I spent most of the day picking up the pieces of my shattered life (she wrote melodramatically). The past 10 days or so have been hellacious for me, with work and school and to top it all off, a few health issues. But then, what week is complete without a trip to the Boots pharmacy? (Note to self: Check to see if local Boots pharmacist is on MySpace.)
School is over for the academic year, at least for me. I haven’t quite wrapped my mind around this fact yet. I do worry that I’ll never be able to finish this dissertation, but then I have a few more years to cry myself to sleep over that. And I’m pretty sure this feeling is normal.
Now that I’ve put all of this unpleasant deadline-induced drama behind me, I’m seeing sunny skies. Not literally, of course, because it hasn’t stopped raining for days. But there is good news. With school finished, I can now spend the summer finishing the first draft of my novel. It’s coming up on three years since I received my MFA in creative writing. I wrote about 100 pages of a novel during the program but after graduation I put the manuscript aside for a number of reasons.
Last year I started writing a totally different novel. I’ve played with it on and off since I’ve been in London, but the passion isn’t there. As I tried desperately to make this new novel work, a strange thing happened. One of the characters from my old grad school novel suddenly started talking to me. I hadn’t thought about her in ages, yet there she was in my consciousness, trying to get my attention. And we’ve been getting re-acquainted ever since.
Some of you may think this means I have a split personality. But for a fiction writer, when a character speaks to you in this way it is a rare and beautiful gift. And no, it did not involve booze and recreational drugs. Writers live for moments like these, which should never be taken for granted.
So I plan to spend the next several months finishing the journey I began with these characters. I am nervous and excited and scared. I have a love-hate relationship with my fiction writing. I never feel happier and more fulfilled than when I’m writing a piece of fiction and the project is going well. I feel more alive. That is the blessing and the curse of the creative life, at least for me, because the flip side isn’t fun.
I won’t be discussing the project here in any detail for obvious reasons, but please think happy thoughts for me.
…out of student housing. After being awoken by the fire alarm at 6:00 a.m. (!!!), while dragging my sleep-deprived and pajama-clad self down six flights of stairs, all I can think is: “If this building isn’t on fire I am going to be so pissed.”
I was recently informed by a student in Austria who is studying English translation that my blog post The Ugly American Next Door appeared on the mid-term exam in their class last week! I think I can safely file this under “surreal.”
The post in question was a total rant, filled with slang and colloquialisms and oblique references to American culture. It would be very difficult for someone learning English to understand, which is why the teacher chose it I guess. And while this may seem wicked, it’s actually a smart idea. A sentence like: “He is a self-obsessed buffoon who was obviously raised by a pack of howler monkeys at the Bronx Zoo” could describe any number of world leaders. If you want to be a translator at the U.N., you gotta know this stuff!
So what exactly were they asked to do with my blog entry?
“The task wasn’t to translate your entry, but it was more about something like “reading behind the text”. E.g. we had to find out if you are male or female, how old you are, in which country you are, where you come from originally and (the most difficult one) what kind of person you are and how your attitude towards life is. We also had to highlight the respective phrases in the text to prove that we weren’t just guessing.”
The student then asked how old I was, to see if their answer was right on the test. I told the student the answer (30+) and received this in response:
“Maybe you’re happy to hear that most of us guessed that you are much younger (around 20)…”
Happy? No. Humiliated? Yes!
The thought that a class full of students was going over every word of this particular blog post makes me cringe in horror. And apparently, they don’t have their grades yet. Let’s hope they all pass – otherwise, I might get hate mail written in sketchy English.
I have been asked to contribute the London posts to a group blog called Shortcut: A European City & Travel Blog. My first post is up today! I will be writing one post a week. If you’re a Londoner, please don’t let the news that I will be representing your quaint metropolis on this other blog frighten you. An outsider can appreciate a city like no one else can. I promise!
Yesterday I had a transportation disaster – not an uncommon occurrence for me. The Northern Line was shut down for the whole weekend, but given that I never pay attention to the announcements on the tube, I was already in Leicester Square before I realized this. I had to catch a train and was operating on 4 hours of sleep and was feeling cranky, so I decided to take a cab to Waterloo.
Once in the cab, the driver started going in the opposite direction of the train station. I assumed he was taking me via the scenic route because he thought I was some idiot tourist. I said:
“You’re going the wrong way.”
This kind of statement will invoke the wrath of a London cab driver like nothing else. I’m shocked he didn’t hit the eject button and send me flying out into the street.
Instead I was subjected to a lecture about bridges and one-way streets and traffic patterns and station entrances, blah blah blah. At the end of his speech he said, rather indignantly:
I’d really love to go to the Hay Festival at the end of May. It’s a world-renowned literary festival held in Hay-on-Wye. Several of my favorite writers will be there and I think it would be an amazing experience. Unfortunately, the hotels in the tiny Welsh town book up a year in advance.
So I called the festival organizers. The woman I spoke to explained that I had two options: camp or rent a car and drive to a neighboring town (about 30 miles away) where there are plenty of hotels. Apparently, there is a lack of efficient public transport in the area, so it’s a car or nothing.
First, the camping option. You just show up at the campground and they give you everything you need (tent, sleeping bag, etc.). I haven’t been camping since I was 16 and was shipped off to a church camp for girls. This camp was like hell-on-earth, which is ironic given its focus on God. However, it was located down the road from Mrs. Fields’ house. Yes, she is a real person and yes, she gave the campers cookies.
But camping really isn’t for me. Does a tent come with a place to plug in my laptop? No. Could there be a crazed Welsh serial killer roaming around, looking for campers to hack to death? Quite possibly.
Next, the car option. I could take the train to Wales and then rent a car at the station, about 40 miles away from Hay. But I have never driven a car on the left side of the road. The woman at the festival explained that it’s easy driving around there because the roads are uncomplicated and there is little traffic. She essentially assured me I would not die, which is the kind of customer service I did not expect.
I must admit the thought of driving in the UK terrifies me, though I am a good driver. I drove in Brooklyn and Boston and lived to tell about it. I once drove across the US by myself, but I did get into a car accident on the Illinois-Iowa border, thus stranding myself for four days while my car was taped together. The townsfolk took care of me, the poor little idiot who thought it was a good idea to drive across the Midwest in the winter by herself.
Okay, so that isn’t a good example of my driving prowess. As I get older, I am not as impulsive brave as I used to be. Perhaps I will just stay in London, where the only real car-related danger I face is from those dastardly drivers who accelerate when they see pedestrians in the crosswalk.
New Anti-Abortion Pill Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive
“’UR-86—dubbed the ‘last-morning-ever pill’,” is just what pro-lifers have been waiting for! The Onion reports:
Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a ‘safe and effective method’ for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.
The usual suspects are quite happy about this:
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, praised the new pharmaceutical for its potential use in cases of rape and incest, saying it could help end the shame and humiliation of such trauma while saving the life of the fetus.
Not surprisingly, South Dakota is already interfering:
Tuesday night, South Dakota legislators introduced a bill to impose a five-day waiting period for teenage girls and women before they can buy the pill, claiming its use does not adequately safeguard the lifestyle of the father, the laundry of the father, or the favorite meals of the father.
Can I just say I wish I had written this? To The Onion: Bravo.
As a political junkie, I am quite enjoying the drama playing out right now in the UK. For my American readers, just a little background. Tony Blair is expected to hand over the leadership of the Labour Party (and thus the role of Prime Minister) to Gordon Brown before the next general election, but no one knows when this will happen. Given his mounting scandals and recent local election defeats, Blair is facing rebellion from Labour MPs who want him to set a timetable for his departure ASAP. In response, Blair is essentially giving everyone the finger. I think this sums it up?
So anyway, I wish we had a system like this in the US. Not that I think Bush would be ousted from power – honestly, if it came down to it, not only would all the Republican sycophants support him but most of the Democrats would probably volunteer to help him as well. Still, it would be fun to watch Bush squirm.
The media here are casting this ongoing Blair-Brown power struggle in almost Shakespearean terms. The papers are full of behind-the-scenes intrigue about Brown and his followers trying to topple Blair. It’s all very exciting. If the media coverage is to be believed, not only does almost every member of the Labour Party hate Tony Blair, but virtually every citizen of Britain does as well. How he was re-elected just one year ago is a mystery to me.
To end this political debacle, I suggest that Blair and Brown just sleep together and get it over with. But then, I’m probably the only person who sees a homoerotic subtext in all of this.
Laugh at my analysis if you wish, but the media are running wild with speculation and my version is more fun.
I just got home for the day. While I was out I saw a movie being filmed in Lincoln’s Inn Field, a girl tried (and failed) to sell me a World Cup shirt, I bought a beautiful pink peony, and then I stopped at Sainsbury’s where the guy at the till called me darling and love (my lucky day). Unless you’re an American, you can’t possibly understand how cute that is.
Anti-abortion activist Edward Atkinson, 75, used to send photos of aborted fetuses to his local hospital. Now he’s in jail and the hospital has refused to treat him for anything other than a life-threatening condition. That’ll teach him.
Of course, this could not be more different than the situation in the US, where anti-abortion protestors’ rights to harass, intimidate and threaten doctors, hospital staff and patients are regularly upheld by the courts.
My sister works in Hell-ay as a film editor. Last night she told me a juicy bit of Hollywood gossip (or “goss” as the tabloids here write) concerning the star of a hot TV show that is extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic. The lead in this ensemble cast is a fine piece of eye candy. Even straight men and lesbians would have to concede this point. Much of the show’s advertising on television and in print plays off his image – if you live in London, then you’ve seen his visage on the side of a bus at least once, I guarantee it. However, I should point out that he’s not the typical Hollywood hunk. He seems mysterious and intellectual and sweet.
So anyway, big surprise, he’s gay. This news comes from a reliable source that is in the know. This actor is locked away in the Hollywood closet and will probably never emerge. Now, I love gay guys as much as the next gal (perhaps too much, but that’s a post for another time). However, this is a fairly devastating piece of news. Whenever a cute/smart/charming guy turns out to be gay it’s a major disappointment to straight women. The feeling is hard to explain. It’s like, Damn, lost another one!
I never suspected this guy was gay – I guess he’s a better actor than I thought. While I was never a faithful viewer of his show, it is far less appealing to me now. I am a horrible, horrible, evil, wicked person! It’s not like I thought I was going to meet this guy and fall in love with him. I know virtually nothing about him. (Well, except that now I know he likes to sleep with dudes. Thanks sis!) I probably wouldn’t have even wanted to meet him if given the chance because in my experience, meeting celebrities is always a disappointment. But my reaction to the news that this actor is gay startles me. It’s interesting to really think about how a TV show like this plays on its hero’s relationship with the female audience – a relationship that is a total illusion but a powerful one. When the illusion they’ve created is shattered, the audience can no longer suspend disbelief so easily. I know this is how Hollywood works. I’ve written and published on this before. But I’m surprised that I still get sucked into this madness.
I guess the moral of this story is that I’m shallower than I’d care to admit and that Tom Cruise’s publicist really does earn her pay.
An article in the NYT highlights the serious problem of dentistry in Britain. With few dentists on the NHS and the private dentists charging a fortune, people are apparently going to Eastern Europe to get treatment or even pulling out their own teeth.
Before I left the US, I was in the middle of a series of rather complicated dental treatments. The appointments needed to be spaced several months apart, which is why I couldn’t finish before I left. After looking at the prices for dentistry in London, I almost had a heart attack. It’s not like Boston is cheap, but my insurance policy helped tremendously. If I want my teeth fixed here, I will probably need to sell a kidney.
I guess I have two options. 1) Pray that one of my faithful London blog readers is a dentist with charitable instincts; or 2) Check airfares to Budapest.
Here are my Word of the Day entries for the last few weeks. In an ideal world, I would post these round-ups once a week. If you think I made a mistake with any of these translations, give me a holler.
Sorry to hear about all of the sadness. I think watching/knowing the people you love suffer is the...
