please excuse me from gym

Ok, enough political brooding. Enough of this doom and gloom. (Although if you’re not quite ready to pull yourself out of the wallowing, see these articles on similarly sad folk in CA and NY. I’m not crazy about all the stereotypes the New Yorkers throw around about Midwesterners, but I’m willing to let it go this time, as I’m firmly on their side in terms of the bigger picture.)

For now, though, no name slob has moved on to a totally different type of mooning about.

Yesterday morning I had a weird pang of nostalgia for our England trip, and especially the time in Manchester. I was listening to the Smiths (of course! because all I listen to now is the Smiths and Morrissey. variety is overrated.) The first track of Meat is Murder is “The Headmaster Ritual,” which is about schools in Manchester and—this being Morrissey, after all—how hideous and cruel and squalid they were. He played it at Move, and yesterday as I listened and sang along I thought about walking back from the show. My feet were killing me, I was tired, and I knew that post-concert letdown was hovering nearby, waiting to strike. But for the moment, fred baby and I were part of a little band of happy Moz fans (no, that’s not an oxymoron) drifting along in pairs and threes and fours, away from the cricket fields and down Manchester’s dark streets. Laughing and talking, rehashing every song and every note and every gesture, we walked past modest little homes and fences, past hip nightclubs glowing blue and neon within, over the canal and past the great brick warehouses of the city’s industrial heart, as our number got smaller and smaller, dispersing into the warm night.

Yesterday morning, I missed that night and those streets. And I wished that I had explored further. What a futile emotion: to feel lonesome for city in which I spent not even two days. But maybe it’s what drives us to travel again. If so, I guess it’s welcome enough.