Gate Star

There's a term in prison slang: Gate Happy.

If you're gate happy, your release date is days or a few weeks away, and you're feeling bouyed up and optimistic, looking forward to it. You're still on the inside, but you're nearly out.

Even if there's nothing for you on the other side of the gate but a nebulous freedom and a whole lot of concrete problems, the prospect feels better than a stone box.

Well, I've got two weeks to go. And I'm feeling pretty good about it - with the inevitable downside that time can really *crawl* when you're waiting.

As for what's waiting for me...hmmm.

* A bacon sandwich. Yes, I'm perfectly happy to live without pork, but seeing as I haven't had it for over a year, I want it.

* A midnight meetup with my married, closeted friend. Yes, I'm perfectly happy to live without, erm, porking, but seeing as I haven't had much....

* A replacement laptop. I don't live online, but pretty much everything I do except basic biological functions involves a computer. Sometimes two.

* Parents and friends. You don't need to see them very often, but it's good to have them available.

* The Doctor Who 50th Aniversary Special. Plus a year's worth of other recorded TV and radio, so I can be a complete and utter couch potato over christmas and new year, munching my bacon sandwich in front of my new laptop.

* Same old same old. The plan was to wait out the recession while getting moderately rich doing a job I enjoyed. Now I'm bored with the job, not well paid and the recession's still going on.

* Little holiday, big plans. There's a lot of things I want to do or try out. But talking about them seems to make doing them more difficult. Which is either a profound psychological insight which explains much human behavior...or me being a bit weird.

* See the world. Some time off teaching followed by a job in a decent school will hopefully turn me from a tired old lag (more prison slang) weighed down with experience...into an experienced old lag weighed down with wisdom.

I want to try a different country.