July 18, 2013 — AJ McSedge
July 18, 2013 — AJ McSedge
I wake up to the sunlight streaming in through my half open blinds, sometime between four-thirty am and five. I don’t know when within that time frame I finally come alive, but for a good portion of the time I exist in that hazy, barely cognitive phase where the strains of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker meld into the background of some obscure, now forgotten dream.
When I finally drag myself out of bed, I make a bee-line to my kitchen where I turn on the kettle, looking out on to Pittodrie whilst it heats up. Tea brewed and downed — and brain cells finally awake — I am finally alert enough to complete the rest of my morning ablutions, and then to pick up my bag and head out to work.
As it has been for all of the last four months, I am turning my key in the lock at my front door sometime just after 7.06am. Five minutes later I am making a left turn off Urquhart Road on to Park Lane. A further eight minutes later I am making a right turn off Park onto to East North Street where again as I have done since the beginning of the year, I exchange a quick curt nod with the Nigerian bloke — at least he looks like to me — who is usually making a left turn on to the building site at the corner of the road.
It is a Thursday, and early, so I am able to scoot across the road without waiting for the street lights to turn, and be safe for pedestrian access. Across the road, my nose fills with the stench of the dark alley that is Peacock’s Close. I hold my breath a little and survive till I make it out on to the relatively pristine air of Castle Gate. Seven minutes later, I pull on my work ID, toss a greeting in the direction of the front desk staff and jump into the lift at work.
Life is what it is. Quotidian. Safety triumphing over Adventure.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Or not?
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About AJ: Recovering bookworm meets lost son meets itinerant rust-geek. Prone to the odd bout of intense self-deprecation, I tweet (somewhat cryptic) one-liners as @TheRustGeek