Further adventures in displacement
My Christmas was lovely, thanks, and courtesy of a very generous Santa Claus I have many excellent new amusements to tide me over till my birthday. I won't bore you with the details but I am now the proud bearer of a certain glorious Eddie Izzard DVD and I have new black pumps to match.
I have surprised myself with my ability to re-adjust to both the time zone and to general American life. London, it must be noted, is not particularly exotic but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to walk into Wal Mart ever again. The draw of cheap Icees was too strong for me to resist, however.
I will be returning very soon to the Land of the Scones but first I have to
curl up and die write another paper.
You can take the girl out of London but the only London you can take out of the girl takes the form of black snot
So I made it out of my seven hour flight alive, though insanely jealous of the first class elite who had seats that could recline flat while I was packed against the window next to two giant men (though giant in different directions). And have you ever noticed how much men like to sit with their legs as far apart as possible? As if my personal space issues were not being challenged enough, turns out I'm not such a huge fan of having to monitor thigh contact but it's kind of necessary when your seat is about a foot wide. Also, British Airways, would you mind mixing up the veg meal option? All vegetarian plane food seems to involve cheese, tomato sauce, and pasta, and the words "cannelloni" or "tortellini." Karma was watching out for me, however, as I did take special pleasure in receiving and finishing my meal before Splayed Legs Man.
I also find it a bit ridiculous that, having stepped out into the cool Boston night, I took a deep breath and exclaimed "I forgot what clean air smelled like!" Though truth be told, Boston is no Los Angeles, it's certainly no Swiss Alps. I will, at least, enjoy my brief reprieve from sooty eye crispies.
I could probably cite a certain Simon and Garfunkel song but it might be cliche of me to do so
Home for Christmas starting today!
I've decided that my trip home is a fantastic opportunity for further culture comparison, despite being fueled by an unfulfilled yearning for phenomena that do not occur here, such as snow, Marshmallow Fluff, and L.L. Bean. And despite the seven-and-a-half-hourness of my flight, I can blame my post-flight tipsiness on jet-lag-induced delirium. What a deal!
It would not be a proper London sendoff without some rain, and that's what it looks like it's about to do so I'd better get my tuchus to the tube station before things get ugly. I'm off to the land of Wal Marts and CharlieCards; wish me luck.
I will spare you the details of my papers which have been occupying far more of my time than any of these things
Yesterday at 4 I experienced high tea, in all of its ridiculously British glory. I only had a couple of the little finger sandwiches and one scone (albeit with jam and clotted cream) and I was full until about 9:30 pm. I'm guessing my body just couldn't figure out what to do with all that animal fat. "Is this butter or lard? I need to know, it's a matter of legality! Close the gates! Fullness receptors at full steam!" I will say, however, that I had never been a huge fan of scones until I had this one. Warm, butter(?)y, cranberry deliciousness. Then more fat and sugar on top. The British know how to do scones. I think my weak American stomach can only handle one every two months, though.
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We saw Evita at the Adelphi on Tuesday and it was quite fabulous. After years of listening to my Andrew Lloyd Webber collection, I was finally able to lend some context to the song "Another Suitcase in Another Hall." I also had a new appreciation for live theatre and the surprising difficulty of followspotting after my
adventures last weekend.
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Months of staring at the demented basketweave of the
Tube map make the
T map look like a tic tac toe board. Oh, how I miss the simplicity. The lines are named by color. (How quaint.) Zones? What are they? Even the green line looks laughably tame in comparison. The MBTA is, however, upgrading to Charliecards which will be most excellent after being spoiled by my Oystercard, Big Brother aside. I don't think I could have gone back to tokens after this.
I told myself I'd write 1000 words today and I may have if you count this blog entry
Today we ate at a
sushi restaurant that pretty much sums up the
Japanese monopoly on
cute. The seating surrounds an open kitchen, and around the kitchen there is a conveyor belt on which the cooks place small dishes of food, color coded by price. You sit down, fill up your water glass with
the taps at your table (one for still, one for fizzy, and now I want a tap in my house that dispenses seltzer water), and pluck dishes off the conveyor belt at whim. If you don't see what you want, you press the red [easy] button built into your table and someone comes to take your order. I didn't like sushi going in, so maybe it was the atmosphere or maybe it was because the last sushi I had came from the grocery store, but I tried it again and I actually liked it. I also ate a lot of ginger from the jar at the table because it was free and nibbly and I didn't feel like paying for more sushi.
During the Freshers' Fayre back in September, in which all the clubs come together to trick you into signing up for their email lists with which they will forever spam you with "MOVIE NIGHT THIS WEEKEND" emails, I was innocently squeezing through the crowd when the Christian Society thrust upon me a goodie bag which consisted of a can of baked beans and a Gideon's bible. Okay, beans I can eat but what would I, the lapsedest of the lapsed, do with a bible? I've still got enough Catholic pack rat in me to feel badly recycling it, so it ended up in the back of one of my drawers where the guilt rays might be stopped by the Formica desktop. There was no guilt whatsoever eating the beans (hey, they gave 'em to me), but now I feel really weird because I need to reference the New Testament for my Jewish Studies essay on the Dead Sea Scrolls and what they can tell us about early Christianity (the answer? not much), and of all the sources I could possibly already have in my minimalist overseas bedroom, I already have a bible in my room to look at. I'm no bible expert (clearly) but it feels a bit unscholarly to be referencing a text I essentially got off the street, even if it is the bible. I also feel doubly traitorous for using a version that a) is Protestant and b) doesn't have the Old Testament in it. Is this a reputable translation? I don't know. What if it's the most propagandist of all the possible versions? I wouldn't know, I stopped paying attention in CCD after I learned which hand to pick up the wafer with. And I'm far too lazy to go to the library to get another version. In the Seven Deadly Sins Death Match, sloth wins out every time where college kids are concerned.
Go Team Followspot
Just finished teching for a show over the weekend. Let me just say, as a fair to middling member of stage crew as far as overall commitment is concerned, I seem to have a flair for followspotting (spotlighting for you Yanks). I would much rather have been doing stage crew things than a paper but the paper must get done before Friday and unfortunately no one volunteered to write my paper for me in exchange for stage crew duties.
I've also noticed that although the general idea is that the cast and set crew will cooperate, it's not usually so. Actors tend to be the WHAAAA! I'm an ACTOR! LALALALA BOING! type, while the crew looks on with raised eyebrows. At least that was the vibe I got as crew and cast (though the latter not voluntarily) attempted to move giant pieces of set from the workshop to the theatre.
I also got to dress all in black (though in London that's not so unusual) and wear a headset. Followspotting is deceptive; I'm not so high up on the stage crew totem pole but wearing a headset seems like a badge of some importance. On the other hand, the whole audience witnesses my random hand twitches magnified about fifty times so perhaps I have more power over the outcome of the performance than stage crew thinks. Bwahahaa.
