By the time we touched down at 9.30am in Heathrow I was without sleep and cranky as crap. Some German woman pushed me in the aisles because she was so worked up and desperate to get off and started shouting at me so I told her to fuck off. I feel bad about that, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean much. Plus my manager Suzanne heard me swearing and thought it was funny.
I scampered off as quickly as I could, and went to my Addison Lee taxi. Luis, my driver, seemed to be Italian, but I decided not to engage in conversation, instead shutting my eyes at various points. We travelled endlessly round the M25. It was an extremely bright, extremely warm day and it was weird to be back in my 'macro life' when my thoughts have been expanding as far outwards as the edge of the universe and the billion billion years into the future.
As we went towards Woolwich, cutting through New Eltham, I started to talk to Luis. He had never been in the area and I told him that it was really nice and he should consider moving there. He decided he was going to take the ferry to city airport for fun. We also inevitably talked about Brexit and my recent trip to Kazakhstan, but I was relieved to finally arrive back at home at 11.30am after an impossibly long journey that had spanned a 26 hour day.
I dumped my luggage and went to bed straight away.
Waking at around 2pm, David rang me and I managed to persuade him to come to Woolwich later in the evening, and so I managed to have a quick shower and pull on some clothes. I then went to get coffee at the Coffee Lounge and came back home to watch RuPaul's Drag Race. It was the Halloween Ball episode and it severely lacked mind and imagination.
I also caught up with the newest episode of Crazy Ex Girlfriend and I felt slightly guilty for sitting watching TV, but I was way too tired to do anything productive.
David came round at about 6pm and we went for a drink in the Equitable. I stuck with red wine and launched into "I've been thinking about the universe and..."
"Woah woah woah," he said. "Woah."
It kind of made me realise that my thoughts tend to run away with themselves when I don't have anyone to speak with or talk to.
He is very happy about his new business and has got a great deal on the way he is paying tax for it, so that's good. I gifted David some Kazakh chocolate and a camel teddy we've called 'Humpy'.
David came back to mine and we ordered an Indian takeaway and danced around to Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. He wanted to watch Drag Race so I showed him the edited highlights of the past few weeks. At about 9.30 he decided to go home, and I pulled my duvet into the living room and fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up again around 2am with American Dad on in the background on the TV. I put the timer on the TV, rolled over and fell asleep again, waking up at 6am.
This is probably a good thing, to get back on UK time. I spent the first hour of th morning scrolling through Tinder and Grinder, while at 7am, I watched the next episode of Crazy Ex Girlfriend. I then got up to go get a coffee and almond croissant at 8am and watched more crap while striking up a conversation with 'Matthew' on Tinder.
After chatting with him for a bit, we decided to meet up with each other. He lived in Beckenham, so I had a quick shower and left the house at 9.50am to catch the 54 bus. On the bus, I thought more profoundly about the temporality of things. Yes, I may be a finite being but it is perhaps quite freeing to know I will not live forever and will not have to worry forever. I turned my music up louder and enjoyed it all the more.
I met Matthew in Beckenham and we had coffee at a really nice cafe. I drank a skinny hazelnut latte and he had a skinny vanilla latte. He works for a travel tech company as an account director and he causally dropped in the conversation he had been single for only 6 months (!) and I panicked slightly. However, I still decided to hook up with him. Walking back to his flat, he talked about my intelligence and I said, "It's a curse! I think too much and have too many ideas... If I could just focus it would all be good!"
When we arrived I saw he was a total geek. He had a shelf of Disney things and he confessed to me he had been to Eurodisney, Disney World, Disney Land... Etc etc... He also was a huge Harry Potter fan. Griffyndor, as it happens.
After having sex, which mainly consisted of mutual masturbation, I gave him a back massage and then we cuddle for about 30 minutes. He came on very strong and was offering to take me on holiday or to a musical - anything I wanted. I gave casual and disguised answers. I hate it when I do this - try to be nice to someone. And I finally made my excuses to leave around 12.50pm.
I waited for the 54 bus back, even though I could have Ubered or similar, because I thought some open-air thinking time would do me good. As predicted, Matthew texted me straight away to say he wanted to keep in touch and isecurely asked me if I wanted to see him again. I texted 'yes, but I'm worried you're moving too fast already'. He relented, but I think he's 'that type' – clingy and serial monogamist. I listened to Meredith Brooks and Human League, thinking what a weird music taste I had until my phone switched off. I bought Hitman 2 for PS4 and started playing it. I scratched any evening plans and around 5pm I decided to head to Stratford to buy some Lush bath stuff. On the way, I started listening to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I have read it before about 6 or 7 years ago, but listening to him again really soothed me. It, of course, makes so much sense. We really have nothing but right now.
It is a good way to take my foot off the gas once again and to try to be mindful. I'm listening to it right now as I write this. It has made me relax tremendously.
I bought 4 bath oils and three bath bombs from Lush. The shop assistant seemed to think my splurge - £26 - was way too much. I got home about 2 hours ago (6pm-ish) and I tried to add more to my Kazakhstan blog but thought I would get these thoughts down before returning to this.
I wonder what Eckhart would say about writing a journal - is it a way of holding onto the past?
Anyway, off to have beans on toast for dinner, a bath and some red wine before bed.
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