On my problem with London

I don't like going to London much.
I don't like going to London, because I don't feel comfortable in big cities with all their crowds in haste.
But mostly I don't like going to London because I like it too much. Like Paris. Like Berlin.
I spend the day doing the touristy stuff, pushing my way through crowds, being pushed myself, clinging on to my handbag and to Paul's hand so that this whole unspeakable energy and movement would not suck me in and make me disappear.
But then we sit somewhere for a drink and I start watching people walking past and my mind starts imagining the lifes they have, what it would be like to be their friend or colleague or neighbour, and I spot a street with particularly nice (interesting, unusual, ugly) houses (trees, shades, lamp posts, you name it) and I start wondering what it would be like if that street was mine, if I lived there/walked past it every day, if the pub/cafe I'm sitting in was my pub/cafe, what friends I would have if I was hanging out here, what kind of job I'd be doing, and a whole new unknown life starts unravelling itself in my mind.
The itch.
Later on I get back home, I wash off all the metallic dust of the underground, and I feel relieved that all that buzzing and chaos are far away from me and I am safe in my little house. The itch subsides a little.
But then I go to bed and I fall asleep listening to the cars driving past my window and I wonder where they are going to, are they going to one of those unknown lives I lurked into earlier on that day? Or to yet a different one, in yet a different place?
What is it like? What would it be like to live there?
And it saddens me that I will never find out...

Love and London

I went up to London this weekend to see Carina, cause Carina needed to see me and I needed to see her and we both needed to smoke, drink and talk until our eyes could not be held open by even the best quality matches (I have a feeling that the non-Poles will find this last statement slightly odd, but they will have to agree that it makes sense). On Saturday morning we met up with Claire, who I was certain was coming to London on a completely different weekend, and who ignored my presence in London completely, especially while I had had time to express my conviction on the inevitability of me not being there to see her via an apologetic e-mail. And I will never, ever forget the look on her face when she saw me. That image will make me happy for a long time. I mean, if you have just one person in your life who pulls such a face when seeing you, then you’re a lucky, lucky lady (or man, actually). And I have that on top of everything else, including being nursed and fed comfort food by Carina, who therefore officially weaned me off my longing for daddy when sick. I mean daddy made me tea. Carina makes tomato soup with smoked bacon and mozarella and then you get to talk and smoke and drink until you eyes can not be held open by even the best quality matches. Now, who can beat that.