Leaving

Yesterday was my last day of work after three years. It's an awkward time as I hate being the centre of attention but you have to go through the card ceremony and people want to go for a drink after work, and insist you keep in touch and blah blah. I live my life so disconnected from other people it's strange when you come to realise that it isn't reciprocal and that other people seem to have a genuine like for you or desire for you to be involved in their life in some way. I doubt I will stay in touch though. I'd like to stay in touch with some of them, but I know what it’s like. I've been here before. I just don't know the rules to the "stay in touch" game and I can never maintain friends when I leave a workplace. Besides, I'll have a new job in a new company with new pretend friends.

My boss game me an exit interview too which I used to really lay into some people that I work with. People who want to be my friend and want me to keep in touch. I'm sure part of my ability to shake someone's hand then stab them in the back is related to my Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Not that I'm nasty, or bitchy or anything, but I felt the boss had a right to know the good points as well as the flaws in some of his staff. Again as I am disconnected from people I can be quite cold and serious when I need to. If the boss needs to know things about people, I'll let him know. To me it is just being professional, but to others it is probably being a traitor.

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today I have taken the first step in my week-long journey into the past. Back to my place of birth, back to my parents. I'm even meeting an old friend (the girl who contacted me a while back) which is especially unusual as I've lost contact with everyone, and to be honest I have no real desire to re-establish contact with them.

I'm currently in a hotel writing this (I'll post it when I next get internet access). Hotels are great. They're all clean and everything is nice, and you don't have to worry about making a mess. I always feel bad when I visit other people's houses and see how clean people are…hotel clean. Where I live in comparable squalor. I'd love to be hotel clean too. I'd love to not worry about people coming over, but I've tried to be clean and I always slowly slip into my old ways. The view from the hotel is great too. I'm on the fifth floor in an anonymous window, looking out over the whole city.

On the drive up I had a typically British experience when I stopped at some services for something to eat. I went to Burger King and there was only one person on the till. The guy in front was seemingly attempting to set the world record for the longest time taken to order food. It's Burger King…surely you knew the menu already? So I have to wait while he ums and ahs, and he had a child with him who was probably 5 or 6 (I'm terrible at telling ages) who seemed to lose the power of speech when asked what he wanted. Instead he'd point at the menu while the dad played an irritating game of "The burger? The burger? Is it the burger you want? The burger? Yeah? The burger?" The child would move his finger slightly "The chicken bits? You want the chicken bits? Yeah? The chicken? You want the chicken?".

Eventually it was my turn to order, a feat I was proud to complete in mere seconds. "Large Whopper Meal please". What's so f**king hard about that! Eh! However as is typical in this country, the person serving was foreign and didn't understand me. *sigh* So I repeat. She can barely speak English herself. After finally getting what I want she asked if I wanted it "large". *sigh* When she told me the cost I realised she'd charged me wrong so probably got my order wrong *sigh* When she put the drinks out they were not large *sigh*. Luckily someone came to help her and spotted that the drinks she'd put out for the two waiting orders (one mine) were wrong as both were supposed to be large. So he managed to fix that, correcting my wrong order. Had he not have been there she would have not only got the order wrong but given me the wrong size too. What a completely useless human being. When my order was ready it indeed was not what I ordered but I was too tired to say anything, I just took it. I guess we get the service in this country that we deserve. I suppose I should have told her she took my order wrong, and also reminded her that she didn't originally "large" it either.

Anyway. I've had a look at the hotel's restaurant to see what they have and the only two things I'd eat (the chicken or the steak) both come with a cheese sauce. What's with that? I checked their bar out too but it was quite small and intimate and really busy. So I'll probably take a wander into town and get something to eat there, maybe find a pub too before coming back here to sample the hotel bar with Dutch courage.

Travelling is just a game of killing time. Only there is no satellite TV, no XBOX, no DVD, no internet. Just me and 5 TV channels. It's 8pm here and now I just need to kill some time until I can go to bed and tomorrow will be another day. Another journey. Another wrong BK order.