Bath Time

I had a flash back before about when I was first unemployed back in 2005 and 2006. In summer 2005 I had quit some shitty runner job I got straight after graduating. I left under a massive cloud after I found out they'd all been slagging me off behind my back because I was so awful at my job. My generous parents were still paying my rent and I had overdraft facilities and a credit card and a second one (a month in). The fact that I was still paying this overdraft and credit card debts, 3 years later shows how I treated being unemployed. It was one massive f-off holiday.

I was living on Brecknock Road in Tufnell Park with a neurotic ex-model from my old English course. When we moved in together in summer she was umming and aaahing over whether she should do a masters. When she wasn't frantically questioning her future in academia she lay in Regents Park for days on end reading the complete works of Milton. It was a hot summer, surprisingly, and by the end of it she looked like she'd been Tangoed.

To fill my time I read Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels and had lots of baths. If you've got nothing to do, a bath is a great option. It gives the day the some structure. When you looked back on the day, it was if I had achieved something tangible instead of just sitting in my pants scanning the Reed website.

I was drawn to crime novels, Rankin, Chandler and Simenon. If your life's in a rut and days seemlessly run into one another, there's nothing better than crime fiction. Reading about a dynamic, proactive individual gives the lethargic home-dweller a vicarious kick. Philip Marlowe would never sleep in, or put off chasing down a suspect because he didn't want to miss Deal or No Deal. For the aimless, wasting their lives in an indulgent daze, crime fiction is so satisfying. The protaginist always get what they want, they investigate the mystery, they get involved and they solve the crime. They don't just stagnate, going mouldy in 3 o'clock baths.

I found myself today in Bethnal Green library, scanning the shelves, enjoying my right to possess any book there (although only for the loan period). By the theology section a girl in a head scarf was almost knocked out by a book on world religion which fell off the shelf onto her head. There's some sort of symbolism there. Local libraries don't have an amazing selection, there's lots of Dean Koontz and Stephen King but none of the writers I was looking for - Martin Amis, Nietzche, Burgess or Pinter. But the crime section, my god, it was huge, bigger than the (celebrity) biography section. I had a quick look and then under the S's I saw 10 or so Simenon novels neatly stacked together, 120 pages each and I knew what I'm supposed to do. Pass me the loofah