Social skills R'Us

About two weeks ago, I ordered some bedding from Argos, the UK's answer to big box stores. The fabulous thing about Argos, however, is that it's more like a small box with infinite capacity: you walk into the store and stand in front of small kiosk; inside the kiosk is a catalog so bloated it could crush an elephant. You can order anything on the planet from them: pots and pans, sofas, DVD players...I'm sure that somewhere in its 1000+ pages, one can find spouses, employment and puppies. However, all I wanted were sheets and a duvet -- and there's no cheaper place to shop than Argos, apart from the nearest dumpster.

I ordered my things and paid a few extra pounds to have them shipped by the weekend so CB and I wouldn't have to huddle together under the college's lousy rented sheets. (Look, I wasn't going to pack sheets when I had to choose between them and my computer, okay? If the college rented clothing, I might have considered that, too.)

Saturday rolled around, but the sheets were MIA. On Monday, I sent Argos a nasty email, and thus began a 10-day string of back and forths:

"Dear Argos: You haven't sent my sheets yet!"
"Dear Ms.: Yes, we have."
"Dear Argos: Oh yes, you mean the invisible ones filling up my pigeonhole? How could I have missed them??"

Finally, Argos found the shipping record and let me know that one of my college's dear old porters signed for them on that first Saturday. Being sans sheets, I grew increasingly confused -- and cold, as the reason for ordering a warm duvet stemmed from the condition of my kitchen window: ajar. By "ajar," I mean gaping open about an inch at the top, thus allowing rain, spiders and strange floating clouds of fumes from the street to waft into my flat. Hence, I'm freezing all the time and terrified most of the time. (England has some BIG spiders. Big enough to wander boldly down the sidewalk in broad daylight daring you to cross their paths. They'll just keep coming straight at you until you dance sideways in a panic, causing normal people to stare at you as they wonder why you didn't just squish the little beggars. BECAUSE THEY WOULD LEAP UP MY LEG AND KILL ME, THAT'S WHY!!! It's less perilous to yield the right-of-way to the swaggering arachnids. Unlike the States, these bastards refuse to curl up and die when it gets cold. I think they just get bigger and meaner to survive the winter.)

I did ask the maintenance crew to take a look at it, and they fixed the problem by smashing it until it moved a half inch higher. Now, only the medium sized spiders can colonize my kitchen.

But I digress. The sheets, the sheets -- well, turns out that the porters did receive my parcels. They left a pick-up notice in the pigeonhole of another girl who shares my last name. Now, I've received things for her before, and the normal procedure is to walk seven feet to her cubby, place the items in it and leave. However, her normal procedure apparently is to take the slip, pick up my packages and sequester them in her room for TEN DAYS.

Upon discovering this, I became a bit irate and may have uttered a few foul phrases in front of the exceedingly good-willed, if somewhat befuddled, porters. They promised to get the parcels back by leaving her a note to request their return, but I don't trust anyone who keeps someone else's things for over a week. I promptly returned home, looked up her email and sent a cuttingly polite email asking for my unopened sheets or the 50 quid I spent on them, since I didn't buy new bedding for someone else to use!

About an hour later, it seems, a confused-looking undergraduate showed up at the porter's office with three large packages. According to my porter buddies, the exchange went as follows:

PORTER: "Can I help you?"
OTHER, EVIL GIRL WHO DOES NOT DESERVE TO BEAR MY NAME: "Well, I have these packages..."
PORTER: "Are they yours?"
OEGWDNDTBMN: "Well...I don't think so." Looks strangely perturbed.
PORTER: "Well, did you order anything from Argos?"
GIRL WHO CLEARLY GOT INTO UNIVERSITY ON A TECHNICALITY: "Um...I don't know."
PORTER: Gratingly polite. "Well, is your name on the packages?"
GIRL WHO SHOULD BE KICKED OUT OF THE GENE POOL: "I don't think so."
PORTER: "So they aren't yours, then."
BLITHERING IDIOT: "Well, I opened up the boxes to see what's in them...They're sheets." Looks at porter expectantly, as though awaiting an explanation.

By this time, the porters had grown a bit exasperated, snatched the boxes away and returned them to their rightful owner. I'm now sitting in my room with a nice duvet set on the bed. The Other Girl has yet to return my email.

Things I never anticipated doing:

Leaning out the kitchen door in my pj's and blue slippers with little sheep on them, screaming, "Do you WANT me to kick your asses?!?!" to a group of sniggering college boys who'd just plastered the side of our house with eggs. Do you know how loud it is inside when an egg smashes onto a window? DO YOU???

Gotta love Halloween. We had our weekly Formal Hall tonight (yep, you guessed it: food -- but most people come for the free port and wine). A few of us even stuck with the Halloween theme: here I am as a Desperate Housewife, complete with fire-singed mixing cup. By the way, it's probably just worth it to sacrifice your mixing cup, unless you really want to spend half an hour melting and rubbing butter along the inside, then grinding black pepper until your wrist cramps...and, of course, when that doesn't work, you dig into your precious Earl Grey and sacrifice perfectly good crushed leaves by sticking them into the butter....


Of course, no one bloody understood my costume, even after one of my Housewives-obssessed flatmates made it sound like every British person on the planet would sacrifice their firstborn rather than miss an episode. No, instead I'm told I'm not dressed for Halloween because I'm not scary. Like you need to be scary? I'll tell you what's scary: TERI HATCHER. And that's who I was, so don't give me any crap about not being scary! Bloody Brits...

Something smells...

And apparently, it's me!

It poured all day today, but I didn't have class until 2:00. Trust me, this is not a cause for elation; it's hard enough to attend class at all when your PhD flatmates never have to be anywhere for anything (what, exactly, do they do over here?) -- it's worse when you have to sit in class until 5 at night. Wednesdays are my really fun days: 10 to 4, straight classes with no breaks! Woo-hoo!

Sidetracks aside, by the time I left, a considerable amount of standing water had accumulated on the streets. Shivering students were sloshing past on their bikes, pants soaked through, hair matted to their heads, helmets...er, well, no one wears helmets here except we Americans, so never mind.

I grinned and deftly donned my Seattle bike gear: neon yellow jacket screaming "Don't you dare hit me!!", rainproof ski pants (the lightweight shell kind), REI full-finger gloves, reflector leg straps and -- coolest of all -- waterproof helmet cover that doubles as a reflector. Finally, I added my prize, a symbol of all my dorkiness that will forever mark me here: my waterproof backpack cover. God, I love that thing. I can bike for miles and nothing inside my pack ever feels the rain. Sure, it's a giant, flat gray and uglier than a garbage bag, but it is the Best Invention of All Time. This makes Velcro look like a first grade science project.

It's true that I stand out a bit, as most Cambridge students seem to prefer the "I'm going to die on this bike anyway, so I might as well look good doing it" statement. You see girls in miniskirts, guys in long, dangerously flapping trenchcoats, old ladies in long, sweeping dresses...I've lost count of the number of women who navigate their bikes in stilettos -- I tried boots once and promptly caught a heel in my pedal, then pulled the whole contraption on top of myself trying to yank it out before the light turned green. Between that and the mad determination of most cyclists to cause substantial pile-ups because they're too lazy to steer in a straight line, I prefer to be as obnoxiously visible as possible. I'd rather stay dry and unsplatted than be fashionably soaked and pretty on the pavement.

So I sped down the hill and arrived at the tech building bone-dry, despite the vicious downpour. Now, the only difficult part of my wardrobe is that I have to remove all of it before I enter a classroom -- teachers don't seem to appreciate it when I drip-dry on their floors. It consequently takes me a few moments to get ready: peel off the gloves, shrug off the jacket, pry off the helmet, unwrap the leg bands and take off the pants. Gotta love the looks that last one receives: "Hey! Is that girl taking her pants off in public?"

Yes, yes I am. Alas, they always lose interest when they see the real pair underneath the shell.

Anyway, I was in the process of disrobing when a couple of my friends walked past on their way to the same lecture. One checked out my things, which immediately sent me into a pointless exposition about the merits of waterproof backpack covers. Midway through my drivel, she cut me off and said:

"You know, you just reek of Seattle." Then she patted my arm as I turned crimson. "It's okay," she assured me. "It's a good thing."

It's never a good thing to hear the words "you" and "reek" in the same sentence. I should probably just start wearing Gortex and Birkenstocks while munching granola and be done with it.

How NOT to get a haircut

1. Do not look for the cheapest available option, even though the average price of a trim here is $60.
2. Do not settle for the 7 pound (aka $14) "trainee" option.
3. Avoid booking one two hours before your afternoon class, since it takes an average of over two hours for the trainee to comprehend the intricacies of your style.
4. Don't think you can leave in your piercings. Every time she snags them brutally with her comb, she'll apologize, but then -- somehow -- she'll manage to do it again.
5. Watch out for the supervisor who comes over to give the trainee some "getting started" tips, but who subsequently stares quizzically at your hair and says, "Well, I think you want to cut like this..." then pantomimes cutting empty air, stops, stares at her air cut, and says, "Yeah...I think that's right."
6. Bring magazines, books, your dissertation -- you'll have plenty of time to get through it all. Plus, it beats the excrutiating experience of watching the trainee painstakingly cut a whole 1/16th of an inch at a time around your entire head.
7. When she finishes and the sides are completely different, insist that she have her instructor come take a look. Should the trainee attempt to fix it herself, pry the scissors from her all-too-helpful hands, grab the nearest razor, and just start shaving.
8. NEVER go into a salon where not a razor can be found. Or where "texturize" isn't a phrase they've heard.
9. On second thought, just don't have short hair in England. No one else does, thereby making it impossible for British hairdressers to learn how to cut and style anyone who doesn't have a shoulder-length mane.
10. Just shell out the damn $60 and figure that saving yourself long-term psychological damage is worth the cash.

Time flies

Ugh. Sorry for failing to write. The week's been busy, but it also passed before I knew it was here. I will resume my normal posting tomorrow - tonight, I have to make myself sleep.

How to irritate your international roommates

Point at a can of vegetables. Ask, "How do you say the word for the material in that can?" Cackle until you lose your breath when the Scotswoman glares and mutters, "Alyewmineeum."

Playing the fool

I woke up this morning and couldn't roll out of bed. Sitting up was out of the question, but I thought I might be able to accomplish rolling if I could just ease myself onto my side, then let gravity handle the rest. Unfortunately, the muscles wouldn't comply.

Yesterday, I clambered a-horseback after being away from lessons for years. I've joined the university riding club, and, based on my experience, I've been placed into the intermediate/advanced class. Based on my muscles, I should probably be at the primordial "ought to stick with admiring pretty horses from afar" level.

My horse, Suete (pronounced "Sweaty," which is just a lovely image to conjure up), is a cantankerous 20 year-old Arab/Lusitano cross. Most 20 year-old horses are gentle, stately geriatrics, perfect for riders in less-than-ideal dressage physique. However, anyone who's ever ridden an Arab can attest to the fact that it's the closest thing to riding a wild zebra; if you finish without losing any digits or limbs, you've done well. Suete began the day by taking a well-aimed snap at me when I tightened his girth -- although I don't really blame him, since it's the equivalent of having someone position your belt so your pants don't budge, even if you jump up and down stairs for an hour. As any member of the equine species is able to do, Suete instantly determined that I was a rusty old rider; as soon as I hit the saddle, he proceeded to skitter sideways across the yard while I tried to rein him in with one hand and find my bloody stirrups with the other.

Two hours later, I felt like I'd been put inside a large burlap sack and hammered vigorously with a meat mallet. Most of the lesson went like this:

Experienced British Dressage Instructor: "LEG YIELD FROM 'K' TO THE CENTER LINE."
Except, of course, between the brisk wind and her thick accent, it sounded more like:
"LEYEELDFROKTOCELINE."
Me: "What? What the hell was that? Something about moving left?"
Suete: "Get this bloody sack of cement off my arthritic back before I brush her off on the nearest low-hanging tree branch."
Consequently, I tried to follow the rider in front of me. This proved difficult, as Suete had been nominated for Slowest Plodding Farm Animal of the Year and was trying valiantly to win.

In dressage, you're expected to have the horse perform incredibly complex moves (counter-canter, flying lead changes, performing somersaults while fixing a cup of tea) without so much as twitching a finger. Instead, your legs and seat are supposed to do the work; weight shifts and muscle pressure should urge the horse forward "on the bit" until you and your animal are one with the energy of the universe.

Alas, someone forgot to inform my inner thighs that they were to have tranformed into steel cables the night before my lesson. The leg yield we practiced entails trotting the horse diagonally across the arena while keeping his head straight forward. The reins should be firm against the horse's neck, but all of the motion should be propelled by the steady pulse of your outside leg against its flank. Or, in my case, your hands are bloody all over the place as your horse snorts and tries to canter straight, and your outside leg is futilely walloping his side like wet spaghetti. In the meantime, your "firm but steady" inside leg has worked loose of its stirrup, and your efforts to pick it back up merely drive the poor horse back the wrong way. So desperate are you to get him to move before the instructor notices the runaway train that is your "leg yield" that you get right on the tail of the lead horse, hoping their similar colors will cause the instructor to think the first one's merely grown a few spare legs.

Thus progressed my first lesson. Thankfully, I salvaged the entire thing by accomplishing the walk-to-canter transition without a hitch...except, of course, that I reversed my leg cues and Suete counter-cantered instead, sort of the equivalent travesty of driving on the left side of the road in the States.

I've spent this afternoon hobbling around, because if I stay seated for more than 15 minutes, my legs lock in place and I have to unbend myself with the nearest tool available. On Sunday, I do it all again! Ah well, at least this provides ample incentives for me to keep weight training during school...assuming I can ever move my legs more than a few inches forward or backward again...

Screw the displaced - where's my supper?

This is unbelievable. Apparently, according to a Friday article in the Seattle Times, our illustrious former FEMA director couldn't act on the Superdome situation because he hadn't finished his dinner.

"As Katrina's outer bands began drenching the city Aug. 28, Bahamonde [New England's regional director of FEMA, sent to New Orleans to assess the situation] sent an e-mail to Deborah Wing, a FEMA response specialist. He wrote: 'Everyone is soaked. This is going to get ugly real fast.'

"Subsequent e-mails told of an increasingly desperate situation at the New Orleans Superdome, where tens of thousands of evacuees were staying. Bahamonde spent two nights there with the evacuees.

"On Aug. 31, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that 'estimates are many will die within hours.'

"'Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical,' Bahamonde wrote. 'The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out.'

"A short time later, Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote to colleagues, in an e-mail containing numerous misspellings, to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. 'He needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes,' Worthy wrote.

"'Restaurants are getting busy," she said. 'We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise, followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.'

"'OH MY GOD!!!!!!!" Bahamonde messaged a co-worker. "I just ate an MRE [military rations] and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants.'"

Could the privleged and the powerful be further out of touch with life in the other America? News flash: we're not better or worse than anyone else. We have serious problems, and none of them will be resolved if we can't even acknowledge that something's gone wrong. Our nation was founded as an experiment; experiments fail every day. There's no reason that ours has to, unless we're hellbent on sabatoging the results...sure seems like it...

Take me home

I miss my city. I miss the shimmering glazed goldleaf surface of Lake Union at sunset. The lofty, joint-swollen chestnut trees that line Fremont Avenue and hail down spiney seed cases onto my helmet as I slog uphill. The peaks and crags floating between every hilltop home, tinging the urban corridors with wildness, lingering in the dreams of residents who cannot settle for driving but restless walk and hike and climb and paddle to retain the memory of the mountains. I think about it every day. Whether it's raining. Whether the waves on the Sound are choppy. What the trees look like this year as the leaves drop. Who's sitting in my old chair at the coffeehouse on NE 50th Street. God, I miss it so much. Never in my life have I felt a physical yearning for a place, let alone this persistent ache.

The odd thing is that I truly enjoy living abroad – school may not be what I expected, but the people, places and experiences make it so worthwhile…but part of me is still amidst the mountains, and even the high Palouse plateaus. I even miss its flaws: Seattle’s politically naïve ideologues, the inept public transit system (or lack thereof), its uneasy soul-searching about what it wants to become. It’s strange, because we’re losing the sea-worn fishing boats and the dingy bowling alleys that I love – and yet, I still want to go home.

There’s a great Marc Broussard song, “Home,” which I burned as part of my Seattle Mix. It’s the best soul-funk song that I’ve ever heard about coming home after a long absence; every time it plays, I growl and howl along with the lyrics, which pick you up with a storm’s force. I guarantee you I’ll be singing it on the plane that finally brings me back for good…so, as I work tonight…

This Greyhound is delta bound, mama
Baby boy done finally found
I said this Greyhound is delta bound, mama
Baby boy done finally found his way home
Said take me home…
Straight from the water
Straight from the water, child
You don’t know nothin’ about this
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home

Bad girl

This week's a little crazy, but I promise to update tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've discovered that no one in Cambridge has heard of kale -- but they've all tried (and loved) deep fried Mars Bars. They chew such lovely holes through your stomach lining. Seriously, people. You were a global superpower for centuries, and you never discovered how to cook??

Scenes from last night's boat trip along the Thames

The Tower Bridge at dusk.

Tower Bridge at night

The Tower Bridge leads to the Tower of London, where several heads of state lost their heads.

The London Eye

When we visited in January, we picked the one month where the London Eye closed for annual maintenance. This time, they wouldn't let me off the boat to take a ride. Instead, I holed up in the hull with a small cadre of fellow sufferers who were forced to listen to Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson bleat their horrendous renditions of formerly tolerable country songs. If the Thames weren't so cold, I would have opted for a long swim home.

The Thames at night

I'm still working out the kinks on this camera -- I miss my 35mm, but it's a pain to carry on short trips. Consequently, the photo is a bit blurry.

Fear the hamster

Apparently, the Dutch have spent a few too many years behind sea walls. Meet the Korenwolf, a small, indigenous hamster who feeds on grain in breweries. So admired (or feared?) is the Korenwolf that he has been granted his own beer label. Just look at him, clutching the wheat between his pernicious paws. Clearly, the Dutch have bigger things to worry about than the sea swamping their country.

Ndugu wants to know why the hell we haven't given him a brand yet, let alone a cool foreign name.

The Balliol Bop

Last week, I attended my first "bop" at Oxford, the Beta Omega Phi bop (ha ha, get it?)...a bop is basically yet another excuse for the good students of England's finest universities to guzzle far more alcohol than anyone should physically be capable of consuming. Coincidentally, this week's Cambridge student paper ran an article describing the latest antics of their inebriated freshers: one fine young man stopped up his sink with a wad of towels, turned on the faucet, and promptly passed out in a chair. Awhile later, when water from the room began seeping beneath the door and pouring down the stairwell, another intoxicated student stumbled in to find him oblivious and ankle-deep in water.

These are the people who run much of the Western world. If I were you, I'd be very frightened.

The theme of the evening was "Back to School," which meant that every British girl showed up in her public school uniform. Being culturally oblivious Americans, Coalescent Boy and I decided to go with the "dropout/frat boy" theme; I donned my finest punk threads, he found his most obnoxious hat (which, of course, I did not purchase or suggest wearing). Here we are, surrounded by sloshed blokes in ties and shattered girls in plaid miniskirts and stilettos. Can you see the panic in our eyes? We are way out of our league here.

Why do they hate us?

Because.

Only an American would have the chutzpah/sheer, indomitable stupidity to try this at a party full of stuffy Englishmen.

Secretly, I admire him. Publically, I say I'm Canadian.

The world is a sadistic place

Yeah. So Bright Eyes and Death Cab, my favorite new discovery and favorite old friend, are touring Seattle next month.

I'm so tempted to use our "discretionary allowance" to fly in for a few nights of music. Stupid residency requirements.

I should note that I may be the only Death Cab fan who's followed them since their first album came out but who has yet to see them in concert. Every damn time, there's been a final exam, a trip or an ocean separating me from Ben and the gang. Damn it, guys! Can you say "World Tour???"

Grrrrr. Back to reading about Latin American water policy. Be still, my beating heart.

The head, it's a little fuzzy

Augh! AUGH!

How is it 10am already??? Why is my pile of papers still untouched? Why are clothes strewn all over my couch? What on earth possessed me to agree that it would be wise to attend a "Formal Hall" exchange at another college?

Formal Hall exchanges are not diplomatic events between wise peers who sip port and politely debate world economics. They are a mad frenzy, an excuse to dress up, visit someone else's dining hall (typically an ancient, cathedral-like cavern filled with large portraits of long-dead college presidents), and make a complete arse of yourself because no one knows you anyway.

This explains why my group engaged in highly inappropriate conversation, imbibed a bit too much wine and subsequently stole a bottle of port (why, why, why do the British like port so bloody much? It's like drinking straight cough syrup!). It may not justify the actions, but it explains them.

The refined, well-groomed, bespectacled graduate students next to us turned their chairs away halfway through a rather unpalatable meal, in which the vegetarian "Tower of Mushrooms" was more like a small, wilted cowpie of tinned mini-mushrooms. Apparently, our loud chatter about the merits of the Onion and the Sun offended their dignified sensibilities. It probably didn't help when the college dean stood up to welcome guests, misidentified our college, and was publically castigated by a raucous chorus of "We're not from bloody X college! We're from Y!"

In hindsight, we should have viewed his misstep as a gift, because at least then our behavior could have been attributed to someone else's college, and they could have been banned for all life. Fortunately, within half an hour, the rest of the guests caught up with us and were guzzling their own pilfered port while the blue-bloods quailed with horror.

I really don't know how graduate students here manage to be drunk at least half the nights of the week -- and you should see the undergraduates! I think the British must slip their babies flasks as soon as they can walk. Regardless, we Americans just can't keep up. Instead, we gamely stagger behind and waste time drunk-texting innocent friends. (Yes, "text" is a verb here...and we're supposed to be the backwards part of the former Empire.)

Alas, I have a bit of catching-up to do, and another mandatory "social function" tonight (no, really, this one is required). Apparently, we scholarship kids are taking a boat ride around London in the dark, with free beverages sponsored by some consulting group eager to snap us up after we've obtained our incredibly useful degrees in geography and English. If I'm not back on the blog in a few days, it's probably safe to assume that I was lost on the Thames, and that I'm drifting out to sea with nothing but a bottle of that accursed port. 'Ta for now.

Only the Lonely

The booklist grew exponentially today (if you count journal articles, we're at well over 100, and I might as well just consign my soul to the vendors of highlighting pens and post-it flags). What this means is that I ought to be studying as if the very justification of my existence depended on the amount of puffed-up, hypertheoretical jargon I could digest in an evening. Instead, here's what I've done:

1. Read comics online
2. Fixed dinner
3. Snarfled pasta while reading the NYT online
4. Attended portion of Geography Department pub crawl (terrible attendance, possibly due to the fact that its students have managed to pick one of the most demanding degrees known to man at this rather demanding institution -- why is that always my lot in life??)
5. Roved between Geog pub crawl and regular weekly pub night for recipients of my funding source
6. Called CB
7. Fixed tea and warmed up embarrassingly addicting cup o' rice pudding
8. Contemplated reading list (duration: about 37 seconds)
9. Wrote this blog

All in all, I think I've become highly skilled at graduate student procrastination.

Since I've already demolished this once-promising evening, I might as well spend even more time blogging. In my month here, I've encountered numerous people toiling through the excrutiating torture of serious, long-distance relationships. Two things have helped me cope: Vodaphone's "talk for a ridiculously long time after 7 if you sign an 800 year contract" plan, and depressing music.

I realize this sounds counterintuitive, but nothing's better for the long-distance blues than indulging in truly soul-shriveling music. Hence, my song compilation, "Songs of Despair and Depression." However, since some of the lyrics in that mix could cause suicidal thoughts in small furry animals, I'm going to post my second list: "Missing (Insert Name of Love Object Here)":

1. David Gray, "Flame Turns Blue"
If I lost you, I don't know what I'd do
Burn forever where the flame turns blue

2. Flogging Molly, "If I Ever Leave This World Alive"
If I ever leave this world alive,
I'll come back down and sit beside your feet tonight
Wherever I am, you'll always be
More than just a memory

3. Snow Patrol, "Run"
Light up, light up
As if you had a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you, dear

4. Blink 182, "Miss You" (technically a break-up song, but it still works for me)
Will you come home and stop this pain tonight?

5. Sarah McLaughlin, "Push"
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in

6. Death Cab for Cutie, "I'll Follow You Into the Dark"
Disclaimer: this is the best song ever written. Yes, I worship the band anyway and always have, but I'm serious. Nothing can touch this, no one can rival its beautiful, poignant images. It's the only song that actually makes me cry every time I hear it, and the only one that epitomizes everything I've never been able to verbalize about the depth of my love. I get goosebumps just reading the lyrics. Breathtakingly gorgeous.
If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

I'll add to it as I find those perfect LDR songs, but so far this encompasses all the ones I need when I'm inside on a solitary, rainy night.

Master'scard

Number of books on my reading list as of this afternoon: 67

Number of papers for which I must submit titles in November, even though they aren't due until April and the classes upon which they're based don't start until January: 3

Number of words in my soon-to-be-conceived thesis: 20,000

Having the chance to obsess about all this over a glass of sherry in a dining hall older than Shakespeare? Priceless.

Camford: it's everywhere you want to be. And a few places you don't. (Oh, wait, that's the other credit card ditty, isn't it?)

Ahhh, the culture gap

One of my favorite things about being here is the international character of Oxbridge and Camford. In my flat alone, we have people from Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Nigeria, China and the United States. Our graduate group at my college includes students from Belarus, Canada, South Africa, Australia and Malaysia.

This diversity can lead to unforgettable encounters -- although not always the kind you anticipate. The candid, straightforward mannerisms of Germans can be difficult to process, particularly in a matter-of-fact conversation like the one Coalescent Boy and I had last night:

Hans: So, you want to study in South America?

Me: Yep. (Launch into brief explanation of planned work)

Hans: I was in Bolivia last year. And, ja, my friends and I bought some cocaine, you know? But I did not realize they don't like that at home; I guess it's illegal to bring it back. And the customs, ja, they were really angry.

Ja, you don't say?? I'm trying to picture Hans in the customs line declaring his imports: a handmade rug, a few paintings and an ounce of cocaine. They must have been so stymied that they didn't know what to do with him -- or he's really, really good at getting out of sticky situations and I should hire him immediately to help me out at Cambridge.

Bartender! Give this man a drink!

Somehow, when I moved here, I hoped that all of the embarrassing things our country manages to do might miraculously cease. Perhaps I could have harnessed the negative energy around the capitol and dragged it over here, where the biggest issue on people's minds seems to be whether Prince William's going to do anything about his bald spot.

But no. Our Fearless Leader seems hell-bent on one-upping himself every time he steps out in public -- which, thanks to the frenzied maneuvers of his press secretary, seems to occur less and less often.

Here's today's little gem:

Some critics, [Bush] said, had claimed "that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals." But, he continued, "I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001, and Al Qaeda attacked us anyway."

Yeah? Well, that's because Al Qaeda wasn't based in Iraq at the time of the attack, you imbecilic monkey puppet!! (Sorry. I've sworn to refrain from vulgarity on this blog except when absolutely necessary, so some creative semi-curses must come into play.)

I mean, are you really this stupid? Do you really think that's why people are upset?? Does it disturb anyone else that the president thinks our collective IQ is about as big as the amount of evidence that proves creationism?

It gets better, though - now he's learning how to improvise!!

He said that the United States and its partners had disrupted at least 10 serious Al Qaeda plots in recent years - including three in the United States - and had blocked five attempts to case targets or infiltrate the country.

Press Secretary McClellan later said that "off the top of his head," he could name two of the 10. The others, it seems, are probably classified. Or they don't freaking exist and we're so desperate to maintain this state of fear that we need to create little snaggle-toothed monsters who just want to infiltrate our country and bomb it into the stone age. And eat small American children who don't go to bed on time.

"Against such an enemy, there's only one effective response," Mr. Bush said, in an apparent riposte to critics seeking an immediate withdrawal of American forces. "We never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory...It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people. It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of a rising democracy, and it is courage in the cause of freedom that once again will destroy the enemies of freedom. "

To summarize: "Enemy, enemy, victory, evil evil, freedom, courage, victory, evil, freedom, freedom, freedom."

It's funny, because over here I just keep reading stories about how the truly courageous -- Iraqi citizens caught in the daily crossfire between Islamic militants and American soldiers -- are being driven out of their own country. How they thought we were going to help them, but we only manged to create the perfect environment for religious fundamentalists to fill the nation's power vacuum. How they're afraid to help us because we lack both the man-and-firepower to protect them when irate neighbors attack their homes.

Seriously, Mr. President? Can you do us all a favor and shut the hell up? In fact, why not do something useful with your term and really try to make that record vacation streak untouchable? Just take the next three years off. Please. I'm sure there's a bar in Crawford that would be thrilled to have you back in town.

Blogalicious

Ladies and...well, ladies, since I only know one or two men who actually read this blog...let me introduce you to my newest idol, She Who Must Be Emulated, Worshipped and Waited Upon:

Shakespeare's Sister

Just makes little, liberal me all misty-eyed.

And sometimes, you can't make it on your own

It will behoove me to refrain from writing everything I'd like to about the things going on here. Suffice it to say that all is not well, that I've been introduced swiftly to the downside of being a graduate student, that every day I spend without the husband proves harder than the last.

I know sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the regular cycles of being abroad and actual depression; I think I'm really just hovering somewhere in between right now. Fortunately, these things tend to clear up quickly -- at this point, just finding a satisfying, cheap vegetarian meal made my evening brighter.

It helps to have friends outside the strange, inexplicably convoluted University that currently controls my right to existence. I've also taken great pleasure in gathering with other graduate students in my college for wine, wine, cocktails and eardrum-bursting rounds of karaoke. They understand me, anyway.

I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor about this whole thing, because what else am I going to do? I will NOT let this consume my life, at least not to the point where I can no longer remember what life's like outside the university (a problem, alarmingly, for many students who've grown up in this insular system). Still, it's been one of the most trying weeks I've ever endured -- I'm behind on sleep, emotionally ragged and feeling less and less sure about my place here. I miss my city, my Seattle. Part of me keeps fantasizing about purchasing a one-way to Oxford and hopping on the bus with my suitcases haphazardly packed. Subsequently, the rest of me looks around and sees this ragtag community of frazzled grad students, and it loves the way we bond over sickly sweet port and tales of academic woe. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I guess this is the part of grad school I neglected to consider: it's so much more than just going back to school.

Hold on, hold on to yourself

Hold on, hold on to yourself
'Cause this is gonna hurt like hell...

The blogger community lost a tremendous presence this weekend. If you read "Mom's Cancer" when it was available online or followed her family as they worked to help her recover, I'm sorry to report that she passed away on Saturday.

Please visit the site and take a moment to remember her in whatever way you can - for anyone who ever knew a cancer survivor or was one themselves, this is an irreplaceable loss.

Getting my bearings

The irony, ask me: "Where have you been?"
I don't know, I don't know because I don't know where to begin

This Friday marked my second full week in England. For some reason, I'm finding it difficult to transcribe the thoughts running through my head or to describe the moments where I've really thought, "Yes, I've arrived." I think this has a lot to do with how fragmented my time is; on any given day, I have a series of events to attend that are put on by the college, the department, the university, my funding source and the graduate student union. I fly from one social function to another, launching myself into a blur of other fledgling graduates who are beating themselves against the windows trying to "get in" -- even if we aren't sure what getting in entails.

My school is extraordinarily international: in my graduate house alone, I have flatmates from Scotland, England, Nigeria, China and Northern Ireland. Consequently, many of us have lost our bearings completely. Oceans and time zones separate us from everything familiar, and we're all in a mad rush to find substitutes here.

Realistically, this breakneck pace won't last. I've been 100% social since the beginning of the week, and I've reached my limit. I'm not antisocial, but I do appreciate a little down time -- and after my 300th conversation about where I'm from and what I do, I've participated in enough small talk to last for years. So I skipped out on a barbeque today to catch up, chat with Bryan on the phone, file my nails, write this blog and read the news. Without television or a radio (very expensive here), I feel somewhat cut off from the outside world; if I can't get online for an hour to scan the headlines, I may not know anything about current events. This is highly disconcerting for a news junkie, but it's reality because I also have two countries to keep track of now. I want to be aware of politics and global affairs in England, but I still need to retain ties to the US and Seattle.

Being an American here, by the way, is a mixed bag. You're doomed from the moment you open your mouth -- although for some reason, several people think I'm Australian. You know, that Seattle-Australian dialect...erm...Everyone says, "Ahh, you're American," in a knowing way, with a narrowing of the eyes and a tilt to the head that makes you think, "My God, what does that mean?!?" What it means, of course, is a mixed bag: you're forever linked to a country whose global reputation is a bit shoddy right now, but you're also connected with a place that still holds tremendous interest for people. You feel special and embarrassed at the same time, like you should apologize for parts of yourself but still be proud of the whole package.

I start my departmental orientation tomorrow, which is a relief because I don't have the slightest clue about what I'm supposed to be doing. The only things I've learned here so far run as follows:

1. European cheese is really, really, really fantastic.

2. The whole 9-to-5 retail hour schedule, while quaint and ostensibly appealing, is incredibly annoying in practice. You can't buy anything if you're in school all day, and you certainly can't go to a doctor if you have a day job. I'll probably need to cut classes to purchase milk -- or, lord help me, join the throngs who saturate the city's streets on weekends, thereby rendering it impossible to purchase a few apples without waiting for half an hour.

3. Due perhaps to the relatively small size of their nation, English people have endearing ideas about distance. Everyone recoils in horror when they find out my college is "up on the hill! so far away!" In reality, the "hill" is a gentle slope of perhaps 100 yards, and the "far away" is a 10-minute walk into the town's center. The unfortunate problem is that no one will visit me because I am so blooming far from everything. I'm starting to really understand why the vast Great Plains terrified early settlers who confronted their unending stretches.

4. Every night is student night at the bars.

5. Taking advantage of this will render you impoverished and severely irritable.

6. Being from Seattle has its perks. I'm the only one who isn't complaining about the weather. Hell, it's sunny in October! Who cares if the wind is cold? It's SUNNY in OCTOBER! Bring on the ultimate frisbee and the flip-flops!

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to post all the things I'd like to, but I'll do my best. Tomorrow should be interesting - more to come...

On top of the world

An unfathomable amount of Peak District is dedicated to public pathways. You can walk up any hill you want to find this trail, which runs the length of the peaks on this side of the valley. To reach it, we crossed through a dozen fields; farmers here welcome local hikers, who apparently crowd the area in the summer. Open space is at a premium in England, something I take for granted in the Northwest.

The view from the hill

I'm really using this granite memorial to prop me up -- we had to use the rock by my arm to hold down our food. Otherwise, it would have blown straight across the plateau into the mouths of some overly friendly sheep. Don't ever let a sheep know you have food -- trust me.

Not just another pretty face

Look, you try smiling when the wind is blowing at 45 mph in your face. I dare you to keep your eyes open!

This is from the top of the peak -- the hostel where we stayed is in the valley to our right, just out of the frame.

You may encounter these in the daytime

The large red bull on the right just decided that we weren't worth head-butting into the stone fence behind me. Kind of him, really. Didn't want to be splattered along a granite wall just yet, particularly as we'd barely started our hike.

And this is what you run into at night

Dozens of sheep standing startled in front of the only gate that stands between you and the path home. Shushing them away doesn't work, nor, apparently, does anything short of physically prodding them out of the road. Not too bright, sheep. Supposedly, you can give one a local anesthetic and operate on her while she contentedly chews her cud and watches you mess with her insides. I'm all for promoting animal intelligence, but sheep are a hard sell.

Even the cameras wear beer goggles here

How better to celebrate the end of orientation than with a pint of extra-cold Guinness? Strangely, it's the only beer I consistently finish in one setting.

By the way, you cannot ask for an Irish Car Bomb in England. Unless, of course, you like watching bartenders slowly back along the counter. I actually did not ask - not officially. I tried to describe the drink to him; when that failed, I muttered its name and explained my hesitation to request it. Nevertheless, as soon as the words left my mouth, well, the service declined a bit.

Several Irish Car Bomb devotees, myself included, have decided that we will just ask the bartender to give us the ingredients. If he comes up with a name, great! If not, no one's the wiser.

Pictures from our scholar group's orientation in Peak District

So, my lovely proxy server here prevents me from doing anything useful: voice chat, Skype, and now Bloggerbot, which I used to publish pictures. Thus, I introduce the new, slightly less attractive format.

This is a view of one of Peak District's many valleys. I'd tell you which one, but I honestly don't know. To find it, locate the biggest peak you can find in the entire landscape. Climb said peak. After normal breathing resumes, snap photo.

Most of the area is like this - dotted with sheep that roam past ancient stone fences and buildings. I loved it the moment the area came into view.

Still here

Sorry - things are getting a bit mad around here as orientation begins...

In a day or two, I will post pictures of the place where we had our scholarship orientation. It was up in the Peak District, which is breathtakingly beautiful and very, very English: picture rolling, verdant hills dotted with flocks of sheep that graze next to crumbling stone fences.

I'm in awe of my fellow scholars. They are compassionate, warm, funny people who are genuinely committed to their work and who really believe they can do something good for the world. There's none of the usual scholarship-type b.s. It's all too good to be true...

By the way. If you come across a large herd of cattle while traipsing through a field, make sure none of them are de-horned bulls before you walk, cooing, up to the cute little fuzzy baby cow and his mama. Should this occur, back away very, very slowly from the hulking red beast with the rolling yellow eyes as it lowers its head in your direction. Find the nearest stone fence and quickly use it as an escape route. Furthermore, a homemade raft will sink when burdened with 11 people. Also, do not order an Irish Car Bomb in England. I did not actually do this; I discretely asked a bartender if they had a name for a drink I was afraid to request...and of course he immediately turned to his mates and shouted, "Did you 'ear wot this gurl wants?" Bloody hell...

Miss you

CB's gone.

There's a hole in my heart six inches wide.

I walked home with a "Missing CB" mix on my Ipod. When Snow Patrol's "Light Up" came on, scenes from his departure played in my head; I saw myself walking down the street and slowly, particle by particle, dissolving into the wind, scattering back down the road towards the highway where the bus rolled towards Oxford. At the end, all I had to do was flick my fingers to send the last pieces racing over Cambridge's soaring spires.

The song ended. I was still on the street, still alone. I know we'll get through this and that our fates could have been far worse...but god, it hurts. I've never felt this sense of loss before. It makes me realize how grateful I am for everything I have -- friends, family, memories -- that can help me get through this. It might take a little while.

Those low-hanging willows will kill ya' -- ask the guys in the boats around us

A view of my college (there's much more to it)

Croissants and espresso for breakfast? Lovely!

Photos from yesterday's excursion -- in reverse order, because I am an idiot.

Bryan, now the suave, sophisticated punter, easily sends us back up the river

King's College chapel

A very, very famous bridge in town

A view from the river as we pass between some of the older colleges (as in, several centuries older...)

This is NOT as easy as it looks from the streets over the water

Bryan embarking upon our punting journey

Our new discovery: a great French cafe in the middle of town

The college grounds

This is my flat! I'm around the back, on the left...

Tubthumping

Aw yeah, first drunk night in England...shouldn't blog like this, but oh well.

Went punting this morning after indulging in too-delectable camembert-and-tomato croissants (hard to explain: picture large pole, cumbersome boat, lots of amateurs falling into the river while bemused spectators take pictures). Didn't fall in -- probably because Coalescent Boy steered -- but we felt like pros by the end as we basked in the sun-soaked river while ducks swam past.

Found WD-40 and shower squeegees: a triumph you cannot understand. The equivalent of discovering the Holy Grail.

Enjoyed a lovely trip through the official university shop: oh, wooly college scarfs, how I love thee. Am so embarrassed by what I'd love to purchase there.

Found an out-of-the-way, non-smoking pub in Camford which is now our second home. Spent hours playing Uno and Chess. Were the only Americans in the entire place for the duration of our stay -- I will go back time and again for this very reason. Curiously bitter tap beers, along with mysterious ciders and other ambers...

Love it. Lots of drunk girls in miniskirts and 3" heels staggering around Cam central as we went home. New Hall? Quiet as a mouse. :) Particularly enjoyed the guitar player in the garbage can, strumming out the bin as passerbys stared in wonder. Great stuff.

Have said "cheers" and "good on yeh" to more people than I care to admit.

Today was a good day.

By the way, it's kinda funny that people find me by using google UK to search for "lauden wainwright bbc."

Gotta love the internet. Gotta love English bitters.

The birds have it made on Broadway

Cheers to NYC for making the nights a little safer for migratory birds.

For years, birds have died by the thousands in our big cities: the bright lights and glass windows confuse them, causing them to get lost or to fly into buildings:

The combination of glass, tall buildings and bright light is extremely dangerous for birds, according to Daniel Klem, an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He says that a conservative estimate is that more than 100 million birds die each year from crashing into glass on structures of all types, even houses.

Now, the city's turning down the lights during the peak of the migration:

The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, the Citigroup Center, the Morgan Stanley Building and the World Financial Center are among the high-profile high-rises that have agreed to requests from the city and the Audubon Society to dim or turn off nonessential lighting at midnight.

Thus the city's skyscrapers will defer to nature at least twice a year: by dimming their lights in September and October, during the peak of the fall migratory season, and again in April and May, during the peak of the spring migratory season.

While the Empire State Building's lighting policy to protect migratory birds is decades old, and other buildings have used netting on glass windows so birds do not mistake reflections for sky, this policy will be the first citywide effort to protect migratory birds from crashing into buildings. The voluntary policy is aimed at buildings taller than 40 stories, as well as lower glass buildings that hug the Hudson and East Rivers, which birds use as navigational aides.

Seems like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and all of the other "green" West Coast cities should do the same, don't you think?

To be or not to be...

The latest travesty from the Vatican came out yesterday in the form of a proposal to ban gays from the priesthood.

The Vatican argues this will solve the sex-abuse problems. Anyone with half a brain can beg to differ: most abuse took place during or before the 1980s, when gay men were shunned by the church, forced into the closet or quietly driven out of the clergy. Since then, a more tolerant policy resulted in a rise in "out" priests -- and less abuse.

Never mind that straight and gay men abuse adolescent boys. Never mind that the best priests I've ever known are gay -- the ones who can relate to the isolation and rejection I felt as a woman in the church, since they, too, reside at the margins of the cathedral.

I'm not sure anymore. Between this thinly veiled bigotry and the ongoing, increasing push to keep women in subservient roles, I don't feel comfortable calling myself Catholic. I've stopped going to Church, but I don't know what that means. Am I a sinner looking for an easy way out by finding a church that agrees with my values? Or am I in the right: an angry, frustrated, overlooked part of an archaic faith that fails to meet the needs of its flock?

I wish I knew.

Rainy daze

According to locals, today was a typical day in Cambridge. First, it was cloudy. Then, it began to clear up -- but suddenly, fierce showers swept in from the north, bringing a bone-chilling subarctic wind along with them. This climate shift, naturally, occurred as Coalescent Boy and I slogged our way down the road on our first run in the city. On the way back, shoes sodden and clothes plastered to our bodies, the storm literally blew out of town and a spate of sunshine took its place. Now, it's cloudy, cold and dark.

My moods have been a lot like the weather: mercurial, shifting and generally unpredictable. I suppose that's the joys of culture shock and homesickness, but it's downright annoying to go from laughing over tea to snuffling in front of a picture album. Last night, I lost it because neither my phone nor my internet connection works worth a damn, so I have no reliable way to communicate with anyone outside my room (I'm in the library right now). For some reason, that was the last straw. I'm still irked.

I miss my friends a lot -- haven't heard from some, wish I could use the phone to talk with others. The insecure part of me worries that distance will grow between us, even though the rest of me knows that won't happen without intentional neglect. Now that I have amazing friends, I don't plan to lose them. Still, it's difficult: I don't think a week has passed in eight years where I haven't talked with my best friend in person or on the phone. That makes the last eight days an unpleasant first. I don't like it at all. I miss her so much, and she's going through her own travel woes as a graduate student in Kansas. All of us are in transition right now; so much of the future remains uncertain, and it feels like the rug's been pulled out from under our feet.

In two days, CB leaves for Oxford and I'll be on my own. I used to love being alone, but now it's not a prospect I relish. I don't like the "getting to know you" process -- it's long, arduous and emotionally trying. Kelli once described it as a lot like dating, and it's so true (although, perhaps only for girls -- do guys take as long to make true, intimate friends? Or does the definition of a good friend generally differ for men and women?)

Still, I'm convinced I'll meet some cool people here who can put up with my cultural foibles, weird schedule and quirky sense of humor. I'm looking forward to visitors from abroad, too; hopefully, more than a few will pass through town in the next three years. Three years...it's long enough to seem impossible, but brief enough for me to know that I'll never get to do and see everything I want to. All I can do is take advantage of the time I have -- and keep running, no matter how busy I become. Whenever homesickness or stupid anxieties kick in, it helps to think I can run them into the ground. Or at least run myself into the ground, thereby making me too tired to worry. :)

Things learned in Camford: Lesson 1

Do not under any circumstances move, flex, twitch, sneeze, or even contemplate the above during an acupuncture session.

Unless, of course, you enjoy the sensation of searing pain shooting up your forearms.

Would you like curry with your Eminems?

I turned on my new radio last night while I set the alarm, only to hear "Lose Yourself" playing on warp-Chipmunks speed with a tinny, southeast Asian techno beat blaring in the background. I wonder if he knows he's been remixed by some bizarre, tone-deaf dj?

Bryan and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I can't decide if it's endearing or just sick. All I know is I never want to hear it again!

No, actually, the right side of the road is the RIGHT side of the road

I don't like to make sweeping generalizations about other people's cultures, but I've decided this one deserves a broad brush stroke.

Driving on the left is insane.

I realize I lack any sort of actual evidence or justification for saying so, but I don't care. It's borderline psychopathic.

Or maybe I'm the nut, the one who spaced out a little today test-riding a bike and executed a neat swoop into oncoming traffic. Oops. Luckily, most people here are used to inept international students, so the bikes swerved around me and the car ahead slowed down long enough for me to u-turn hastily. My husband helped by yelling, "Wrong way! You're on the wrong side!" as if the sudden apparition of headlights hadn't signaled a judgment error.

To his credit, he was also polite enough to tell the stricken bike shop owner that we really were fresh off the plane -- and, I assume, to promise that we'd pay for the bike should it become embedded in the bonnet of a Volkswagen.

Seriously, biking around here requires serious skill, attention, and a healthy dose of "to hell with it"-ness. Picture narrow, 10th-century roads now overrun with double-decker buses, top-heavy lorries and cars going at least several times the speed of sound. Add in even narrower, 10th-century sidewalks which frequently overflow with pedestrians, who unexpectedly step into the three-inch strip of bike lane. It isn't the pedestrian's fault; more often than not, he or she is being forced into bike-and-car traffic by someone coming the other way, as medieval Brits apparently failed to foresee the wisdom of walkways where people could pass shoulder-to-shoulder.

Consequently, one would assume, helmets and bike lights would be the rule of the road. However, this is not the case. The far more interesting reality was ascertained in a random sample conducted by my statistician husband and I as we staggered the length of town with new room supplies protruding ominously from plastic bags. By our calculations, approximately 10-20 percent of cyclists wear helmets, and perhaps 60 percent use lights. The bike shop clerk actually seemed pleasantly surprised when I asked if he sold helmets. Of course, people here also ride in anything: miniskirts, or long, flapping trenchcoats, or stiletto-heeled boots. I've seen Yorkshire terriers balancing on bike baskets, grannies slinging plastic bags of groceries over their handlebars, and more than a few students riding what looked like buckets of spare parts stuck together with twine. I'm not sure why there aren't hundreds of bikers lying dead in the streets, what with the swerving to avoid cars, pedestrians, dogs, stray chip vans, and a motley assortment of trash bags, but it defies reality.

We've also learned why 1 of 3 Camford students loses their bicycle to thieves. Yes, there are bike robber barons roaming the worn brick streets, but it probably has more to do with a very simple fact: no one knows how to use a lock. In general, bikes are locked in one of three ways: to themselves, freestanding on the street; to a finger's-wide railing, with only the frame secured; or not at all. Most people seem quite content to leave their bikes on the sidewalks with the locks coiled around the seatposts, then can't understand why they disappear. If I were a morally ambivalent person, I'd probably have amassed a collection of dozens of cycles by now -- I could walk down the street and scoop them up by the armload. It's hilarious, but a little disturbing, as this is the Mother Country for many of us and thereby should be a beacon of logic and wisdom. Makes me glad I'm just a Guinness-fed Irishman.

So, I realize I'm going to look ridiculous on my beater road bike with a helmet, two LED lights, a hefty lock and reflective clothing -- but somehow I think I prefer "dork" to "curiously squishy thing on the windshield."

Smoking, snogging and snacks

Unexpected but interesting things about Oxford:

1. Everyone smokes. I'm not talking about the huddled masses who lurk in shadowy alleyways along Seattle's late-night hotspots; I mean, every freaking person in the restaurant, pub, bus stop and college. Apparently, they only banned smoking on trains two years ago! It's a little unsettling to find out that there's a single smoke-free restaurant in town. In most cases, the "non smoking" area (if it exists) consists of a cluster of tables separated from another cluster by a two-foot high railing. 'Cause, you know, the smoke doesn't rise above knee level after you spew it out into the atmosphere. On the bright side, it's made my resolution to keep running that much firmer, as I'd hate to return from three great years abroad with wrinkled lungs.

2. PDA is definitely more acceptable here. In three days, we've seen several couples smooching, groping, and slobbering in front of graveyards, outside libraries, and in the queue at the bookstore. I've never really seen so many hands obviously placed on butts in my life. I've also determined that our general stodginess towards public foreplay is actually a good thing; nothing makes you set aside your brie sandwich faster than a 30-something couple swapping spit in the grocery line. I thought England was supposed to be stuffy??

3. Tofu. Tofu. Tofu. Just writing it brings a tear to my eye.

No one knows what it is. I asked three clerks at Marks & Spencers, a major grocery chain, and each looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. "Toe-fooo?" one girl asked. I tried describing what it was, which instantly caused everyone within hearing range to cringe. "No, I don't think we have that." Another clerk looked at me and blinked, so I repeated my request. In a gentle voice reserved for the harmlessly insane, he asked me, "Toad food?" I tried again. "Oooh, todfud, well, we don't 'ave that 'ere, I'm sure." For some reason, he directed me to the spice rack, which consisted of salt, salt and chutney.

Finally, after traversing three separate stores in desperation, I swallowed my fear of stereotyping and asked an Asian clerk. He, too, repeated the word, but more in wonder than in confusion. "You're the first person who's asked me for it," he said, smiling, and directed me to a small Asian foods market "somewhere by the train station, I think." My new goal in life is to find that store, then purchase all of their stock and start my own restaurant called Tofu!, in which I shall convert thousands of tuna-mayonnaise-and-jacket-potato devotees to my way of life.

I WANT MY TOAD FOOD!!!

Mission accomplished

We're here!

Sure, we slept until 4pm today (ah, the joys of jet lag), but we are safe and sound in Bryan's new town. Yesterday was exhausting, as we had to lug four suitcases, two severely bloated backpacks and one battered bike box from Heathrow to Oxbridge.

So far, we've managed to find an amusing assortment of products for his room (although we passed on the "Who's The Daddy?" t-shirt...do you think they know it's supposed to be "Your?")...Best new product? "Kleenex for Men", whose only attributes seem to be its needlessly large size and somewhat masculine black-and-red packaging. Second favorite so far has to be "Love Your Bum" toilet paper. Best find? A small shop in the town's covered market which sells Real Live Skippy peanut butter!! I hated Skippy back home, but it's a thousand times better than the godawful, paste-colored excuse for pb they offer in Sainsbury's.

England is less overwhelming than it was on the first go-round, which makes me very grateful for spending that frigid January week traipsing around the country. We still quail in our shoes whenever we have to cross a street; last night, someone actually did speed up when they saw us in a crosswalk. Maybe it's like Cuba: drivers would rather kill you than maim you, because then they don't have to worry about injury lawsuits or hospital bills.

In either case, students here are nice and pleasantly drunk, at least on the weekends, so that's much like home. It's amazing how many of their first-year functions involve copious amounts of alcohol. Perhaps it increases the palatability of the food? Although we discovered a decent Italian place tonight, so that's promising.

Internet access will be sporradic for awhile, but I will try to update at least a few times per week. Cheers for now!

This is it

The bags are packed, the friends are called (or will be tonight), and the boxes are ready to ship. Somehow, it just figures that my last days have been spent with the evil, evil "Hollaback Girl" in my head. I may nominate it for worst song of the century. Gwen, what did you do, girl?

London calling!

See you in a few days.

Last month's Mount Rainier trip

Sometimes wandering off the trail is a good thing...

THIS is why I have to live in Seattle someday...

Trekking up to Bellingham

Enjoying the late summer sun along Bellingham's marina.

More from Mount Rainier

The bumblebee triumphantly emerges from a tight fit inside a mountain flower...

FH and I at the summit of the Skyline Trail.

Coup de grace

Yeah, the posts are going to be a little sporadic between now and the end of the month -- we depart in four days, and then my orientation schedule becomes all-consuming to the point where I'll be lucky to write "I'm not dead!" once in awhile...however, I'm trying to transfer 311 albums onto ITunes, so I have time right now.

I can't believe this was my final weekend in Washington, at least for a little while. It was so surreal; the most routine things became cause for reflection, like, "Hey, that may be the last angry, slightly drunk young guy in a big, mud-splattered pickup who screams obscenities at me when I bike past him!"

Last night, my family took us to the Purple Cafe, a fabulously snooty wine bar that seems completely out of place in my corner of the state. Their baked brie is worth the price of my future firstborn. And that chardonnay? Somehow, I have to convince FedEx to start a hot meals program to the underprivleged UK; without real peanut butter, baked brie and good vegan food, I may perish before winter arrives.

Tomorrow, I face the challenging task of packing my suitcases: one is already stuffed beyond its capacity, zippers straining to accomodate mountains of clothing in vacuum-sealed bags (dear god, please let the TSA security personnel refrain from sadistically ripping into those plastic packages when they know I have no vacuum at hand to staunch the flow of clothes that will erupt from their innards...). I've also smashed in a handful of personal belongings, including my Che and Fidel figurines (oh, Cuba...), my stuffed Husky (which seems to have shriveled after this week's stunning football performance), and my tea which happens to resemble pot. The warm coats, underwear and pants may have to wait for a nice post office to deliver them -- hey, at least I'll make a lasting impression among my new classmates. I'm still trying to figure out how I can meet British Air's 11-pound maximum carry-on limit when I have a laptop, an IPod, a few computer accessories, a folder full of entry requirement papers, a book, toiletries, and a freaking gigantic, chiropractor-prescribed pillow to stuff into my little bag. Of course, it could be worse: Bryan has an entire bike to disassemble and stuff in with his possessions. Erm...

By the way, go read Ellington Way right now. I don't really care what you're doing because it can't be more worthwhile. You can get a month's worth of strips on the site.

'Ta for now, but more to come...

P.S. -- (New favorite word? Podagra, or "gout, especially of the big toe." Who knew there was a word for that??)

More on pets and Katrina

Things are getting bad for pets who remain behind, and for the owners who refuse to leave them.

I know that FEMA has to think about people with allergies, etc, but would it kill them to have a coordinated rescue effort for pets, as well? It could be as simple as taking the pet to a designated shelter (e.g., pets from this part of the state go to Shelter X in Houston), giving the owner that shelter's contact number, and telling the person to call once they've been evacuated.

Or, we could further traumatize a highly unstable population by taking away their companions.

You pick.

Man's inhumanity to man

I've seen this on a few blogs, and I can't stop crying. I don't understand how people can be so callous -- the storm's already taken everything the survivors have, and officials are tearing their pets out of their arms?? Don't you realize the fragile emotional state of these victims? These pets are some of the only things they have left -- maybe the only family that remains -- and you throw them on the streets to fend for themselves? Animals are NOT property: they live, feel, fear, hurt and fight to survive. Domestic animals don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of making it on their own in such a screwed up place, and it's beyond cruel to leave them alone out there or to give owners an ultimatum: leave them, or starve with them.

This is so fucked up. Look at Cuba: they've been through equivalent storms, and for a developing country, they seem to fare a lot better than their northern neighbor. I can't believe we're rejecting their offers for help -- I can't believe they're even offering it, since we've done nothing but persecute them for decades. Before anyone calls me an out-of-touch socialist, I've been to Cuba. I've seen its upside and its downside, and all I have to say is no one can say anything about the country if they've never visited (and those of us who have still shouldn't assume we know much).

If judgment day ever comes, I hope we all sit before a council of animals who determine our fate. We deserve it.

So, that post I don't really want to write...

It's strange how easily we can deny the obvious. When all the facts lie bared before our faces, we suddenly focus on the shimmery horizon beyond them.

These are the facts I don't want to see, the ones that render me mute whenever an opportunity arises to bring them to the surface, the ones I wish I could shove back in the shadows:

1. My dog, Leo, is 13.
2. He is deaf.
3. He is going blind steadily.
4. He doesn't always know where or who he is. This is the only fact that could be fiction; it's impossible to tell, but that vacant gaze shows something.
5. He has a condition that's making him slowly, incrementally, agonizingly lose the function of his back legs. It's bad, bad, bad.
6. On Emergency Vets, they euthanize animals who exhibit symptoms like his.
7. Watching him try to lie down without putting any weight on his back legs makes me sick.
8. Having him look right through me makes me sicker.
9. There are days when he is scared, anxious and in pain. His vital organs might be fine, but nothing else is.
10. Sometimes I think he is only holding on because we can't let him go.
11. I don't want him to die.
12. I really don't want him to die if I'm not in that room with him.
13. Sometimes, when I come through the front door and he doesn't raise his head, I feel relieved. When he wakes up, I ache.

Ever since vets diagnosed him with cancer a few years ago, Leo hasn't been well. Surgery excised all traces of his disease, but it also sapped his energy; ever since, things have been deteriorating.

Leo is the first -- and only -- puppy I've had. I remember watching him steal a full head of romaine lettuce off the kitchen counter when he was a few months old; he triumphantly dragged it outside, all the way around our deck to the front of the house before exuberantly tearing it to pieces. Ever since, he's chosen lettuce over kibble and banana over beef.

When he was just a baby, he caught kennel cough, and we slept beside him on the kitchen floor as the husky gasps racked his tiny body.

In the 2001 earthquake, when I panicked and screamed for him to get in the downstairs bathroom doorway with me, he flew down the stairs roaring, every hair on his nape elevated, trying to kill whatever was scaring me. This is the same dog who wagged his tail and silently watched teens steal pumpkins off the front porch.

Traces of my dog remain, but they are fleeting and come with greater infrequency. For awhile, I didn't know if he'd make it to my wedding -- but when the day came, he was 10 years younger and pranced across the grounds like a king. Still, it took a lot out of him; the heat made him a little sick, and after he came home he slept for a day. I think that was one of the last times I saw my dog. Now, he's frequently underfoot, crying at nothing...and I realize he's probably doing everything he can to ask for his release.

I feel like a bad person because the part of me that knows he's slowly dying wants to be sure he dies in my arms. I don't want to get that phone call some evening. Of all the things making me anxious about our trip, this one might be the worst. It's unspoken, but we all know what we see. And I can't handle the thought of being away when he goes, or of letting him linger because his body won't die. The thing that scares me most is that he could live another two, maybe three years, and they would be the worst years he's ever endured. I'd always hoped he would die in his sleep, but I don't think that's going to happen. His heart is good, but he can't stand long because he's too stiff: why ask him for more? If this were a relative, a friend or me, I'd long for a choice to end the suffering...for Leo, we have one, and as much as I don't want to let go, it would be wrong to keep holding on.

Sometimes, I think dogs run away to die because they sense their owners can't ever let them go. I don't want to push Leo to that brink. He's given us his entire life: it's time for us to repay that gift as best we can.

So, we'll talk to the vet and then to the family. It's worse because lately, he seems better: he goes on longer walks, perks up when we're around, and responds to our commands. But there's a suspicious growth getting bigger on his eye, he's tripping over one front leg a lot, and I keep wondering how long his rebound will last. Right now, the family is in denial. I can't even talk to them about it without making them upset -- I will never show them this post, and I hope they don't find it. I'm worried that their insistence on his health will persist until something really bad happens. I'm worried that I'm overreacting. I need a sign, but all we have is instince -- and our instincts as a species are so damned lousy.

Before too long, we'll probably take him for one last car ride. God, he loves car rides. Deep down, I know this is the right thing to do, that we probably should have done it months ago. But it hurts. An empty spot by the steps where he used to sleep. Rugs we don't have to vacuum every week because of his incessant shedding. It hurts so bad to say goodbye, but I can't live with the knowledge that we're the only thing holding him back.

Rehnquist is gone

This is not good.

At best, we might get John Roberts as the new Chief Justice, a man who becomes less palatable by the day. At worst, Clarence Thomas ascends to the throne. Kiss the Endangered Species Act, Title IX, and possibly Roe goodbye.

With everything going on, maybe I am leaving the country at the opportune moment...

Well, my mouth's agape...

...At Agape Press, apparent bastion of offensive Christian vitriol. It's stuff like this that makes me embarrassed to admit I'm Christian (although I'm less and less so by the day, at least according to their standards).

Among their insightful commentary? This gem from Rev. Bill Shanks, who thinks Hurricane Katrina was a good thing. Y'see, the article explains, he'd long predicted a disaster like Katrina for this city of sin which dares to host Mardi Gras parties and an annual weeklong gay pride celebration. So now, he says:

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

Ah yeah. That's the stuff to which we Christians should aspire. How could anyone turn their back on the faith after hearing the reverend's wisdom?

Naturally, the site also has a lot to say about the Supreme Court (damn it, did you hear the news about Rehnquist??) and birth control. My favorite is a column by Jane Jimenez, in which she flagellates supporters of the morning-after pill and accuses them of being a bunch of immoral, lazy nymphos who can't keep it in their pants. Apparently, she says, the best way to avoid using Plan B is to stick to Plan A -- abstinence before marriage.

So, that's why my husband and I frantically went to the drugstore a few weeks ago when I realized I missed a pill during an incredibly chaotic month. Because condoms never break, no one misses a pill, and committed couples never need backup methods. Although I'm sure Jimenez would tell me I shouldn't be married in the first place if I don't intend to bear and raise faithful Christian children.

I'm sorry, but screw you, Agape Press! You know JACK about God's love -- your name is an insult. Please change it to "Hating in the Name of God" and get the hell out of our lives. I'd like to see Shanks tell some survivors to their faces that they deserved what they got, especially since the deep South is a stronghold of Christianity. I could call you more names than exist in the Bible, but you know what? I'm not like you people. None of my hedonistic, atheist, sodomizing, sexually active friends could hold a candle to your seething hatred, and I am so, so glad to be on their side. To quote the great Fiona Apple, go crawl back to the rock from under whence you came.

Reeling

Within an hour of arriving home last night, my blissful, tranquil state of mind splintered. My room is a disaster. I don't know how I'm going to fit everything into my suitcases without taking a hammer to every three-dimensional object I own so I can pile all the fragments into the bags. My dog is old -- too old -- but that's another post, one I've written but can't bring myself to publicize yet, in case family members still in denial choose to read it. Hell, what do you do when your dog's fine one day but falling apart the next, only to swing back to "good" again?

And then there's the hurricane.

I was away for most of the aftermath, so I'm learning the extent of the damage now. What I cannot get over is the racial composition of the victims. Or the absence of discussion around it. Hey, America! There's a massive elephant stampeding through the room with renewed fury, probably because it's been cooped up with us for a couple of centuries. Could we please acknowledge and deal with its presence before I ever have to look at the television again and remind myself that I'm not viewing images from Somalia? The hurricane is a class issue AND a race issue -- it's a sickening reminder that everything is not equal in the USA.

I can't even write about it now. If the pictures don't speak for themselves, what will?

Slouching back towards reality

This time last night, I was leaning back into my chair at the dinner table, watching a handful of fishing boats head in for the night, lazily eyeing the last sip of a perfectly chilled rosé. The island was perfect: two restaurants, one general store, a post office and a handful of guest homes. Not a gas station, grocery store or video rental place in sight. I rented a mountain bike and cycled along its 18-mile shore; in two hours, I think I saw under 10 cars.

I didn't have a choice: I had to relax. There was nothing to do except spend hours wandering the beaches in search of sea glass, or trolling the shores with camera in hand, waiting for that perfect piece of weathered driftwood to photograph.

Tonight, I don't care how much lies ahead this week. It suddenly doesn't bother me that I don't know where I'll be living in 12 days (perhaps in a hostel? or at the train station?). I'm still on proverbial island time, lazily slurping down summer blackberries while ravens' calls scrape the sky. I'll blog about real life tomorrow; tonight, I'm going upstairs to close my eyes and imagine that the bedroom light is the September sun filtering down between high clouds while I drift away to the sound of the surf lapping the rocky beach.