Meh

I know i'm depressed when i start buying lotto tickets. What's money going to do? Give me even more opportunity to buy porchini mushrooms that i will waste in complicated recipes that all turn out a bit like feet on toast.

No, really, this malaise lies in myself. I go through stages of losing appetite for everything, EVEN self destruction loses its appeal. I mean, meh, why bother. Roll the note, snort the drugs. Even alcohol AND prostitutes - what a ball leg. I just feel like sitting in an armchair and rubbing the texture of my jeans for the whole day in a passive manner not unlike a sectioned person. I think it's mild depression, but i'm not sure. It lifts eventually to a more low-grade but persistent level, which i am much more comfortable living with. Chronic yet somehow enjoyable depression.

I don't know if it's me or if it's London, but i suspect the latter. I don't remember being this way in sunny, energetic Sydney. Maybe i was one of those wildly happy australians in denial about how shit things actually do get. London forces authenticity on you.

Tubes clunk around london's underground network with us crumpled into them, silently and politely being tense at each other's breathing, especially if it's through the nose. At least now we have the thousands upon thousands of tourists that are pouring into london by the second for distraction and entertainment. The old fumble to the right side of the escalator chestnut, faces creased from hard-core confusion while reading tube maps, the sheer comedy value of a tourist in everyone's way at Liverpool street on a monday morning. All of us heaping maximum pure hatred and pissed-off tsk sounds on some poor unsuspecting italian person. And all these tourists are duped into thinking this is a summer they can trust. Poor lambs. When the opening ceremony is optimistically promised on outdoor screens on friday (LOCOG again irresponsibly failing to manage expectations) they will be unprepared for the let down, as it will rain, guaranteed.

London is all about learning to be good with a let down. It galvanises you. It makes you embrace it. This is something i swore i'd never do as a new arrival four short years ago; give in to the cynisism. But it lures and it pulls and it gives you comfort in some strange way; for to have low expectations really does make for a better life here. It sounds like a horrific way to live your life and I remember thinking it didn't sound like any kind of life at all, but a veritable litany of let-downs later, i too can take refuge in the fact that nothing ever works out, and that's ok. You settle into it, like a plush armchair made of old black velour.

It is comforting to surrender into the meh, i mean i've totally lost my appetite, i never looked so good in my life. Go on, shrug, expect drab, be indifferent. You'll get a laugh out of how bad things can get and it's very good for the figure. Actually, I think I might go have a drink or two.

Post Note:
I am a total miser misery guts and don't deserve to stand on this soil, the opening ceremony was actually totally amazing.