bad metaphor

It doesn’t matter that I am twenty-one, about to be twenty-two – every year before my birthday, I feel like I’m thirteen again, that dull, stomach twisting angst over what should be a fun occasion: my birthday party. Each year I’m continually plagued by the fear that no one will show up, except perhaps my roommates, who would already be in the house anyways. This actually happened when I was in middle school – when I was twelve, in fact, only -two- people showed up to my birthday party. Granted, I only invited five, but still, it’s tough to imagine more mortifying things at that stage of your life. I seem to not have moved very far past that stage, despite the fact that I -have- actually thrown parties since then, in which more than two people have shown up, and they’ve all been fun times. While I would like to play it cool and happy and be all “let’s have fun no matter what,” the fact of the matter is that I am a desperately anxious little creature, probably owing to genetics. One of these days I shall post my best of the Paranoid Mom stories as evidence.

I try to think of ways to get around it, like having dinner at a restaurant with a few close friends whom I’m pretty sure will show up because they like food. This year, I decided to have a joint birthday party with a friend (one of the future roomies, the boys) – thus placing half of the burden on him to be sufficiently cool and entertaining enough to draw people, and if nobody shows up, then it’s halfway not my fault. Right? Well, sure. We’d scheduled it for tonight, but because my roommate Beth decided to tell me yesterday (gee thanks Beth!) that she has a big inspection at work the following morning, that she needed to get sleep…so I ended up moving the party at the last minute, and now some people can’t come, including my other roommate…arrgh. I really do feel and sound as if I am in middle school again.

I even have dreams about it. They’re different dreams every year, different scenes, different people – yet always the dreams involve me throwing a party and people not showing up. Last week I had a dream featuring the people that went on my trip. I hosted a reunion party at my place, and my mother cooked for it. She made this huge Thanksgiving-style banquet, in which the food was a little off, because whenever my mom cooks American food it never tastes quite right. True to life, that part. Anyway, only about half of the people that I’d expected showed up, and all of those people took one look at the food and left – except for a girl that I never really got along with, who stuck it out like a true soldier and ate all that strange-tasting turkey. At the time, I thought it was a message that I needed to be nicer to this girl, but now I’m pretty sure it is part of my annual manifestation of party anxiety. Well, I probably should have been nicer to her but, eh, too late for that. I’ll say hi and pretend she’s not irritating next time I run into her on campus.

One of the books we read for the study abroad was Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. I’ve read it twice now, and reading it makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable because I fret about these stupid parties all the time in my head, just like Clarissa does. “Oh, won’t you come to my party? Do come! Peter! Remember my party!” Fine, I’ll go to yours Clarissa, if you come to mine. Sheesh.

Updated post on July 7th with photos. It’s taking me forever to sort through all these; I’ve taken between 500 – 600 pictures. This number of course will be cut down once I throw out all the blurry ones (80% of the indoor shots), the ones with my thumb or hair in the way, and the ones that, well, must have looked splendid while I was on my acid trip. This is why I spent most of my time looking like a goofball photo-snapping, gaping tourist. Hey, at least I didn’t wear a fanny pack.

I’ve noticed a trend in my posting – I tend to post a lot when I’m bored and there is nothing in particular to talk about; when, on occasion, my life is as exciting as a pillowcase full of raccoons, I tend to slack off and not say much. I guess this makes for a boring blog, but then again, I’m able to spend more time noticing and expanding on little details when I’m not busy with other things.

Sheesh. I haven’t even blogged about spring break yet.

Oh well. Time to sift through more cathedral photos – we invented an acronym on our trip, btw – AFC. “Another Fucking Cathedral.” I mean, yeah, they’re amazingly beautiful and all, but you can only see so many before they start to fuse together in your memory like a giant, many flying-buttressed, stained glass monstrosity. Oh, and same goes for towers. My fat American ass is declaring a strike against winding staircases.

Things aren’t quite so hectic right now (which is why I’m blogging), but it will soon be. Right now I’m packing all my effects…though it’s a bit early, I’m going to be moving not only my things, but the belongings of my currently-overseas boyfriend also, and…we have a lot of things. Books, in particular. I’m not sure why we don’t just let the library store books for us, and go there whenever we need to read things. Although it’s probably for the best, as right now I have an outstanding library fee I need to see Watson about (I missed returning -one- small book before I left, one out of fifty for my spring research project, dagnabbit).

Here’s the tricky part about moving…as mentioned before, I am moving in with the boy and his boys, so I will be living with boys next year (oooh, scary). I am moving in early there, so that I have time to move the boy’s stuff, as well as my stuff, and be able to clean my place. Most importantly, I need time to paint my room back to white from its current state of lime green (what the hell was I smoking, anyway? It better have been good).

Also complicating things is that we might have two other people crashing with us for a month, when their lease is up – they’re both going to grad school on the east coast and their terms don’t start till September. So…six people in a four bedroom apt. Not too tricky really, since there are two couples in the mix…until you factor in their two cats. Now, I adore cats, as everyone that knows me will attest to (I have resigned myself to someday turning into one of those creepy old ladies with a sawed-off shotgun and fleet of felines at my beck and call), but I do remember hearing stories from the girl about one of the cats being a renowned bully. My cat has a bowtie. He loses in fights against leaves. I’m already envisioning the other two giving him swirlies in the litterbox, or beating him up for Pounce money. Poor Quarkie.

Another note – I’ve got a job. My old job, in fact. My psycho ex-boss, Jodie, got sacked (or left, under outside pressure), so Belle took over her old position, and emailed me while I was in the UK asking if I wanted it back. So yippee! I start on the 1st, and hopefully will be on the track to recouping some of the money that I blew on ice cream and scarves on my trip. No, really – while unpacking my suitcase, I counted about ten or so scarves, not counting the two that I am planning to gift. I think I’m going to take a break from the scarves as well as the winding staircases.

My only worry is that Jodie will show up at the office one day, and I’ll have to be in the same room with her again. And possibly talk to her, too. “Say, did you ever get that counseling?” Uh, yeah. Hopefully the atmosphere before her departure was sufficiently awkward enough to ensure her never ever coming back. The new department head apparently attempted to fire her after he realized just how looney tunes she was (which is damned near impossible to do to classified staff at KU – pretty much if one were to knock off the chancellor, inside the Douglas County Courtroom, the worker might get a stern warning). She then refused to leave for a few months, resulting in icy tension until she resigned “for the good of the program.” Of course, Jodie. Probably (sadly), it’s the best thing you ever did for it.

*Title has no relevance to my post really, except it’s a beautiful song by Jeff Buckley that I have been listening to while typing this up. I think I’ll continue this trend until I come up with more clever post titles.

Back in the states now. I’m extremely jet lagged, which explains why I am up at 5:46 a.m. central time to blog. It’s strange adjusting not only to the time difference, but to not being around the same twenty-two people and to being in America. Even seeing people drive on the right side of the road was weird (I am not going to drive for a day or two until I get reoriented again!). I wasn’t over there all that long, really, but we did so much that it feels like I was there for a year. Certainly enough major world events occurred with us in the vicinity for a year. Still can’t believe it all.

Looking back, I find the picture of King’s Cross station exceedingly creepy (see June 23rd). Especially since it’s of a Circle Line platform, and the Circle line was one that was hit (also one that we took frequently while visiting our sites). Last I heard, they are still digging out bodies from King’s Cross and taking them down to Russell, since that’s the nearest one with an elevator. Also, browsing through pictures of Tavistock on BBC, I recognize these set of double doors:

I remember walking by these -all- the time, because the whole doorknob-in-the middle thing reminded me of my high school physics textbook, saying how inefficient this was because of the lack of torque (God, what a dork I am). It’s bizarre seeing all the debris there, not to mention the stains on the walls. That area was walled off when we went back to London for our last night, or else morbid fascination would have drawn me back there. There are lots of flowers and handwritten notes laid down by the fencing.

The whole thing is creepy, especially considering that if it hadn’t been for the G8 summit, we would have been in London at the time of the attacks. (It could also be argued that if it hadn’t been for the G8 the attacks wouldn’t have happened, but nobody knows). We may have been safely in class at the time, but – we might have also had a free day that day, and if so, it’s very likely that half our group would be on the Tube at that time, on the lines and in the stations that got hit. Ugh. Best not to think about it, I suppose.

Overall I had a really good experience. I almost didn’t go because of lack of money and cause of craziness right before the trip (two days before I left, I did -not- feel up to going to a strange country with a bunch of people I didn’t know), but I’m very glad I did. I became good friends with a girl whose boyfriend happens to live right next door to my boyfriend(!). I also have really toned thighs now – I had better, because I pretty much walked everywhere all over England and Scotland. I have not lost weight, though, despite all the walking, because I consumed about a metric ton of ice cream during my stay there. It must be either due to something unique to their ice cream, or perhaps all the cathedral-visiting and tower-climbing gave me a raging sweet tooth. I hardly even eat ice cream in the States, unless someone I know is working behind the counter at Silas and Maddy’s and can get me a free scoop. While in England, and especially Scotland, where they had a plethora of cheap ice cream stands and kiosks available, I couldn’t get enough of it. Just plain old vanilla ice cream, occasionally with a delicious little Cadbury’s 99 flake stuck in the scoop. Oh man, I get fat just thinking about it.

Of course I have a ton of pictures, which I will have to cull through once I muster up enough courage to open my suitcases. Will continue the rest of the trip update when I have done so!

Hello, all. I am in fact not exploded, injured, or anything like that. Actually I’m in Glasgow right now, and have spent £2 (that’s like $4 or something) to finally be able to sit down and totally update this thing. I’ll add in pictures later because frankly, I’ve taken like eight gajillion of them or so and I don’t have time to sort out the ones that have the camera strap in them, or random creepy photo-sneaking dudes.

I sure picked a great day to update. As you might have heard, there were explosions in London this morning. My mom apparently panicked and worried about me, despite the fact that London and I are in different countries (I guess I can’t really blame her. My pre-trip geography of the UK was pretty fuzzy as well). It’s pretty bizarre though. I’ve never been to NYC, so when I saw footage of the WTC, I of course was upset and agitated, but I’d never actually been to the places and seen them undisturbed except for in photos and movies of course. Seeing the places in London where the explosions happened, however, was upsetting to me in a different way. I was just there! I rode the Piccadilly and Circle lines all the time; I know how horribly crowded they get and hence how awful it must be to be trapped inside one of those things with no ventilation and no light. My friend started to worry about the guy that tried to pickpocket her on the Tube. He does make his livelihood off the Tube, and probably was, um, hard at work when the explosions happened. Poor bloke.

It does seem that destruction is following close upon our heels. We were in Edinburgh last week, during the Make Poverty History march. Those of you in the states probably haven’t heard of this, because as far as we can tell, it didn’t make the major news programs or websites beyond a blip or two. Anyhow, it was a great big peaceful demonstration run by several different organizations – Oxfam, SCiaF, lots of churches, and others I can’t think of right now. The march was planned to precede the G8 summit meeting in Gleneagles, not far from Edinburgh. The objective of this particular demonstration was to raise awareness about poverty, in Africa specifically. It was splendid. Part of it was a planned march through the streets of Edinburgh that, from an aerial view, would form a big circle around the city. Marchers were asked to wear white shirts, so from up above it would show as a white band, the symbol of the MPH. Expected turnout was 100,000 – the actual figure was about 250k. I’ve been in city wide demonstrations in Lawrence, but nothing whatsoever near the scope of this one. It was amazing to see everyone band together for a good cause. Also, we ended up marching behind this really awesome African drum band (ed. note – Christ, how many times can one say ‘band’ in a paragraph? I must have been really exhausted), so we ended up dancing most of the way. It occurred to me midway through that here I was dancing, in the biggest demonstration I’d ever seen, in the street, in Scotland. Absolute craziness.

Anyway, none of that, as far as we can tell, made the news in the U.S. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what did make it was coverage of a big group of stupid anarchists trashing Edinburgh, basking in all the attention of the MPH march and the G8. Let me get a few things sorted out. The Anarchist collective in Lawrence, a few members of whom I am friends with, is what I think of when I think of anarchists. They’re actually more socialists than anarchists, and they’re about the most responsible, organized group of young people in the city of Lawrence, a fact which I love because of the delicious irony. The jokers that came to Edinburgh were totally unrelated to my Lawrencian anarchists. Basically they just tore things apart – they even tore out the flowers in the Botannical Garden! Bastards. – and got arrested, and got their heyday on TV, yadda yadda. That happened a few days after we left. Which is good that we weren’t there I guess, but it still sucks because I think Edinburgh is a rather nice town and it was a shame to see such rampant stupidity and senseless violence destroy it.

My last update was, I’m sorry to say, rather negative. I wish I had enjoyed London better, but we did end up staying there during the hottest week it had seen in about thirty years, and I guess the locals who weren’t able to escape the city were just extra cranky and short with the tourists. Maybe it’s just a big city thing, I don’t know. I am, however, very glad that we are not there right now. Even here, some people in our group are afraid to get on the buses. I’m of the attitude that it can’t be helped. Unless I happen to spot a suspicious, bomb-looking thing sitting in a sack next to me on the 41, I’ll take my chances and live my life how I will. Not much else one can do.

Rewind further. My enjoyment of this trip shot up significantly after we left London. We stayed for a few days in York, a charming college town north of London. The first night there, we wandered around a bit after our dinner and explored. The architecture of York is a great juxtaposition of modernity and antiquity – tanning booths and Poundlands (where everything is £1!) next to a giant hunk of Roman wall, lined with cobblestone streets and Tudor-style house designs. The streets have ridiculous names that are fun to say, like “Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate” and “Pavement” (Seriously, what would the naming committee have sounded like? : “‘Ey, wot say we name this ‘ere street?” – “Well wotsit made of? We’ll call it that!” “Bloody ‘ell, wot a great idear!”) My favorite bit about that night, though, was when we went to walk along the Shambles, another brilliantly named pedestrian street tucked away in the middle of town, with charming little shops (including a yarn shop where I, of course, bought some skeins to take home). We had been smelling chocolate for the longest time, and somehow that translated into a desire for ice cream. So we went looking for ice cream, and every place that looked like it could possibly carry cold dairy products was closed, except this little Italian deli in the Shambles. There were shafts of golden light emanating from the door, I swear. We went in and asked for ice cream, and the manager came out and, in a thick Italian accent said, “Oh, no, I cannot sell you my ice cream. It has gone bad. The ice cream machine does not work and it has gone soft. I cannot sell you something bad, because that is not how we do things here.” He then proceeded to usher us out into the street and show us how to get to places where there were ice cream parlors. Awed, we thanked him, and he said “gratzi” to us! Aww. As I wrote in my journal for the class – he melted his ice cream, and our hearts.

Clifford’s Tower, in York, best known for being the site of a Jewish massacre in 1190, during the time of the Crusades. Now, their website informs me that there are plans to build a huge shopping multiplex right next to the Tower.

View from the tower, as of yet untainted by overpriced clothing and tourists.

A street painting on the sidewalk just outside of Yorkminster.

Yorkminster itself.

The chapter house ceiling in Yorkminster; which, btw, has amazingly ridiculous acoustics. While browsing the chapter house, suddenly I heard this diaphanous melody that sounded like it was floating down from the ceiling, reverberating off the walls and soaking into my mind. I panicked for a second, thinking some winged being was descending from the clouds, about to smite me good for not believing in it – but it turned out to be my friend, on the other side of the room, humming to herself.

People, embarking on the overpriced ghost tour. Ha ha, silly tourists.

The other remarkably entertaining thing in York was the geese. That makes the town sound boring, but it really wasn’t; these geese were just really funny. They’re kind of chubby, and they will sit right in the middle of the road. They can get away with doing that in York, where they might stand a chance of not getting splatted by a bus – which would be the case in any other city we’ve been in on this trip. Anyhow, my friends and I decided to go on a wild goose chase – which makes it sound faster and more exciting than it actually was. As I mentioned, they are portly, and so we kind of strolled behind them as they waddled into the Fenwick’s parking lot. There were a good number of them – maybe twenty or thirty geese and goslings, and they kept walking in front of the cars and plopping down on the road in front of them. People threw food out their windows to get the geese out of the way, but that just made the geese want to stay around the cars and eat the food. So we wacky Americans took it upon ourselves to help them, and chased the geese out of the way by waving and stamping. I think the drivers appreciated it, but I also think that they thought we were absolutely bonkers. I can’t say they’re wrong.

The mean street geese of York. Don’t mess with tha Fowl Krew.

For some reason they were letting this duck guy hang out with them. It was cute and would have made for a fun game of ‘Duck Duck Goose’ had I my wits about me at the time. (I doubt they would have let me, though, they look like they mean serious business).

Fast forward to Edinburgh (sheesh, a lot has happened). I’ve already written about the major happenings in Edinburgh, but there’s one other story I have to get in before my £2 are up. My dorm room was really nice – it had a balcony that looked out onto Arthur’s Seat, a dormant volcano inside the city. One night a bunch of loud drunk people came in – probably about 3:00 a.m. or so, and woke me up. Now the sun stays up for a very long time in Scotland, so it looked like it was about 7:00 while I recognized that the actual time was probably very ridiculous. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to get up for the day and hike up Arthur’s Seat, which I had hiked the night before anyways. I grabbed my camera and jacket, and left, trying not to wake anybody. It was beautiful – cold, but I was wrapped in layers, and there was not a soul about except the squawking seagulls. I climbed up one trail, when I looked down and noticed these vans that looked kind of like taxi cabs that were driving around the side of the volcano. I thought it was rather odd that someone would ask to be let off at the volcano, so I didn’t think anything of it until one of the cabs pulled up near the bottom of the trail that I had just started. ‘Oh, shit,’ I thought, realizing that it was not a taxi cab, but in fact a police. I went down to see what he wanted, and they quizzed me about what I was doing up there, where I was from, did I have any ID (of course I didn’t), etc. They had stepped up security because of the MPH march and the G8 summit, and didn’t want anyone up there attempting to laser the castle or something. Anyhow, they soon established that I was not that threatening seeming, and then asked if I wanted to take photos of the sunset. I said yes, and then they offered me a ride to the other side of the mountain. I took them up on it, so this is how I got picked up by the police in Edinburgh! Fun times.

Arthur’s Seat, which is right next to my dorm. The moon is just setting.

The coppers that gave me a lift to the other side. Nice guys, once they realized that I didn’t have any lasers.

Sunrise over sleepy Edinburgh. I think that’s the Firth of Forth, or the Forth of Fifth…whatever. I’m no geography expert.

Okay, gotta go. Times up. Will update as soon as I get free internet again!