No mean feet

They’re on holiday.

Meanwhile, I’m attempting a mean feat.

I’m meant to be all creatively open (that’s open to creativity, to you) for the next month.

I accepted The Challenge willingly and only moments later was trying to wriggle my way out of it. This strikes me as a simple and uncreative process – all I have to do is not do it. Unless I’m going to behave myself and think in an unusual manner…maybe I could padlock all my creative tasks together and run away? No?? Oh.

But seriously, there’s something terrifying about breaking out of routines that you didn’t even count as mundane daily rituals…

Day 1

Case in point: I sit in Pret before work, reading my book (Atonement at the moment) and drinking tea. I ALWAYS do this at some point towards the end of the week, so can’t legitimately count it as taking a different route to work. Yes it’s a different route to the one I usually take, but it’s a weekly habit.

Bugger.

I’m sitting in the same seat I always sit in, in the same Pret I always sit in, doing the same thing (drinking tea and reading). I haven’t made any groundbreaking progress, but then it is only 8.30 in the morning on day 1.

Then 5 minutes later I suddenly realise that I’ve occasionally been peering out the corner of my eye at the newspaper rack, lying in wait for The Guardian. Perhaps my chosen seat is subconsciously my favourite because they get delivered on to that counter every morning?

This is shocking paper-stalking behaviour, but is rewarded when the day’s papers get dumped to the left of my cup of tea and before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve got my nose in the G2 and have pinned Films&Music under my cup of tea, just in case any paper thief passes by.

More reading and people-watching later, I take my usual route from Pret to work, where I make tea and do usual morning things.

Noone asks me anything I want to say no to until the end of the day…when I say no. But I said no to something I felt I ought to say yes to, which is far more unlike me – does it count?

Surely I can just start on the creative trail tomorrow…

: 01 Oct 2006 00:24 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem