The darshan in Manchester completed, I finally wobbled back to London late the next afternoon. As much as I like the charm and passion of “smaller towns” (I’ve even forgiven their excruciating accents), it feels good to be back in a real city. If there are two kinds of people in this world, there are small-town folk and city folk—and they don’t ever really mix.
As much fun as everything’s been so far, there have been some things that’ve bothered me since I’ve gotten here.
First, what is the deal with the lack of thrash cans everywhere? It’s like this is some concept that’s eluded this geographic region almost completely, and they’d rather employ some odd guy (or woman) to walk around behind people and pick stuff up after them rather than buy a god damned BIN.
That’s not so bad however, as you soon get used to the concept of leaving stuff arbitrarily strewn about, and let someone else pick up after you. You soon realize it’s actually quite handy. And then, as you’re walking toward one of the few existing thrash cans, you begin to miss that guy.
Moving onto more relevant things, I’m seriously bothered by the fact I don’t understand the nature of the relationship between my friend and his “friend”. Technically, in all references, she’s a friend. But in actions, she seems like anything but. It’s not like they’re living together or anything, but only barely. For all practical purposes, they’re around each other every non-working moment—from shopping, cooking, hanging out, and a lot more whose details I will not get into. And it’s not just that, when they’re referring to stuff, it’s always “ours”. As in, the kinds of things I would call mine, like “my couch”, I often tended to hear “our couch”. That’s oddly disconcerting.
(Mind you, I’ve only been around them for less than a day in total. This might not be terribly informed.)
It’s not like it matters in the least, it’s just so annoying that I fell I don’t know something I probably should’ve been let in on. It’s just not the sort of thing that comes up in polite conversation, you know, “oh, so are you sleeping with her?”—doesn’t really roll off the tongue easily. It can’t even be interspersed unnoticed into otherwise innocuous conversation.
These sorts of things rarely concern me in the least; I don’t know what my problem is.
Actually, it’s quite clear what my problem is. I’m just not in the frame of mind to admit it to myself—let alone you.
pundit@emphaticallystatic.org
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