How I wish you were here

It is sometime after dark. I'm sitting in a bar waiting for my sister to
meet me with the keys to her house. As a result I'm having a bit of a
existential crisis because I now feel truly homeless.

It it supposed to be a balmy summer evening with people filling the
streets celebrating the end of the year. But instead it is
uncharacteristically cold, the rain is beating down and everyone is in
hiding. About an hour ago I finished my book, and would be talking to the
bartender except that the staff have gone out the back for a smoke.

In my defense, I did try to be organised earlier today and find a
bookshop. I hit the one near the university but the deathly palor that
consumed the place was unbearable. I don't know what is it about these
sorts of shops but the place was full of pasty faced vegetarians fresh
from the health food shop next door. They were all moving slowly through
the sociology section which is, unsurprisingly, right next to the self
help section and I just couldn't focus. I should also point out that
these sort of places smell just plain weird. It is an odd combination of
'Old Person', the great unwashed, slightly damp books and years of burning
incense to hide all the other smells.

I needed real people, I needed just one good conversation.

The flight here probably didn't help. I can't think of a more solitary
experience.

I want to say that I was rewarding myself by getting a first class ticket
to Sydney for Christmas, but the truth is that is first class were only
tickets available, so I just had to suck it up and and enjoy the ride.

But I just couldn't. It was all too, well, odd.

I had to fly via LAX and spend an uncomfortable two hours in the first
class lounge. There were only three of us in there and the place was just
deathly quiet. It was actually like some sort of old hotel. There was
the occasional rustling of papers and the unmistakable sound of a cube of
ice settling itself deeper into the glass. I half expected to see a
geriatric bell hop totter past under the weight of far too many bags.

In the plane the First class Cabin was is equally bereft of soul. For
some unheard of reason only half the seats were taken and everyone was so
far apart that there was no way or method for people to intercommunicate.
Even the staff did their best to leave you alone because you, presumably,
were far too important to be bothered.

Anyone who thinks that first class is some bacchanal romp involving
endless champagne, massages and fawning minions is not flying my airline.
(except for the endless bubbly, that much is true)

Sometime later they had to reboot the entertainment system and for about
thirty minutes all we had to listen to was the Pink Floyd's 'Dark side of
the moon'

"...There's someone in my head but it's not me..."