a long day

"and then the cookie crumbled"...

9am
My eyes are burning because they cannot do this anymore, every limb aches in protest and yet I linger on, punishing myself, fighting something that is trying to tell me otherwise. Every bit of good sense asks me abandon this feeling, but I persist in my foolishness.

11am
No, I have not been able to relax and don't think I can for a while. I keep wondering what it will take. Each second the unhappy realization hits me and I feel nothing but misery. The crumbling cookie is all I can think of.

My level of self-destruction is legendary. Oddly enough, knowledge of that fact does not prompt me to act any differently.

2pm
It was time to clear my head, though it was a trip with a purpose. Unfortunately, the stuffy tube ride to Notting Hill did not cure me. The crumbling cookie was all I could think of. Neither the sights, sounds and curious delights of the antique market, my impulsive purchases nor....

6pm
...the endless episodes of 'How I met your Mother' that I blankly watched, upon my return, did the trick.

7pm
I resumed the number-crunching, although it resembled data entry today. I had lost track of all meaning, demolishing tissue after tissue as I went along. The crumbling cookie again.

Midnight
All promises to the self forgotten, every ounce of will astray. It is too powerful and outside my control. I cannot help it, despite myself. In the distance, the cookie continues to crumble.

Extremes

I wonder sometimes if I am blessed or cursed, for everything important to me, functions in extremes. Either there is love to an extent I cannot bear or to a strange degree where I am left longing for something more that I know can never be. It comes upon me in awfully contorted ways, where some days make me feel nothing short of bliss and others bring waves of self-doubt and hopelessness. There are either people who profess they would do anything for you (and actually test that theory, with often disastrous results), while others operate in circles, professing nothing, but meaning everything. Yet when the disappointment hits, it brings with it, a host of irreconcilable feelings. Consequently, I find myself behaving like a classic bipolar disorder case. A lost cause, at that.

I sound confused even to my own ears, yet I am perfectly clear in what I am trying to say. Therein lies the extremity in my own personality. It isnt a wonder then that the people around me fall into one of these two categories. I think there wont ever be that steady balance I am searching for. Or maybe I am just content to let myself be miserable, one way or another. Perhaps I am conditioned to look for flaws that define a variety of "perfection" in my eyes. It is that ideal I am drawn to...whether it lets me down time and time again...brings me utter joy or total despair, is immaterial.

the walk home

Even when there's absolutely no one with you, it is amazingly difficult to feel completely alone. There are people around you who manage to make you feel like a vital part of their experience. The city too draws you into its adventures. It is like living each moment through them, experiencing a bit of their lives and therefore feeling like a tiny, yet significant part of the whole.

I played photographer to a big Indian family (who looked like they were on their first holiday abroad), to a rather cute couple (who for some strange reason wanted a picture kissing on the Millennium Bridge) and an old gaily British bunch of people, probably from the country. I sat on the steps of St.Paul's eating a sandwich, watching people go about their business. I heard snatches of conversation all the way home and concluded that Londoners had two favourite topics of conversation:

1. Love, life and relationships
2. Office gossip

As I walked on, there were wonderfully delectable hot dogs oozing with mustard and a smiling old man selling caramelized peanuts. I smelt gelato as I walked past the Globe and made a mental note to treat myself to it soon (the strawberry flavour, to be precise). Hearing the energetic chatter from 'The Swan", I imagined the cast laughing over some wine in preparation for the evening's performance of 'Troilus and Cressida". Even the Thames didn't seem as grey that day! I continued to breathe in the sights and sounds of London, with a serene expression on my face and a hint of a smile forming at my lips.

Watching people downing their pints, engaged in conversation, I absorbed every bit of the lively atmosphere at 'Vinopolis'. The smell of peri-peri chicken wafted through as I passed Nando's. My eyes scanned the remains of the day's spoils at Borough Market. I finally turned a busy corner on to Borough High Street. At Sainsbury, I talked myself into buying exciting dinner, even though I had food at home. It was one of those days when I would not have resented splurging ten pounds on a nice dinner and wine somewhere. But I was homeward bound!

I turned to cross, decided to be brave and take another route back. I was home within minutes, feeling oddly satiated.