Today I was waiting for a bus after having gone up to Spitalfields Market to battle through the cooler-than-cool crowds, in search of shoes to wear with wedding dress number one (one of the benefits of getting married concurrently with getting a visa is that I get to have 2 weddings - one very small informal one at a city hall in the US, in order to get wed within the visa stipulated 3-months and one large slightly more formal one in August 2010 after the visa dust has settled).
It had been busy and stressful and my Leon soup, usually unbelievably delicious, was not up to par. Also, I was suffering from my own stupidity because I'd once again decided to pretend it wasn't December in England and had worn ballet pumps out and, naturally, it had rained.
The bus was late and I was starting to doubt its existence. I was feeling particularly misanthropic -the effect cold wet stupid feet tend to inspire. Then I turned and saw that a not-particularly-clean-probably-homeless man had fallen on the escalator. He was lying at the top and people were just stepping over and around him.
Like any good Samaritan, I looked around to see if there was anyone else who was going to help. Then internally sighed when I saw there wasn't.
So I swallowed down my various contagion fears, felt thankful I had gloves on, checked my bag was closed and went over to help. I wasn't very helpful - mostly because I didn't want to get too close and also because I'm ridiculously weak - but once I'd gone over another girl stopped to help and between us we managed to get him on his feet, at which point Police officers came over and I gratefully ducked back to waiting for the bus.
So, not a particularly eventful story. And I'm not telling it to look good because to be honest I don't think me partially suppressing my fear of smelly dirty people in order to rather ineffectively help someone who's just collapsed makes me look particularly good. I'm telling it because afterwards I wanted to cry.
What sort of a world is it where a person looks 'good' for stopping to help someone who has fallen over and isn't getting up? I'm tired of this London-life, scared that for a moment there today I debated whether to help or not and hoped I wouldn't have to, ashamed that after helping all I could think of until I got home was washing my hands.
But it's not really a London thing - I'm fairly confident the same scenario would happen in Boston, except there fallen-over-homeless-people have a much higher chance of freezing to death. Something about cities turns people into zombies as they march between home and office, office and bar. Maybe it's the sheer volume of people we pass every day, it makes us forget each other's humanity. I frequently find myself walking behind slightly-too-slow people, mentally hurling insults at them in my frustration, glaring at tourists who inexplicably stop in the middle of pavements, swearing under my breath at people who get on the tube before I've got off.
I need to step off this particular escalator.
But how? I'm currently just swapping one city life for another. But moving away to the country isn't really the answer. Just because I wouldn't have to walk past homeless people every day would not mean they didn't exist elsewhere.
So what is the answer? How do I silence this irritating conscience of mine? I think my master plan of leaving the voluntary sector and making a ton of money may have just come to a grinding halt...although I'm not convinced that working for a charity is the answer. Jeremy doesn't work for a non-profit and he's a damn sight more charitable than I am. I could always corporate it up and give all my money away, I'm just not sure I trust myself not to get seduced by the possibility of new clothes and houses and floor to ceiling bookcases.
I want change - more change than moving countries and getting married is going to bring. Watch this space. Although I'll almost certainly disappoint.
Having said that, the man I'm marrying (he's a man in this context, boy the rest of the time) is one of the most socially responsible people I know, and he's pretty good at calling me out on selfishness. So maybe getting married will bring the change I need - he'll certainly mock my anti-bacterial-gel addiction into submission, that much is certain.
Leaving (part 4): TimeBank (part 1, possibly of 2, we'll see)
Yesterday I had my work leaving do. 'Leaving' in the sense of I-will-be-leaving-soon-but-not-quite-yet, as Christmas parties have rather got in the way of the big final never-coming-back send off. But what it lacked in tearful farewells it made up for in (hard [that's American for con-alcohol]) cider.
It was fun. I somehow managed to get tipsy-but-not-drunk-enough-to-have-a-hangover, which left me free to laugh at the antics of my colleagues, and to be acutely aware of quite how much Sian was making me zigzag as we walked 'home' arm in arm.
Leaving TimeBank. It's been a long process of detachment - I've known since February that I would be leaving once the visa came through and since October that I'd be leaving in December. And yet I'm not sure the reality will quite hit me until after Christmas when everyone's back at work and I'm sleeping til 10am every day and spending my time curled up in front of fires reading War and Peace (aka Grazia).
TimeBank was my first proper job. Sian likes to tell me that they hired me because they liked my hair (I was doing my best Heidi impression that day, with a plait [braid] wrapped around my head). She's said it a few too many times for me to think she's joking and that I was really hired on the basis of my clear talent. Whoever knew a plait could be so fortuitous.
Since then, I hope I've proved myself to be talented in more than hair engineering. I've worked with all sorts - from refugees to Sony employees, been to countless volunteer recruitment fairs, cleared more scrub than I'd like to remember, spent far too much time in Sunderland, seen the inside of a Manchester Casualty and somewhere along the line someone was silly enough to put 'manager' within my job title (partnership manager mind you - not quite the power trip I'd like, but still - it allows scope for exaggeration).
In many ways I've grown up at TimeBank - it gave me my first paycheck, which led to my first rent payment (I'd been a poor student, sponging off my parents and Jeremy up til then). I've grown in confidence, shed my fear of the telephone (more or less. I still occasionally make important calls elsewhere so that no one's there to hear my stumble over my words and sound like a total muppet) and have a passing understanding of budget management (by 'passing' I mean I befriended with someone on the finance team who pretends my stupid questions are perfectly reasonable).
The whole place is teeming with history (and mice). My desk is buried in memories and in-jokes (actually it's mostly buried in paper and tupperware and the odd coffee cup growing mould). There's my blue-tack mouse (made one day in a boring meeting and then I didn't have the heart to squish him) and my two pottery mice (made in an 'away day'- we thought they might guard against the real mice. They didn't.) and the post-it reminder of the refugee mentee whose no.1 goal in the UK was to catch a fish, and whose action plan consisted of 'go fishing'.
I'm entrenched. Literally.
And now I'm leaving. I doubt I'll ever again be lucky enough to work with my closest friends. I'm certain I'll never work anywhere again that lets me compress my working week into 4 days. The term 'My Friday' is a thing of the past and will be eliminated from my personal dictionary- I may hold a mourning ceremony next friday to mark the last one's passing.
Ugh and I have to get a new job. One without Fridays (or with them, but in a bad way) and friends and (hopefully) mice. I have to start the whole application process all over again. Granted I'm going to have a significant break from it all, but on Jeremy's notarised I-promise-not-to-let-Hannah-become-a-drain-on-society form (one of our many essential documents for the visa interview...which, by the way, has finally been scheduled for the 15th January), it specifies that he intends to "furnish room and board until Ms Stratton gains employment - a period expected to be 3-6 months". So it's not really that long before I'm no longer readily furnished with room and board, and I'm not looking forward to trying to convince people to employ me again.
Critically, I now have more than 'waitress' and 'shop assistant' on my CV, which will hopefully make the transition into my next job a little easier than last time (although rest assured I'll be plaiting my hair, just in case). Meanwhile, I'm going to spend the next week appreciating TimeBank and the friends and familiarity I have there. And maybe spend a few days exhuming my desk ready for the next sucker.
It was fun. I somehow managed to get tipsy-but-not-drunk-enough-to-have-a-hangover, which left me free to laugh at the antics of my colleagues, and to be acutely aware of quite how much Sian was making me zigzag as we walked 'home' arm in arm.
Leaving TimeBank. It's been a long process of detachment - I've known since February that I would be leaving once the visa came through and since October that I'd be leaving in December. And yet I'm not sure the reality will quite hit me until after Christmas when everyone's back at work and I'm sleeping til 10am every day and spending my time curled up in front of fires reading War and Peace (aka Grazia).
TimeBank was my first proper job. Sian likes to tell me that they hired me because they liked my hair (I was doing my best Heidi impression that day, with a plait [braid] wrapped around my head). She's said it a few too many times for me to think she's joking and that I was really hired on the basis of my clear talent. Whoever knew a plait could be so fortuitous.
Since then, I hope I've proved myself to be talented in more than hair engineering. I've worked with all sorts - from refugees to Sony employees, been to countless volunteer recruitment fairs, cleared more scrub than I'd like to remember, spent far too much time in Sunderland, seen the inside of a Manchester Casualty and somewhere along the line someone was silly enough to put 'manager' within my job title (partnership manager mind you - not quite the power trip I'd like, but still - it allows scope for exaggeration).
In many ways I've grown up at TimeBank - it gave me my first paycheck, which led to my first rent payment (I'd been a poor student, sponging off my parents and Jeremy up til then). I've grown in confidence, shed my fear of the telephone (more or less. I still occasionally make important calls elsewhere so that no one's there to hear my stumble over my words and sound like a total muppet) and have a passing understanding of budget management (by 'passing' I mean I befriended with someone on the finance team who pretends my stupid questions are perfectly reasonable).
The whole place is teeming with history (and mice). My desk is buried in memories and in-jokes (actually it's mostly buried in paper and tupperware and the odd coffee cup growing mould). There's my blue-tack mouse (made one day in a boring meeting and then I didn't have the heart to squish him) and my two pottery mice (made in an 'away day'- we thought they might guard against the real mice. They didn't.) and the post-it reminder of the refugee mentee whose no.1 goal in the UK was to catch a fish, and whose action plan consisted of 'go fishing'.
I'm entrenched. Literally.
And now I'm leaving. I doubt I'll ever again be lucky enough to work with my closest friends. I'm certain I'll never work anywhere again that lets me compress my working week into 4 days. The term 'My Friday' is a thing of the past and will be eliminated from my personal dictionary- I may hold a mourning ceremony next friday to mark the last one's passing.
Ugh and I have to get a new job. One without Fridays (or with them, but in a bad way) and friends and (hopefully) mice. I have to start the whole application process all over again. Granted I'm going to have a significant break from it all, but on Jeremy's notarised I-promise-not-to-let-Hannah-become-a-drain-on-society form (one of our many essential documents for the visa interview...which, by the way, has finally been scheduled for the 15th January), it specifies that he intends to "furnish room and board until Ms Stratton gains employment - a period expected to be 3-6 months". So it's not really that long before I'm no longer readily furnished with room and board, and I'm not looking forward to trying to convince people to employ me again.
Critically, I now have more than 'waitress' and 'shop assistant' on my CV, which will hopefully make the transition into my next job a little easier than last time (although rest assured I'll be plaiting my hair, just in case). Meanwhile, I'm going to spend the next week appreciating TimeBank and the friends and familiarity I have there. And maybe spend a few days exhuming my desk ready for the next sucker.
Volunteering...sort of
This week I have been volunteering. I use the term 'volunteering' loosely, because in actual fact TimeBank give me 5 days a year to volunteer...so essentially I'm getting paid...so it's technically not volunteering but rather doing-something-different-for-a-few-days-but-still-getting-paid-ing. I've also cheated the system slightly as I didn't have to apply for this volunteering opportunity - I just asked Sian if I could come along to work with her for a bit.
Basically this is an entirely bogus volunteering opportunity and, as a colleague pointed out, I'm actually just paying Sian rent in-kind...
But all of that takes away the essential feel-good-martyr factor that should accompany volunteering so I'm overlooking it and instead pretending I'm sacrificing a lie-in for being in an office and compiling statistics on refugee academics (reinforcing the humility I learned on Saturday, although not moaning is boring so I've decided I can still moan as long as there's an implied caveat that I know I'm pretty lucky really).
I've decided to 'volunteer' for entirely selfish and mercenary reasons: a) it gets me out of the office and therefore decreases the number of days I have left at work and b) I decided that should I apply for a job in the voluntary sector in the US, I'd look slightly more qualified if I actually had some volunteering on my CV. I was also curious to find out what exactly I've been encouraging people to do for the past 2.5 years.
And the outcome? Well volunteering in an office is much the same as working in an office except I felt more entitled to tea breaks. It was strange to have that outsider feeling again - to be the new person who knows nothing (and in being a short-term volunteer no-one's bothered about filling you in either, although I had Sian to ask so that wasn't the biggest deal) and to answer phones and not have a clue what I'm saying or who I'm taking a message for (although to be fair that does occasionally still happen at TimeBank).
Tomorrow I'm back in my comfort zone - placing volunteers rather than being one. But not for much longer. In a little over a month I'll be a chronic 'new girl' in pretty much every aspect of my life - pleading for play-dates and feeling perpetually lost and uncertain. And yet I feel like I'm going home. I guess that's how I know this isn't a big fat mistake. Or maybe that's just what the promise of a real bed after 6 months of sleeping on couches will do to a girl.
Basically this is an entirely bogus volunteering opportunity and, as a colleague pointed out, I'm actually just paying Sian rent in-kind...
But all of that takes away the essential feel-good-martyr factor that should accompany volunteering so I'm overlooking it and instead pretending I'm sacrificing a lie-in for being in an office and compiling statistics on refugee academics (reinforcing the humility I learned on Saturday, although not moaning is boring so I've decided I can still moan as long as there's an implied caveat that I know I'm pretty lucky really).
I've decided to 'volunteer' for entirely selfish and mercenary reasons: a) it gets me out of the office and therefore decreases the number of days I have left at work and b) I decided that should I apply for a job in the voluntary sector in the US, I'd look slightly more qualified if I actually had some volunteering on my CV. I was also curious to find out what exactly I've been encouraging people to do for the past 2.5 years.
And the outcome? Well volunteering in an office is much the same as working in an office except I felt more entitled to tea breaks. It was strange to have that outsider feeling again - to be the new person who knows nothing (and in being a short-term volunteer no-one's bothered about filling you in either, although I had Sian to ask so that wasn't the biggest deal) and to answer phones and not have a clue what I'm saying or who I'm taking a message for (although to be fair that does occasionally still happen at TimeBank).
Tomorrow I'm back in my comfort zone - placing volunteers rather than being one. But not for much longer. In a little over a month I'll be a chronic 'new girl' in pretty much every aspect of my life - pleading for play-dates and feeling perpetually lost and uncertain. And yet I feel like I'm going home. I guess that's how I know this isn't a big fat mistake. Or maybe that's just what the promise of a real bed after 6 months of sleeping on couches will do to a girl.
Dreamy Waffle.
I don't think I've fully woken up today. I feel like I'm walking through the day a step removed from reality, which is dangerous when shopping in Waitrose because the exorbitant prices don't seem quite as heart-stoppingly ridiculous as they should. Perhaps I'll wake up and realise nothing of today ever actually happened. Maybe all life is a dream - and if it is then I pity the 'person' dreaming my life because I've recently been watching an inordinate amount of Brothers and Sisters.
I've always had difficulty distinguishing dream from reality. When I was little the wind often used to pick me up and carry me quite long distances. Now rationally I know that unless I was living in hurricane central (which I wasn't, and the wind of my childhood was rather gentle and dignified rather than dashing me into rocks) then this must have been a dream. Similarly the time a tiger woke me up and scared me half to death probably never happened. I also have a memory of my mum and dad driving off into the distance in a red sports car, leaving me behind forever. Unless I was adopted after this incident and that is a latent memory, I'm guessing that never happened either.
One of my pet-ideas is that there should be a word coined for experiences we have in dreams, because dreams give us an idea of how things would feel and yet they clearly don't qualify as real experiences. I have never been chased by the Gestapo, although they feature fairly regularly in my unconscious, and the only time I've ever been paralysed with fear was in nightmares (the Gestapo were quite often present at the time).
I know that talking about dreams is quite bad manners. I have a friend who the moment he hears mention of 'I dreamt last night', declares he does not listen to people's dreams and walks away. I keep meaning to try this but instead I wind up smiling politely and feigning interest. Sebastian Faulks goes out of his way in each and every one of his books (and I've read all of the except for his most recent one) to weave into them somewhere the fact that hearing about other people's dreams is the most boring topic on the planet. I'm wondering whether he had a bad experience with a dream-interpreting parent, because it seems like quite a curious thing to mention in every book he's ever written.
And I agree with Sebastian. Hearing about other people's dreams is boring - especially when they're entirely unfollowable and ridiculous - like 'I was on a boat and then I wasn't and you were there only you weren't you and we went shopping and I can't really remember the rest but it was good'.
But every now and again I dream dreams that have true comic value, or are so obviously linked to real anxieties in my every day life (I can't tell you how many dreams I've had about placing volunteers. It's truly tiresome) that they need to be told. Here are a few of the most recent gems, told in a sentence so as to not bore you to tears:
- I had a cat and a mouse and loved them equally only the cat kept trying to kill the mouse.
- My ex-boyfriend got a new girlfriend and she stole all my favourite clothes.
- Jeremy and I were getting married only we were late and then couldn't find the priest.
- An apocalyptic tidal wave was coming and I was trying to pack a suitcase only I couldn't decide what to pack.
Any time I am rude enough to recount my dreams to friends I am told they are anxiety dreams or inadequacy dreams. Maybe I'm anxious about being inadequate. The suitcase one definitely doesn't need an in-depth analysis, although I'm curious to know exactly what the tidal wave stood for - the US Embassy perhaps? Jeremy? America?
I have a feeling I'm now stepping into dangerously dull territory and Sebastian Faulks would not be impressed so I'm going to shut up...I am quite pleased though that my subconscious inadequate anxiety seems to have a sense of humour, which must mean there's some hope.
I've always had difficulty distinguishing dream from reality. When I was little the wind often used to pick me up and carry me quite long distances. Now rationally I know that unless I was living in hurricane central (which I wasn't, and the wind of my childhood was rather gentle and dignified rather than dashing me into rocks) then this must have been a dream. Similarly the time a tiger woke me up and scared me half to death probably never happened. I also have a memory of my mum and dad driving off into the distance in a red sports car, leaving me behind forever. Unless I was adopted after this incident and that is a latent memory, I'm guessing that never happened either.
One of my pet-ideas is that there should be a word coined for experiences we have in dreams, because dreams give us an idea of how things would feel and yet they clearly don't qualify as real experiences. I have never been chased by the Gestapo, although they feature fairly regularly in my unconscious, and the only time I've ever been paralysed with fear was in nightmares (the Gestapo were quite often present at the time).
I know that talking about dreams is quite bad manners. I have a friend who the moment he hears mention of 'I dreamt last night', declares he does not listen to people's dreams and walks away. I keep meaning to try this but instead I wind up smiling politely and feigning interest. Sebastian Faulks goes out of his way in each and every one of his books (and I've read all of the except for his most recent one) to weave into them somewhere the fact that hearing about other people's dreams is the most boring topic on the planet. I'm wondering whether he had a bad experience with a dream-interpreting parent, because it seems like quite a curious thing to mention in every book he's ever written.
And I agree with Sebastian. Hearing about other people's dreams is boring - especially when they're entirely unfollowable and ridiculous - like 'I was on a boat and then I wasn't and you were there only you weren't you and we went shopping and I can't really remember the rest but it was good'.
But every now and again I dream dreams that have true comic value, or are so obviously linked to real anxieties in my every day life (I can't tell you how many dreams I've had about placing volunteers. It's truly tiresome) that they need to be told. Here are a few of the most recent gems, told in a sentence so as to not bore you to tears:
- I had a cat and a mouse and loved them equally only the cat kept trying to kill the mouse.
- My ex-boyfriend got a new girlfriend and she stole all my favourite clothes.
- Jeremy and I were getting married only we were late and then couldn't find the priest.
- An apocalyptic tidal wave was coming and I was trying to pack a suitcase only I couldn't decide what to pack.
Any time I am rude enough to recount my dreams to friends I am told they are anxiety dreams or inadequacy dreams. Maybe I'm anxious about being inadequate. The suitcase one definitely doesn't need an in-depth analysis, although I'm curious to know exactly what the tidal wave stood for - the US Embassy perhaps? Jeremy? America?
I have a feeling I'm now stepping into dangerously dull territory and Sebastian Faulks would not be impressed so I'm going to shut up...I am quite pleased though that my subconscious inadequate anxiety seems to have a sense of humour, which must mean there's some hope.
Humbled.
I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been moaning a lot lately. The weather's been crap and cold and while the lack of an address is a great way to ward off chuggers, it's pretty tiring. Sure yesterday I was trying to sound upbeat about one day being able to call both sides of the Atlantic 'home', but really that was just a covert way of moaning about the effort I need to put in to make that happen. Basically I've been a total Eeyore for the past week and everything good has served only to emphasise the bad.
But today I have been put to shame.
Because today I put on my Time Together hat (at TimeBank I have multiple jobs and one of them is helping on a refugee mentoring scheme called Time Together) and set off to the Tower of London to shepherd 15 mentoring pairs around and help supervise the day. I wasn't really in the mood - I was tired and eeyorey and didn't really want to spend my saturday at Tourist Central in the cold.
But then as the day went on and I wandered around the tower exhibitions with refugees from Russia, Eritrea, Columbia, Burma, Syria, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe...all of different ages and stories, all forced to leave their homeland because of situations beyond their control...I was struck a) by how lucky I am and b) by how amazing people are. Here we had people whose life experiences exceed my imaginings and yet who have perservered and remain positive and kind and funny. And the volunteer mentors too - people who give up precious free time to meet with their 'mentees' to try and ease their struggle into life in the UK.
I wonder what the refugees I spent the day with today make of us English - the Tower of London with its displays of Henry VIII (whose nature and rule bears a striking resemblance to Idi Amin, although I don't remember it being taught quite that way in primary school) and crown jewels plundered from other lands, and tourist-ised torture chambers on display for entertainment, totally ignoring the fact that real people suffered real agony there. How strange we must seem, how complacent and naive.
So I thought as an antidote to moaning and in recognition of the many blessings in my life, I'd write the traditional 'thanksgiving' list, just a week or so too late:
I am thankful for:
- Couches. And the owners of those couches - that because of the generosity of friends I have been able to claw my way out of my overdraft and save money for my unemployed future.
- Love. Even if he is American. I've found someone I want to commit to for my entire life, and while it still scares me a little I haven't and he hasn't run for the hills.
- Family. That I have so many people I love who love me and that they are able and willing to travel to see me wherever I go.
- Visas. Well...not for visas exactly (that would be pushing it), but for the relative ease I can get them
- Nightmares... that nightmares are the only place I have ever experienced 'real' fear
After the Tower of London we all congregated in a cafe to talk and warm up. I felt real pride when I explained to the bemused waitress why this disparate group of age and race and culture and language was all together. And it made me realise that what I'm doing with my move to the states- while it feels huge and overwhelming at times - is actually entirely achieveable and I need to shut up with the moaning and get on with it. Or at least moan with the humble knowledge that I'm a total wuss for doing so.
But today I have been put to shame.
Because today I put on my Time Together hat (at TimeBank I have multiple jobs and one of them is helping on a refugee mentoring scheme called Time Together) and set off to the Tower of London to shepherd 15 mentoring pairs around and help supervise the day. I wasn't really in the mood - I was tired and eeyorey and didn't really want to spend my saturday at Tourist Central in the cold.
But then as the day went on and I wandered around the tower exhibitions with refugees from Russia, Eritrea, Columbia, Burma, Syria, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe...all of different ages and stories, all forced to leave their homeland because of situations beyond their control...I was struck a) by how lucky I am and b) by how amazing people are. Here we had people whose life experiences exceed my imaginings and yet who have perservered and remain positive and kind and funny. And the volunteer mentors too - people who give up precious free time to meet with their 'mentees' to try and ease their struggle into life in the UK.
I wonder what the refugees I spent the day with today make of us English - the Tower of London with its displays of Henry VIII (whose nature and rule bears a striking resemblance to Idi Amin, although I don't remember it being taught quite that way in primary school) and crown jewels plundered from other lands, and tourist-ised torture chambers on display for entertainment, totally ignoring the fact that real people suffered real agony there. How strange we must seem, how complacent and naive.
So I thought as an antidote to moaning and in recognition of the many blessings in my life, I'd write the traditional 'thanksgiving' list, just a week or so too late:
I am thankful for:
- Couches. And the owners of those couches - that because of the generosity of friends I have been able to claw my way out of my overdraft and save money for my unemployed future.
- Love. Even if he is American. I've found someone I want to commit to for my entire life, and while it still scares me a little I haven't and he hasn't run for the hills.
- Family. That I have so many people I love who love me and that they are able and willing to travel to see me wherever I go.
- Visas. Well...not for visas exactly (that would be pushing it), but for the relative ease I can get them
- Nightmares... that nightmares are the only place I have ever experienced 'real' fear
After the Tower of London we all congregated in a cafe to talk and warm up. I felt real pride when I explained to the bemused waitress why this disparate group of age and race and culture and language was all together. And it made me realise that what I'm doing with my move to the states- while it feels huge and overwhelming at times - is actually entirely achieveable and I need to shut up with the moaning and get on with it. Or at least moan with the humble knowledge that I'm a total wuss for doing so.
Old New Friends
Today I met up with an old friend from (high) school. She got lost on her way to me so I waited for a while outside London Bridge tube station.
Never do this.
I was a sitting-duck for lost tourist and chuggers alike. However as well as doing my best impression of a good Samaritan, redirecting the lost tourists of London to their desired destinations (and, as usual, suppressing the urge to send them into the depths of Elephant and Castle), I also discovered the best answer anyone can give to a chancing chugger who says they're "not asking you for money - just your name and address so we can send you some literature":
"I don't have an address."
"What?" (looks me up and down to check he hasn't chugged a rough sleeper by accident)
"No address we can send stuff to?" (presumably I don't look like one, although I was wearing fingerless gloves)
"No."
And then he was gone. And I didn't even lie. Brilliant.
So I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my long lost friend showed up.
We had a Good London Day (opposed to a Bad London Day which generally involves things like work and smelly people and rain and occasionally inadvisedly worn ballet pumps) - it was sunny and crisp and there was coffee followed by multiple small pieces of cheese and brownie and ham and spicy chili spread, followed by a rather large Styrofoam cup of hot spiced cider (the real English-with- alcohol-kind. Not the crap you get in US Starbucks'...which is yummy, but less fun), followed by a tipsy walk along the river, followed by topped-potato-wedges lunch in Giraffe, followed by shoe shopping and finished with hot chocolate. A better combination of beverages and activities I challenge you to find.
The last time I can properly remember spending time with the longlostfriend was right before I flew to America to visit Jeremy and she was about to go off and gap-year in Africa. We were sat on my bed in Somerton talking about Love and the future and various moral dilemmas (turns out we both went with the funner, less moral option). Cut to 6.5 years later and there's rather a lot to catch up on.
So I feel like today I've given out an edited (for brevity's rather than secrecy's sake ) history of my adult life, and have received a recounted history in return. It's strange to recap on major events to someone who probably most keenly remembers me as having poofy mushroom hair and painting my face white to mimic Ariel from the Tempest (for a school drama, not just for the hell of it) and pretending to shoot my maths teacher from the back of the class. It casts a whole old light on things and I can see all the recountable events of my recent-ish life adding up and standing next to this old poofy-haired version of me and happily it makes comfortable sense (thankfully my hair has moved on...most days).
I love how with some people, the connection and kinship is there whether you see them often or not (the writing of this blog was interrupted by a phone call from another long-lost-but-since-well-recovered friend, who I haven't seen in months but who can make me laugh and relax in an instant). It gives me hope. Because I know that in moving I am not losing these special people in my life (that's not to say you all have permission to go and become long-lost on the basis that I'll find you again in the far-off-future - I'm expecting multiple visits, phone calls and presents [yes, presents]) - that when I see them and speak to them the sparkle of shared history and fondness of mutual-understanding will be there without question.
I just hope that if, in the distant and dimly-planned future, we leave the states to live in England that I'll be leaving with this same knowledge of friendships enduring, that I'll have built up shared histories and kinships, that the Atlantic will have stopped feeling like a barrier and instead feel like a link to the two worlds.
Ha, what schmaltz. Who am I kidding? It's always going to be a bloody barrier. But hopefully I'll be happy whichever side of it I'm on.
Never do this.
I was a sitting-duck for lost tourist and chuggers alike. However as well as doing my best impression of a good Samaritan, redirecting the lost tourists of London to their desired destinations (and, as usual, suppressing the urge to send them into the depths of Elephant and Castle), I also discovered the best answer anyone can give to a chancing chugger who says they're "not asking you for money - just your name and address so we can send you some literature":
"I don't have an address."
"What?" (looks me up and down to check he hasn't chugged a rough sleeper by accident)
"No address we can send stuff to?" (presumably I don't look like one, although I was wearing fingerless gloves)
"No."
And then he was gone. And I didn't even lie. Brilliant.
So I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my long lost friend showed up.
We had a Good London Day (opposed to a Bad London Day which generally involves things like work and smelly people and rain and occasionally inadvisedly worn ballet pumps) - it was sunny and crisp and there was coffee followed by multiple small pieces of cheese and brownie and ham and spicy chili spread, followed by a rather large Styrofoam cup of hot spiced cider (the real English-with- alcohol-kind. Not the crap you get in US Starbucks'...which is yummy, but less fun), followed by a tipsy walk along the river, followed by topped-potato-wedges lunch in Giraffe, followed by shoe shopping and finished with hot chocolate. A better combination of beverages and activities I challenge you to find.
The last time I can properly remember spending time with the longlostfriend was right before I flew to America to visit Jeremy and she was about to go off and gap-year in Africa. We were sat on my bed in Somerton talking about Love and the future and various moral dilemmas (turns out we both went with the funner, less moral option). Cut to 6.5 years later and there's rather a lot to catch up on.
So I feel like today I've given out an edited (for brevity's rather than secrecy's sake ) history of my adult life, and have received a recounted history in return. It's strange to recap on major events to someone who probably most keenly remembers me as having poofy mushroom hair and painting my face white to mimic Ariel from the Tempest (for a school drama, not just for the hell of it) and pretending to shoot my maths teacher from the back of the class. It casts a whole old light on things and I can see all the recountable events of my recent-ish life adding up and standing next to this old poofy-haired version of me and happily it makes comfortable sense (thankfully my hair has moved on...most days).
I love how with some people, the connection and kinship is there whether you see them often or not (the writing of this blog was interrupted by a phone call from another long-lost-but-since-well-recovered friend, who I haven't seen in months but who can make me laugh and relax in an instant). It gives me hope. Because I know that in moving I am not losing these special people in my life (that's not to say you all have permission to go and become long-lost on the basis that I'll find you again in the far-off-future - I'm expecting multiple visits, phone calls and presents [yes, presents]) - that when I see them and speak to them the sparkle of shared history and fondness of mutual-understanding will be there without question.
I just hope that if, in the distant and dimly-planned future, we leave the states to live in England that I'll be leaving with this same knowledge of friendships enduring, that I'll have built up shared histories and kinships, that the Atlantic will have stopped feeling like a barrier and instead feel like a link to the two worlds.
Ha, what schmaltz. Who am I kidding? It's always going to be a bloody barrier. But hopefully I'll be happy whichever side of it I'm on.
Constructive moaning.
At 2.30pm today I looked outside and thought the world was ending. Or that I’d somehow been transported back to Dickensian times to a London suffocating in smog . Or that there had been a been a solar eclipse I didn't know about (momentary flashback - In the eclipse of 1999 my mum had seen something on Blue Peter about using a colander to look at the sun and the possibility of dogs howling…so she stuck a colander on her head and howled at the sun. Still makes me smile.). Or at the very least that I’d been transported to Scandinavia or some other goes-dark-all-day country.
But no, it was just winter and I was unimpressed.
“How can it be dark at 2.30?” I exclaimed. And I momentarily thought "that’s ok, I’m leaving the country soon", before I realised (with a rather loud £$&*!) that while yes, I am leaving the country, I’m going to Boston,where not only will it be darker, it will be colder too, with a heck of a lot more snow. My friend / colleague /parent-of-daughter-with-stolen-princess-bed is about to embark on a round the (sunny) world adventure with her husband and 3 year old in tow, and overheard my whole conversation with myself. The grin on her face she watched it dawn on me that I was not escaping the cold and the dark but she was, was sickening.
This weather depression was worsened on my trudge home from work- bad enough that it was raining, but I made the situation 1000 times worse by being a stupid person. I mean seriously, who wears ballet pumps in December? I made myself feel better by cooking a yummy thai soup when I got 'home' (which was,as marc pointed out, my 6th liquidised meal of the week).
Now I know I’ve moaned about English weather already. And I know I’ve moaned about the cold in Boston already. But it’s all a little ridiculous so I’m going to moan again. Actually no, I won’t moan, I’ll make it constructive and construct a list of reasons why we should move to California:
1. (of course) It’s sunny
2. It doesn’t rain
3. It doesn’t snow
4. We’d save on heating bills
5. People are happier there because they’re warm
6. I’d save on fake-tan expenditure
7. People would be more likely to visit me because it’s a good holiday destination… and they’d even visit me in Winter (because there isn’t one).
8. We wouldn’t get rickets
9. We’d be that much closer to Hawaii
10. We’d be that much closer to Mexico
11. I’d be that much closer to George
12. and Patrick
13. And ummm (shock confession) Hugh (noticing a trend here...might have to get Jeremy a stethoscope)
14. I wouldn’t need to highlight my hair because the sun would do it for me (not that I do highlight it anyway, but if I was so inclined, I wouldn’t need to)
15. I’d lose weight because when I’m hot I’m not hungry
16. I’d exercise more because if I had to wear a bikini on a regular basis next to tanned Californian types, I’d have an incentive.
(Basically I’d be tanned, blonde(ish), fit and skinny)
17.There are elephant seals, which are awesome.
18. I could learn to surf (the possibility would be enough for me)
19. The best sushi restaurant I've ever been to is there, complete with mariachi singers
20. The sun doesn't just get diluted by ever darkening clouds until it disappears into night - it shines all day and then promises to return by a last burning stand before the stars come out
Of course there are negatives to California. There's the small matter of earthquakes and the proximity of Paris Hilton and the fact that it's double the distance from England . But I figure an 11 hour flight isn't much different from an 8 hour one, and for year-round sunshine I can get over the threat of house-collapse and pouting heiresses.
Now all I need to do is convince Jeremy.
Oh and ignore the fact that moving 3000 miles twice in a year is a definite overestimation of my mouth:chew ratio.
Dammit.
I could just about forgive Jeremy being an American if he lived somewhere sunny. As it is I'm just going to have to resent him everytime it rains / snows / is cold / grey / gloomy for ever more. And I better train myself not to wear ballet pumps in the rain while I'm at it. And maybe learn some more soup recipes.
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