{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","id":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","uuid":"1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title":"Time, Consumption and Everyday Life Practice, Materiality and Culture","normalized_title":"timeconsumptionandeverydaylifepracticematerialityandculture","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%2C%20Consumption%20and%20Everyday%20Life%20Practice%2C%20Materiality%20and%20Culture","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/1dc0854c-957b-4fb1-af9a-bb4fdb76b77e/search"},"page":{"printed_page":85,"pdf_page":88,"physical_index":88,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"6bc0e2d3fc4b786f5004a19d9073511ab6c00b943c1d675dd8b6cebe8f8ee638"},"chapter":"List of Tables and Figures","content":"My Soul for a Seat Commuting and the Routines of Mobility Tom O’Dell\n\nIntroduction\n\nHome, 7:32 a.m., a February morning. That’s where I was a few minutes ago. Two minutes behind schedule. I’m biking down a dark and snowy path towards the train station. On my way I will pass three clocks: two outside the offices of two different opticians, and one by the train station. I have one traffic light as a potential obstacle in my flow between these clocks. Each clock is a marker of how my day is going to be. I don’t know why I am so stressed about being two minutes behind schedule . . . I’ve actually set my watch five minutes ahead of time, so I know I’m actually three minutes ahead of schedule. But in my own mind, my ideal time for leaving for the train is two minutes behind me. I bike a little harder. If there is one thing I hate, it’s standing on the train platform, and watching my train leave. It always happens when I am most certain that I am on time – or just a little uncertain.\n\nThis is the beginning of my commute to work. It’s basically the same routine every day. Same bike path. Same clocks. Same tension. No matter how early I leave home. At times it may feel like a necessary evil, but usually commuting to work is, like most routines, something which I, and millions of other people, ‘just do’ on a daily basis. At first glance it is tempting to view commuting as a very distinctive and particular type of routine due to its public nature. As people make their way from home to work and back again they handle a series of boundaries between themselves and the surrounding world. And this is a phenomenon which I shall reflect upon shortly. But commuting also shares a number of characteristics with many other types of routines (such as making meals, doing the laundry or housecleaning) which people engage in on a regular basis. It is, for example, stretched out over time (taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours of time to perform each day), and composed of a series of practices that are linked together. Very often these practices are not only linked together, but even coordinated with other activities, and organized in a very particular serial order.\n\nDaily routines have long been characterized as the epitome of that which is grey, bland and stifling. These are the black holes of joy, spontaneity and inspiration from which scholars have all too often presumed we need to escape (Cohen and Taylor 1992) – simple, mindless activities which we do over and over again. But this perspective belies the fact that most routines, particularly those which are serially linked, involve polyrhythmic fluctuations of activity and non-activity which, while subtle, can be complexly organized, and highly meaningful aspects of people’s daily lives (Seigworth and Gardiner 2004: 141).\n\n85","previous_page":84,"next_page":86}