November 2005 Archives

Sunday roast.

Things I learned (learnt) while in London:

People don't really hate Americans. They like to use our accents as a way to initiate conversation and then pick up on us.

It is acceptable to drink at nearly any time of the day or night, and nearly every social activity began and ended with either a drink or me falling on the floor.

When in large groups, Englishmen don't seem to mind be spoken to in gibberish in order to get them to say "wot?" again. Especially when the gibberish was sincere.

Older people in England have automatic frowny-face. When their faces are slack, which is most of the time, they are stuck in sad little comical moues.

In London, handsome men roam the streets like feral dogs. Feral dogs possibly waiting to be domesicated.

Even poor, ostensibly uneducated people, have better vocabularies than my friends who went to Harvard and Yale (and me).

It's freaking cold.

For all the talk I've heard about London being overrun with filth and immigrants, I was flabberghasted by how incredibly clean the city was. Have these people been to New York for fuck's sake? We keep our ankles warm in New York not by wearing stockings, but by letting the rats congregate outside our apartment doors in a giant furry miasma of warmth. And the immigrants? Do they mean the one person of color I saw this entire weekend? Granted, she did roll over my foot with her suitcase but I can't believe that's any reason to tighten the conrols on the EU. If on the off chance they mean the gorgeous Eastern European teenagers working in every bakery and coffee shop, I will personally sponsor a dozen of them to move to the United States. A little delicate bone structure could only do this country some good.

Okay so yeah it's expensive, but it's not as bad as every fat American asshole without a passport would have you believe.

Does this make me look English?

So as you might have guessed, I'm now giving some sort of consideration to moving to London. I haven't even arrived back statesides, and I'm already having complaints registered from all sides. "Why would you want to move?" they whinge, "Everyone there is so unhappy."

I know that this may come as a surprise to my more sporadic readers (i.e. my father), but I am probably one of the most functionally miserable, borderline suicides that manages to roll into a collared shirt and heels and out the door on a daily basis. I can't help but think to be in a place where I would be the "cheerful, bubbly" one couldn't be bad for my psyche. (Yes, these were terms that were used to describe me by a member of management in London.) How can you not love that?

This morning I woke up, besieged by handsome men with English accents. I shook my head, sure that I was stuck in one of those unwholesome dreams that I am wont to having. I parted the Ambien filled mist in my head and realized this was no dream, I was in London.

(For the purpose of clarification, let me say that I was not physically surrounded by handsome men as I was waking up, per se. I was just acknowledging the handsomeness and Englishness that is surrounding me in general on this little vacation.)

I ate a Yorkshire pudding yesterday.

Last summer, my father went almost completely deaf in his right ear.

Sitting around the table at Chez Panisse, a fancy Bay Area restaurant. The players: me, my mother and father; I'm talking to my mom. My father puts his hearing aid in.

Father: "Wow! I can hear you now!"
Me (derisively): "Guess that means we have to stop calling you the N-word, then, since you can hear us."
Father: "What?"
Me (slightly louder): "The N-word."
Father: "The what?"
Mother (loudly): "The N-word!"
Father: "The what word?"
Mother (bellowing): "Nigger!"
Every head in the restaurant snaps towards us.
Father: "Oh."

1. Driving to work is decidedly colder with no heater.
2. My favorite song today: Go! by Tones on Tail
3. My favorite song 12 years ago: Anything, Anything by Dramarama
4. The song I was listening to when I got into a 4 car pileup on the Bay Bridge: I Love Livin' the City by Fear
5. Almost done reading: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
6. Just finished reading: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
7. Statistically improbable phrases from Blink: rapid cognition, intuitive repulsion, sip test, adaptive unconscious, red decks, sentiment override, double fault
8. The statistically improbable phrase from Blink that I can most relate to: intuitive repulsion
9. Statistically improbably phrases from I. Lewis Libby's novel: assistant headman, tiny dancer, man with the pole, mountain trousers, old samurai, lacquer workers, liquid woman (Why no mention of bear rape?)
10. Oldest item on my wishlist: The Nightmare on Elm Street Collection (Been there for 4 years)
11. Current ringtone: Tubular Bells - Theme From The Exorcist
12. Watching right now: The Colbert Report
13. Last concert: Devo
14. Next concert: Depeche Mode
15. Things I feel guilty about: unread New Yorkers, four hour Lifetime miniseries, my inability to manage my 401(k)
16. Things I have vowed: never to date another man with neck tattoos
17. RSS Feeds: Wonkette, The Superficial, Gawker, Sploid, Nerve, Slashdot, Word Usage, New York Times, BBC News, Google News Top Stories, Weather, Word of the Day, Grammar Tips
18. For Dinner: Homemade split pea soup
19. Number of books in my stack of Evelyn Waugh titles, yet unread: 6, Read: 3
20. Favorite word from Mad Magazine: "Blech"

Breaking news:
Today, the heat and defroster stopped working in my car. When I turn the knob, it makes a sickly grinding sound, and then...nothing.

Yesterday I went to a talk called 'Protecting Your Children From Internet Predators.' I've been terribly busy lately, and nearly unable to keep up with all of my deadlines. I figured that a lecture about online sexual miscreants would probably perk up my mood a bit, and waste a valuable hour of my time.

The female officer giving the lecture was a specialist in the area, and seemed to enjoy her ability to shock and horrify the audience. She told us of how she would pose as a child online, and make plans to meet up with older men. "Yep," she said, "he showed up to the meet with a single red rose, a box of condoms, a tarp, rope, and a knife." She gave us a knowing look then, and all of the parents in the room--which was everyone except me--looked terrified.

The officer then regaled us with an anecdote about her time online, posing as a 13 year old girl. "I went into a chat room," she told us, her eyes glittering, "called 'Amy Loves Dogs.'" I figured it was a chat room about, you know, pets. The kind of chat room a kid might want to go into. But that's not what this chat room was about. When I went in there, they were talking about--" she then paused for dramatic effect.

"They were chatting about women having sex with dogs!" Everyone in the room gasped, and I started laughing hysterically. It quickly dawned on me, however, that I was apparently the only one who recognized bestiality as comedy gold. Disappointed, I regained my composure and tried to practice looking horrified.

The theme was 80's Prom, and I was instructed to dress in costume. Once I arrived, however, it was suggested that rather than "80's Prom" I had gotten confused and come as "80's Prostitute." My defense? It's a very fine line.