Preparing to Travel
Sunday morning is rapidly vanishing. I had grand plans about sitting with a cup of tea and writing some lengthy brain-dumpish tome about “where I am right now” – in terms of my life, my thoughts about things, and so on. Instead I've spent the greater part of the morning putting washing through the machine, hanging clothes up to dry, washing up, tidying up, and all the other crap that seems to consume weekend after weekend.
Half the reason for wanting to get the chores out of the way is that I'm travelling with work in the morning – off to the far end of the country to live in a hotel for the week on my own. A week of either sitting in the hotel restaurant on my own for meals, or sitting in the hotel room on my own eating pre-packed salads from the convenience store across the way.
I haven't packed any clothes yet. I know I probably have enough clean clothes (apart from socks – I have no idea where the hell they go) – I just need to iron the work clothes before they go in the bag. I'll take jeans and hoodies for the evenings.
There is a part of me that's almost looking forward to going away, because it removes me from the mayhem at home for a few days – the endless cycle of washing clothes, dishes, and chasing little people to help in any way, shape or form. At the same time there is a guilt that I'm not there to help – and the flip-side to that is I may well return to battlefield scenes around the house.
When I travel with work, I am often asked where I'm going by friends. I may as well say “a number of trains, a hotel room, and an office” – because that's all I usually see of any of the destinations I visit. Especially at this time of year, when it's dark by 4pm – you never see anything except the 4 walls of the office, or the hotel.
I suppose it would help if I enjoyed being out on my own more, but that comes with it's own problems. If I walk into a bar for a drink, striking up conversation with a stranger always seems overly complicated. If it's a guy he's probably going to talk about sport or cars – both of which I know nothing about, and will bore me to tears. If it's a woman, she's going to immediately think I'm hitting on her – which is why I would never do that in the first place – who wants to put somebody in the situation of having to deal with that ?
Time is marching on. It's now just gone 11am. Writing this is of course a very crafty way of avoiding getting on with anything. I'm an expert at finding other things to do. If there was a Karate belt for procrastination, I wouldn't so much have the belt, as have the magic staff belonging to the Monkey god.