My days are ordinary by many standards. There are many people that would look at the path and footsteps that my life takes me on and think: Pah. That's just an ordinary walking path. There's nothing significant there. You're happy? So what. You're crazy? Me too. You commute to London? So do millions of others. Your life is not so different

Many people would agree.

But I wouldn't-I am struck on a daily basis how unusual my life is.

Take this past Tuesday, for example.

In the morning I awoke and rolled out of bed. I've found that the older I get the harder it is to wake up. Coffee and a shower with pumpkin-pie scented soap helps wake me up, along with brushing my teeth, applying deodorant, and spritzing myself with crème brulee perfume (I am nothing if not a smorgasbord). A quick scan of emails, a kiss on the lips by a man who kisses me with his eyes open, and I am out the door.

I drive to the train station in the car with no radio, so I sing songs in my head. In my head, my voice sounds nicer, more mature, harder. The songs come out in ribbons of authority. Sometimes I nod my head to the rhythm or tap my fingers.

It helps when you often live in your own little world anyway.

When I pull up to the train station I spend about 5 minutes trying to park the car right. I used to just wing the car into a spot and walk away, but now I feel the need to get it just right. When I walk to the train platform I see a tall man with hair just a little too long at a white family car. He's talking through the rear doors to two little girls strapped into the seat. They are leaning towards the open door as though just leaning closer to the opening brings it closer to the man, as though their inclination can let him know what's inside their hearts. I assume he is the father.

'I'll see you soon, ok?' he says, and I hear the flattened vowels that mark him as someone like me, an American, a stranger in a strange land. 'I'll see you as soon as I can, and you be good and have fun, ok?' His voice is strained and I look at the driver. She's a striking woman, one hand propped on the steering wheel and the other leaning on the door, holding her forehead. She looks bored and pissed off, like she has an elsewhere she'd rather be.

Neither of them bears a ring.

He shuts the door and the woman takes an immediate cue to drive away, talking to the kids in the back seat as though she is now the sole proprietor, as though if she talks she'll take away the memory of the man. I wonder if he'll shout what so clearly etches the tautness in his lips: I miss you.

He doesn't.

I buy my ticket and stand on the platform. I plug my iPod into my ears and think about my day ahead. I stand there, oblivious, and then see the man is to my right, and looking at me. He looks terribly sad and yet his eyes scan the world, so he's not so hurt that he's become blind yet. I want to tell him that I know how he feels, even if I really don't. I want to tell him I know how he hurts, even if I have no idea. So I do the only thing I can do: I smile at him.

I just can't go talk to him and offer him comforting words, I am wearing the wrong shoes today.

He stares at me until the train pulls up and I don't kid myself that he finds me hot, that he finds me interesting. I was just the only other awake person waiting on the platform, and something American in me came out and wanted to smile at him. In a sea of trains and timetables and telephones, I was just one of any millions of commuters, one that he will forget as he swings into the saddle of his day.

I hope his day gets better.

I sit in my seat and shift all my bags to the rack above me. The projector is up there, tormenting me, and my back already aches from carrying it. I get out my laptop and write. Train time is writing time for me, and I try to allow myself those 55 minutes of just me and my thoughts and my iPod. I always look out the window as we get into London and we pass Parliament, MI6, and the London Eye. They still take my breath away and when they stop doing that, I'll know it's time to move.

London is always a rush. There is always a hurry, a need to walk down the escalators and to try to catch the ideal train. They call it the Big Smoke, and I think the name has less to do with the historical smog than with the cartoon-like steam I imagine winging from the limbs of people running around the platforms. Sometimes I meet Ron at Waterloo and we take the tube together and gossip about the people we like and the people we don't. His girlfriend is expecting and he often tells me the latest. I have no response to these stories, except to wish him luck.

Meetings are often fraught affairs with the same people. I have an excellent team that I generally really like (albeit with a few exceptions). I have to take notes and often have the projector hooked up to my laptop so I can never surf the web if I am bored.

Somehow I have become a grown-up, but I never got to have a party before getting here.

There are small things I always try to do. I try to have a fruit smoothie in order to get my vitamins. I try to eat soup at lunch, these days I am into soup. I keep my mobile phone in one pocket, my iPod in the other, and my train ticket in my back pocket (if it's not tucked into the book I read on my train ride home). I always look out the window at Clapham Junction to see if I can see the train spotters. Clapham Junction is England's busiest railway junction and as such you can usually see men standing outside with clipboards, backpacks and cameras, writing down train numbers. Spotting the spotters is something that makes me calm, makes me smile.

When I get home I have enough time to drop my bags and head upstairs to change into my pajamas and head to the study for more conference calls (Angus tells me I am the only person he knows that changes into pajamas when I get home, and that I am the only person he knows that, when I get out of bed on a Saturday morning, I don't put my clothes for the day on yet-I put on the pajamas I dropped on the floor the night before). During my conference calls I want to surf, I want to play Sims, but the meetings are so tedious that every drop of attention has to be paid. I have a cat on my lap sometimes, and it feels nice knowing this one act of corporate rebellion is occurring to the oblivion of everyone else on the call.

Angus comes home and makes us sweet corn chowder for dinner. I kiss him and tell him about my day and he tells me about his. I wonder what it feels like inside of the muscles of his heart. I take a bath while he works on the pc and when I get out Maggie jumps in the draining bathwater, soaking her paws up to her stomach. I call in Angus and we watch and laugh, watching as she later jumps out and shakes her paws as she walks on her chicken-leg like feet. She leaves tiny wet paw prints on the carpet in the hallway and I want to follow them to see how far they get to, to catch an angle of her feline world.

I brush my hair and put my pajamas and my pink wig on, becoming Lola for a little while. I sit in unaware positions on the couch next to the fire-filled coal stove, which I leave the door open to let the heat out. When our regular Tuesday TV program comes on, a documentary about Auschwitz, I take off Lola-Lola is too frivolous for this, she's too flippant. She can't see this.

I have to protect Lola.

We watch TV, punctuated by me talking to or commenting on things we're watching, until we're tired. When we're tired we go to bed, brushing our teeth and filling the routine-lock the door. Turn off the lights. A Kleenex under my pillow and on the nightstand beside me (the Kleenex disappear during the night. I used to think it was the Tooth Fairy getting confused, only one day I looked behind the bed and saw what looked like an entire Johnson & Johnson outlet there. It's clear they're just making a bid for freedom, not getting nicked by a chick with pink wigs and a tooth fetish).

We whisper and talk and sometimes wind up touching each other, leading to sex. Bedtime sex is usually lazy, not too much movement but lots of talk. When we're finished I often find my hip nestled in the wet spot but I don't mind it too much, I helped to put it there.

An ordinary day? Maybe.

Only once upon a time I never knew I could have such a day.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:06 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 1656 words, total size 9 kb.

1 I now have an imagine of you, sitting there during the conference call, stroking the cat like Blofeld in the Bond Movies !! But in Red tartan PJs of course ! I'm the same after work, get out of work clothes into PJs, nothing more relaxing

Posted by: sasoozie at February 09, 2005 10:53 AM (H8Lg2)

2 Sounds pretty ordinary to me. Ordinary doesn't mean like everyone else.

Posted by: Easy at February 09, 2005 01:11 PM (SFQW4)

3 I still get excited driving into downtown Raleigh to work, I don't know how you don't overload riding into London! (I know, Raleigh.. woohoo, but there's something fun about all downtowns to me!) I do the same thing though, with the pajamas. I put them on after I walk the dog in the evenings, and I put them on after I roll out of bed on the weekends. They're my "lounging" clothes. Very relaxed and I love them!

Posted by: Erin at February 09, 2005 01:46 PM (KYrs1)

4 Everybody does PJ's.

Posted by: Kyle at February 09, 2005 01:50 PM (blNMI)

5 Sounds like a fine day to me. :-) You should seriously consider trading that dinosaur in for an actual portable projector. The traveler we had at the last job weighed about 4 pounds and performed admirably.

Posted by: Jim at February 09, 2005 01:52 PM (MDLz3)

6 How are you not hungry all the time? If I had any food scent on me (pumpkin or otherwise), I'd be looking for food 24/7. I'm getting hungry just writing about it. Interestingly enough, one of my coworkers smelled like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups yesterday. Surely that's not a new soap scent I got hungry every time I walked by her office. I'm affraid to walk by today; she might smell like Hershey's milk chocolate or a Dairy Queen Blizzard (the most delicious dessert ever for those of you outside the Dairy Queen region). To anyone who'll answere: what's the strangest soap scent you've ever used or seen?

Posted by: Solomon at February 09, 2005 01:53 PM (k1sTy)

7 Boy have they gotten smaller and cheaper. Check out this baby: http://www.viewsonic.com/products/projectors/pj255d/ 2 freaking pounds! Woo hoo!

Posted by: Jim at February 09, 2005 01:56 PM (MDLz3)

8 Okay, I put on pajamas when I get home too. And on Saturdays I out my pajamas back on and keep them on until I am forced to put on real clothes because I'm leaving the house. Which means if I never leave the house on Saturday, I never get dressed. No sign of the chips.

Posted by: emily at February 09, 2005 02:21 PM (plXME)

9 sounds lovely. and i love your soap and perfume combo. yum! xoxoxo

Posted by: kat at February 09, 2005 02:31 PM (3t8KQ)

10 the first thing i do when i get home is put on pajamas and fuzzy slippers. it's much nicer than whatever i wore to work that day.

Posted by: kellen at February 09, 2005 02:49 PM (A5yBb)

11 I would LOVE to have a Reese' Peanut Butter cup perfume...

Posted by: Helen at February 09, 2005 03:31 PM (y74Wc)

12 14 oz projector http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000667030930/ Your day sounds lovely. I hope you have many more like that. (but get a rolling bag, for that beast of a projector) Cheers

Posted by: Barnaby at February 09, 2005 06:39 PM (iek4G)

13 It's the ordinary things that makes life so wonderful for me too. Feeling Dan's arms steal around me when he wakes up in the morning. Falling asleep every night to the feel of him gently patting my ass while he reads. Yeah, lying in the wet spot too. :-) Like you, I never thought I would have that either. Glad we were both wrong! And, creme-brulee perfume? AWESOME! I would love that! DAN would love that on me! Want it!

Posted by: Amber at February 09, 2005 06:47 PM (zQE5D)

14 Amber-it's from Demeter, which you can get at Sephora. http://www.sephora.com/browse/brand_hierarchy.jhtml?categoryId=&brandId=4183&SectionID=&x=15&y=2 I want their laundromat-scented perfume!

Posted by: Helen at February 09, 2005 08:53 PM (y74Wc)

15 I have some Margarita scented shower gel from philosophy - yummy. Don't know that I'd classify it as strange, though. Demeter has some great stuff! I have their chocolate chip and martini scents.

Posted by: GrumpyBunny at February 09, 2005 10:05 PM (w3aVF)

16 I love the bit about spotting the spotters. It's those sorts of things that calm me... sort of like stopping to smell the roses.

Posted by: sarah at February 09, 2005 11:14 PM (4AwR3)

17 sounds wonderful to me. i haven't had someone with whom i could share those sweet, normal day to day things in a long time. sometimes i even miss the wet spot. but only sometimes.

Posted by: deb at February 09, 2005 11:51 PM (y/SPx)

18 I've yet to find it in a store, but should you ever come across the Demeter fragrance "Paperback" please do me a favour and get a whiff of it. I know you probably love the smell of paperbacks as much as I do and if you like that fragrance and think I would too, buy it and I'll send you naked photos of me. And/or cash.

Posted by: Ms. Pants at February 10, 2005 12:17 AM (jJUQe)

19 It is lovely how you talk about an ordinairy day and make it sound so special and somehow easy, although I know your days are not all like that. It is good to see that you do very ordinairy things too in a completely melllow and happy mood. I like posts like this, less stress!!! Although I am with you all the way through any kind of post!

Posted by: irene at February 10, 2005 09:20 AM (NFaeA)

20 Aww... what a great day... And I know what you mean about needing bath products to wake up... I have some sort of grapefruit scrub.

Posted by: Snidget at February 11, 2005 04:45 AM (bpNny)

21 See, Sara, the point was, he DIDN't find me hot or interesting-I was just the only person who made eye contact with him. He wasn't looking at me because he wanted me, which is fine. He was looking at me since I looked at him. And if you read my site regularly at all, you'd realize that I have a terribly low opinion of myself, actually. Irony. It's really lost on some people. I deleted your comment, Sara. I have enough on my mind not to be stuck feeling bad about myself because someone misinterpreted what I wrote.

Posted by: Helen at February 11, 2005 02:08 PM (fL9DT)

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