You Were The Weather In My Neighborhood

It's almost September, and half of West Philly is moving. The college students are moving out, to be replaced with new, different college students. Every block has another shitty couch being ruined by the rain. This morning, on the way to the bus, I stopped to watch one being eaten by a garbage truck. It went from furniture to splinters in minutes.

It's almost September, and everyone is starting school or starting new jobs or starting new lives. Almost September is when everything changes.

In the last month, I've changed roommates, lost a boyfriend, and gained two cats. I've gotten a raise at work, and one of my coworkers (who is also a good friend) is leaving. Half the people I know have moved or are moving to within ten blocks of my apartment. It's like my world has suddenly broken into a run, and I'm still walking.

Sometimes I'm excited about the change. Sometimes it feels like I've suddenly got a whole new life without really having to do anything. Some days everything is shiny and new and exciting.

Sometimes I don't want to get out of bed. Sometimes the stress makes me feel like I'm vibrating like a tuning fork.

I tell myself, "The art of losing isn't hard to master." I tell myself, "You have to keep going forward, because there's no way to go back."

London Journal - Tuesday, the 20th - Creepy, Creepy Art

Tuesday was my last day in London, and all I really planned to do was go to the Saatchi Gallery. I had heard a lot about it, mainly in terms like, "They've got some really fucking creepy shit!" Except, you know, more artsy.

Was I ever not disapointed! There was not a single art piece that caused you to think, "Boy, I bet that artist is actually really well adjusted, and I would probably not mind terribly if I got stuck in an elevator with them." There was a lot of art that caused a reaction something like, "GAH! GET IT AWAY! AWAY!"

Which was actually very cool. Most "disturbing" art is disturbing because you look at it, and it's a photo, or a painting, or a sculpture or whatever, and you think to yourself something along the lines of, "Man, that shit just ain't right." Whereas if you look at, say, a dead shark suspended in formaldehyde, your reaction is just totally visceral.

This entry may not make it sound all that attractive, but I really, really just cannot recommend this gallery enough. It was just an incredible emotional experience, and how often do you get that from an art gallery? You should definitely check out the Saatchi if you ever get a chance, unless you are my parents. If you are my parents, you will hate it, probably even more than you hated Barbara Kruger.

The oil room was especially amazing. Basically, it's a room. It's filled with oil. There's a metal walkway so you can enter the room, at which point you are surrounded on all sides by chest-high oil. It smells. It's really close to you. It's really reflective, and viscous, and does weird things with light and reflection. It's really fucking strange.

Scattered throughout the gallery are all these hyper-realistic statues of people who look just like, well, people. I kept doing things like reading a tag that said something like, "Old Man on a Bench" and being like, "Wait, that's not a real old man on that bench?" (pause, stare) "Well, I guess he's not really moving."

I saw a model of the death star made out of rats. (Okay, not real rats. Fiberglass models cast from real dead rats. Doesn't make it that much less weird.)

Also disturbing: taxidermied horse.

I really liked Tracy Emin's I've Got It All. I bought a postcard of it and put it up in my office at work, causing a semi-unfortunate incident where the head programmer was like, "That girl looks like my sister." What exactly does one say to that? "I'm sorry that my taste in artwork inadvertantly caused you to picture your sister shoving cash up her snatch"? I think I went with something along the lines of, "Um, I'm sorry?"

After I got done with the Saatchi and had some lunch, it was still only around 2 pm, and I wasn't meeting Ro until six or something, so I decided to go to the Victoria and Albert museum.

I made it through the V&A costuming exhibit okay, but then I tried to go to the textile exhibit and I discovered that the V&A is the most confusing place on earth. The stairways don't go to all the floors. Parts of the floors aren't connected to each other. My map made no sense. My feet hurt. I couldn't tell if the Vivian Westwood exhibit was open or not. I kept going in circles. I saw the glass exhibit, which was very nice, and went through an architecture or possibly design exhibit backwards before finding the textiles. The textile exhibit turned out to be rooms and rooms of fabric and lace and weaving and embroidery all in pull out drawers with tiny labels. I made it through the lace room before I became completely overwhelmed and fled.

I took the tube to Camden Town and left Ro a message saying I would be at the World's End Pub. By the time Ro got there, I was on my third pint, and an Englishman who fixed trains was attempting to chat me up. I immediately started gibbering at Ro about the amazingness of the Saatchi, complete with tipsy hand gestures and exclamations like, "Death Star! Of rats! So amazing!" The English guy seemed nervous when I started talking about the shark, and fled after I showed him my Tracy Emin postcard.

Ro had to do his laundry, so we took it to the laundromat and then went and got omelettes for dinner. While eating, we watched a toothless drunk across the street wedge himself under a bus stop kiosk, and attempt to wriggle his way into the street. At one point a passing bicyclist pulled him back onto the sidewalk and put him back on his bench, but he toppled over again as soon as the cyclist moved on. He seemed very determined in his efforts, although it was hard to tell what he could possibly want the outcome to be.

In Other News

I had salt water taffy for breakfast, and I regret it not one little bit.

We Fear Change

As if everything weren't bad enough, tonight I discovered that whither Phil goest, so goest the Martini shaker.

Yes, I can (and did!) make Martinis without the shaker. But it's so much less satisfying. Less swanky. Less James Bond.

However will my Martini & Bubblebath plans for tomorrow overcome this obstacle?

The Colon Is The Official Punctuation Mark of This Entry:

1. Things I Accidentally Covered In Glitter Due To Improper Application of a Lush Glam Rock Hair Glitter Bar: Myself, Two T-Shirts, The Floor, Rowan's Luggage, Rowan, The Cat. (In my defense, it had suffered some structural integrity/cohesion problems while in transit, making it harder to work with.)

2. Confidential to the random dude on the street who accused me of supporting Bush because I wouldn't donate money to his political cause: Just because I'm not a sucker doesn't mean I'm a fascist.

3. Why you should listen to the Allure of Crime episode of This American Life: Because there's a really awesome segment on old people shoplifting. Apparently, old people shoplift all the time. Old people, I knew you were up to no good! I'm on to you!

4. What the fortune cookie I got at lunch today said: "What's vice today may be virtue tomorrow." If this is true, I'm pretty damn excited about the future.

I Am Boring, But My Family History Is Not

Sorry for the lack of decent bloggage recently. Also, sorry to those of you who know me in real life, as I feel I have sort of disapeared for the last week or so. (And for those of you who know me and hadn't noticed/missed me, shame on you!) Ro is visiting, and my new roommate is moving in, and my cat is completely freaking out, and I'm arranging my work schedule around all of this (Well, not so much the cat, she can freak out on her own time.), and I'm somehow totally busy but not actually doing anything.

But this is not a sad busy blogger post, as those are lame! Instead, this is a post about my totally interesting family history. On my mom's side of the family, there are all sorts of intriguing things in my past. Amongst them: Fake Countesses! Real Counts! Spies! Artists! Blacklisted Filmmakers! My super-awesome mom! More on these things later! Unless my mom doesn't want me to blog about them!

In the meantime, here is webpage about one of them. I was talking to my uncle earlier this week, and he alerted me to the existance of this website about Ely De Vescovi, my great-aunt. She painted murals in Mexico in the 30s and worked with Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and developed a new technique that made the frescos stay wet longer, giving them more time to work on them.

Really, given a family history this exciting, I feel I am rather disapointingly boring.

Someone Get That Man A Saucer of Milk!

Oh man, this is fucking awesome, in a "literary agent is bitchy about teen-age ex-girlfriend" way.

London Diary - Yarn Pictures

Clockwise from the center top, it's Rowan Magpie (the gray & green), Wendy Velvet Touch Chunky (white), Jaeger Luxury Tweed (assorted blues), Rowan Kid Classic (blue, brown, pink), Jaeger Art Mohair (blue, white, green), Regia Stretch Sock Yarn (multicolored), Rowan Kidsilk Haze (green, pink), R2 Paper (pink), and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (green).

Yes, I have a mohair habit. I'm okay with it it.

I've already finished the back of Under the Hoodie from Stitch n' Bitch with the Kid Classic, and it's knitting up beautifully. It's going to take me five years because it's on size seven needles, but oh, it is so nice and soft and pretty.

I plan to use the green Kidsilk Haze to make the cobweb shawl from MagKnits. (I plan to start just as soon as I finish this other mohair shawl I'm working on. Yes, yes, mohair addict, move along, nothing to see here.)

The Wendy Velvet Touch is the most amazing yarn I've ever touched. It's so soft and it's all fuzzy and awesome. (You can see a little bit of it's texture in this close-up of the Luxury Tweed.) Hopefully I'll have enough of it to make a kitty hat, because I think that would be awesome.)

The Luxury Tweed I think I'm going to make into some sort of scarf. I've been thinking of maybe doing an intarsia vertical stripe with the dark blue in the center, but that may actually be a crazy idea.

The Magpie is 100% wool, and I'm thinking of making something felted with it, probably a bag.

The Art Mohair will probably end up scarves and shawls, because I really need more mohair scarves and shawls.

And I'm taking suggestions for the Paper and the Cashmerino.

Utilitarian Knitting

Since Phil felt that he got to take the dish towels just because he owned them, I decided to use the knitting mojo for something practical. I whipped these babies up using size seven needles and Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton. I have to say, I am not loving the bamboo needles with the cotton. Unfortunately, I didn't have any metal needles in size seven, and I really liked the fabric with that gauge, so I toughed it out.

Since I really just needed to knit up rectangles, I decided to do some experimenting with texture. Here's close-ups of the basketweave and the diamonds.

(The basketweave pattern I just made up, the diamond pattern is from Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman.)

The Spinster Life

So I'm kind of digging this living alone thing I've been doing this week. I'm not sure I would like it if it was for a long period of time; I'm pretty much a herd animal. Having other people around also keeps me from retreating completely into Cynworld, which is probably for the best. We wouldn't want me to go all Nell, except with more glitter and hair dye.

I find the mess more annoying since I know I'm responsible for it all. I know this is the opposite to how most people feel, but, well, I'm strange. But this is making me clean more, so it's not all bad.

I think I would be lonelier if I didn't have the cat around. Less bitten, but lonelier.

I'm kind of surprised by how undifferent it feels than not living alone, but considering that there were weeks when I didn't see Phil at all, I guess it's not that shocking.

Ro comes to visit Monday, and then after he leaves the new roommate moves in, so I've got two more days to hog the whole apartment. I keep planning to give it a really good cleaning, but unsurprisingly that seems to not be happening.

Troll Attack

So this troll appeared in the foyer of my work building about two weeks ago. Apparently one of the owners of my company has a collection of these things. And, yes, the troll is horrifying and ugly and I hate it and the mere fact that I know it exists makes my life a little sadder than it was before.

But I came into work today, and suddenly there were more . . . so many more. At first, I only say the first one, which was at ground level. But then when I went upstairs and was like, "Ahhh! Two trolls!" to Jill and Monica, they were like, "No. So many more trolls," and made me go back down. And there, on the ledge above the elevators, were so many trolls. Probably around twenty of them. Being horrible and menacing.

If I have a nervous breakdown, it will be because of the trolls. I'd rather have possums under my desk.

London Diary - Monday, the 19th - I Buy Most of London

Wow, it's taking me almost a month to write about a week long trip! I am such a slacker. Oh, well.

I gave myself a little mission for Monday. I was going to buy yarn! I researched where to buy yarn in London on the internet before I went to London (I am a geek saavy traveler.), and the internet told me to go the the John Lewis or Liberty department store. I had heard that John Lewis was better, so I looked it up in my guidebook and set off. And I totally, totally found it! After only going a wee bit in the wrong direction. But going in the wrong direction meant I got to look in various other stores, so it was all okay.

The yarn was in the haberdashery department of John Lewis, which was kind of great because I never buy anything described as "haberdashery" in the US. Also, so much yarn. I had cleverly managed to not bring with me any description of what I actually needed for my projects, so what followed can really only be described as a "yarn binge" or perhaps a "yarn bender." I bought a lot of mohair. I have a mohair habit, and I need help. (I will post photos of the yarn soon, I promise.)

After the yarn binge, I ate lunch. There was a very confusing bit where I managed to buy a cheese and tomato sandwich, but had to get it to go because all of the tables in the sandwich shop were full, so I ate it at a bus stop. Then I went to Burger King (I think. Some American fast food place.) and got a soda because they had this sign in the window that said "Over 200 seats," and it turned out they had this huge crazy underground seating area, but I got to use their toilet, so it was alright. Have I mentioned that British money confused the hell out of me the whole time I was there? It's very simple, really, I'm sure, but think about how hard it would be to give someone correct change if you had to look at all of the coins and read the little numbers on them to figure out what to give them. There was more than one occasion on which I just shoved a fistfull of coins at someone apologetically and hoped for the best.

After that I went to Lush. I had heard tons of good stuff about Lush, which is why I went, but I really wasn't expecting to be all that into it. I was kind of like, "Eh. Soap." Then I went to Lush. I bought this soap that made my entire suitcase smell amazing for the rest of the trip. My suitcase full of week-old, walking-all-day, sleeping-in-a-tent-for-the-weekend, gross, disgusting, sweaty clothing, and it smelled like flowers and honey. It's making my bathroom smell really good at this very minute. The Honey, I Washed The Kids soap is especially yummy smelling, despite the crazy dorky name.

So I wandered around and poked things and smelled things and selected my purchases and went to buy them. And as I'm checking out the salesgirl says, "Oh, aren't you going to buy the American Cream conditioner? I saw you looking at it, and I thought, 'It'll sort her ends right out.'" Which was very nice of her, in that, "Hey, maybe this product will keep your hair from looking as assy as it does now," way. (I've mentioned this before, but my hair hated London. I had kind of given up on it completely by this point in time.) So I bought the conditioner, and it sorted my ends out. I also got this facial cleanser that smells like honey and roses and makes my face really soft.

Yeah. So now that I'm back I ordered a ton of stuff off of the Lush website, and I'm already making plans to go to their store in New York. Have I mentioned that their stuff smells really good?

Lush was on Carnaby Street, which I hadn't heard about but which turned out to be full of really fun little shops. I came very close to buying Jill a thong that said "Mind the Gap" on it, but I refrained. I did buy a new wallet, as my old Powerpuff Girls wallet sadly had big holes in it. My new wallet has a windmill on it! Also, I bought a bag with an airplane on it, and it's all 3-D, and when you move the bag, the airplane moves.

After Carnaby Street, I wandered around a little more, and I just happened to pass Liberty, the other place I had been told one could obtain yarn while in London. So of course, I went in. They happened to have Stitch n' Bitch in stock, which meant I could look up the amount of yarn needed for the sweater I planned to make! (Under the Hoodie, which I am currently working on.) Which meant, of course, more yarn buying. The old ladies working in the yarn department were very impressed by my yarn color choices, which I found strangely validating.

I then traveled back to the Camden Town tube station, where I was supposed to meet Ro when he got off work. I was about twenty minutes late, so when he wasn't there I tried to call him. First I found a phonebooth, but I couldn't manage to get the phone in it to work. So I left all huffy and frustrated, and random people waiting to use the phone were like, "Does that phone not work?" and I was like, "Possibly, but I am American and incompetant, so it might work." Then I used another phonebooth, and got the phone to work, but left this very crazy message where halfway through I was all, "EEE! AHhh! Crap! Is this still working? Am I still connected? What's going on?" But then I called back and left a message that was like, "Meet me at the Worlds End Pub."

Then I went to the Worlds End Pub, or, as I liked to think of it, my home in London. There were pints of beer there. I liked the pints of beer.

Ro found me at the Worlds End, and we went to Camden Town Market, where I bought a bag with punk rock Hello Kitty on it, and an awesome fuzzy hoodie. There was lots of stuff there, and it was all fun and punky and awesome, and if they hadn't have been closing, and I hadn't spent all day being Super Capitalist Girl, I probably would have bought a lot more.

We also managed to obtain super cheap food from some food stalls that were closing for the day. I got a veggie Thai curry that was awesome, and Ro got some Chinese food chicken thing in colors not found in nature. Then we ate by the lock, and it was very pretty, and I had a lot of yarn.

No Possums Allowed

Last night I had a nightmare a possum under my desk at work. In the dream, I had a dog named Ferdinand, who the possum attacked, and one of his eyes got all messed up as a result of the possum altercation.

I was filled with possum-fear all day. I'm not sure why my brain has decided to be super wigged out by possums. Growing up, my next door neighbors had a tame possum, who was very nice and not scary. And it's not very intimidating when your chief battle tactic is to play dead. Nonetheless, possums can fuck you up, and I am totally scared of them.

On the way to the El this morning, I saw a car accident. It happened right under the El tracks; one of the cars just broadsided the other. There was that horrible car accident metal crunching noice, the sound that tells you things have gone very, very wrong. Cars don't have bones, but it sounds as if they do and they are breaking. There was smoke, and one of the horns wouldn't turn off.

It looked like both of the drivers were okay, or at least not critically injured. There were lots of other people around, and someone was calling 911 on their cell phone, and a policeman was at the El station, so I high-tailed it. I couldn't get that crunching sound out of my head, and it made me feel sick.

Lace Scarf

I made this lace scarf using this pattern from Craftster. She calls it the "Thrice-Cursed Lace Scarf," but I actually found it pretty easy to knit up. Although there was a moment when I discovered I had made a major mistake about ten inches down, and had to rip it all out . . .

I used one skein of Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Majestic.

It knit up fairly long, probably over five feet long. It's feels wonderful; it's like wearing a beautiful fluffy cloud.

Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern.

I think I've gotten more attention from other knitters while making this than anything else! Everyone loved it, and wanted to know where I got the pattern. One of the PhillyKnitters made an amazing beaded version of it.

Making this scarf only fed my sick addiction to Kidsilk Haze, and mohair in general. It's so impractical, and it's not stretchy at all, and it sticks to itself, and it's hell to rip out, but it's so pretty. Mohair yarn is the hot girlfriend who treats you like crap, but you just keep coming back for more.

The Art of Losing Isn't Hard To Master

Phil is gone. With him have gone all the good knives, most of the bowls, the baking pan, the iron, the painting in our living room, and the bar stools. He generously gave me custody of the sofa and the dining room table, as well as a number of other things. He left a lot of hair product in the bathroom, which I find very intriguing. People who see me in real life, you can expect some exciting hair coming your way. If I thought that the cat wouldn't exact bloody revenge, she'd be sporting a faux-hawk right now.

I have the apartment all to myself for two glorious weeks, minus three or four days when Ro is coming to visit. My period of being insanely busy should also be coming to an end, so I plan to laze around the house a lot, knitting and being insanely girly. I feel I should purchase some sort of goo to rub on my face, and maybe put some cucumber slices over my eyelids. (And by "goo" I mean "beauty product that claims to be good for my skin in some sort of way" and not, say, "fudge.")

I've also aquired a great deal of liquor, partly by my own devices, and partly because I was bequeathed the leftovers from the party last night. Anyone who wants to participate in drunken make-overs: my house, next two weeks. It will be an orgy of glitter and booze and pinkness.

Figs

Last night I ate a salad that featured warm figs stuffed with goat cheese, and it was seriously the best thing I've ever put in my mouth. My new goal is to track down a source of figs, because if figs and goat cheese is an option, I don't want to eat anything else.

Phil and I went to Lolita, a Mexican restaurant on 13th, in between Chestnut and Walnut. It was pricier than the places I usually go to, but someone had given Phil gift certificates and it was so good. Other things that were particularly tasty included the watermelon margaritas (it's bring your own tequila - they give you a pitcher of margarita mix), with fresh watermelon juice and mint, and the espresso flan.

You Probably Knew This Would Happen

Sophie is now on Catster.

I am faintly ashamed, but you know that your cats want to be catsters with my cat.

Traveling Back In Time

I have this little routine to get through my day at work. First I listen to Unfiltered on AirAmerica, then I listen to Morning Edition on npr, then I listen to old editions of This American Life. I listen to all of these shows on the internet, so I can pause them and rewind them and restart them and skip boring parts. I tend to pay less attention to Morning Edition, but I feel that it is a good, mostly unbiased news source, so I make myself listen to the boring parts unless they are about sports. I don't really understand all of that stuff about the Federal Reserve, but I feel it's good for me to listen to it.

I'm listening to this American Life in reverse chronological order. It's weird, a little like I'm going back in time. It was really horrible as I got closer and closer to September 11th. First there was all the war stuff, which I find depressing and also there was just so much of it. Like, six shows in a row, all about war, and different aspects of war. The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan - so much war. I found myself skipping to non-war shows, just because I couldn't take it anymore. And then there were the two shows immediately after 9/11, which were just so sad. It was terrible.

And then it was before September 11th, and I was so relieved. It was like I was done with it. No more sad Ira Glass talking about death. No more soldiers talking about what it felt like to kill people. Instead, they were really upset about things I had vague memories of caring about, like George W. Bush stealing the election. It made me kind of nostalgiac.

I was talking about this with my manager at work, and he said something like "It's waiting for them." It being 9/11. And ever since then, I imagine it hovering over their heads, like the anvil in a Road Runner cartoon. I feel protective towards them, my little voices from the past. This terrible thing is going to happen to them, and they have no idea. There's no way to save them.

I feel like they're more innocent than they will be after it happens. It's a strange thing to feel, because I distrust all of those sorts of blanket statements about America's collective loss of innocence. I don't like talking about September 11th. I feel like too many people use it as a tool to further their own agendas. I feel like I don't really have the right to talk about it, because I wasn't personally affected. What changed my life was the American response to 9/11, not 9/11 itself.

The first semester of my senior year of college, when it happened, I became kind of convinced that the world was ending. I had lots of other reasons. The weather was unseasonably warm far into the winter. There were hordes of bugs that looked like Ladybugs, but weren't, and they flew into you and bit you. And I was graduating from college in less than a year. I had no job, no plans.

I felt more alienated from the rest of the world than I ever had before. I was against the war, and no one outside of my little hippy college was against that war. I went to an anti-war march, wearing fairy wings, as I sometimes did that year, and between that and the pink hair, the media just descended on me like locusts. It was like I was the strangest thing they had ever seen. And I thought, "If I am the strangest thing here, at a protest march, where there are anarchists and socialists and protest junkies and hippies and punks, what is it going to be like in the real world?"

It was more than that. The rest of the world was reacting to 9/11 completely differently from me. It honestly didn't even occur to me that there would be backlash against Arab Americans until someone mentioned it. The rest of America seemed to be angry and I was just sad and scared, and I wasn't really sure what I was scared of. I found the neon American flags and the red white and blue Christmas lights and "These colors don't bleed" more immediately frightening than terrorists.

I told people that I thought the world was going to end. I said it in a kind of self-mocking way, usually after several drinks. The world's going to end, we might was well get another pitcher. No one argued.

I feel kind of like the majority of this country has just gone insane. A collective hysteria is the only thing that makes sense, when you consider the whole "rapture" craze, or our foreign policy, or the terror alerts, or anything. I secretly hope that we'll snap out of it in a couple of years, that in five or ten years we'll look back and go, "What the hell were we thinking?"

The alternative is that we're always like this. This mean, this self-centered, this crazy, this stupid. I like that option even less.

London Diary - Sunday, the 18th - Goodbye to Newton Abbot

I wake up to the sound of a British voice speaking over a loud speaker. "That's funny," I think to myself, "I don't remember there being a British guy on the crew." Then I remember. They're all British.

I buy a water from a guy in a food cart. "I didn't know you're American," he tells me. "Yep, I am," I say. "I was talking you last night!" he says. I say, "I think I picked up a little bit of a British accent while drunk." I do sometimes pick up accents while drunk. I can't do them at all when I'm sober, but when I'm drunk it happens even when I try not to. After being around nothing but Brits for the last two days, I've become hyper aware of my speech patterns and word stresses. I find that I'm over enounciating everything, possibly in reaction to the fact that I can't understand half of what anyone says.

As victor of the Battle of the Bands, Robolint plays at noon. They've got a crowd this time, and they're awesome, despite the fact that they're missing a band member. They talk about (and to) their mums a lot. They're selling t-shirts, and I really want one, but by the time I track them down, it's several hours later and they've sold them all. They say I can buy one from their website, and when I ask if they can ship them to America, they get quite excited and offer to send me lots of stuff. Robolint, if you're reading this, I'm going to buy a t-shirt as soon as I get my ATM card back! I still want to be your Philadelphia street team!

The afternoon is a blur of drinking and smoking and music. We see a hiphop group that's actually quite good. Or so Ro, who actually knows hiphop, tells me. I just like them because they have a song about dating girls because you need a kidney donor.

Before we leave to go back to London, a bunch of us go to a pub in town. It's everything you've ever imagined a small town British pub to be, with strong beer and a pub dog and lots of portly middle-aged men inside. Except that girl behind the bar has long pink hair. The beer is great and the conversation is amusing, and I am sad to be leaving, because I kind of want to quit my job and spend the rest of my life living out of a tent at various British music festivals.

Did I mention that I met a girl at the festival who's a professional fairy? She dresses up as a fairy and paints faces and such at parties and festivals. Why aren't I a professional fairy?

On the way back, the train winds along the coast and then through amazingly green countryside. It's incredibly beautiful. The fields are almost obscenely green. Sometimes, there are sheep.

We get back to London late enough that the only places open to get food are only selling fried things. I get a vegetable eggroll and a fried dough stuffed with midly spicey veggies thing, and Ro gets fish and chips. The fried things and our stomachs hate each other.

I get back to the hostel at 10 pm, completely exhausted. There is a moment of mild alarm when they ask how I made my reservation, and I say, "In person. Three days ago. At this counter," but they find it. I talk briefly with a Brazilian guy in my hostel room. This is noteable mainly because after I explain that I'm only in London for a week because I have to go back to work, he tells me that he quit his job and now just travels. Nice work if you can get it, Brazilian dude!

I am asleep by ten-thirty.

Found Art

I found this painting that had been put out with someone's trash. Of course, I decided it would make an ideal addition to my office decor. I haven't figured out how to put it up on my wall yet, as thumb tacks will probably not hold it up. (I guess I'm going to have to bring in a hammer and nails, which seems faintly ridiculous and possibly against the rules.) So for now, it's hanging on the coat rack on my office door.

I Make Up Little Songs

Part the First:

Jill: Have you seen the staple remover?
Me: Yeah, it's up my twat. Want to go get it?
Jill: Owwww! It would be all pokey!
Me: Yeah, I've got vagina dentata now.
Jill: Um, please don't ever use that phrase again.
(pause)
Me: Crap, now I've got Vagina Dentata stuck in my head to the tune of Hakuna Matata. (singing) Vagina Dentata, what a wonderful phrase!
Jill: (singing) Vagina Dentata, it's my boyfriend free philosophy!

Part the Second:

I confess to Jill that I used to think that "Gigantic" by The Pixies went, "Titanic! Titanic! A big, big boat" instead of "Gigantic! Gigantic! A big, big love!" The best part of this is that not only do the words sound alike, but my version also makes sense. You know, if The Pixies had a song about the Titanic.

Part the Third:

I make up a song that goes "Boyfriend filled with semen, I know, I know, it's serious" to the tune of "Girlfriend in a Coma."

Dick Cheney's Alive

So I got drunk and signed up for Music for America's email list, and now they send me emails with things like this flash video.

And then I share them with you. Mainly for the part where they sing "circumcise a jew, Dick Cheney."

Newton Abbot Diary - Train Station

It's the train station!

Newton Abbot Diary - Pub, pt. 2

Ro is on the far right, and I think the guy to his left is named John. Note the classic English pub denizens behind Ro's head.

Newton Abbot Diary - Pub, pt. 1

AIRfusion folks in the pub. Mike is on the far left, and Chris is next to him, and I don't remember the other two people's names.

Newton Abbot Diary - Me and Adie

This picture was taken in a traditional British pub in Newton Abbot, complete with a pub dog. (They did, however, have a pink-haired bartender.) Adie and I have spent the last three days sleeping in tents and not bathing, and we are totally and completely sober.

Newton Abbot Diary - Robolint

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Best Band Ever: Robolint.

My Weekend In Motion

I spent most of my weekend in motion. Saturday, I went up to NYC to do a yarn crawl with a bunch of PhillyKnitters. In planning for this, I had some how manage to go into denial about the fact that it involved waking up at 6 am on Saturday. I got out of my night shift at work at 12:15 am Friday night (an hour and fifteen minutes early!) and booked it home to get my five hours of sleep.

Saturday morning I got to the train station about four minutes before the train. Fortunately for me, Septa is always late! We went to six different yarn stores in New York, and saw an overwhelming amount of yarn. I actually didn't buy that much, mainly because I still don't have an ATM card. I fondled a lot of pink mohair, because I am strongly attracted to completely impractical yarn. I ended up buying the Fall 2003 Interweave Knits, two skins of bright pink cashmere, a skein of varigated green merino/cashmere/silk mix, some mohair boucle, and two skins of a wool/tencel mix.

The best part was when I made a joke about that weird knot on the inside of Manos del Uraguay and ball winders, and everyone laughed. There's nothing better than people actually getting your dorky knitting jokes.

After the yarn crawl, I went to Rachel and Dani's house. We ate awesome Thai food, and watched Father Ted on DVD. Lev came over, and we chatted for a while, and then I took a nap, because I was totally incoherent. After I woke up, we went to a hookah bar and drank wine and smoked mango-flavored tobacco. It was great.

Sunday morning, I took the train back to Philly, and then went to a pot luck at Naomi's. There were tons of delicious food, and many fun people, and Naomi and I knitted afterwards.

A very good weekend, even if I didn't get to sleep at all.

Newton Abbot Diary - Saturday, the 17th - I Want To Live In A Tent

I wake up around nine-thirty and find Adie, who is busy setting things up and getting ready to check bands in. She hooks me up with a traditional English breakfast, done vegetarian-style and made by the two camp cooks. It's baked beans and cooked tomato and vegetarian sausage and I think potatoes. I think there's more that I don't remember, but it was all really super. And there's tea, too, of course. In Newton Abbot there's constant tea drinking, in case you were wondering whether or not that whole English tea thing is a myth.

Adie is in charge of checking in bands for the morning. There are long periods of time in which nothing happens, and then suddenly there will be twenty people demanding performer passes, all of whom need to be signed in immediately. I grab another pen, and fill out the passes while Adie fills out the sheet. This means that my signature conveys authority.

We don't have enough passes for everyone, so we're constantly bargaining with the bands about who needs them. The highlight is when I fill out a pass to be shared amongst four children belonging to various band members, and write "misc. children" in the space for a name.

The first musical event is The Battle of the Bands. It's 10 am, and the first band is a non-descript punk band. The only people watching appear to be the band members mothers. (The punk band's name is "1 More 4 The Road" and they appear to have a median age of 16.)

The next band is, surprisingly, my favorite band of the whole weekend. They're a ska band called Robolint. Robolint appears to be a bunch of college (Uni, for you Brits) students, and they're wearing costumes. At 11 am. They're also jumping up and down, and singing and making jokes. They have girlfriends watching, instead of moms, and over the coarse of their set a bunch of the crew wanders over to watch. They sing songs about milkmen and penguin biscuits, and have I mentioned that they're awesome? Also, Robolint is definitely one of the better band names out there.

After them there's some generic boy lead indie band.

Robolint wins Battle of the Bands, and becomes a big pile of costumed ska-band members in celebration. They tell us this is the first thing they've won in three years. (The best part of this is that it means they play again the next day: More Robolint!)

The next band is called Skatanic. For some reason, this band name gets stuck in my head and I have to say it over and over again. I think it's a combination of bad pun and rhythm, but I will use any excuse to say it. The best is when I have to go tell them they're needed back stage. I track them down and say, "Hey, Skatanic! You're needed back stage." Then there are all sorts of problems because they're missing various band members, but I don't care because I am in love with the sheer ridiculousness of addressing a bunch of people as "Skatanic." The odd thing about Skatanic is that half of them appear to be twenty, and half of them appear to be fourteen.

They're also all wearing bright red shirts that say "www.Skatanic.co.uk" on them.

After that, I wander around and look at various stalls for a while. If anyone needs a sarong, AIRfusion is the place to get them.

Ro befriends the people running the Mexican food stand. They're all British, but the Mexican food is surprisingly good. Better than lots of Mexican food in Philly, actually. (Taco House and El Azteca, I would be looking at you here.) One of them is wearing a shirt that says, "Bush & Sons, Butchers since 1989." We tell him we like it, and there is the normal sort of talk about how terrible Bush is, and we explain that we hate him, too, and the Mexican-stand people say they understand that it not all Americans like Bush, and also express vague sympathy for us. They get sort of excited when I say I'm from LA, and we talk about Mexican food for a while. They've been to Baja lots, apparently.

The afternoon is sort of blurry. It rains, at some point, and three of the boys we've been hanging out with put on these really great plastic rain suits and do crazy dances. There is lots of smoking weed and drinking beer in tents.

The really strange thing about the festival is that it is filled with small children dressed up like goths or punks or indie rockers. Seriously, there are tons of little nine-year-old mini-goths running about. They kind of break my brain. Adie tells me that since people in England get married younger, they just take dress their children up and take them out with them.

At some point I see The Best Guitar Player in Britain perform. The Best Guitar Player in Britain is 18 and is on the crew. I'm not sure how he earned his title, but it's how everyone refers to him. The Best Guitar Player in Britain is in a band with his dad and his brother, and he has a special fan on stage to blow his hair around.

We eat dinner, pasta with tomato sauce with peppers and quorn. I've never had quorn before, and find it confusing but good.

After dinner, I dance a lot to a ska band called Too Hot. It's not dancing like dancing with someone else, or dancing at a club, when you care who's watching. I dance the way I used to dance at raves, when all that mattered was the movement and the beat of the music, and it feels so good, there's a sense of connectedness, a sort of pure unthinking happiness of movement that I had forgotten existed. I want to quit my life and move to a tent in Devon and live like this forever.

Then the festival shuts down, and it's just the crew. There's lots of drinking and talking and I keep fighting with Ro because he's drinking all the whiskey. (Whiskey that I bought.)

I talk to The Best Guitar Player in Britain. He's really nice, an 18 year-old rock god who just wants to play guitar. I'm trying to find out where he's from, for some reason. I say, "Do you live in the city or the country?" and he says, "I live on a hill." I say, "You live on a hill? Are you an elf? Do the locals leave out bowls of milk and guitars for you? Do you come from a long line of guitar-playing elves?"

The Best Guitar Player in Britain is not an elf.

There is more conversation, but I don't remember it. Eventually, much, much later, I fall asleep next to Ro, in between our blanket and sleeping bag.

The Boyfriend Filled With Sperm

Three days ago, I got a spam with the subject line "Fill your boyfriend with sperm."

I've been obsessed with this concept ever since. It's the logistics of it that get me, really.

Would I just fill the space that's currently empty, or would I hollow him out and fill him back up? I imagine him filled with sperm like teddy bears are filled with stuffing, like chocolates are filled with nougat.

Would he have bones, or no bones, like Tare Panda? I like the no bones version best, I think he would feel pleasantly similar to a water balloon filled with pudding when gently poked.

How would I fill him with sperm? Most likely, it would involve a syringe, but alternately I could spoon it into him.

I tell my friends about the sperm-filled boyfriend. They have more questions, like: Would it be semenal fluid, or just sperm? Would he wiggle? How would one seal up the holes to prevent it from escaping?

The email answers none of these questions.

Limited Time Offer

Phil and I are having a party August 14th, in honor of him leaving for Chicago. You should totally come, cause it's going to be rad.

Contact me for more info.

London Diary - Millennium Bridge

In this photo I take something that actually looks cool and make it look kind of like the roof of an old shed.

I was trying to capture the fact that you can see people's feet through the bridge. (That's the dark smudge in the middle right.) It looked very cool in person, I swear.

London Diary - Tube Photo

I took this photo on the moving walkway in the Euston Street Tube Station, because