Just another day on earth

What am I doing? Nothing. I am letting life rain on me.

---R. Varnhagen.

I am where I was.

---Menashe.

Yesterday you saw two very tall blonde women in cat suits and high heels, offering membership to some sort of so-called 'gentleman's club' (Platinum and Lace, I think). Very fetching.

On the way home: a woman tries to chat up the man next to you: "I love this time of the night on the trains." Both have been to Thailand (to do God knows what). "You're sort of Morrocan or something, ain't you. I can tell."

A plump old black man with a tuft of grey hair below his lower lip, large blotches of freckles collected below his eyes; he wears a gangster hat (in this heat?!) , a blue shirt, a black glove on his left hand, and a black coat. Slouched into the seat, the only sign of an inner life is the rolling movement of his sad weary eyes; quiet, like a man in his own book. Apart from the eyes, though, he's unfathomable. He sits next to another black man, clean shaven, immaculately turned out, very muscular (dressed all in black as well: jacket and t-shirt), who holds on tightly to black sports bag which, you think to yourself, must be full of cash. The old man looks like a card-dealer or one of those old-time Baptist preachers, a man who has barely remembers his childhood; he's seen too much of life and now only sees so much sin in the ways of the world. He gets up and walks with a slight limp, a straight leg. You notice his slightly worn-out shoes with strange patterns on them, and you catch a glimpse of a silver chain dangling out from his trouser pocket. Outside, the young black man is met by a group of spiky-haired white kids, trying to be cool. They greet him with the word "Skaggg!".

~~~

No time to re-read Huizinga or the whole of Braudel now. Put them to one side. Far too many details of the ordinary, though they do provide fascinating diversions from your ordinary life.