it’s officially the first day of the latter half of the year and everything is new new new. feels like time has really flown by.
i’ve moved into a new flat, spent basically all of saturday building and seting up furniture. made a cozy lil nook by the window of my ground floor room. i actually don’t mind living on the ground floor because it feels weirdly private, even though my room shares a wall with the living room. i also love the easy access to the kitchen.
for my lil nook, i had a vision in my head of a little desk and bookshelf so i’m glad that materialized. now all i have to set up are a chest of drawers for a little alcove in my room, and a mirrored double cabinet for the bathroom. once that’s done and i’ve finally unpacked the rest of my stuff, then i think it’ll finally truly feel like home.
i also went to my new home gym for the first time and it was nice. it was the first time i’d been to the gym since last monday, i’ve been so busy with the move and everything. i feel like i haven’t been living my real life. it’s a bit dangerous though because the gym connects to both a wendy’s and a five guys. a bit insane.
i went back to my old flat in finsbury park to remove a couple last bags of rubbish from my room. to get to my old flat, i had to wade through the wreckage of the arsenal parade that happened yesterday. everyone keeps saying that over 1.5 million people showed up (apparently it was the largest parade ever held in the uk) but i’m not sure where they’re getting those numbers from (edit: supposedly it was confirmed by the metropolitan police).
i for one avoided the whole thing completely. i could not care less about football. everyone thinks christianity’s a cult, but somehow rabid football fans get a pass even though it’s literally so inconsequential to real life. i guess there’s something to be said about bolstering the human spirit and giving people something to look forward to and get excited about, but i truly don’t get it at all. maybe the parallel with religion is a good one for me to consider to try to understand.
anyway, the streets were littered with piles and piles of rubbish, it was abysmal. i took a photo of not even a particularly bad bit. i had lunch at the tonkotsu right at finsbury park station and the woman working there said they’d prepared for a lot of rushes, but they actually didn’t get that much business. she said they saw more business on a typical bank holiday. crowds and crowds of people passed by, but not many came in.
“you would think that if there were really a million people, some of them would have to eat!” she said, confused.
but that wasn’t the spirit of the day. nobody was looking for a nice, calm, relaxing meal. i imagine everyone was restless and buzzing, looking to be in the electric crowd. no time for food.
at my old flat, my ex-landlord asked if i wanted a ride back to my place with my bags of rubbish, and i declined. unfortunately, things had soured between us by the time i moved out. i think each of us finds the other to be a bit difficult and rigid in perspective.
i remember once a couple of months ago, i brought up the fact that we’d been missing toilet paper for about a week. at that point, it was known that he bought all the supplies and did all the cleaning; he’s older and retired and has a lot of time. i actually offered to pitch in with the cleaning when i first moved in but he’d said he preferred to do it himself because he was rather particular. so it was understood that he did all the cleaning and bought all the cleaning supplies and that was kind of worked into our rent, and this is how it was for over a year.
so i asked him about the toilet paper, saying i could grab some if he was feeling ill or something, and he said, “i was waiting for one of you to bring that up. i wanted to see how long it took before anyone noticed, but i think i’m going to start getting you all to pitch in a little more. i feel like i’m being taken for granted.”
playing passive agressive games as if the three grown men he has as tenants are little children who have to be taught a lesson.
i told him i didn’t appreciate the indirect way he went about communicating this, and that it actually wasn’t my responsibility to read his mind and guess that suddenly things had changed even though we’d been living with given expectations for over a year. i said if i’d been feeling taken for granted or whatever and if there was some sort of problem, i’d let the people involved know, like a mature adult, and work towards some sort of solution or understanding.
then the conversation devolved into him saying that nobody ever thanked him for the work he does to improve the house. i told him that those improvements were for the longevity of the house he owns (and has an invested stake in), that any improvements were at best marginal for my day to day, and that actually the inconvenience of the work being done (shutting down the kitchen for a week, not being able to shower for certain time periods, etc.) actually outweighed any improvement to my life – so no, i wasn’t feeling particularly grateful and i wasn’t going to fake it to people please.
i did say something along the lines of, “i’m sorry you’ve been feeling underappreciated or that you’ve been taken for granted, because that’s not nice.”
but i maintained that the work he’d done to the house was more for him than anyone else and was carried out with no input from any of us tenants, so i’m not really sure what warranted a big show of thanks.
anyway, i don’t think he appreciated my honesty. such is the british way, i guess. definitely a culture clash with what seems to be my more direct north american sensibilities. i just figure, why wallow with all of you’re negative emotions and perspectives? they’re just going to fester, turn rancid, and build self-righteous resentments. don’t you want to give them the opportunity to at least be addressed, if not outright resolved?
i did feel bad though. he’s getting older (i think he turned 70 this year) and i think i could’ve been gentler in my rebuttals. sometimes maybe it’s okay to concede, to just say sorry or thank you. but actually maybe it’s never too late to learn when you’re being immature and unreasonable? i’m still learning when to pick my battles.
in the end, it was kind of a blessing that the arsenal parade happened yesterday and left so much trash on the streets. instead of carrying my heavy bags of rubbish all the way home, i simply left them with another pile of rubbish that was already there. what’s two more bags of rubbish on a pile of 6 bags? surely the city has prepared to clean up more than usual.
recording for posterity’s sake so i remember nice things: after clearing the rubbish from my room, i went to eva cafe to claim a free drink (with my loyalty card) and read. got some ground beans that i later used with the grinder and french press that lydia and david gave me (a game changer).
as i was leaving, the barista told me to hold on a second – he wanted me to taste test the strawberry puree they just got in that they’re going to use to make strawberry lemonade. he effectively gave me a free drink. last time i was at eva cafe, they gave me a free pain au chocolat. i love that place, and everyone who works there. i also lovd free things, so that helps.
i have a good feeling about the next half of this year. i have a couple fun things planned for the summer, and it feels like things are going to really start opening up in new ways. i want to get back to my new year’s resolution of getting good at being bored, of relishing quiet and true mindful presence.
chatted with my family and a frew frineds in canada and realized that those relationships will always sustain me as i carve out a path here. i think i need to make more of an effort in this city. i need to save and spend in more meaningful ways. i want to see things and do things and meet people. i want the bursting, invigorating life of real connection.
when two people meet, it’s like two galaxies colliding – all sorts of magic and possibility explode onto the surface, little supernovas blast through the ordinary to make something new and unpredictable. i want to remember that and not take it for granted. i want to venture into the hidden depths.