…that I have a blog. It’s just that I’m unable to write much of anything right now. E-mails, blog posts, my novel…zilch. The words have flown away like little birds and I’m not sure when they’re coming back. They will come back. I’m not worried about that. Right now, however, they are missing in action. This happens from time to time. It sucks.
In lieu of any real content, I leave you with my thought for the day:
Go Hillary go!
Today I went to a shop to buy a sandwich. I paid for my food, but then the guy behind the counter gave me a bottle of water and other stuff for free because, he said, he likes my smile and wants me to come back again. I know, I know — barf. The problem is that I’ve been feeling a bit loopy and giggly and unhinged the past few days and I think he thought I was flirting with him, which I may have been doing inadvertently. [I'm sure I don't need to point out that this guy was not British or even European. I'm sure I also don't need to point out that he asked if I was American before giving me the free stuff. Lots of foreign pervs love American women. I blame Hollywood.] Anyway, note to self: Never return to that shop again.
The reason for my loopiness the past few days can be described in two words: jet. lag. I’ve been back in the UK for four nights and have probably slept soundly for a total of 16 hours. I have absolutely no clue what day of the week it is right now. None at all. Someone help me. Please.
I’ve indulged in quite a bit of self-reflection over the past 12 months…it’s just been that kinda year. 2007 was a year that changed everything for me and so before it’s consigned to the history books in about eight hours, I want to take a look back in words and images.
Exactly one year ago today, I had just moved into a new apartment sublet near the Eiffel Tower. I was feeling hopeful about the future, as if I was about to turn a corner and begin a new chapter of my life after what had been a difficult few months adjusting to life in Paris. Then that night – at around 11:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve! – the apartment owner informed me I was being evicted; he preferred I leave right then and check into a cheap hotel. It was a terrible way to start the New Year. His decision sent me down a path that was difficult to recover from given everything else that was happening. The next six weeks were among the most difficult of my life. I don’t even like to think about them.
I never would have guessed during those cold dark miserable horrible January days that by the end of 2007 I would be happier and more stable than I ever have been before in my adult life. It wasn’t easy to get to this place, but I’m so grateful to be where I am now.
Here is the second-annual Anglofille Birthday Self-Portrait in Mirror Obscured by Camera. Yes, I know it’s an orange and over-processed photo and I look slightly crazy and my hair is wet, but I like to shake things up. It’s also a day early, but after this post I’m signing off for a week. I think at this point in 2007 we’re all sick of hearing from me and I’m kinda sick of myself too, so a break is in order.
Yesterday I landed in the wondrous city of Philadelphia, of which I saw the airport, bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95, the Ben Franklin Bridge and that’s it. I was promptly whisked away to the wilds of New Jersey by my dear friend and boy toy William. I’m relaxing at his place today and we’re going out for Mexican food. Ahhhhhh. I also get to sleep in his guest room, which has more books in it than the British Library.
Tomorrow we head to NYC to celebrate my birth, that glorious event. I’m actually very excited about New York. Normally the thought of it just stresses me out, but not this time. While there I need to visit my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn to do some research for my novel and then we’ll hang out in Manhattan and paint the town red and stay in a mid-town hotel that got reviews on Trip Advisor with headlines like “Never Again!”, “My Trip Was Ruined!”, “Not Bad If You Have No Standards.” I can’t wait.
Those of you living in the greater London area may have heard a loud noise around 3:00 p.m. No worries, that was just me screaming at the top of my lungs.
You see, today I am free. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Free from what? Well, I’m glad you asked. Over the years I have alluded to my American job, which I do via the internet. It’s an intense job and it’s practically 24/7 with no breaks except at Christmas. [Imagine a GAP sweatshop for people with master's degrees.] This job has been a big part of my life and I’ve never been able to write about it. I’ve never even been specific about what it is I do for a variety of reasons. In fact, I’ve often been paranoid about the people I work with finding out about this blog. Many of them come from the deep South and I don’t think my political views would go over too well. I had quite a scare a little while ago — one of my alma maters outed me [Anglofille] on the internet by accident. It only took about two months for them to remove the offending material from the college website (thanks, by the way). It was all very stressful.
Well, the response to my tattoo post has been overwhelming. The vast majority of people seem to think that if I get a tattoo, I’ll either be a Britney Spears wannabe or skanky white trash ho (not that there’s a difference between those two things). Most of the commenters didn’t come right out and say this, but they didn’t have to.
Hmmm. This was not the response I was expecting, which means that if I do get a tattoo on Friday, I probably won’t mention it here! [The fact that the person accompanying me to New York now wants a tattoo himself does not bode well.]
One week from today is my birthday: 12.21 or 21.12, depending on where you’re from. Either way it’s a palindrome. Oh, and I was born at 1:21. Spooky.
On the big day I’ll be in New Yawk, otherwise known as Big Apple City. I’m thinking of getting a tattoo while there. This idea just popped into my head last night. Any birthday that ends with a 0 or a 5 is a big deal. For my last big birthday, I got my nose pierced [which I removed last year in an extremely painful reverse rite-of-passage].
Christmas is coming…and my birthday! [Notice the countdown in the sidebar.] You know, nothing pisses me off more than a combined birthday/Christmas gift. I realize my birthday is inconvenient for those who know me, as well as a strain on the Christmas budget, but how do you think I feel, having a birthday only four days before Jesus’ big day? I tend to feel quite overshadowed, thank you very much. And not only that, but for a person as neurotic as me, the prospect of turning yet another year older on top of holiday stress is almost too much to take. As such, I deserve to be showered with gifts.
Jen had a Christmas wishlist on her blog and I thought this was a good idea, so I did one too. Ho ho ho — that’s me! There are plenty of things I need (dental work, new shoes) but that’s not what Christmas is about. It’s about greed and consumerism, so here’s my list:
[most prices in pounds; if you're American, simply multiply by two]
Carnation Perfume from Santa Maria Novella: £70 for 100 ml
I visited the main branch of this shop in Florence. It is the most divine place! I just found out they have a branch in London, which was mentioned in the Times, as was this carnation perfume. I’ve never smelled this perfume before, but I must have it. Don’t ask me why. I just want it. Desperately.
Silver Charm Bracelet from Links of London: £65
I really want one of these bracelets with an “S” charm (£32) for my name. I’ve always wanted a charm bracelet — a nice one, not some tacky piece of crap.
A few days ago, I was corresponding with a group of writer friends from back home via e-mail. When they asked how I was doing, I responded:
“…for the first time in years I don’t feel sadness or depression gnawing away at the corners of my life. I feel alive. I’m not used to feeling this way and I like it.”
When I wrote that I hadn’t felt free from a lingering sadness or depression in years, I didn’t just mean the last year or two — I meant the past decade or more. It’s not easy to own that truth, to publish it here for so many people to read, but there it is.
Tomorrow I’m planning to go to Paris. This has nothing to do with my court case, which I will not attend. Rather, six months after I left, I want to make peace with what happened to me there or try to, at least. Without my experiences in Paris, I wouldn’t have arrived at the place I’m at now. My time in Paris was, perhaps, the turning point of my life. I feel the need to go back, to walk those streets again, to visit those old ghosts. I don’t like the way I left things.
I’m slightly worried about how I might react to being there again. When I bought the ticket back in August I was excited to go, but I’ve had to cancel this trip once before because I got sick right when I was supposed to leave. And now I feel as if I might be coming down with the flu. This can’t possibly be a coincidence; I know myself well enough to know that it’s not. I’ve considered canceling again (and thus automatically forfeiting my ticket), but I’ve decided to go unless I feel really sick when I wake up tomorrow. I’ve given myself an “out” just in case and if I end up staying home then I’ll know the timing wasn’t right.
I gave up drinking beverages with caffeine years ago. I can’t have caffeine because of my nerves. [God, that sentence makes me sound crazy. Oh well.] It’s been five or six years at least since I’ve consumed a caffeinated drink aside from a few sips here and there. Everyone always points out that chocolate has caffeine in it, but as far as I can tell, that’s a myth. And even if there is caffeine in chocolate, it’s only a tiny amount.
So anyway, tonight I accidentally drank a big bottle of Coca-Cola. Oops.
This morning I logged onto the website of my American bank, only to discover that the U.S. federal government shut it down yesterday. Talk about panic! Netbank is an internet bank, so there can be no “run” on the bank as we saw with Northern Rock here in the UK a few weeks ago. From the AP: “NetBank Inc., an online bank with $2.5 billion in assets, was shut down by the government on Friday because of an excessive level of mortgage defaults. It was the largest savings and loan failure since the tail end of the industry’s crisis more than 14 years ago.”
I had a good evening at the theatre. Here’s a hint:
More on that tomorrow.
In other news, I’m quite irritated. Earlier this week they removed all the shower heads in the building where I live. They’re going to replace them, but no one knows when. It’s really tough not having a shower. Then today, the water in the area was shut off for 13 hours! Those of you who live in London will have seen the signs all over from Thames Water stating that London’s ancient Victorian water mains are being replaced little by little. Well, this seems like a swell project until they show up on your street. This is the second time they’ve cut the water supply. Thirteen hours without H2O is a bit extreme, don’tcha think? Showers are already impossible where I live, but today there was no bathing, hand-washing, water drinking or toilet-going either. Since all good things come in threes, here’s something else: It’s freeeeeeezing in London now and there’s no heat in this building at all.
Am I living in a Charles Dickens novel?
A day of beauty and literary stimulation for me. Right now I’m eating chocolate. Decadent.
With school starting and all, I figured it was time for a new hair color. My roots were showing, which always makes me feel like a slut. My new hair color is actually my real color, but it’s funny how strange it looks to me. Over the past couple years I’ve flirted with red and then a lighter shade of brown with lots of highlights. The colors just kept piling on and it damaged my hair. Last month I had to get a few inches chopped off. Now I’ve gone back to dark brown, the color the gods intend for me to have (after all, it’s what comes out of my head naturally):
I fear I look like quite the goth chick. I want to go out and buy some kohl to ring my eyes with. I just went down to reception and one of my co-workers saw me and did a double-take. I do look much different, but she thinks I look better. Well, that’s something.
On my way home from the salon, the Circle Line was basically shut down. As always. I have two questions: 1) does the Circle Line ever run properly? 2) why isn’t the Circle Line just demolished?
Moving on to the evening…
![the long and winding road [part 1]](http://www.anglofille.com/wp-content/image-headlines/94b9b61fe43404d04add6ba4bdd225aa.png){kind=small}
All of my boxes from Paris arrived last week in perfect condition. Fancy that. I wrote that I wasn’t sure if the guy I hired was legit or not, but he was. I also wrote that I didn’t care if he stole all of my stuff. I really did feel that way at the time. Most of what was in those boxes has been shipped from the US to Britain to France and now back to Britain. I’ve packed and unpacked them numerous times, paid movers to cart them around, stored them by greatly imposing on people, lifted them until my back ached, etc. I was just plain tired of the hassle. I could have probably replaced everything inside of those boxes for half the price of what it cost to move them so many times. [Here are the legendary boxes when I first packed them up last summer. They're much more tattered now.]
I had more stuff stored here in London too and tonight I got my five boxes back from Nicole, who had kept them for more than a year! Not only that, but she had to endure countless e-mails from me over the past few weeks changing the day I was coming to pick them up at least 10,000 times until finally tonight I just (practically) found some guy off the street to drive to her place and get them for me. [I have single-handedly kept the "man with a van" industry in London and Paris afloat.] I still can’t believe someone in London and someone in Paris was kind enough to come to my rescue and store these damn boxes. See, not everyone I meet is evil.
Now I have all my things back under one roof for the first time in more than a year. Even though I was dreading getting all of these boxes back, the good news is that now that I have them, I am thrilled to bits! This was unexpected, but as I unpacked them I discovered all my favorite books, my iPod speakers, pairs of shoes I forgot I had, my slow cooker, dishes and teacups, my wooden Virginia Woolf sculpture (oh be quiet) and all sorts of other fun stuff. You’ll be pleased to know that my beloved pig mugs survived their journey from Paris, as did my statue of the Virgin Mary. I’ve got my jewelry back and my picture frames and my aromatherapy burner. Bliss.
After literally nine months of living out of a suitcase, I am finally home.
Does anyone have a spare bookshelf?
A friend from Boston is passing through London tonight and staying at my place. On the phone, she told her husband back home that with my hair pulled back, I look like a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
Awww. PhD students in the humanities give the best compliments.
Happy Birthday to my dearest Maman!
Over the years, I’ve become quite partial to the French term maman [pronounced more like mama but with a French twist. I use it all the time.]
So what do I want to write about maman on her birthday? Lately I’ve been thinking about how lucky I am to have a mom who is not one of those mothers. I’ve been hearing so many women complain about their mothers, both people I know and funnily enough, just by eavesdropping on conversations on the train recently. There are so many horror stories about how mothers criticize their daughters’ appearance (their weight, their clothes, their hair); how they criticize their daughters’ lifestyles (Why aren’t you married yet? Why don’t you have kids?). These are all familiar complaints from women about their mothers, but I realized recently that my mom has never criticized me about these things. Never. Not once. I realize just how lucky I am and how this has changed my life and shaped who I am.
At last.
I’ve ended up where I began. In my new home, it is rarely quiet.
Mostly I hear:
Church bells and police sirens.
Nothing, nothing beats city life.
I sit at my desk now. Outside my window there are trees that I’m already in love with, trees that cast shadows on Georgian buildings. There are street lamps outside my window, bright at night like stars in the blackness.
This feels like a dream sometimes, this life that I have. Here. I fear that someone will take it away from me, realize I’m not worthy, send me away. It’s a real fear, but for now I tell myself that I live here
amongst these fabled leafy squares where two years ago there were bombs, where two years ago there was blood in the streets.
There are ghosts, here, of murdered people, of famous dead writers. There are ghosts here of my former selves, from ten years ago, from two years ago. I keep ending up here, walking these same streets, seeing this same self reflected in shop windows, this girl-woman, older now, better now, happier now, capable of understanding what happiness is, now,
but still searching. For something.
This is my last weekend living in Southwark. I wasn’t scheduled to move into my new rent-free digs until mid-September, but the stars aligned and long-story-short, I’m moving on Friday. YAY! I’ve been in a state of limbo and just want to get settled in my new place. But that means this weekend I have to pack. This will be my fifth move of the year…a new record, I think.
Since I got paid yesterday, I spent today doing some shopping. I like getting new stuff, but I don’t like actually shopping — if that makes sense. I lose my patience very quickly when shopping for things like shoes and clothes amongst the hordes in the chain shops and department stores. Grrrrrr. I went into Selfridges, rode the escalator up a few floors, then had to flee. I just couldn’t take all those mannequins and fluorescent lights and pushy people. [I can spend hours shopping for books, however. That's not a problem.]
Since I’ve been poor for so long, there are a lot of things I need now that I have some extra money. First I needed to buy a train ticket for a short trip I’m taking the week after next. And at the top of my list of things to buy was a new pair of trainers. [Why do Americans call these tennis shoes? We don't even wear them to play tennis. It makes no sense at all. Granted, most Americans actually say tennashoes, so we don't really even think about what we're saying.]
I’ve only been working for six weeks without being paid. No probs. Perhaps tomorrow, with actual British currency in my pocket, I’ll be able to afford the delights of all the food groups, rather than just my normal two — cheap take-away and gum.
Oh — and Monday is a holiday.
Thank you, Jesus.
Lately it’s been work work work. And until the middle of September it will continue to be work work work. But sometimes I force myself to take some time out. This afternoon: A movie (Waitress at the Curzon Soho) and an hour drinking mint tea and reading Mrs. Dalloway in the café at the National Gallery. A much-needed respite.
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