Entering the workforce. The disappointed perfectionist.

Well, I made it. I'm now a member of the workforce again after two years unemployment leavened by a couple of freelance writing jobs, some 'content writing' for a web agency and the odd airport pickup for Mrs Cardiff Drunk's company - I'm cheaper than a taxi.

Yesterday wasn't brilliant, but I got through it. I'm just a boy whose intentions are good - they're better than good in fact, they're flipping Nobel prize-winning, rocket to the moon, cancer curing intentions. I'm a disappointed perfectionist and a pessimistic optimist.

Let me try and make something approaching sense of that.

I wake now not wishing I was dead. Better than that. I wake thinking, today I will blog properly (I have managed to post every day, which is better than I've ever managed before) and look for writing jobs and complete an article for submission to someone who's published me before, and I will do housework and go out and buy an ironing board and a laundry basket and some food and I will start to write that script/novel/play I'm always thinking about and I will get ready for going to my new job hours before I have to and I will eat three meals and wash up after each one and I'll set out for work early enough that I can go round the shops and do some Christmas shopping on the way. Then I will slay the dragon that lives down the end of our street, free the princess and end all conflict on the planet with a one-liner that just makes all combatants see the error of their hateful ways and lay down their arms and embrace their brothers and start to build a new and just society founded on love.

What I really do is have breakfast (that's good, unequivocally good and a new one for me), then I come to the computer and I might well do a blog post. Then I'll almost certainly visit Brighteye to see who's there and if I can cast some of my dubious wisdom about. Then I'll check the Guardian's Comment is Free site. Then I'll stay there and at Brighteye and I'll stay and stay and stay and maybe post some comment or other and keep checking back just in case someone's responded and I can get into a row with them. And, then it's 4pm and I need to rush to get ready and I haven't ironed anything and I haven't sorted out the documents I need to take with me so I charge round in a panic trying to find everything and I panic and I panic and I'm in a state and start to hate myself and I start to say 'I can't do this'.

I did it though - not the dragon slaying and article writing naturally. But, I made it on time to the call centre place. And, I made it through the three hours without shaking or sweating or throwing up or all the other things I imagine I'm going to do.

To be honest a well-behaved Labrador could have made it through yesterday's session. You see, I say I've started work, but there's 10 weeks of training. It starts with corporate induction, sitting and watching slide shows and videos about 'who we are', 'what our vision is' and the like.

Still, it's an improvement, it kept my mind busy during what would normally be a dangerous time for giving up and going to the pub. And, at the end of it all, I didn't think, didn't I do well, that deserves a drink. I went home and made beans on toast, apologised to Mrs Cardiff Drunk for not doing any of the washing up or bringing in of washing or cleaning I'd said I would do in the morning, took a happy snoozy pill and went to bed.

Same again today, although I must try and do better with the other things that are supposed to turn my life around, to add things that mean every day is a day of NOT DRINKING but little else other than thinking about drinking.

If you spent it, thank you for your time, and I hope you're happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.

The Drinker.