Back on the road...
Back on the road and here I go again, I had left but I knew I’d be back. Another hotel room, by god man – it’s happening again, the same debauchedness of a travelling existence, the same intoxicants and vices to make it interesting. Up to my elbows in it with nine minutes to turn the ruins of the hotel bed into a place to rest my head. It’s an early rise and room full of people waiting for me to press some buttons, how easily I have slid into my old ways.
After arriving late, as usual, I have some how fitted my work around getting lost both in a car and on foot in Manchester. The former in an attempt to find the same hotel as I got lost locating four days ago; the latter in finding china town, which I eventually also rediscovered. The Asian corner of Northwest England’s capital city (arguably) was awash with neon and plastic painted gateways that lit the way as I approached and sought out the mystics signs of an ‘All you can eat buffet’.
Eating alone in restaurants can be strange, but I find the informality of an ‘All you can eat buffet’ offers some protection from the inherent social self-consciousness. It can, however, turn into a contest between monosodium glutamate and your physical and mental faculties. From the moment I sat down if I wasn’t eating I was filling a plate with more food and impressing the locals with my chopstick skills. I was somewhere around contemplating my second desert when the MSG took hold. So, approximately an hour and quarter after selecting the buffet priced at £7.50 from the large and busy restaurant, I was holed up in the toilet of said establishment hanging on to the contents of my bulging belly for all I was worth. Whatever I had eaten was expanding. Despite some all too close wretches I held on - and made it back to the table, not looking at the buffet as I passed and only breathing through my mouth. Back at my relatively secluded gorging area I finished my beer, rolled a cigarette, put on my coat, paid up and got the fuck out. I wasn’t stumbling but I had to walk slowly to avoid my distended belly convulsing any further.
The plan had been to follow up the cheap solo meal with expensive solo drinks so I pottered along both in the direction of the hotel and a bar I knew had good rum. It was a cold night and with my hood up and pale expression I must have fitted right in to inner-city landscape, the walking was good though, the fresh air too and soon I was at a cash point, then at the bar ordering rum.
Now drinking alone is a different matter to eating alone entirely. Of course it’s difficult to seem approachable or particularly jolly when indulging in alcohol alone, especially if you prop up the bar, which I don’t, but there is an upside to this. The sullen look of a man drinking alone staring only at his drink, space, a watch or the menu carries the same look of someone who has been stood up on a date. This of course makes you at the least un-threatening and may even gain you some pity from on lookers. Normally though I just get met with the same puzzled expressions that I do where ever I go.
The first double rum didn’t hit the sides; literally it was probably just absorbed by the stodginess of my meal and only boar its way through to my stomach lining, which thankfully was still in tact, much later. I gulped the elixir it back, sat at a table doing my best to look cool – as if an imaginary beauty might turn up any minute, only I of course I knew that no one was due, but kept looking to the door hopefully. I finished the first rum and took my glass back to be refilled. The barman seemed to appreciate this gesture and poured the second stronger; as I drank it back at the table the realisation took hold that I had made the correct decision to go to both cash point and the bar. I had as they say, ‘got my colour back’ and the MSG sickness had all but passed.
There were some obnoxious males and a few pretty girls in the bar, but then there usually are at places that sell expensive drinks. I think I got away with having a good look at both types of staring fodder and still managed to leave them thinking I was just glaring into space – waiting for an imaginary date. A couple sat right by the door sucked each other’s faces with a horrible fury, I didn’t mind letting them know I was staring at them. I left the bar via the cold for the sanctuary of the tenth floor hotel room; letting those that cared think that my date hadn’t shown up. Now I’m locked away and there is no-one is looking at me or anyone for me to look at, which feels much better. It has, however, taken more than nine minutes to explain why, despite being back to the usual mis-adventures, I’m happy.
After arriving late, as usual, I have some how fitted my work around getting lost both in a car and on foot in Manchester. The former in an attempt to find the same hotel as I got lost locating four days ago; the latter in finding china town, which I eventually also rediscovered. The Asian corner of Northwest England’s capital city (arguably) was awash with neon and plastic painted gateways that lit the way as I approached and sought out the mystics signs of an ‘All you can eat buffet’.
Eating alone in restaurants can be strange, but I find the informality of an ‘All you can eat buffet’ offers some protection from the inherent social self-consciousness. It can, however, turn into a contest between monosodium glutamate and your physical and mental faculties. From the moment I sat down if I wasn’t eating I was filling a plate with more food and impressing the locals with my chopstick skills. I was somewhere around contemplating my second desert when the MSG took hold. So, approximately an hour and quarter after selecting the buffet priced at £7.50 from the large and busy restaurant, I was holed up in the toilet of said establishment hanging on to the contents of my bulging belly for all I was worth. Whatever I had eaten was expanding. Despite some all too close wretches I held on - and made it back to the table, not looking at the buffet as I passed and only breathing through my mouth. Back at my relatively secluded gorging area I finished my beer, rolled a cigarette, put on my coat, paid up and got the fuck out. I wasn’t stumbling but I had to walk slowly to avoid my distended belly convulsing any further.
The plan had been to follow up the cheap solo meal with expensive solo drinks so I pottered along both in the direction of the hotel and a bar I knew had good rum. It was a cold night and with my hood up and pale expression I must have fitted right in to inner-city landscape, the walking was good though, the fresh air too and soon I was at a cash point, then at the bar ordering rum.
Now drinking alone is a different matter to eating alone entirely. Of course it’s difficult to seem approachable or particularly jolly when indulging in alcohol alone, especially if you prop up the bar, which I don’t, but there is an upside to this. The sullen look of a man drinking alone staring only at his drink, space, a watch or the menu carries the same look of someone who has been stood up on a date. This of course makes you at the least un-threatening and may even gain you some pity from on lookers. Normally though I just get met with the same puzzled expressions that I do where ever I go.
The first double rum didn’t hit the sides; literally it was probably just absorbed by the stodginess of my meal and only boar its way through to my stomach lining, which thankfully was still in tact, much later. I gulped the elixir it back, sat at a table doing my best to look cool – as if an imaginary beauty might turn up any minute, only I of course I knew that no one was due, but kept looking to the door hopefully. I finished the first rum and took my glass back to be refilled. The barman seemed to appreciate this gesture and poured the second stronger; as I drank it back at the table the realisation took hold that I had made the correct decision to go to both cash point and the bar. I had as they say, ‘got my colour back’ and the MSG sickness had all but passed.
There were some obnoxious males and a few pretty girls in the bar, but then there usually are at places that sell expensive drinks. I think I got away with having a good look at both types of staring fodder and still managed to leave them thinking I was just glaring into space – waiting for an imaginary date. A couple sat right by the door sucked each other’s faces with a horrible fury, I didn’t mind letting them know I was staring at them. I left the bar via the cold for the sanctuary of the tenth floor hotel room; letting those that cared think that my date hadn’t shown up. Now I’m locked away and there is no-one is looking at me or anyone for me to look at, which feels much better. It has, however, taken more than nine minutes to explain why, despite being back to the usual mis-adventures, I’m happy.
posted by Marcus Woodrow at 00:35
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home