I hate Saturday nights.
Not for the same reasons as Angela though (if you don’t know who Angela is, dear reader, trust me you are lucky. Just another woman who hated Saturday nights). I hate Saturday nights because they remind me of all the fun I used to have, all the friends I used to have, some time ago, somewhere else. Far away. Saturday nights at home, watching TV. Alone. No laughs, no existential conversations accompanying drinks, no stupid conversations accompanied by drinks. No board games at sticky pub tables. No Saturday night movies. Cinema is too expensive here on a Saturday. Maybe Tuesday night? (who cares about Tuesday nights anyway?)
I hold the bag with my dinner (pasty this evening) as I walk back home. I stop at the lights waiting for the green guy to light up. Loneliness is so heavy on my shoulders I have to lean my head on the pole next to the WAIT light. The guy next to me is looking at me I realize. “You know where Rivington street is?”, he asks as we cross the street in tandem. I am not sure if he really doesn’t know or if he is trying to flirt or if he just sensed my loneliness and is being kind.
“You go straight and then somewhere on the left”. I’m really bad with directions, what can I say?
“Where exactly on the left?” he asks awkwardly. He doesn’t do this often I guess. When I say that I am not really sure, the 2nd or 3rd turn, he explains he is going to a comedy club. The acts start at 7. He doesn’t say it, but there is for sure an unspoken invitation. Have you ever felt so lonely, dear reader, that you would actually consider joining a stranger to a comedy club? Well, I did.
“Have a nice night”, logic says and I turned right to head home.
The neighborhood is quiet. Everyone is out. It's Saturday night anyway. The pavement is still messed up from the road works this morning, I have to go around the barriers to get to my door. Oh, what a surprise, the pile of garbage bags has not moved from the entrance. Rather it has been fortified with empty cardboard boxes. I guess from the shop below. A very hurried close down of yet another unsuccessful business.
Our turquoise door does not open with ease. Something is blocking its movement. The postman has been around I guess. No letters though. Just flyers; pizzas and professional cleaning ads. And subscription magazines. Not in the mood to bother this evening. Push everything to the side for now and walk up the stairs.
The brown door on the first floor, decorated with a license plate of a car that doesn’t exist anymore, of a car far away, opens to our apartment. Stuffy. Must open the windows before devouring my dinner I think. Summer in the city… The laundry in the middle of the living room doesn’t help either I guess. The laundry is in the middle of the living room because there is nowhere else to put it in case you were wondering.
Sitting on the white sofa, I turn on the telly. At least there are some movies on. Possibly the only good thing about a Saturday night. Won’t have to succumb to Netflix. Would hate doing that after spending so much time saying how much I hate this new version of television, the good television for the few. Television is supposed to be shite and for everyone.
Half-way through the shite movie a 'bing' coming from my phone demands my attention. Very demanding this new smart phone, much more than my old stupid one. It’s a picture from the forest. An excursion to the mountain back home. Oh, I miss it too. I sent a picture of my pasty. I hate this phone, the smart one. But somewhere in this small box there lies a portal to people far away. Oh, Internet. No need for tearful letters of homesickness. Pictures of pasties and trees and jokes
travelling kilometers within seconds. How life depends on this phone, how one 'bing', one stupid 'bing' coming out of it can make it all better. How sad and pathetic that life depends on a 'bing'.
When I first left what used to be home (after you’ve been away long enough - I am not sure to tell you how much time is long enough time – home becomes less of a home, as you become a strange body to its ecosystem. A strange body everywhere. To all ecosystems.), I used to call with my old, silly phone (or wise phone as a friend used to say. Another friend, somewhere else in the world), call back home, like E.T. There would be a familiar voice on the other side of the line, a familiar breathing pattern, asking “how are you?”. There were no pictures of trees or pasties, just a few words and the tears would flow.
Homesickness, a kind of sickness.
I want to say here again how much I hate smart phones, but I am currently loving this one, since it is beeping this evening. I’ll take a beep and a picture of a tree, why not? I’ll take anything.
The pasty is long finished, the movie is near the end too. It was a stupid one anyway, wasn’t paying too much attention to it after all. The night is not over yet, but the worst part of it is gone. The voices of people outside tell me it is still early, they are not yet drunk enough, but I’ll go to bed. Read myself to sleep. That sounds nice. And at the next moment of consciousness it will be Sunday.
Not for the same reasons as Angela though (if you don’t know who Angela is, dear reader, trust me you are lucky. Just another woman who hated Saturday nights). I hate Saturday nights because they remind me of all the fun I used to have, all the friends I used to have, some time ago, somewhere else. Far away. Saturday nights at home, watching TV. Alone. No laughs, no existential conversations accompanying drinks, no stupid conversations accompanied by drinks. No board games at sticky pub tables. No Saturday night movies. Cinema is too expensive here on a Saturday. Maybe Tuesday night? (who cares about Tuesday nights anyway?)
I hold the bag with my dinner (pasty this evening) as I walk back home. I stop at the lights waiting for the green guy to light up. Loneliness is so heavy on my shoulders I have to lean my head on the pole next to the WAIT light. The guy next to me is looking at me I realize. “You know where Rivington street is?”, he asks as we cross the street in tandem. I am not sure if he really doesn’t know or if he is trying to flirt or if he just sensed my loneliness and is being kind.
“You go straight and then somewhere on the left”. I’m really bad with directions, what can I say?
“Where exactly on the left?” he asks awkwardly. He doesn’t do this often I guess. When I say that I am not really sure, the 2nd or 3rd turn, he explains he is going to a comedy club. The acts start at 7. He doesn’t say it, but there is for sure an unspoken invitation. Have you ever felt so lonely, dear reader, that you would actually consider joining a stranger to a comedy club? Well, I did.
“Have a nice night”, logic says and I turned right to head home.
The neighborhood is quiet. Everyone is out. It's Saturday night anyway. The pavement is still messed up from the road works this morning, I have to go around the barriers to get to my door. Oh, what a surprise, the pile of garbage bags has not moved from the entrance. Rather it has been fortified with empty cardboard boxes. I guess from the shop below. A very hurried close down of yet another unsuccessful business.
Our turquoise door does not open with ease. Something is blocking its movement. The postman has been around I guess. No letters though. Just flyers; pizzas and professional cleaning ads. And subscription magazines. Not in the mood to bother this evening. Push everything to the side for now and walk up the stairs.
The brown door on the first floor, decorated with a license plate of a car that doesn’t exist anymore, of a car far away, opens to our apartment. Stuffy. Must open the windows before devouring my dinner I think. Summer in the city… The laundry in the middle of the living room doesn’t help either I guess. The laundry is in the middle of the living room because there is nowhere else to put it in case you were wondering.
Sitting on the white sofa, I turn on the telly. At least there are some movies on. Possibly the only good thing about a Saturday night. Won’t have to succumb to Netflix. Would hate doing that after spending so much time saying how much I hate this new version of television, the good television for the few. Television is supposed to be shite and for everyone.
Half-way through the shite movie a 'bing' coming from my phone demands my attention. Very demanding this new smart phone, much more than my old stupid one. It’s a picture from the forest. An excursion to the mountain back home. Oh, I miss it too. I sent a picture of my pasty. I hate this phone, the smart one. But somewhere in this small box there lies a portal to people far away. Oh, Internet. No need for tearful letters of homesickness. Pictures of pasties and trees and jokes
travelling kilometers within seconds. How life depends on this phone, how one 'bing', one stupid 'bing' coming out of it can make it all better. How sad and pathetic that life depends on a 'bing'.
When I first left what used to be home (after you’ve been away long enough - I am not sure to tell you how much time is long enough time – home becomes less of a home, as you become a strange body to its ecosystem. A strange body everywhere. To all ecosystems.), I used to call with my old, silly phone (or wise phone as a friend used to say. Another friend, somewhere else in the world), call back home, like E.T. There would be a familiar voice on the other side of the line, a familiar breathing pattern, asking “how are you?”. There were no pictures of trees or pasties, just a few words and the tears would flow.
Homesickness, a kind of sickness.
I want to say here again how much I hate smart phones, but I am currently loving this one, since it is beeping this evening. I’ll take a beep and a picture of a tree, why not? I’ll take anything.
The pasty is long finished, the movie is near the end too. It was a stupid one anyway, wasn’t paying too much attention to it after all. The night is not over yet, but the worst part of it is gone. The voices of people outside tell me it is still early, they are not yet drunk enough, but I’ll go to bed. Read myself to sleep. That sounds nice. And at the next moment of consciousness it will be Sunday.
