The day in between

Posted on | March 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

I left the house twice today. The first time to get some groceries. It started raining when I stepped out of the building. It stopped while I was in the store, then it started again as I was walking back with full arms. Each time my glasses were covered with drops. I needed mini-windscreen wipers.

The second time I tried to go for a run as a little reward for finishing my book proposal. A bunch of blokes yelled at me for what seemed an insane amount of time as I tried to run past them on the bridge nearby. No matter how long I ran, my hands still felt numb with cold. So I came back.

Some days I just don’t know how things become so small and significant. But it’s especially the case for me when I travel alone. This is the day in between having somewhere to be and something to do.

Without writing like this, it would have seemed much worse. Instead, it feels like another reminder to pay attention to “the stretching”. Very soon I hope Greg and I will be able to share our introduction to The Affect Reader which explains what this means. It must be happening: my advance cheque is in the mail. For now, let’s just say that if Kracauer’s essay on boredom was written about Sundays, for me it’s what being away from home feels like too.

I always thought that one day I would get better at managing it.

I don’t think that anymore.

Category: Travel

Comments

2 Responses to “The day in between”

  1. Jason
    March 30th, 2009 @ 5:16 pm

    Sundays in the UK have a particular character that only Morrissey can really anatomise. You’re in the north as well, so double this.

    I never, ever got used to them. But you’ll be on your way back to a warm country soon.

  2. satch
    April 4th, 2009 @ 9:53 pm

    please do a post on spook country (any angle welcome :) I also found around the same time of release: jeanette winterson The Stone Gods an interesting counterpoint-dialogue (both trying to come to terms a sense of inexorable change and entrenched anthropocentrism read fucked-up humanity and technological determinism, gibson more detached/winterson creatively engaging) – its been a wee while but your thoughts/conversation (maybe other people) might be fun.

    sorry for random segue in otherwise pure britmoan post, by-the-way it reminds of – taussig citing benjamin ‘on the story of the splenetic Englishmen who wakes up one morning and shoots himself because it is raining’. i have heard better reports but usually somewhat of a remove from the ‘nitty gritty’.

Leave a Reply