Bag for Life

Going away indefinitely- what do you pack?

To fit into 1 medium sized backpack & 1 small day pack:

- 6 pair socks
- 6 pair of underwear
- 6 emergency flapjacks

- 3 notebooks
- 1 biro, marked 'Ben Elton's We Will Rock You'
- 1 Buenos Aires travel guide (to be bookswapped for Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' at earliest opportunity)

It begins

This week I was ill, but today I am well.

This week I strayed from the path, today I found it again.
This week I was lost, and today I am still lost, but I have a direction, at least.

I've spent the past week in bed with flu, getting backache and spluttering out face-muck like an old pillow being beaten with a knotted stick.

The rest of my time has been spent aimlessly looking for something to do this summer; ways to save money for the 'big trip' from Buenos Aires to San Francisco, which, as you know, I planned to begin in September. Probably.

I applied for English-teaching jobs in the UK, I tweaked the electronical abyss of dead words that is my CV, I looked at rental properties across the cosy home counties, I networked with old friends in different UK cities, I considered moving in and living with any woman who happened to glance at me kindly on the bus.

I chased every small answer until it ran down a burrow and sat out of arms reach, giggling.

And then this morning, I took a long, hot bath, and I ruminated.

I ruminated like fuck.