I got time to hold my own.

I would like to wish you all a happy December. I thought I would miss the suburban lights almost immediately - one thing I love about USA Christmas (TM) is the "Gotta Beat the Johnsons" mentality of Christmas lights. But insead of that good ol' American display of I-care-less-about-my-electricity-bills-than-you-do, we have this:


This too (that color being projected actually changes. Not unlike the Disneyland castle.):


And this lovely string of lights as well:


Yessir, Christmas is coming. I miss my family and I have been spending the last couple of days doing little to nothing. I'm chipping away my play but it is nowhere near as fast a writing as when I wrote my play about superheroes. I wrote that play with super-speed. Ha! Honestly though, every year since I can remember... at least since I have been away at school... I have had a bit of winter ennui. I thought, perhaps, being in the United Kingdom would change that, but alas, no. I have to fight it to make myself get out of the house, to participate in things that I used to welcome with open arms. I don't know why, or how this happened, this particular form of seasonal social disorder, but it's happened and I'm fighting it. I'm going out when I can and I'm hanging out with folks. Poker is big right now, with cookies taking the place of money. Joseph is still ill, so sometimes we just converse in my room about things like television, musicals, and (as usual) the difference between the US and the UK.

I'm still happy, though. Happy with a bit of sadness on the edges. It's kind of like present-wrapping, actually, to make a seasonal metaphor. Packages look absolutely incredible - they have appeared as if by magic, wrapped in boxes, with magic inside. A lovely seasonal guessing game. But there is a bit of sadness because eventually, that package will be ruined, the gift inside revealed, the glitzy paper off to the trash can. That's how I feel. I feel like every day is one of those packages. Happy but a bit futile.

The futility is from the fact that these people that I am with, who I have come to care about quite a bit, who I live with and share hot cocoa with, whose papers I help edit and distract from, who I walk to university with and get pints with in the evening... I will probably never see a large fraction of them ever again. Our futures all lie elsewhere. New Zealand, Germany, Serbia, Scotland, Canada. So while I love doing all these things, it feels impermanent and sad at the same time. Like the wrapped package.

Sigh. It's a complext emotion. Have I described it adequately enough? I think so.

Let's talk about Harry Potter! Tomorrow, the Harry Potter collection of fables comes out. I am incredibly excited! As far as I know, there is absolutely no plans for midnight parties or anything (as far as I know. I'm going to the bookstores today to find out.) But that's fine. I'm just excited to read something new from this universe. When I can't get to sleep in my little dorm room, I put on Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter 6 and eventually get lifted into a fantasy dreamworld and then sleep.

And, I'm sorry, but the UK version has a much better cover. Observe:

Totally vintage, as though it was on the shelf of a wizard. Compared to this thing:

I can't wait!

You'll be one of us when the night comes.

So, Barcelona.

There's a song... hold on, I'll post it at the end of this post. I don't know why I told you to hold on... I guess this is what they call "live blogging". The blogosphere is totally lame. Do you realize how many cute cat blogs there are out there? Have you any clue?

What was I talking about?

Oh right, Barcelona.

I think Barcelona, as a city, singlehandedly caused the unraveling of what I call reality. Ever since my trip to this warm Spanish city, I have had trouble connecting the already disparate events of my life. Now I'm on ice floes, jumping from island to island, curious about where I'm going, where I came from and if the ice will hold.

If I look angry in that picture in Barcelona, I wasn't. Not at all. In fact, even though I think the unsewing of the quilted patches of my life is a direct result of the eight hours I spent getting to the country, I found Barcelona to be a gorgeous, if confusing, city.

First of all, I don't speak Spanish, which everyone in Barcelona speaks. I also don't speak (much) French, which was the principal language that Ariane, Caroline and Fabien spoke. So the first night there, we drank these lovely drinks to get the whole situation a bit more lubricated:
It is called a Guarapita (I believe) and it is made from freshly squeezed passionfruit, rum, vodka, and another type of Spanish rum that I never think I heard properly. We drank those and we went from mildly talking and eating snails and calamari and squid and mussels to this:


Ha! See the good times? It was just odd, because they all spoke in French. So a lot of the time I spent in my head, describing the techno music mixing with the old architecture, and the seemingly endless amount of lovely squares hidden in the side streets there. The strange and interesting cultural difference of Barcelona to London is that London insists on planting grass and lovely plants and putting statues in the center, and Barcelona is content to put large slabs of concrete and let people skateboard. Also, there were many dog drinking fountains.

Here is the other interesting thing about Barcelona: Gaudi. The further segmenting of my reality can be blamed totally on the architecture of this man. Randomly strewn throughout the city are his works, like buildings amongst other buildings and park benches with his style of mosaic and then this monstrosity:

The Segrada Familia. Absolutely terrifying and amazing, and it was started in 1884. And it will be under construction forever, I think. It's just... never wanting to be finished. It's better that way, actually, if you ask me, because it's this strange and beautiful work and it stands as a testament to this man who was basically a little bit or a lot insane. That first picture, where I look perturbed (I'm not, by the way) I was in the park that he designed, and it's similarly deranged and beautiful. Let me see if I have a picture to illustrate that.


See that? Bizarre.

The other thing about Barcelona is they put all of their food in lots of butter, or chocolate. This is something I can get behind. Here are churros and chocolate, which was fantastic and went together quite well, if you ask me.



And then here is the best paella I think I will ever have. It's certainly the best paella I have ever had in my young life. There were crayfish, and mussels, and every bite of saffron rice had tiny shrimp. I had two helpings. This was gotten from the restaurant below Fabien's place, and we sat around the table talking (they talked a bit more than I did) and drank delicious red wine and I just wondered if suddenly, like a movie, I would understand french implicitly and then I could join in. I also wondered about other things, and I came to the conclusion that Barcelona is the way it is because it is basically a very international city, a concentration of lost souls, trying to party away their problems, eating collage foods in a city of mad construction projects and chasing pleasure and fruit.



Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just... strange. My last night and day there I spent by myself because Ariane and Caroline got a plane for the day before. I don't really know how that happened, but Fabien and I went out to a couple different bars drinking pretty bad beer that night, and we tried to communicate why we both felt a little bit at a loss for words. Have you ever tried to communicate a loss for words? It doesn't work.

And on that Monday, I just sort of wandered around with my clothes on my back and tried to figure out how to best amuse myself before I spent another day on planes, trains and automobiles. I ate fruit and drank a mango coconut smoothie in an incredible market where people shouted fast Spanish about their various fresh wares. And I went to that park where I took the lizard picture and I just felt completely lost in the world, too small and too insignificant and I tried to find people who were speaking English and failed, so I just sat and looked out at the whole city and wished for companionship. I felt oddly free and happy though, at the same time. So it was a happy loneliness, which is bittersweet. Popsicles were appropriate though, so I bought one of those and a cheese sandwich and eventually made my way home, via a taxi, a train, a subway, an airport van, a plane, another three connecting metros, and one final train. And my feet. You can't forget your feet.

Quite the winding path.

Barcelona is basically just a product of collages - putting things together and hoping it all works. That's why the band below works - they are 26 people and they are called I'm From Barcelona even though they are from Sweden. After a couple of those Guarapitas, me and Fabien sang this song as we walked the avenues and side streets.



I'm glad Ariane invited me. I hope I get to see her one more time before I head back to the states.

under new management.

Would you read a story about a energetic traveler and a Lewis Carrol character cavorting through Cambridge, punting on canals and seeking out first editions, fiendish for Parsnip soup? The same characters would then catch a girl group time traveled from the sixties, and the energetic traveler's heart would grow four sizes as they hugged him. The next day would then be All Hallow's Eve, and the energetic traveler would transform into a silver and blue tinseled moon monster, ready to go scare-mongering with a red tinseled ghoul. They would scare their way through the evening, until the moon monster, transmogrified, would leave with four mismatched friends to visit the sin drenched city of Amsterdam. Transfixed with crooked buildings, misty bike rides, chocolate covered waffles, the tragedy of Anne Frank, the beauty of Van Gogh, and a pink tinged red light district, he would reconsider how he feels about life and his place in the universe. Oh, and the zealousness for parsnip soup would be replaced with pumpkin flavor. The energetic traveler, now weary, would have a leisurely boat ride back, sleeping through synchronized girl group dreams, ready for a day of rest before another rocketspeed adventure to London, and Paris.

Would you read that story?

I'm trying to live it, if at all possible.

ooh-hoo child...

Yesterday I ate a cake and drank apple/lemon tea with Hannah.

Here's a picture of us, but at an unrelated function:



Yes, I should have buttoned one more button on my shirt. My bare chest is embarrassing.

There was a point to this...

Oh yes. So Hannah and I live in opposite flats. Once or so a day I manage my way through the six doors it takes to get to her place and read a bit from my notebook for opinion. And she does the same. She is an excellent audience and I like to think that I am just that for her. She is a poet trying to do prose, I am... well, I am me. You all know who I am.

Last night was another concert, this time for Blood Red Shoes. We started the night in the raging, dancing, jumping crowd. Then we found our way to the back for a couple songs. Then we fought our way back into that same roiling mass of people. Lyrics yelled together, over and over, that I liked: "I wish I was someone better/ I wish I was someone better." And "How long, how long, how long can you miss someone?"


They are a duo. Like the White Stripes, but in reverse. I think that is a cool picture. Do you?


They brought their own decorative lamps.


I went with Joseph and his friend James. I wore a flagrantly mismatched tie on purpose. Also, Blood Red Shoes' music is much more cathartic live. But, isn't that always the case?

Today is a trip to deconstruct (in paper form) a museum. It's tea with Kaitlyn, it's possibly salsa lessons and definitely script writing. It's drinking more hot chocolate, more coffee, more tea. It's eating more sandwiches and probably riding my bike. It's a Wednesday, in the east of the UK, where I am living and wishing and hoping and playing and working. In that order.

one day I drifted away...

So I went to see The Streets with my friend Samanta the other night. I remember when I bought their first album, at Amoeba, and then tried to play them on the ride home and Dad said, "I can't understand a word he is saying. Why would you want to listen to this?" and I think I have an answer now. I listen to The Streets because I like figuring out what he is saying and when I actually do figure it out, I realize it's a story about a man's life that spins out of control but he always pulls it back somehow. And he has been telling this story via string and horn samples and drums and computer blips and guitars for four albums and now he isn't thinking about the day to day. He has a line on his most recent album, "For billions of years/since the onset of time /every single one of your ancestors survived/every single person on your mums and dad's side/successfully looked after and passed onto you life/what are the chances of that like" which is a nice sentiment. It was a really "wicked" concert. There was this moment where he got everyone to freeze pose for five seconds and the music paused on this synth line that echoed, and then he yelled "DANCE!" and everyone did, like mad people, and I felt pretty gosh darn euphoric.

That was a long paragraph!

Other things I have done recently: researched astral projection, visited a zombie party with Bob Dylan and David Bowie as the soundtrack (so a zombie party from the early seventies?), learned to waltz (not box step) and ballroom jive, jammed with Joseph on ukelele and guitar, crosswords, tea, gin and tonic... It's hard to sum up the life you are leading in a pleasing and entertaining fashion, but believe me, my life is pleasing and entertaining. I should REALLY stop leaving it five days in between updates.

Onward!

This is a path that you can walk on near the Norwich Cathedral, which is a peaceful (if sullenly grey) place. Not that I'm surprised, I'm just commenting. The trees in this picture look as though they had the night out to dance and got frozen and then forced to line this walk for my pleasure.


So I drank a lot of coffee the other day and then got horribly lost on my way to school on my bike because I thought to myself, "Hey there, I left an hour early. This looks like a shortcut." If you are wondering what drinking a lot of coffee has to do with that, it's that coffee makes me believe that all my ideas are not only great, but should be acted on swiftly and without much thought to repercussions.

It was not a shortcut. Of course my camera didn't have batteries, and of course I forgot my water that day, but I found this incredible bikes-only path, where I was almost alone except for cascading yellow leaves on a tree-lined path, broken intermittently by a bridge over a river. One of these bridges had two children with fishing lines in the water, I kid you not. I stopped here to (eavesdrop) look at the water and it was a little boy and girl.

LG: I have actually gotten quite into Indiana Jones.
LB: What, more than Star Wars?
LG: I just think it's a little more real. You know, it could happen.
LB: Show me with hands.

Little girl holds her hands about a foot apart.

LG: I like Star Wars about this much.

She brings her hands another six inches apart.

And I like Indiana Jones this much.

LB: I think I can understand that.
LG: We are adorable!
LB: I know, let's have tea and discuss the queen in this same manner!

Those last two lines of dialogue didn't happend, but my god! What an amazing long-cut!

I went looking for the path and couldn't find it. But here is another picture to prove Norwich is a lovely, chilly little city:
That is all. I promise you, I will update tomorrow.

Oh, also, check out Dylan Moran on youtube. I think he is really, really funny.

Think what the future would be with a poor boy like me.

Welcome to Mary Chapman Court. I'm trying to get everyone to lovingly refer to it as "Shawshank". Shall we take a look around?



There's our kitchen! See that washer on the left side? It's a dryer as well! That's what we call a "space saver"!

There's the dining room. There are five of us in here, but only four chairs. The message from UEA is clear: eat quietly alone!


There's my bed! It's probably about 6' long. I'm 6'1" and 3/4s...



And there's the ol' desk. I'm writing at that desk right now.


I covered up the previous British student's graffiti with... all of that junk. Pictures and the like. Those three blue post-it notes have my phone number (it's too long to memorize!), my Pipettes ticket confirmation number, and my Barcelona confirmation number. How exciting!

Patrick says, and I agree, that British graffiti is much nicer than American graffiti. There was a huge sign on someone's garden wall that just said "Hey There!" His postboard had all sorts of encouragement on it. Conversely, Joseph still hasn't put anything on his postboard, and there is a lovely poem urging him to fall into a pit of despair. I don't call it Shawshank for nothing!



This is Patrick and me. We were getting ready to go out. The ties are a big hit, Mom! I'm glad I brought them, despite your raised eyebrows.



This is Joseph. Someone told him he looks like Orlando Bloom. I don't think so.

Life is quieter now that fresher's week is over - on Monday, we had a mildly offensive "French Night" where we drank red wine, ate brie on baguettes, listened to the Amelie soundtrack and drew moustaches on. British accent + french = fun!

And last night, we went to the pub up the road that we are trying to make our own - so far, each night that we are there, we take over one of the rooms and discuss such far ranging topics as CSS, prices at Tesco's, our love of Mary Chapman Court, and the weather.

I don't have class for these first few days of the week, so I have taken to wandering. I have time to write letters finally, and time to cook. The campus has a lovely lake that, I'm almost positive, has mermaids and a giant squid underneath. And every street in Norwich is just too picturesque and quaint to describe in anything other than tired cliches. I'm going to try and explore more of that today with a Belgian girl I met at that awfully loud international students night.

I also have time to go to Barcelona (I bought my tickets yesterday), Cambridge (I bought my tickets last weekend), and Amsterdam (still working on it.) Europe, here I come!

(exclamation mark count for this post: 12)

A Quick Word on Pictures...

I will be putting pictures on here soon, promise.

I promise!

The only reason I haven't already is that I have taken over 200 of them and I have not been on my computer long enough to sort through them and everything, and once I have, I won't have a backlog of 200 pictures any longer, so picture posts will be more frequent.

But this is already the longest I have spent at a computer in ages, and when I sit down to it, I keep getting interrupted to do something like go to an indie club nicknamed "Mustard" and dance to Noah and the Whale and The Ting Tings (listen to Five Years Time and Great DJ). Or drink a cup of tea.

The British don't make jell-o from powder, but highly concentrated jell-o cubes melted and then reconstituted.

Question time:
-the sheet is from Primark, the British version of Target, I suppose.
-I am taking drama writing (stage and radio version), prose fiction, and museums and exhibitions (the final project is our own art exhibition at the university art museum which was donated by the food market Sainsbury's!)

I have a story I am going to write. I think I will wait for Friday to really start on it though...