Alright, goddammit, I didn't die. You were lucky this time, I only have to be lucky once. Now I will have to get back into the real world and do some work. Where are Al Qaeda when you need them? Dead people have it so easy. Lucky stiffs.
Anyway, I was delighted to be back in England and it was weirdly reassuring to see the Millennium Dome and Wheel from the plane as we descended over London. I don't know why I feel like I have been away for a year or two. I tried to look out for my house from the plane, but couldn't see it. That's not as stupid as it might seem. I remember after coming back from Melbourne in 2001 the plane I was in flew right by my recently ex-girlfriend's house and I could clearly see everything going on in her street. It gave me an idea that I had forgotten til this moment of someone discovering their partner was having an affair after seeing the lover leaving their home on the morning of the person's return flight. That idea had been prompted by that particular girlfriend's untrustworthyness, but it's not a bad idea to incorporate into something. Seems unbelievable, but actually it could happen.
Anyway, for some reason I was mainly missing UK newspapers, to such an extent that I had been excited during the holiday to find the puzzle pages from the Daily Mail in my bag, which I had extracted from a copy of that awful paper on my flight over. If one is so desperate for papers from home that you can be pleased to see part of the Daily Mail then you know you have a problem.
But the first thing I did once I was out into the airport was to buy a copy of the Guardian. I don't think I even ended up reading that much of it. Just holding it was enough. I was home.
I enjoyed the hour or so of feeling that my home town was the foreign place. Just as when you go abroad you notice all the little details that are different, when you've been away and return to familiar territory you do notice odd little things that you would usually ignore. As I approached my home a strange lady was standing by a bin, apparently doing stretching exercises, whilst talking to herself, but I don't think she was exercising. She was just strange. I laughed to myself. I love Shepherd's Bush.
I had slept OK on the plane, but was still a little light headed and out of it during the day, but I was determined to stay up until bed time, even if I had essentially woken up at 2 o clock this morning. Still my desire to live a normal day almost cost me dear when coming out of the supermarket this morning I realised that I had left my driver's side window wide open for the last hour and a half in the car park. Luckily the car was still there and nothing was missing. Still, the drug like (I imagine, mum) effects of tiredness and jet lag were mainly quite enjoyable, though possibly I wasn't quite fit to be driving a car around in this strange state.
At the supermarket I had been looking for some green chillis, when a woman leaned by me towards the cucumbers (I was looking in the wrong place for chillis as it happened). She picked up a cucumber looked at it, saw it was only a half cucumber (packaged that way deliberately) and then said to me, "What am I doing? Picking up half a cucumber? I don't want that. One slice and it will be gone. I must be going mad!"
"Not really," I thought, "But possibly giving a running commentary about your shopping to a complete stranger might be a sign of insanity!" I didn't say anything though.
Then I wondered if in my heightened state of awareness I had actually just managed to read the woman's thoughts and that none of that had been said aloud. Maybe I should have told her that and then said, "I think that's a bit madder than picking up a vegetable that is half as long as the one you were hoping to buy. And also maybe you should cut your cucumber in smaller slices!"
For the rest of the day I tried to get myself organised back into my proper life, but predictably only got a certain amount done. Annoyingly my Skyplus had fucked up while I'd been away and failed to record last week's installment of all the things I like. Plus I noticed that a couple of the things I looked at that I had recorded during Edinburgh were jumpy and almost unwatchable. I think I hate Skyplus. I am going to have to buy Heroes and "Studio 60" on DVD now. Studio 60 is amazing by the way, even with random chunks of dialogue and action missing. I can't believe they have cancelled it. I hate stupid TV executives. Which is probably why I like Studio 60.
Anyway, I am home, I am scatterbrained and I am looking forward to the start of my new life. By tomorrow I will have slipped back into my old ways, but for the moment let's just dream that something.. anything... has changed.
