Everywhere I looked yesterday, I saw something that reminded me of my real life and the real people in it. That is to say, life beyond spending 12 hours with Chris and some guy we met on Tuesday.
Yesterday might not have been the best idea, but it was fun.
Many things I or others seem to do: not a good idea but it was fun.
(Maybe I’m more tolerant here, but bathroom graffiti is infinitely more interesting.)
Reflecting upon my day on the tube to Brixton, I looked up at the advertisings and saw “THIS IS JUST TO SAY” in bold, but I didn’t have my glasses on. Chris walked over and told me it was something about plums and I was like “NO WAY HOW DID HE GET HERE FROM NEW JERSEY.” Because it seemed so odd for this to be on the walls instead of ads about getting loans or breast enlargements or footballs teams. I wanted to take a picture.
In Brixton– don’t even know why the fuck we were there– we walked past a number of pubs I was aching to go inside. It was so cold. It looked like Jersey City. It smelled like an old seaport.
One pub we walked by was blasting Sam Cooke’s “Don’t Know Much About History”. (Bliss.) Another pub was full of old working class men and their wives and we decided not to go in because we’d be stabbed. We never found the place we were looking for, and we never asked anyone for directions.
A man on the street was playing “Careless Whisper” with his saxophone.
Earlier in the day, when Chris and I had the entire New Cross Inn to ourselves (Mark unlocked the backdoor), I was being the jukebox DJ. I put on Squeeze and Elvis Costello because I was thinking of all the things Liz would have to say to me if she saw me on one of my moral lows.
I won’t even go into what we did in Camden.
My blog is a shitshow of ridiculousness as the “dark side” companion guide to my sojourn abroad.
I’ve concluded that I’m ill today because I’m ill and not because of a hangover. That being said, I’ve been staying in drinking tea and listening to whole albums, which I rarely do if the album in question isn’t Under Milk Wood, Milk-Eyed Mender or Ys.
I’m going to finish this day up with a dose of Double Indemnity.
That leaves me roughly 3 hours to blog about nothing, etc.
Like I’ve said for what feels like the 15th time, some music is more poignant and unquestionably more accessible when I’m not sitting on my ass in New Jersey. Today, I’ve developed an obsession with the discographies of Andrew Bird and The Mountain Goats, for their own reasons.
Normally I shy from John Darnielle because he is so Jesus-y. Being religious is fine, but I have my own neuroses to deal with without having Christ transubstantiating in my mouth. Tallahassee and The Sunset Tree were complicated by memories of an old relationship. I find I can give less of a shit now if I suddenly get caught up thinking about “Old College Try” or “Love Love Love”.
I am 5000 miles away from old slights.
Taking my past into account, I was shocked that I genuinely enjoyed the 2009 album The Life of the World to Come. Even more awkwardly embarrassing to myself is that my favorite off the album is “Romans 10:9″. This was the only verse in the Bible I had flat-out pounded into me during my stint as a Born Again.
Which, let’s admit it, was a lie.
And you know what?
Jesus forgives ulterior motives, because Jesus forgives everything else.
All this could be yours if the price is right.But I enjoyed it. Darnielle’s voice is a lot easier to handle nowadays and the album was nicely produced. It’s lovely having more instrumentation too, beyond the traditional Darnielle + acoustic guitar songs. I’ll leave it at that.
Yo ho, this time zone thing is really wacking me out.
Our clocks spin back an hour at 1am tomorrow, but the US doesn’t change until next week? So I’m going to be 6 hours ahead at home. When I fly to Dublin next week, I’ll only be 5 hours and then 4 hours ahead. And then I skip ahead, what, one or two more hours when I go to Amsterdam, less one for Paris, and less one more for London?
I am going to be deathly ill by the time I land back in London,
even if I don’t contract any curious diseases beforehand.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Experienced my first Power Hour ever tonight with Strongbow. That is to say, what I was drinking was stronger than what everyone else was drinking. I do this thing where I drink an enormous quantity for a young woman and then pretend I’m incredibly sober. Somehow it’s quite comical, but I’m inclined to think that that’s alcoholism; on that note, I’m going to officially cut down. It’s fine. I’m fine. They might not be, seeing as they all drunkenly vowed to watch the sun rise together. (Edit: And I think they did it, too.) However, I ate all of a Square Pizza and some of an Iceland Pizza. Not a big deal, in the scheme of things.
The power hour set was killing me inside because it was an acoustic off-the-internet shebang that would play John Mayer’s “YUH BODY IS A WONDUHLAN’” every 60 seconds.
So much to say about this, but Shakespeare’s London made me physically ill today. I had the beginnings/middle of a panic attack and then after break, the vestiges of said panic attack just meant my back muscles were killing me. Dumb. Like I actually NEED this man to put my life in perspective.
Like I could need anyone.
I’ll do what I have to do.
The bartender I gave my number to on Tuesday texted Chris and I yesterday about how his party is on Sunday. We are suspiciously excited.
Filed under: RANT
I tried to be an invincible young warrior.
Last night, post-Taco Tuesday dinner buffet, we lost it and spent an enormous amount of money.
Three of us made a choice to get blackout drunk at the New Cross Inn because Tuesday is shitty British karaoke/coffeehouse night. As an aside, they failed to do justice to their art. Seriously, I could fart out a better version of The Libertines’ “Can’t Stand Me Now”.
A man walked around the inn wearing a Pedobear suit and I shared a moment with him and his girlfriend. I promised someone I don’t know to sing “What Katie Did” for him. My lighter actually was in my clutch the whole time.
Our friends have cancer and there’s nothing we can do.
I woke up at 11am to drunkenly scribble down my bar tab. Three Strongbow, at least one Strongbow with black, a Baileys on the rocks with dinner, a rum and coke Andy didn’t want, and three shots of tequila. (I don’t know why they kept giving us lemon wedges.) I also bought the bartender at least three various shots because it was his birthday and Chris and I wanted him to stick around our side of the bar. I felt guilty inside because it was Gabby’s birthday and I’ve been neglecting my friends.
He was cute and he was from Montreal. We talked about places.
It was weird, and not weird. Anyway, he has our phone numbers now.
Daria undressed me and put me to bed.
She even took the bobby pins out of my hair.
Hm.
Now that my alchemical crisis is behind me,
I spent the last hour researching the hostels we’re staying in on our week-plus trip abroad, and I am alarmed. Yes, I’m totally down for “real life” experiences BUT Hostelworld.com is fairly reliable and people are all too eager to be blunt bearers of bad news. (Check that alliteration, yo.)
The Parisian hostel worries me the most, what with comments on
-the lack of luggage security
-cramped bunks + no pillows + stained linen
-no door locks
-the incredibly dodgy neighbourhood
-being moved each night, and
-the utter disregard for previously secured bookings.
I’m only paying $70 total for 4 nights,
but holy fuck am I going to be paranoid for 10 days.
BREAKDOWN:
Dublin from Oct 31-Nov 3
Amsterdam from Nov 3-6
Paris from Nov 6-10
Coming back to London will never feel so good.
Thank God for the chilly weather, I say, because then at least New Cross doesn’t reek like a toilet like it normally does. I don’t know who ever thought that putting a public toilet on the corner across from Loring would ever be a popular idea.
I wish I could go out and be free a la Dave Eggers’ characters in You Shall Know Our Velocity! That was my original plan- to go out into the world by myself and meet up with Emily C in Morocco. Here and now, I’ve been given another opportunity to travel through– when you think about it– five countries with only a backpack, 3 days’ worth of clothes, and a camera.
Let’s face the difference, I don’t have $35,000 to give away or cleanse or what have you. I don’t. I can’t even comprehend what that much money would look like in my hands, albeit in the form of Traveler’s Cheques.
I can’t let this go. When it comes to the crunch– and I have been told this– I am a scared and materialistic weirdo who insists becoming an accountant chiefly so I can hoard up the remainder of my life in a vault.
Goddamned hippies.
Despite all that, I’m feeling quite cheerful
and I’m going to finish watching Slaughterhouse-Five.
My Abroad playlist is the weirdest combination of music.
The trouble with me is you.
This is the first day I’ve felt remotely homesick.
Just spent some time looking at funny pictures, which helped.
I’m ill. I make poor choices. I run through money like water. Too much drankin’. I actually thought I was having DTs on the bus today, but really it was just my fever, high heels, & I was standing on the plastic connector part that turns a lot. I am alarming.
I guess I’ve been fine thus far because I haven’t really had a lot of time for reflection and thinking of who I am or what I’ve become. But I’m genuinely content to be in the environment here. The people, sometimes not so much, but that’s something of an tidal pool of people I don’t know.
I am not unhappy.
I just don’t think sometimes.
One professor has directed us into more of a philosophical study course than what it should be, so doing my homework tonight actually means reading Schiller and Kant. Every week, we have to answer difficult questions while keeping Elizabethan art in mind. This week: how can one live morally through aesthetics? As if I can answer that doozy.
Pieces of the people we love:
people I see are the doppelgangers of people at home.
So many homes.
And our future’s lookin bright
in all the little pieces of the people that we keep inside.
‘Cause you can do-make-say-think-laugh-sink-drink all night…
All the little visions all the little moments that we keep inside.
Filed under: FOREIGNERS
How ’bout I only think about you
when there’s leaves on the path as I’m on my way to class?
Will that make it less apparent? Is this really happening?
Important lessons on taking things for granted, particularly when it comes to the kitchen, washing, and drying facilities. You don’t have a plate? You don’t have any food? The wet underwear hanging in your room hasn’t dried in the past 2 days?
Having to go all Macgyver here is tiring, if typically rewarding.
It’s weird how I’ll be traveling through Dublin/Amsterdam/Paris exactly one year after all the November 2008 hullabaloo: Obama’s election, the 2 best Decemberist shows ever, Montreal, third tattoo. Funny.
I don’t know how I can ever come home.
Filed under: MUSIC
One of the songs is finally up.
(The old version was better. This one’s not my favorite.)
Narcissism is narcissism, eh?
HEY MOM, YOU READIN’ MY BLOG?
The party from last night was crazy and European.
Never doing that again, no sir. After everyone left, Andy and I got rid of this clingy Italian asshole and walked around until 5am looking for my key, even though everyone knew I didn’t have it. On return to the kitchen, two British guys (Ewan and Chris) DJ’ed off my iTunes, told me it was shit, rescinded the statement and played Fleet Foxes/Radiohead/Arcade Fire/other hipster music that I bond with, and promptly left. (They told me not to bother seeing Morrissey. Uh!)
Francis the Security Guard let me in the room, even though he was furious at the world.
My first thought when I woke up was “How am I still alive!” It took me 3 hours to get ready. I nearly fainted on the bus to the British Museum and then experienced the worst museum tour of my life while being carried around by Daria. We all assumed it would be a full-museum tour, but it was in one gallery filled with lamps and plates from the Middle East.
This country. Look at me shaking my head. We kept it easy this evening and played games of Go Fish! A cat walked up to the window mid-game and I went outside to hold it. She smiled at me. We were all worried over its fate until some Brit shouted from upstairs that it’s only the Laundry Cat. Thus, we named it Laundry Lisa, after our study abroad program director.
I hate my morning class tomorrow.
Murder me.
Euh? I am a model human being.
