18 June 09 AM

Today is a quintessentially beautiful day. The threat of oppressive heat filters the air I suck into my lungs, and my eyes - for once not dulled by hangover or lack of sleep - look up at this rose-tinted world as if it was new, fresh from the cellophane wrapper it had come in. I'm transported back in my mind to another street, in LA where we walked, foolishly, between districts, the sun lighting our path in a unfamiliar way to our British eyes, everything looked so culturally alien and charged with exciting possibilities. And just so today. It is beautiful. I feel beautiful.

Buoyed by this new found optimism, I find myself smiling - at children, at fellow commuters, at the window cleaner I pass on the street.

"Cheer up luv, it might never happen" he mutters, even though I am smiling.

"But it does, it will" I say, as fragments of his teeth tinkle across the pavement.
"You don't even fucking know anything about me, what I know, what I feel." I shake my wrist as my knuckles still reel from the crunch of fragile bone under flesh and sinew.
"And it's hardly as if your wit and charm are going to make me change my perspective anyhow, is it?" That last kick threw me slightly off balance. I won't be able to take these shoes back either any more, I think.

Only I don't. I just walk on. And the clouds gather and my gaze drops once more. As I have been reminded of the reasons I shouldn't be happy in the first place.