One Wheel Off

When the alarm goes off in the morning, the first thing I do is get up out of bed, pick it up, switch it off and get right back into bed. The alarm is on my out dated cell phone. The type that take crappy pictures and have not yet heard of the internet. Sometimes I can’t find it though, and the noise from the blasted thing gets louder and louder as I get more and more impatient and awake. These are times when I have left it in the pocket of my work trousers and I can’t find the wretched thing for the sleep festering in my eyes still. At such times I marvel at the mans trousers, the ingenious puzzle, with no back or front, cavernous with countless pockets and dropping all manner of paraphernalia such as watches, wallets, pens and cards but no buzzing alarm clock cell phone. This particular morning however, I found the screaming thing on the dressing table without any problem.

 

Under dawn parlor creeping past the curtains, the debate begins. The debate in my head, that is. ‘Did I say I was going to go jogging this morning?’ I will ask my self rhetorically. ‘Yes I did’ answering my own question. Then continue ‘That is why you set the alarm for 6am you schmuck’. I will then start to search for excuses for not being able to jog this particular morning. Thinking things like ‘I can’t go jogging, I don’t know where my shorts are’ or ‘I am not that fat’ or ‘I need the rest so I can be alert at work today. Besides, I can jog tonight after work.’ But then again I will think ‘you know your too fed up from work to go jogging after and you promised you would go jogging three times this week’ and add ‘you didn’t do the big jog this weekend, or the last, and you only went jogging twice last week.’ And the mind will rage with its self, both sides knowing full well that they are each vacillating in order to allow my self to fall asleep again, which I inevitably do. Then I get up in a shock ten minutes later, worried that it is 10am and I am dreadfully late for work. Some times one side wins and I get into my vest, shorts and trainers and run out the door. Some times not. This morning went jogging.

 

This is Monday morning I am talking about. Of late it has come to be the morning of extreme panic and anxiety. Anxiety about both long term and short term insecurities. Worried about my soon to expire contract and worried about my career (or the lack of it) which quickly gets embroiled into worrying about the meaning of my life. Worry about the rent and how much money I have spent that I should not have. The Jog usually emboldens me. Gets me thinking ‘if I could get out and run for half an hour at six in the morning then sure as hell can make a plan for my life’. This, however, was not working this morning. The palpable stress had been building in my guts over the weekend.

 

The weekend did not get to a good start. Late that Friday evening, when I thought I was putting the finishing touches to a master piece Excel spreadsheet I was accosted by the nefarious boss. He roared at me, after reading my progress report email of two days ago, that I was working on the wrong cost centers making my last 5 days of effort near wasted. To rub it in, he then proceeded to lecture me about being in the real world and no longer in an academic ivory tower. “The problem with you Jumani is that you think your in an academic institution” he quipped, as he has done time and time before.

 

I dodged my house mates that evening, as I have done Friday after Friday. Their rapacious appetite for loud music and expensive drinks I have grown tired of. Not least because I can’t barely afford such outings in one of Europe’s most expensive cities. Of course they often are kind enough to cover a few drinks for me now and then. Heck they might even cover my entrance fee. But to save face on such nights I do, now and again buy a round of drinks. The bill is always galling and the pride of providing the water of life never quite matches the financial sting and indignation coursing through my blood ahead of the alcohol. No, instead I met Sheri for just one drink at a pub. Then we had Pizza Express on the south bank of the Thames River.

 

Sheri is my Canadian friend. Or as I say when I introduce her ‘she is my Canadian friend from South Africa who is Chinese from Malaysia and in London.’ Though she is genuinely Canadian. This is proved by her determination to make the world better by means of vegetarianism, social democracy and environmentalism. However, she doesn’t say ‘aiy’ very much (as they do in that movie Fargo).

She is a good listener Sheri. She will absorb all my self pity, even on a Friday night. Best of all she gives advice. She tells me what to do, how to get out of my predicament. She says ‘phone this person’ and ‘dial this number’ and ‘send that email’ and I walk away feeling all the stronger and do none of what she has instructed. This Friday night I did actually try listen to her quite a bit as well. She has a new job on the west coast as a flood managing environmentalist, though her heart is with development work.

 

Saturday was taught with anxiety. Not about my wasting life this time, however. Instead about the third installment of house party set for the evening. The house, as usual, was a mess. Shopping to be done, grass to cut, bulbs to replace, music to mix and chicken to spice. The guests came, the music was loud, I got drunk, I danced a lot, I couldn’t find any good music on my house mates computers, two boys nearly fought, Sheri left early, Laurence was stressed about disturbing the neighbors, I slept in my clothes next to a girl who also slept in her clothes with a promise never to have sex before marriage.

 

Then it was Sunday, and the house was a mess again. The hangover from all the vodka and beer was surprisingly light and perhaps a symptom of all the dancing I did. I danced with my self mostly. Laurence was gone to work by 10am. He made me jealous for a job I would dare attempt on a Sunday hangover. Instead, my week days are spent longing for Friday, and my weekends lost to dreading the approaching Monday. I tried to read a book about slavery and failed. Together with the remaining house mates and a girl friend of one of them, Barbara, we shopped for African Ndeo, cooked a pap with chicken, Delele and Rape. We watched tv, settled bills and went to bed. All of us sullen and fully aware of the inevitable Monday to follow.

 

That is how Monday came so quick. I expected to live a whole life between Friday evening and Monday morning. And when that fateful morning finally came, I felt, yet again, I had failed to live. Failed to be drunk enough, save enough, read enough and laugh enough.

 

Work today was not long though. Or my ten hours there did not feel so long. To be honest Mondays never a drag. Tuesdays drag though. And so do Wednesdays. They are in the middle of nowhere. Neither just after the weekend or just before another. Monday is still the first working day of a new week. The office was busy today. Meetings all over the place, new faces and others returned from holiday. There was Veron, the nefarious bosses private assistant to chirp everyone up with enquiries and enthusiasm for the mediocrities of your life. “Hello Jumani, how are you doing? Everything alright” she will ask, like a nurse checking in on her favorite patient. We all get the same treatment however. Again I lied to her and told her I was fine, which is what I think she wants to hear.

 

Best of all, I spoke to the boss not once all the day.

 

It rained this afternoon. Cloudy all day, and certainly raining when I got out the building. The trip home is the most pleasant session of the day for me. A bus ride, a wait at Victoria for a train and then, best of all, a train ride. An over land train, from where you can see all the builds twist and turn in a slow dance as the train winds past. To float above all the dreary red bricks and rain soaked high streets. It is the best part of the day for two sure reasons. Firstly, I can read a book right through it and always do so. Secondly, work is behind me and home is ahead.

 

The cozy mood was lost though when I found my bike, or what was left of it at the station. The front wheel had been stolen. The back wheel and frame remained locked to the pole with my D-lock. I had been visited by one of the charms of South East London. The bus driver let me on the bus with my one wheeled bicycle.

 

Tomorrow will be Tuesday.