Two coffees into the weekend

It’s Saturday morning. The clock just ticked past 9am. You find me sitting in Wetherspoons, having just made a “traditional English” disappear. A cup of coffee is keeping me company - perched on the edge of the “table for one”.

I arrived half an hour ago - after wandering past the local barber where a young family and a middle-aged-man were waiting patiently for the doors to open. Apparently beating the queue at the barbers is a thing.

The pub is remarkably quiet - not quiet enough to bag a booth table though, it turns out. They seem to be prized real-estate for breakfast - particularly among those toting newspapers, laptops, or scrolling phones.

Families are slowly trickling in - from experience they will arrive en-masse in about half an hour - and will trigger my exit from the ensuing mayhem. I imagine they’re all trying to leave their respective houses right now - arguing over “where your shoes are”, “have you brushed your teeth?”, and “you’re not wearing that - go and put something clean and tidy on”.

I just made the mistake of checking my email - after the “you’re got mail” notification popped up in the corner of the screen (Oh how I miss the AOL notification made famous by the movie).

I’ll reply later. This is my hour away from everything. My time. I need to get better at carving time for myself. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve burned the candle at both ends recently. It’s not sustainable.

I’ve always found it interesting that people can be so different in terms of their motivations - their needs. I regard myself as largely self-sufficient - I find pretty much everything and everybody interesting, and will find my own fun if at a loose end. Others seem to either need others, or need to be needed by others. I guess there’s the whole thing about everybody being somewhere on a spectrum in terms in terms of most things - and the mania in recent years to classify exactly “what’s wrong” with each of us.

When I was young you were allowed to be a bit different. These days it appears any differences have to be explained and categorised. I guess that’s a two way street - if you’re struggling with something others seem to find easy, it’s probably good to find out why - but by the same token it means we’re being put in boxes by others, and potentially treated differently. I don’t like that.

Anyway.

The shops open in half an hour. The supermarket is probably open already. I need to get some coffee, and a few other bits and bobs.