"Blank Expression" - Specials, 2002

I don't know why I have had so much trouble waking up this morning. Maybe it's because we changed over to British Summer Time yesterday, so it's pitch black again at 5:30am. That's what time I get up when I'm driving myself into the Oxford park and ride that I use. (If I leave home after 7am, I can't be sure to get to the office in Oxford by 8am.) It seemed horrendously early this morning.

Then there was the fog. Thick, pea-soup fog. Stereotypical English fog.

And of course, it's "Monday". That didn't help, either.

I just felt like most of my brain remained asleep. I even wondered if I was ok to drive.

As usual, I got off the park and ride bus on the north side of the Oxford city centre and began my walk south to the office. If I maintain a fast pace, I can get to the office in 12 minutes. If I stroll, it takes about 15 minutes. I was listening to my iPod. I was thinking about how much I wished I felt more alert. And then I began to think about something from the past.

Years ago, when my friend Bill and I worked for Texaco in Houston, we were both young, eager, and also probably more idealistic. We, and our colleague Penny (whom I referred to in a Lord Celery piece last year) used to, admittedly, make quite a lot of noise when we worked together in one little office. Our trading boss referred to us as "enthusiastic young people".

Bill and I used to talk about the expressionless faces we saw on the elevator in the old Texaco Building on Rusk. People looked tired...or bored...or just fed up with the world. "When we get to be middle-aged, we won't look like or act like that." we used to proudly proclaim.

Well, the last time I saw Bill, in late-December, he's still full of the same old wacky "Bill" spirit. I usually am, too. But I'm not sure it showed on my face this morning.

I'm going to spend the balance of the day trying my very best to not look like those blank-faced folks from the old Texaco building in Houston. I am not that old or that tired yet. And I'm a long way from being bored with life!

Janet