The original plan was:
(a) Laura is flying in to Edinburgh for a gallery opening, from New York.
(b) I buy a train ticket to go up and have lunch with her, spend the afternoon, go to opening. Meet apparently amazingly friendly/charming gallery director, have fun, take late train home.
(c) Many slightly complicated and nervous emotions intrude over the previous week, as I love Laura dearly and want very much to see her, but always feel a bit inept when we catch up at five- or ten-year intervals – I do have a silly tendency to let my life stall, to gain weight and age without wisdom or happiness, to be too self-involved, especially in comparison with her rapidly-moving and successful life among the rich and famous; and I can't help but say bits of that to her. I know she loves me anyway, but I always fuss beforehand how I'll present my life in its current state – I want to put all my problems before her, but not complain. Which is of course impossible.
Modification of circumstances:
(d) Laura cancels, as she is not feeling well – health concern, possibly complicated. No flight.
Revised plan:
(e) I semi-seriously offer to worry about Laura's health, a bit. She said not unless I didn't have anything else to do (and well actually of course I don't, since I don't really have a life these days, which she perhaps doesn't know; and perhaps she also doesn't know how much I love her – Laura is, after all, the one who dragged me to UCLA graduate school in the mid-1980s, and who is always lively, alert, wonderful. So I'd be perfectly glad to spend time worrying about her if it would do any good, but she says no.)
(f) The train is paid, there are no refunds. Ticket not expensive but not all that cheap. And Edinburgh is lovely, it's supposed to be good weather, so....
(g) My Own Day in Edinburgh. Shopping, alone which is a shame (no Vanessa, no Laura, no Patrick, and Cathy's on an island in the middle of the Pacific – a reality show of all things), but it'll be fun – I'll have a leisurely late lunch, after the tourists have left, at that French place in the Grassmarket; and go to Fopp's, and Occidentale, and that brilliant science fiction book place. And later make friends with the gallery director.
No need to worry about how I will present myself to Laura; and reassured after chatting with her, as always (she is miraculously easy to be with, much more than I myself am) that when we settle in for a long cozy telephone catch-up later this week, I won't need to waste time whinging about my life. I probably will anyway, but it won't matter.
So, to Edinburgh, with no good excuse or need, but skipping all work anyway. No computer, no gray northern English skies (Edinburgh is scheduled to be sunny today), no insidious television screen. Notebook and pen, backpack. Just me on holiday: perfect, actually.
The really hard part: must pick exactly the right book to read on the train... Mosley, the one I found so engaging, but with a slip of paper showing where I slowed to a halt?....
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