A word with the headmaster

"Oh Amnesiac! You're so witty and I'm newly divorced!"

Any excuse to publish Hany's picture

The doctor vs. gardener saga took a new twist on Thursday when the very understanding boss called me in to his office for part two of the ‘talk’ began two days ago, in which I resisted the urge to tell him that through no fault of his, or his organisation, my job makes me want to shred a paper effigy of myself and instead told him that I wasn’t feeling passionate about the role. On Thursday afternoon he rested his chin on his knuckles and said, “so…” which usually indicates that someone is about to: tell you that it was great but sayonara and can he have his CDs back; suggest that you examine issues relating to your childhood and/or change your prescription, or; tell you something suggesting that it might be a good idea to clear your internet history so that your replacement doesn’t discover the inordinate amount of time you spent googling your colleagues.

Boss reminded me that he is travelling for two weeks, and that this is an opportunity to reflect on what I want to do while completing the half-arsed colouring-in project I have to do until Daddy gets back and does it properly. He also reminded me that the next two months are going to be super challenging for the organisation and for the human rights community generally and that it might be a good idea to consider before this time whether I am ready to give a hundred percent rather than being a slacker and that he'd be sad to lose me but he wants me to do what makes me happy and don’t worry about leaving and creating problems for the organisation Amnesiac since your absence will make no perceptible difference and also the money used for your salary hasn’t technically arrived and basically it was all a very nice (and I mean that genuinely) piss off.

I am starting to think that I should leave if for no other reason than that the low-level silent rage against my job has started to manifest itself in the form of occult happenings in my presence. Over the course of three days one window blew shut and the pane broke, another window suddenly blew open and banged into an idiotically positioned shelf causing a perfectly formed half circle of glass to be magically cut out of the pane and a water filter fell off the top of the fridge and shattered when I closed the door. It’s all very Exorcist and surely indicates the presence of an unsettled soul.

I took his advice to heart and have scheduled time for reflection next week at some point, possibly while waiting for water to boil for tea. In the meantime I went to see Wust el Balad and specifically lead-singer Hany Adel perform a concert. Like many other thousands of females with beating hearts, the vision of Hany and his underwear catalogue physique and rhythmic head-nodding revives the teenage obsessive fan I thought I’d left behind with Tom Selleck and Andre Agassi. I recently engaged in a discussion about attractiveness and popularity, in which it was posited that Hany is the bait which brings in the girls, hence why blokes and true music connoisseurs think that the band is otherwise a bag of balls. I remembered that conversation last night because it was it the first time (of the three times that I have seen them) that I have seen Wust el Balad sober, and I was slightly troubled on more than one occasion by Hany’s guitar solos, which I have never before remarked on, and which reminded me slightly of John C. Reilly’s guitar playing on ‘You’ve got the look’ in Boogie Nights.

Still, Adham’s mawwals make up for it, as do the ninety-two other string-instrument maestros which make up their number, and of course Hany’s voice is great. And if nothing else hunky Hany’s existence serves the function of confirming that one is still alive. His presence, and the faux Spanish rhythms the band employs, do however have the negative effect of compelling women to simulate playfully coy flamenco dancers, which is always painful to witness and frankly made me want to bitch-slap someone.

*It has been drawn to my attention that this post seems to be implying that somehow the organisation I work for might be the source of my current work dilemma. I would like to point out that nothing could be further from the truth, and that indeed it is because the organisation and my colleagues are so fantastic that my dilemma is made doubly harder: if the organisation, my boss and my colleagues weren't so great there wouldn't have been a dilemma in the first place. What I meant by a 'very nice piss off' was just that: the boss is doing everything he can to make my decision easier but he has of course got to think of the interests of his organisation too, and is basically giving me a limited amount of time to think. Which is excellent of him.