and going lately, working the day job, the side project (that is so much more full time than i ever anticipated it to be) trying to do my best to see all my friends and have quality time with the girlfriend, and try to be on top of the news and music and pop culture and art and i've given up even trying to be on top of film or theatre or actually regularly go out to exhibitons.

but instead of ever feeling like i get up to a lot, regardless of how busy i feel or am told i am, i still can never shake this feeling that i should can do more and am not doing enough and am behind in one area or another, because yeah there are a lot of friends i've failed to meet up with for what seems like a ridiculous ammount of time, and the last film i saw didn't quite leave me satiated

and when did i last go to a club, play or art exhibition any way?

and the day job is kind of calm but then maybe this shoudl be the time i should be strategizing a way to improve or streamline somehow.

i want to go on holiday. i'm actually starting to have this desperate need, a deep distracting craving for new york, which strikes me as kind of funny because maybe i should be thinking of somewhere where i''m forced by the pace and surroundings to do less. rather than somewhere where i'll just be reminded by the city and my friends there that actually i could no should, no really could be far more tapped into... everything... whenever i'm in new york i'm on such a constant high.

i can happily exhaust myself wandering for hours and hours up blocks and blocks taking in the arichtecture, visiting cafes i used to spend hours in and stopping in on private galleries and boutiques and bookstores . then my friends get off work and there is all this conversation about the latest book, bar, restaraunt, party, band and current events all in one fantastic artsy hipster intellegentsia fireball of all that is now now now.

i always told myself that london won out over new york for me precisely because new york would play to the soul of my inner media glutton, keen to get her restless hands on anythign new and fresh the city would give to her. you can do that in london but in general here you do tend to focus on one or two neighborhoods, on one or two artforms, on a small sprinklling of music genres, and its OK.

For weeks i keep hearing people say to me how busy i am and i never seem to understand why, nor understand how everyone else seems to manage more than one quiet night in, in a week. so much of what i get up to feels like somethign i have to do. where do i get all my social obligations from? and do i really HAVE to go to them? i'm sure dear reader, you would say no, but the people i would say no to (and sometimes have to) always seem so disapointed when i do bail, and i hate to disapoint anyone.

i think another thing i learned when i first moved here is that we londoners (particularly the non native and inherently transient kind) can be freakishly flakey. if you don't believe me throw a party, invite people to an exhibition, screening or other art happening. your confirmed number will always outweigh the final turn out as many will have genunine and not so genunine last minute reasons not to make it. therefore i discovered that when you became on of those rare people who always turned up when you said you would, you became an admired commodity and felt great about it besides.

but now i've reached a point in my life where i need to invoke the flake from time to time as i just can't keep up with all i'm meant to do.

so what i wonder is, am i losing my edge?
and if so...

am i forgiven?