I have to leave the flat in half an hour. I hate these in-between moments when I want to get things done but have to curtail activities for bothersome mid-afternoon necessities. I like order. I like alignment and equilibrium and normality. I take risks with breakfast cereals and electro-pop bands. Not with huge life things. I am not an adventurous super-stud.
That paragraph took two minutes to compose, leaving twenty-eight minutes to squeeze in important things. I envy the supernatural stamina of mothers. I would like to pop out an infant to see what it feels like to take charge to that superhuman degree and be a one-woman secretarial college. Writing involves sitting at a computer screen dribbling and hating every word you put on the page and starting again and again and getting fat and taking meth and eventually committing suicide. There isn’t much room for order.
That paragraph took five minutes to compose. Twenty-three minutes is insufficient time for doing important things, so these important things will have to wait until I can be bothered to do them. I can’t even remember what these things might be. Something to do with posting letters or writing novels or reading novels or dribbling on my mousemat.
On another note, I have recently sent a petition to Edinburgh council demanding that pavements be halved into two distinct lanes. I’ve had enough of the endless micro-choices needing made while walking on crowded streets. I bank left, the person before me keeps the left lane until the last minute. I dive right, they wake up and dive right too. We are stuck in a Fast Show sketch that ends with two dorks looking as dorkilicious as dorks should.
That paragraph took over five minutes because I had to invent something to complain about. It does bug me though. I mean, why not divide pavements into two lanes? An overtake option is always available, provided walkers keep to the lanes and don’t go weaving around the place like drunks in a vomitorium. This concludes today’s illuminating blog.
There was actual talk of having two lanes for pedestrians in the city centre.
ReplyDeleteNo way. That's an awful idea.
ReplyDeleteOh my Lord. I have actually considered writing a letter to have the same thing implemented in Munich. At the very least, pedestrians should follow the same logic as cars in traffic.
ReplyDeleteThe paragraph above took three minutes to write because my keyboard kept freezing up.
I've gone off the idea. We need disorder in the world. Plus I like the bashful chortling a path-blockage incident engenders.
ReplyDeletePoor keyboard.
By the way, since you (didn't) ask, that photo is the band Pavement. Their "Slanted & Enchanted" LP comes highly recommended.
ReplyDeleteOn the London Underground, you have to stand on the right of the escalators so that time-pressured businessmen can dart up the left side and not floor you. I think a "running lane" would be a great addition to pavements UK-wide for this reason. But this will not happen for many years, until you and I are long dead.
ReplyDeleteThis took me about four minutes. I think way too much!