pocketswipe

seven hours later, with even more people in the compartment, pulled into Beograd. it looked like i had just enough time to race to the flat, drop my belongings, and still make it to NB on time. i have no way of knowing if the same would have happened had i not chosen this course, but somewhere between the eki (where i checked mobile-cum-clock to appraise the situation in the first place) and outside NB (where i, likewise, checked how i was doing for time), said mobile was removed from the pocket of my coat. it's worse when it happens at home.

i thought that, over the past several weeks, i had landed upon a system, which seemed to be working fairly well, to reduce the number of times my backpack's outer pocket was opened on crowded public transportation (which involves the conspicuous placement of a small, empty tampon box; the model from which i copied this, during international moves involving squeamish Japanese customs officials, has now been replaced (and also the identity of the ones who must be out-squeamed or, in the case at hand, out-ranked) by lining all boxes with Christopher's Coast Guard Academy paraphernalia)). apparently there is no such easy solution to the problem and, consequently, after all the ordealishness through which it was acquired, i am again without a phone.

it was good to be back at NB, though, unwashed and exhausted though i was.

i preempt those who might think about asking, but the cough seems to have greatly lessened. there are two explanations and they both involve fresh air: that being in perpetual contact with its numbing variety has frozen the germs (and the soul, which may also fall into this category) away, or that Beograd is lacking in any variety thereof.

during the afternoon, did an astounding amount of reckoning with myself, on many bases. one of them saw me realise that it's simply too expensive to go to Paris two weekends from now. i live in a Europe parallel to the one of ryanair and easyjet, alas. there's no mistaking that everything is close, here in and from the heart of what is Europe, but the getting to these places is drawn out into a spider's web of logistical impossibility.