Yesterday, two miles, fruit breakfast, meetings with students, more meetings with stuydents, looking up alternatives and possibilities, emailing hither and yon, and so on. Cinema date with Margaret, one in which things exploded satisfactorily (for anyone old enough to remember, that’s the English translation for Big Jim McBob’s and Billy Sol Hurok’s ‘they blowed up real good’).
Today, two miles, though I walked some of the distance mulling over the moment in which a passer-by (actually, I was passing him, but I’m not sure there’s a word for someone you pass by) called to me quietly, ‘Bruh!’ I stopped and asked ‘What?’ ‘Do you take, bruh?’ I looked blank. ‘Do you take?’ (and he mimed what must have been snorting cocaine or some other powder). It is a measure of how distant I’ve grown from the street, from any of my Augustinian revels, that I had no specific idea what he was talking about. I shrugged, he waved me off, and I kept running — but it underscored the undeniable fact that I am not street-aware even to the partial extent I once was.
I’m hoping for a hot breakfast, anticipate more meetings with more students and more emailing, and Freshers Welcome Dinner tonight at St Stephen’s House.