I've not written for two weeks now, but you know how long it takes to install
Windows! Took me ages to get it back the way I like it. I like everything to be in the right place.
A bit like my flat.
It's an old house, quite large, but it's been converted into 3 flats, so my
bedroom and
lounge have a cavernousness that belies the size of the kitchen/bathroom/utility area squashed into a tiny extension on the back. It's such a relief to have everything where I want it. I look around the room and although I don't like the
browness of the decor and the
sparseness of the furnishings, knowing that the sofa is exactly where it should be gives me a complete feeling, like finishing a collection or closing a newly restocked
pencil case.
There is an emptiness, and a quietness, a sort of
inaudible thirsting for more people. I expect it's just that the rooms were designed for a big family or something. Single people shouldn't have
coving. It makes the ceilings like lonliness concentrated and enclosed. Strangely the constant
music and laughter from the flat upstairs doesn't help. They always seem to be having such a good time. Sometimes I put the
TV on, just so that their sound is drowned by sound from further away.
The pictures help sometimes. Not so much the huge
submarine that I cut out of a film poster, but more the
Salvador Dali piece. Now though, even looking at that, the enormous spaces fill my eyes rather than the pictures between them. It reminds me of something Jillyan said to me when we were at the top of the
Eiffel tower. I'd said
"Look at the houses, and all those tiny people" and she'd replied
"You're one of those tiny people too". I hadn't felt it then, but it rings true, here and now, echos around the spaces in this room. I think I'll go and sit in the kitchen.
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