My host, Christian (a friend from San Francisco who is now attending the London School of Economics) went to a movie with his roommates, at my urging, because I thought it best to go to sleep early, and it would be quieter and easier to do so if he was out. He appeared to be under the impression that the mattress would inflate itself. I am approaching the end of some kind of very very short rope. It's my birthday, but feeling bad for all the trouble I am already putting Christian to, I found no easy way to slip this into the conversation, and so I didn't tell him. I will celebrate in Dubai with Rawaan and Annie, and have already celebrated in San Francisco with my friends there. Still, I am tired enough that this feels fairly disastrous at the moment: sitting alone in a strange house on my birthday with aching arms and legs and a half-inflated mattress between myself and sleep.
But. I am in London. My flight went well. I found Christian's house easily. We had a nice dinner at a Singaporean restaurant that happened to have replaced a restaurant Lily and I went to once (the old one had a better name, something about the people's revolution, but this one was still delicious). On the way home we walked across Westminster Bridge, which has the best view: Parliament and Big Ben lit up against one side of the sky, and St. Paul's against the other. Tomorrow, assuming I someday get to sleep, I will be rested and happy again, and I will spend all day wandering around the streets, thinking about Victorians and discovering Edward Monkton cards, and drinking tea.
Okay, enough of a break. Once more into the breach: I will inflate this mattress or fall asleep trying.
I am taking the GRE tomorrow. I have been studying for weeks. I have memorized math formulas. I have written practice essays. I made flash cards. But it may not matter now, because today I have a cold. A wet cough, blocked sinuses, runny eyed cold. I can barely concentrate on my work screen. I have to stop and blow my nose every five to ten minutes. If I don't drink water constantly, I start coughing. Not exactly ideal test taking form.
Maybe it will be fine. I am ready for this test, I think I can do well. I am just not sure I can do well with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton, and blurry vision from my leaking eye (for some reason, only the left one is watery.) It's too late to cancel or reschedule. My only option is to go and take it, and try to judge at the end of the four hour ordeal, if I did well or not. If I don't think I did well, I just cancel the scores, swallow the $150 fee and pay another $150 to take it in a few weeks, hoping that next time my body cooperates a little better. If I think I did okay, whatever the actual result, I accept the scores, and (if I am wrong) have to live with low scores which will be sent to all schools, along with whatever scores I get later, and which unfortunately can't be explained with a little asterisk and a footnote saying that I was coughing up phlegm at the time.
I know that this is not that big a deal. It will be fine. I will get into grad school, no matter what happens tomorrow. It is the lack of control that bothers me, I think. I am brought low by something so random, so stupid, something I would complain about a little but shrug off if it was any other week. This is the moment when I want to be a brain, floating in a jar, when I want to be free of fleshly encumbrance. (This is hyperbole - mostly.)
Good words I learned while studying for the GRE: meretricious (tawdry), prolixity (verbositing, wordiness), mulct (defraud someone), palimpsest (a parchment that was erased and used again).
In the my-life-is-actually-really-great category: we found a new apartment! On the very first try! It was so easy, and quick, and it is in a perfect location (just off Haight on Fillmore, within one block of three Thai restaurants, three Indian restaurants, three cool cafes, a Walgreens, a health food store, many bus lines, and in easy walking distance to a number of neighborhoods I love.) Plus, it has a big, sunny kitchen, and a deck! And a big living room! and it's cheap!
Also, tomorrow night after the test, I am going to see Meshell Ndegeocello, who (though I cannot pronounce her name) I have loved since high school.
And next weekend, Erica is throwing me a Talent Show. At a real coffee shop. With commemorative T-shirts. If you are going to be in SF, and have not yet gotten the memo, you are required to come (and ideally, perform.) It's a benefit for Action for Hunger, which helps people in Darfur. And there will be pie.
This makes me sort of sad, because if I had to guess what reification was, outside of any context, I would have guessed that it had something to do with ruler-worship, or lifting something up - to reify in my mind evokes the image of a throne. (Obviously, somewhere in the back of my brain I equated reify with deify, except I substituted a king for a god.) To find out that reification is actually a bad thing is rather disappointing. (I am ignoring the fact that my false version of reification would probably also be a bad thing, implying the creation of hierarchy, etc.)
I applied for a job, a really exciting job that paid well and would have been doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, in the field I wanted to be doing it in. Today I got an email saying I did not get it. I didn't even get an interview. I actually felt qualified for this job, unlike the vast majority of jobs I look at. If I can't even get an interview for this one, why even bother applying to any others? Which leaves me with the question: stay at my current job, so that I can stay in San Francisco, apply to (and presumably be rejected from at least a large percentage of) many other jobs, so that I can stay in San Francisco, or run away and be fancy free and lonely for a while?
I woke up today with a sore neck, for no reason I can figure out. Not just a little sore, really sore. So sore that I can only move it gingerly, if at all. So sore that I have been fantasizing about Vicodin all day, and wincing and making faces and grabbing at it whenever I turn my head, or tilt my neck forward or back. I have the 22 year old body of an old woman, new aches and pains every day.
This is entirely too morose an entry. Last night I had dinner at Elizabeth and Priya's, with Erica and Mel and Alex and Priya and other wonderful people. After dinner we sat around and the musicians among us passed around guitars and sang along, in harmony, their own songs, old songs everyone knows. Erica sang a song she wrote (not about me) called Straight Girl, and lots of assumptions were made around the room, and I had to hide behind my scarf. I sat there (over the course of the night, not at that particular moment) and thought, I am so lucky, to be here with good food and friends making music.
I have to say, I am not a fan of 2007 so far.
The first few hours, I admit, were good. But since about 9:30 am on January 1, life has basically sucked.
Last week I was sick, none of my friends were in town, I realized that I hate being in my apartment, and I had an allergy scare that made me afraid of the kitten for about 24 hours. Basically, I hid in my room for a week, feeling crappy and miserable. Our internet stopped working Friday - actually, earlier in the week, but I was able to steal internet for a few days, intermittently, and then it stopped altogether on Friday. Friday night I finally had plans with a friend, only to have her never call (her phone died, not her fault). Saturday I went apartment hunting, which was nice except after walking all day my feet starting hurting very, very badly, badly enough that on Sunday I could barely walk, and as of today, Tuesday, I am still limping. And have not heard from any of the people/apartments I liked.
Sunday my computer wouldn't reboot.
Last night I found out that my hard drive is dead. Dead dead. The man at the Apple Store told me I have a 25% chance of recovering anything off of it. I tried what he suggested (rebooting with my computer connected to another Mac as an external hard drive). It didn't work. My only hope now is an expensive recovery service. If they recover something, the cheapest option seems to be about $350. Many places charge several hundred just to try, even if they can't get anything back. Or, an insane ray of hope, finding someone at the MacWorld Expo, currently going on in downtown San Francisco, who knows a lot and will take pity on me. So tomorrow I have to take time off work to go there, in hopes of finding this person.
If these slim chances do not come through, I have lost:
Almost everything I have written in the last year to year and a half. (My thesis is backed up. Some writing assignments I sent to myself to print. A few school essays.)
Almost all of my pictures, from London on. (There are a few various online places which I may or may not be able to download - facebook, livejournal. I put some on CD for my parents.)
All my settings. All my bookmarks. All my itunes playlists.
My music? I have it on my ipod, and I think that when I get a new hard drive, I will be able to copy it illegally from my ipod back onto my computer. I hope.
I keep thinking of new things. Or of specific, precious things, that I have lost. It's incomprehensible.
Please don't say, this is why you should always back everything up. I know. Just... don't say anything.
I had a nightmare last night that two of my friends committed suicide in the span of two days. Friends I had been meaning to call, and hadn't. I... really didn't need to have that nightmare right now.
It's Monday. This morning I went online to look at how much money I have in my retirement account (about $250) and calculated how much I need to save to make 85% of what I make now (before taxes), every month, between the ages of 67 and 94. Something around $3,000,000. Even though now, doing a little calculator arithmetic, that seems excessive. Maybe they were counting in inflation. Anyway, I would need to be putting in $900 more a month to get there. This is not going to happen, since I don't have $900 a month, and anyway, the money I do have, I am putting aside for travel and adventure, for next year or the year after and not for year 68. But then it hit me: I have such a long time. I am so young, we are all so young, and everything will change a hundred times before I am 67. I will meet a thousand new people, and love them and hate them and eat with them and talk to them, and I will go so many places, there are so many places to go, and read so many books. 45 years is time for so much, if it is well used. This month, next month, the days between now and when I walk out of this office building not to return, these are only grains of sand. Unless I write them down, I probably won't even remember them. But there are things I will remember, between now and 67. Things I will remember even if I don't write them down. There are so many days and nights ahead. And that is only 45 years! I have a 25% chance of living to 94, according to Fidelity. That is 72 years from now! Maybe America will be in little pieces by then, maybe we will have teleporters and genetically engineered babies. Maybe we will have made the world into a desert, and we will live in little outposts of struggle, and curse our fathers and forefathers for destroying what was once lush and beautiful. Maybe we will live on the Moon. Who knows. Maybe I will be married, maybe I will be divorced, maybe I will be a widow, and a great-grandmother. Maybe I will have been married 3 times. Every one of those people will take up whole years in my life, years still ahead of me now. It's exhilarating! I am my own limit.
Funny, how I can be caught up completely by these two feelings at once: sadness, that I will never be 17 and starting college again, and awe and excitement that I am 22 and can do unimaginable things. And all the time, I am sitting at my desk, eating clementines and trying to hold my eyes open.
I've been reading Wallace Stegner, I think that is why I am thinking about being old, and being young. A quote (not about age or youth, just a quote that I love, even though it is quite the opposite of how I really interact with the world): "Be open, be available, be exposed, be skinless. Skinless? Dance around in your bones."
I am tired, and sicksicksick. (Actually, I don't deserve three sicks. I am fine. Just dry-throat-muffled-sinuses-tired.)
All week, I have been coming here and I have not been able to begin an entry. Because too much has happened, and nothing has happened, and my brain or my spirit or something is on hold.
Last weekend a man followed me on the street, and touched me, and now my orange dress, that I love, is hanging in my room, mocking me, and I know I won't wear it, not even for Halloween. And I was eating ice cream, and now I don't want to go to that ice cream place again; and, in short, I hate being a girl.
Last weekend I wore fairy wings and danced with Colin, and strangers: a college party, but not my college. I was sore on Monday.
On Monday Alicia visited and we sat up talking, a group of people, and it was one of those good talks, those talks that feel solid, that make me miss people and places I have been, where I had those talks more often (or imagine that I did).
Besides that I have been sick. And there have been envelopes. And attempts, failures, to sleep.
I want the election to be now, so that nothing can happen between now and then. Every day I am terrified that the news will deliver some coup, that Karl Rove will remember how to be an evil genius, and the change that I can feel solid in my hands will disappear as if it never was. Which it wasn't, which is isn't, yet. But it could come, it could come. Eleven days.
I am waiting for tables. The good news is I just got an email from one of the people working on the tables, which means that they are coming, at some point. And also someone is more miserable than me right now (since I am home, on my couch, in my pajamas, and I believe he's still at the office). The bad news is, the email he just sent me said he was about to send me a table I already have (apparently there are problems with it), which means 1) I have to change some of the numbers I already have, for the third time today, and 2) he's not about to send me the new tables.
I am considering napping, but I have a feeling I would not get back up, and I would probably rather do this work tonight than in the morning. But maybe in the morning would be more efficient, assuming they would be done by then, so rather than waiting, I could just wake up and do it. I just hate mornings. And I've stayed up this late.
Tomorrow night, this will be over. And Thursday Forrest is coming, and we are going to see the Decemberists, and I cannot wait to hear them sing "The Crane Wife" in person, because I am in love with it (the song cycle, the album):
My crane wife arrived at my door in the moonlight
All starbright and tongue-tied I took her in
We were married and bells rang sweet for our wedding
And our bedding was ready and we fell in
Sound the keening bell
And see it's painted red
Soft as fontanelle
The feathers in the thread
And all I ever meant
To do was to keep you
She weaves her feathers into the cloth, and when he discovers her secret she leaves him.
I am tired.
I have stayed up late working before, obviously. It was different in college. First of all, I slept in later then. Secondly, I knew when I had to stay up it was my own fault, because I hadn't done the work earlier. In this case, it is not my fault. I have been ready and waiting all day. Days, actually. Third, and this is really the same as the second, but I am tired, I was in control then. I knew what I needed, and I got the information, I did the analysis, I wrote the paper. None of this second guessing and switching back and re-doing over and over again. No waiting. Fourth, I used Word to write my papers, and not Word Perfect, which is the new bane of my existence (but my boss loves it!). There were more reasons why this is infinitely more painful, but I can't remember what they were. On the other hand: I am getting paid. But not actually for these hours. Just, in general.
- Music:Shankill Butchers - The Decemberists
I watched Grey's Anatomy at Jen's house in Palo Alto tonight. It was disappointing; everything was Too Much. I want it to go back to being about people, not about television characters, and being funny. There were good moments. I am excited to have cable (which we are getting next Tuesday), and not to have to drive to Palo Alto to watch tv.
Tomorrow I have been invited to a Brown-in-San Francisco (informal) dinner. It is strange that just because we went to the same college, we should be friends now, if we weren't friends before. At the same time, we are pre-selected, and I'm sure I do know and like some of the people who will be there, and maybe we would have been friends, if things had been a little different, if I had lived in a different dorm or... who knows. Then I have a ticket to a concert (Andrew Bird). Only one ticket. It's sold out. I don't even want to go very much now - I like Andrew Bird, but I don't Love his music, not enough to be so wrapped up in it I forget that I am alone at a concert. I am not good at meeting people in a place like that. I'm not sure I want to. It would be nice to go to dinner, and then hang out with people, perhaps go out. But the ticket is will call, and I have to pick it up even if I want to sell it, and I don't want to lose $20 because I'm scared of going to a concert alone. But I also don't want to force myself to do something that will make me unhappy, just because I feel I should, or I'm committed, or something.
Our apartment has become a disaster area overnight. Boxes everywhere, and some empty beer bottles. I am the only one cooking here, at the moment (I think), so it is underanstable, but I hope temporary. Maybe I am meant to live alone.
I don't write in here much anymore because I feel like my entries are never worth reading. I used to say interesting things (at least in my faulty memory, if not in reality).
I have that ancy feeling that means I need to write, but I'm not sure what. I'd had it for a week now. My fingers itch, and are not satisfied by this recitation.
- Music:Decemberists - The Tain
I left my phone at Ashley's last night (Ashley is a friend from London, and yesterday we sat in Dolores Park and watched the San Francisco Mime Troupe call for secular humanism, but in a funny way, and then she made dinner and we played Scrabble with her law school friends). Anyway, the phone thing is set up one for my evening. Set up two is that I was supposed to drive down to the San Jose area to look at two cars. One car I could not arrange to look at, because the only number for the person I had was saved in my voice mail. The other car, I couldn't look at, because the people never called me back (but I only confirmed this after staying at work 15 minutes late, though I got there 10 minutes early). At that point, I had found another car about 15 minutes south (instead of half an hour) that was supposedly parked in a lot, and the owner wanted people to come look at it and confirm their seriousness before calling her. I say "supposedly" because I drove there, and it wasn't there. It wasn't anywhere.
So that left me at about 7:45, no dinner, no cell phone, no car viewings, in Foster City. I got lost getting back on the freeway, thanks to Google, which sucks. I hit traffic coming into San Francisco and sat on 101 for twenty minutes. I missed my turn onto 17th and did a fifteen minute figure-8 around Market St. to get back to it. By the time I was driving up 17th towards Ashley's (maybe 8:45), I was in a bad mood, starving, and I thought, "If I see a store, I'll stop and get Ben and Jerry's, and then I won't arrive empty handed asking for food at Ashley's door, and Ben and Jerry's is just the thing to cheer me up anyway." Miraculously, a corner store appeared. I pulled the car over, left my blinkers on as I was illegally parked, ran inside, bought some Half Baked, and turned to leave, reaching into my purse for my keys. They weren't there. They were in the car.
This is a really funny story, and someday I'm going to find it amusing. I stopped to get ice cream to cheer myself up... and locked my keys in the car. The rental car. And I didn't have my cell phone. And I don't know anyone's number, because I just moved here.
Luckily the man at the store was very nice, and let me use his phone, and sit in the store for an hour, and the rescue turned out to be free, because my rental car is still under warranty from Chevrolet, so it could have been a hell of a lot worse. But I was not feeling too good at the time. I am not good without food, at the best of times, which this was not. I just... couldn't believe it. The end result was me, sitting on the step of a corner store, shivering, crying uncontrollably and eating ice cream with a plastic spoon.
However, I am now home (I made it back at 11 pm), with my phone, and all limbs intact, and I think I parked legally for the night, and, okay, still no car viewings, but what's $35 a day anyway?
In other news, because I realize I only write in here to complain, and I'm sorry about that:
Work is do-able, and though I am now on a project which is not my area, and which I am stuck with because no one else wanted to do, and which is sort of high pressure... I'm kind of happy, because it requires me to think, and that is far superior to formatting data tables, or copying and pasting things
As mentioned, yesterday I went to Dolores Park and sat in the sun and watched political comedy, with songs, and costumes, and it was excellent, and it felt like home: a park full of curly-grey-haired women in comfy pants and brightly colored earrings, and men with beards, and dogs, and small children, and white boys with dreadlocks. It was wonderful. And I got sun-burned! In San Francisco! And then I got to meet very nice people, and I won at Scrabble, and overall it was an excellent Labor Day.
Earlier this weekend, Friday night to be exact, Jen and I drove to the Napa Valley, to see Annie (!) I arrived hungry, because I've forgotten how to eat dinner apparently, and she fed me peaches and cottage cheese and toast, and then we talked late and slept, hands touching, and on Saturday Annie had a party, at a vineyard on a lake, and Jen and I blew up balloons and talked to strange conservative adults, and paddled on the pond.
And I am in my apartment now. I am still stealing very sporadic internet, but it should be hooked up for real soon. We have dishes, and I did laundry, and there's a skylight in the bathroom which makes it so light in the morning I keep turning off the lights even though they're not on.
I am working now. So far, pretty boring. But it's a first job, I don't know anything yet, I haven't proven myself, and everyone is too busy to tell me what to do. So, I copy and paste. I think it will get better.
I almost bought a 2000 Jetta, but didn't. Lots of reasons: too low gas mileage (it had a 6 cylinder engine, more power, worse mileage), too expensive to repair if anything went wrong, too expensive, period, complicated payment arrangement, and so on. Really I was just not ready to buy a car that nice. I freaked out yesterday, and left a message on my mother's cell phone crying. Today my little sister called back and when I talked to her she said, "You sounded whiny." Yes, indeed I did. I want to have someone hand me a car. I would deal with the problems, whatever they turn out to be. As long as someone else makes the decision; but that is not going to happen, and I have to acknowledge it. I reserved a rental car for tomorrow morning; if Nick drops me off there, I can pick it up, and then after work I will be able to shop for a comforter, and pillows, and towels, and hangers for my closet, and I will be able to move my suitcases from Nick's hallway to my new apartment, and I will be able to get to work in the morning, at whatever time I want to get there, and leave when I want to leave.
Because I'm 21, I have to pay more than twice as much as the actual price of the car rental to rent the car for a week. But at least if I rent for a full week it's cheaper than a few days. And if I spend $250 renting a car for a week, it's better than spending $1000+ extra on a car I don't want or need, just because I'm desperate to have one, I suppose. Maybe I am being crazy. It's not so bad at Nick's place, except that last night I only wanted to sleep, and he was up playing ping pong until 2 am, and I feel guilty asking for anything, and Nick, even being nice, makes me feel young and stupid, and every morning I dig through my suitcases and end up wearing dirty clothes, because I can't find anything else. Is escaping from that a week early worth $250? I don't know. I don't know how to negotiate the real world. Having a car will make buying a car easier; I can get places; I will not be desperate. I can write it off to moving expenses. I would spend this much flying across the country. I wish I was 25, and things would be cheaper, and easier somehow. I would know what to do (not really, but it's a nice story to tell myself).
College, I understood. I could do that. This is... more complicated. Less forgiving. Or it just seems that way to me, through biased and worried eyes.
Hey, my picture is on the Brown website. I'm famous.
I am extremely tired. More tired than I ought to be, even considering it was Sarah and Laura's 21st birthday yesterday. I slept in a little, anyway, but apparently not enough. I dreamt that I emptied out my bank account to get a fake tan (while drunk) and Laura and David did not stop me. I dreamt a lot of other mother interesting things too, but they're lost to the sands of time. I think I was in charge of something, some kind of contest or fair. And there was a bunk bed.
I feel too dreamlike at the moment to describe dreams.
It's Dad's... last day? the only word I know for that is Hebrew, but I can't spell it. Eleven years today. On the bus "Sodom, South Georgia" came on my ipod ("papa died smiling/wide as the ring of a bell/gone all star white/small as a wish in a well") and I wanted to cry there, gazing out at the broken sidewalks and dirty storefronts of North Capital St. I hate being both tired and sad at the same time. There's no way to escape from that.
Tomorrow will be better.
It feels dim and somnolent in the reading room today. I want a nap.
It's snowing heavily outside. Later it's supposed to turn to snow mixed with freezing rain, which will ruin any good effect the snow had, and also be completely miserable. I just love Providence (sarcasm).
Last night I went to the library and rewrote my paper for Social Welfare Policy, due Monday. I think it's basically finished. One less thing to worry about. After tonight I will pretty much just have my big paper and my chapbook. Both of which I know I can do, even if at the moment it seems impossible.
I'm getting a cold. I needed those two hours of sleep. The world is gray and white and my sinuses hurt, and my throat, and tonight I'm giving a short speech in front of a whole hell of a lot of people and I don't want to do that.
I hate mornings.
Otherwise, life is pretty good. Orientation is over. Tomorrow I meet my freshmen. My advisor seems really nice, and my Co-Meiklejohn is great. Liz's parents are here, and installed fire alarms. I should be cleaning/putting things in order, but I feel too crappy. So instead, since I was first on the list of people who should fill this out:
( 7 things... )
- Music:I Shatter by the Magnetic Fields
I'm on Hvar, an island about two hours from the Croatian mainland by ferry, which is the only way to get to and from the mainland... which is where my ferry to Italy is leaving from tonight. Only I won't be on it, because the ferry I was told to take from Hvar to the mainland doesn't run on Saturdays. I asked specifically for this day and the woman said specifically, the 5:30 ferry, thus causing me to ignore all earlier ferries. So now I'm stuck on this island, I have to find out if I can even get a bed at the hostel for another night, not to mention paying for it, I'm going to be a day late meeting Rawaan, and given that she's flying out of the US this morning, I'm not even sure I can contact her to tell her that. Grr.
In perspective, another day on an island in the Adriatic Sea does not seem like a problem. I'm having trouble with perspective at the moment however. I was really ready to just get on the ferry, really ready to get to Italy where I could stay put for a little while, and see Rawaan and not have to worry about food, and catch up on sleep. Really ready.
Also Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring, and that's really upsetting me.
Really the last few days have been good, it hasn't all been passport-loss-and-ferry-screwups. Lots of beaches and pretty old towns and cool people. There's just not a lot you can say about beaches, except how great they are to lie on, and how I've gotten sunburnt, again.
And my book is almost done, and now it has to last until tomorrow. Double grr.
- Mood:aggravated
In fact I've been in several places between now and my last entry. Vienna, first. I had one full day there, and unfortunately I was sort of in a funk, so I don't think I enjoyed it to the fullest. Vienna is a city of culture, and I went to a huge art museum, but it was a little expensive so I didn't spring for the English guide, which meant I was wandering around looking for names I recognized and then scrutinizing those paintings in hopes of figuring out what was good about them. In an enormous museum, this was a rather frustrating experience. I did see a few lovely Rembrandts however. I walked around, saw some monuments, sat on benches. I wanted to go see an opera or some kind of music, but was discouraged by the overabundance of options and ended up playing cards in the hostel with two Australian girls, a Canadian woman and a former chef from Maine. The Australians had just come from Lake Balaton, Hungary, the largest freshwater lake in the world and they said it was beautiful. I was feeling very much like getting out of the city, so I took their advice and the next morning got on a train.
Three trains actually, in total. I had to take a train to Budapest to switch. On the second train, the longest stretch, there were no seats in the compartments, so I spent an hour in the end of a car, sitting on the floor, half annoyed and half amused, and all the way overheated. I had decided to go to a little town at the far southern end of the lake, which meant I watched everyone else get off and worried I was making a mistake for about an hour before my stop, when I switched to another train for a very short ride around the side of the lake, and then alighted.
Keszthely is a beautiful little town, all deeply colored little houses with turrets and overflowing gardens. I rented a room from an older woman who didn't speak English. The whole upstairs of her house was guest apartments, but I was the only one there, so I had a living room, kitchen and bathroom all to myself. After walking down the to the pier and back in the fading light, I took a bath. A real bath in a real bathtub. The privacy was a mixed blessing; I had no one to meet, to chat with, and I didn't feel comfortable wandering around alone in the dark, so I stayed in and went to bed early.
The second day (yesterday) I went to the Festetics Palace, a huge house which used to be owned by a local noble family. The palace was decorated as of old; the best room was the library, with 90,000 books reaching up two stories high and pale golden light filtering in through enormous windows. The ballroom was fun too. Outside there was a carriage museum, and lots of gardens to wander around. In the afternoon I took a bus to Heviz, a spa town with a "healing" lake. I swam with the elderly women and fat men in speedos, and smiled at everyone who smiled at me, and floated in the warm water, kicking my heels slightly. Eventually the sun came out in full force, and I lay happily on the grass until my time was up, when I went back to town and lay happily on the pier, getting sunburnt.
It's not high season yet, and it wasn't crowded there, plus most of the tourists were German, so for about two days I didn't really talk to anyone. The Hungarians were all very nice and puzzled and there was lots of gesturing and nodding and smiling. I've been writing a lot, in my journal and on stories some, trying not to overthink. My iPod turns out to be invaluable: with it, I can walk or sit alone and not bury too deeply inside my brain, turning everything over and over.
The lake was beautiful, and very relaxing. I'm glad I went, but it was nice to get on the train this morning (I had a seat this time) and come back to the city. I finished my book (Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose which was wonderful) so I need to go get another one. I have three days in Budapest - one for the thermal baths, one for museums and castle hill in Buda, and one to wander around Pest I suppose. I'll probably update again before I leave (hopefully to Ljubljana, if I can get a reservation at the hostel I want).
It’s gorgeous out. I want to go wander the streets of London or lay in the sunshine in Regent’s Park, but — well, actually, maybe I will. Everyone needs a break now and then, right?
This is neither here nor there, but for people who don't read the New York Times, they're doing a series of articles on class in America, as topic which is not discussed nearly enough, and which I have become very aware of here in the UK, since class is a very open and important issue here. Click here to go to the NY Times website where all the articles are archived, and you can do fun interactive things like find out what class you're in, in case you're wondering.
OK, I don't have the brainpower to say anything entertaining or illuminating at the moment. I'm going to take more drugs and try to sleep.
- Mood:sick
I’m halfway through my second paper. 1200 words to go, which must be finished by tomorrow night at 7 pm, since I have a date with Ashley and Lily. I keep re-checking my To Do list (which is finally beginning to shrink) and trying to figure out when I’m going to do laundry. Or if I’m just going to take dirty clothes and do free laundry when I get to Seattle. Decisions, decisions.
An odd couple of days. A lot of time in my room, punctuated by visits to the kitchen, and one mandatory outing for no reason except so I can say I’ve been out of the building. A lot of breaks to play with iTunes. Last night I suddenly became inspired to work on my children’s novel again, and wrote a chapter and a half after not working on it for months. (A practical question: if I put writing in this blog, is it copyrighted? Clearly no one is going to steal my unfinished and derivative young adult fantasy novel, but putting it online still makes me a little nervous. The thought is tempting however. Releasing it to the world.)
Yesterday I actually began talking to myself in a British accent, to prove that I could. I can do posh British, (think too many Jane Austen movies) without much problem, but I have trouble with normal college girl British. The key, I think, is to find words you know how to say really well, and keep using them as anchors until you get really comfortable. Yes, I’ve thought about this too much. Yes, zebra (zeh-bra) is one of my anchors, as is vitamins (vit like fit). And now I’m doing it again. This is very bad. Bloody hell, I need to go to bed.
(I just said “Wot wot?” and collapsed onto the bed laughing, which is officially the end of this entry.)
- Mood:silly
Half of my excitement is the feeling of accomplishment. I decided on Friday I wanted to cut my hair, when I washed it especially so it would look nice to go out on Friday night, and it failed to look nice. I straightened it out of vengeance, and was karmically rewarded by a rainy evening and a run from the tube station which destroyed all my efforts. So Saturday, when I got up, I decided I needed to cut my hair. It takes me a long time to work up to a hair cut, but once I’ve hit that point, I become incredibly impatient — the hair must go immediately. Imagine my frustration then to find that everything is closed on a Saturday at 4 (which is not when I woke up, I swear, just when I made it out of the house). I wandered around, hungry and annoyed, unable to find a place where I could pay an exorbitant amount of money to have someone cut two inches off my hair. Nothing. Last night I ended up begging Ashley to cut it, but she was worried about screwing up, and I had to wait until this afternoon.
Reading back over the last two paragraphs, I am amazed that even I am interested in this, and if anyone else is reading this, then — well, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I am tempted to discuss the weather now, just because I can (and it has been warmer lately), but that might just be too much trivia for one journal entry. This is the moment when I once again lament my lack of initiative, the fact that I am living in London and the thing I most want to say about my day is that I got my hair cut. Why am I not attending musical, literary or cultural events? Where are the pubs, the clubs, the crazy and aimless and memorable nights? Where are the boys? Where?
The fact is, I’m apparently incapable of having crazy nights of fun, even when I try my hardest. Friday night Lily, Ashley and I went out, all dressed up, to a very cool club with a very cool DJ playing — and couldn’t get in, because we got there too late, and spent ten minutes waiting unsuccessfully for the rain to abate, and arrived at the end of a long line damp and bedraggled. Of course, the rain stopped after we were under shelter. Nevertheless, no club for us. Apparently there were others nearby, so we set off to find them, intrepid as ever, and managed to get lost in The City, an area of London which is completely deserted on the weekends. After walking around on large, empty streets for a while, we found a tube station and since we knew where we were, we took the tube home. Granted, we did make it to a pub thereafter, and we did dance to some truly terrible pop music, as well as some truly terrible but nostalgic oldies music — but it was not exactly the same. I don’t think I went into detail here, but this was close to what happened to Lily and I last week — apparently I am just incapable of going out like a normal person.
Amir said that while we were in London we should be making memories — doing those strange, stupid, amazing things that we’ll remember for years and laugh about later and not believe ourselves — and yes, I want that. But it can’t be made to happen, it can’t be forced. There’s an element of fate involved, but you also have to be open to it — ready for whatever comes, willing to stay out walking as long as it takes, to find the tube station, reorient, and head right back out in search, re-losing yourself without expectation.
Really I’m just procrastinating from doing my work. The internet is so bad for me.
But before I go: Rawaan is coming to visit! Next week! And I might get to go to Seattle for Passover, contingent on my not having an exam that week, and doing my work ahead of time. (!)
- Mood:okay
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bytheriver05- Felicity