I’ve found a little cafe where they seem perfectly happy to have me in the corner scribbling away while people come and people go; and when I went in there this afternoon, the barrista smiled and asked if I was having the usual (viz. their “British Breakfast Tea”) and I said yes, and realised I rather loved the idea of having a usual.
—
Neil Gaiman
Never underestimate the value of the usual. For every day that you chafe at the routine, there’s something nice about one place where you don’t have to explain one simple thing.
There’s stuff about getting older that I don’t like - mostly having to do with eyesight - but I’m enjoying most of it. I like feeling that I have a face that looks like something; when I was young I was convinced I didn’t look like anything, and wore dark glasses and big leather jackets so people would have something to remember. But these days I have a face that feels like mine, even if, sometimes, I catch myself in the mirror looking disconcertingly like my father.
—
Neil Gaiman
Yeah, pretty much. I always imagined getting older as being settling down and settling in and instead… Jesus, getting to reinvent myself again? This is fun!
