Saturday, 25 November 2017

#323 Seventeen stops

12:15pm. Ideas Store. The wharf. Everything seemed different. I wasn't groggy. I wasn't glum. I had the energy to walk at my usual pace. My appetite was back.

Sleep deprivation can have some bizarre short-term side effects. Earlier in the week, someone had approached me in a coffee shop to ask what the matter was, simply because of how I looked. I told them fairly bluntly that they'd been reading me wrong. That was fun. A part of me actually quite likes confronting people. Occasionally.

Luisa told me last week it was like I expected everyone to read my mind. "Not read my mind" I said "Just to read me". It was a clever comeback, I thought but how true it was, I wasn't sure. Did I expect too much of people?

I had practically bounced out of the house and along to the tube station earlier. I'd not been sure what to do with the key. Not wanting to leave it in the room unattended, I'd carried it with me down to the front door, hoping to bump into Zafar. An older gentleman approached me. I squinted at him. "I'm going to assume that you're someone I can give this key to" I told him, placing it in his hand. He asked if I was going to catch a flight. "I'm heading to the Isle of Dogs." "Do you know where you're going?" "Seventeen stops south." He seemed satisfied.

I'd written a note to my host thanking him for his troubles and commenting briefly on the venue I'd eaten at the night before. There's only so much you can say about a kebab house but the pita bread had been particularly fluffy so I decided it was worth a mention. If I got to the host before he wrote his guest review, he'd be twice as likely to give me good feedback, which might come in useful. I was already wondering where I'd stay the next time I used the app.

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