Turns out there is such a thing as too much 'me'.

I have a distant memory of relishing days spent alone. Time to catch up on life-admin, sleep, to breathe in deeply and push back against the crush and clamour of London life in order to make enough head-space to survive the week ahead. Precious time spent drinking lattes alone in coffee shops, buying take-out sushi and sitting alone in parks reading the newspaper or floating on daydreams. I used to panic if I had no free days in the weeks ahead- I'd feel like I was losing control, like that time alone was absolutely essential to my ability to function smoothly.

Now of course, all I have is alone time and it's getting to me a little. I'm so fed up of being inside my head I've dug out my ancient mp3 player (never did get on the ipod bandwagon, although I'm holding out for Jeremy to upgrade so I can have his old one) so that I can have music in my head rather than just me.

I'm pretty fed up of me.

In fact, I think the time may have come to get out my 'lonely, be my friend' sign and sit on a street corner. Truth be told I wouldn't look all that out of place on certain street corners in Waltham.

I've reached the second stage in Operation Build A Life. Up til now it's all just been form filling which, while boring and occasionally stressful, comes with handy 'how-to' guides and online forums. This next stage rather relies on me having a personality and being capable and some days I'm not entirely sure I can pull it off.

So what do I need to do? I need to meet people and make friends and I need my CV to not be dead in the water by the time I'm actually permitted to work.

So I figure I'll just volunteer. Can't be too hard right? Given I spent 2.5 years helping other people to volunteer, you'd think I'd have a pretty good idea as to how to go about it myself.

Hmmmmm

If I were in England maybe I'd have a good idea. Here volunteering looks suspiciously like charities are just trying to fill should-be-paid-for-positions with poor unemployed people. The majority of interesting opportunities are for 20 hours a week for a minimum of 6 months. I'm hoping that in 6 months I wont have 20 hours a week spare. Where oh where is Time Together when you need it?

The other problem is that the volunteering opportunities are all in far flung suburbs that would take me over 2 hours on Boston public transport to get to. Which means before I sign up to working-full-time-for-free, I need to learn to drive. Which means I need get a learners' permit. Which means I need to open the drivers' manual I got out from the library and actually learn the rules of the American road to take the theory test I need to pass before I can get a learners' permit.

Whoever thought that making friends would begin by learning that a Stop sign is octagonal?

This can be done. Unfortunately it all relies on me doing it and I'm feeling pretty lazy. I have enough people behind me with their feet at the ready to give me a kick up the arse though so I doubt I'll be permitted to stall for long.