Still been a bit groggy, and dismayed by the grogginess (though grateful for that extra hour today). Finally forced myself out of the house in midafternoon; walked through the neighborhood, among people doing the things people do (students in couples shopping, a guy with a big smile riding a bike, various children). Mild envy of their involvement in their own lives....
and so did some grocery shopping: not mostly necessities (my pantry's full of those) but luxuries and exotica, having been driven in that direction by reading one of my favorite food blogs. I fell for:
chocolate with nutmeg
soba noodles
smoked peppered mackerel
smoked salmon
(yeah, yeah, but I bought the cheapest one, and hey we're near Scotland so it's sort of local – and therefore really kind of a sensible purchase, yeah okay get off my back)
oat biscuits
Polish rye bread
(there's a massive influx of Polish food in the corner shop, responding to the new Polish immigrants in the neighborhood – although it does recall my year in Berlin, the Polish versions of Mitteleuropäischer foodstuffs are frankly mostly rather boring; and the labels are entirely in Polish, so there's not much that I'm willing to gamble on)
chocolate breakfast cereal
ghee
Greek meatballs, and Greek-style fava beans
Thai curry vegetables
fudge brownie mix (uh, is there a hidden agenda here?)
chorizo
(finally gambling on this once more – although all the chorizo I've bought here has been unappetizingly fatty, this is a new brand, so what the heck)
and
some sort of Chinese fruit
(that I don't recognize, and have no idea what they're going to taste like – hopefully not like lychees, rambutan, or guava, all of which I can't stand – actually they look like they might be custard apples, which are pretty wonderful in the split second between when they're ripe and when they fall apart).
(By the shade of Sei Shonagon, what a list.)
Then afternoon tea (that's the only thing you can really call it) at the café around the corner; meat and potato pie – sort of the prepackaged version of an English Sunday roast, which I rarely have but which was very welcome today. And reading Barthes' Empire of Signs – certainly one of the most self-indulgent things he ever wrote, and one of the most pleasurable to read; a strange and poetic look at the signs of Japan. When the charming (and good-looking) South Asian guy at the corner shop asked what the book was about, I said, well, it was by someone who loved aesthetic and symbolic things – and where would he have more fun, where would he feel as though he were in a more wonderful playground, than Japan?
The pleasure of being out in the world... when I came home, the apartment's air seemed close and without oxygen – that's what happens in winter, I suppose. I opened all the windows....
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