Waiting

I hate waiting. In fact, it's probably somewhere near the top of the list of things that can hack me off really quickly. Whether it's waiting in line at the bank or waiting behind the twit sitting at a green robot (traffic light, for foreigners), I really don't like it.

And I'm starting to realise how much of it I do in my day-to-day life. I wait in the traffic on the way to work, I wait for our temperamental server to download my emails when I get to the office, I wait for approval on stories I've written (I was once made to wait three weeks for a guy to approve the 150-word profile I wrote about him), and I wait for one or two of my more useless editors to brief me, sometimes until the day before a story is due.

I wait for people to return my phonecalls, for the telemarketers to shut up long enough for me to say, 'no, not interested', and, most of the time, for inspiration to hit. Which it doesn't.

I wait for hubby to get home in the evenings, for him to finish the next stage on his stupid computer game so that I can have my laptop back to download photos from my camera, for the rubbish oven in my flat to finish cooking the supper (I once left banana bread baking in the oven for 30 min longer than the recipe said, and, thanks to my pathetic oven, it still came out fine), and for my crazy neighbour upstairs to realise that she IS NOT Celine Dion and CANNOT actually sing.

But today is a different kind of waiting. It's that feeling of butterflies in your stomach, of nervy skittishness that makes you duck everytime you hear a loud noise. The feeling of anticipation that is made of one parts excitement to two parts fear.

Why, you ask?

I'll tell you tomorrow.