A day in London, in pictures

I'm having trouble figuring out what to post. Not because I have nothing to share, but because I've been a bit camera-happy recently and now I've got too much. Somehow my camera has become my journal and I photo everything: walks, places I eat, books I'm reading, sunny parks and foamy cappucinos. It hardly matters how important my activity--snap-snap-snap--there it goes. I don't usually do anything with these photos--I don't fix them, crop them, sometimes even look at them--but they're there. Sometimes I may look back--maybe while looking for something else entirely--and see one or two and think, 'ohmyGOODNESS, I remember that deli!' and the moment, the day, even what I was thinking about or reading comes rushing back instantly. It's a crazy rush, a mad trigger. But usually there they sit, in my archives, untouched by time or attention.

I remember I saw a movie once ages ago where the main guy kept taking photos of these divey motel rooms and his girlfriend said something like, 'Why do you take pictures of the hotel room and not the Eiffel Tower?' to which he replied, 'I want to photograph the things that I'll forget.' And while the rest of the movie is a complete blank--I may have changed the channel five minutes later--that part stuck with me. And it has, in part, guided my own picture-taking philosophy: there's nothing too big or too small to capture--what matters is that you don't forget. It doesn't have to be a good photo, well-framed and balanced and perfectly lit. Just take it, capture it, immortalize it.

So...here's last Friday in pictures. I don't feel like doing explanatory captions today, but if you have a question about anything, do feel free to ask. In short, my day consisted of Brick Lane, Rochelle Canteen, some classic London shops, a gallery, and Late at Tate Britain, where a couple deejays performed some classical works in a very nonclassical style. It was a good day.

Saturday, let's do it.

It's getting cooler here, even with the sun out. It feels like fall, though the trees haven't turned yet, and the sun's light is whiter and crisper than it was a shimmery yellow month ago.

I'm off to Angel by way of Camden passage, the best London antiques market ever. I should really photograph it; it's been on my list. I also need to drop some books at the library and run to The Waitrose and The Borders. And I may get my first London pedi EVER at this sweet new place on Cross Street. (Yes, it's taken me a year.) My favorite San Francisco pedi place had me too spoiled, I think, and gave me the ridiculous standard to which I hold all other salons. Then last, but not least, sushi for dinner from that yummy Japanese place on Essex Road whose name I can't remember because I always call it That Yummy Japanese Place on Essex Road. I hope the old man makes my rolls; he's generous with the innards. The girl always does a 3:1 rice:filling ratio, which just chaps my hide. If I WANTED a huge lump of sticky rice wrapped around a piece of fish the size of a pinhead, I'd make it myself. Alas, seeing her behind the bar won't really deter me: when I want unagi, I want unagi.

Time to hit the dusty (cobblestone) trail now...hay mucho para hacer.

Out with the new, in with the...new

I just heard 'My Sharona' on the radio. Please don't tell me it's experiencing a revival. Apparently there's also a commercial on t.v. that uses it, judging by the number of times I hear 'I heard your song on the t.v. last night! My son/daughter/husband/girlfriend wanted me to call you and tell you, but I thought you'd probably get tired of that!' No way, are you kidding me?

Now there's some manic pop song playing. I've got to turn this off.

That's better. Okay, so where was I? Nowhere? Good. Because I'm about to take you somewhere, and I didn't want to have to worry about proper transitions.

It turns out the student visa won't pan out before the course begins, so I won't be attending University here after all. I KNOW. Brutal. Because I was SO EXCITED about designing lamps and vases and being the next Jasper Morrison or Philip Starck. But now I have to wait an entire TEN MONTHS before I can show the world my genius. Do you what ten months is in my world? A LIFETIME. You can make a BABY in ten months. (Not me. You.)

In the meantime, I will have to return to Los Estados Unidos, mainly because if I don't, I would officially be living here illegally, which would DEFINITELY screw my next visa application. So I'm going to head back, keep my passport clean, and eventually try again in a few months.

On the bright side, the next great adventure is already in the works! More details coming soon...

Random thoughts float through my head constantly--CONSTANTLY!--but now that I seem to be blogging once every two weeks, none of them seem worth spending the time to write. So I am posting this just to break the seal.

I've missed you, my little blog. Please don't ever let me go so far away again.

The Death Cold

For over a week now I've been struggling with a little thing I have come to term The Death Cold. There seems to be no cure, no amount of sleep, no thousands of mgs of Vitamin C that can nuke this bad boy. At last I broke down and went to Boots to buy cold and flu medicine, only to find that my old beloved friend Nyquil (and sure, Dayquil, join in the party, though really, let's be honest, your nightlife brother steals your thunder) is not sold here...What would I drink (I mean, sip, in the quantity of 2 tablespoons) at night when I couldn't sleep? What would wipe out all of my ills? And so I resorted to the label-reading of all the new-to-me products on the shelf. Eventually I came to the conclusion that either the English are healthier, and that is why they seem to only have one cold and flu medicine, just under different labels, or two, the world has conspired against me and is delightfully planning my demise, hands rubbing together in scheming glee. Deciding at the end of a fruitless twenty minutes just to try all the medicinal options before me, I struggled to the register with caplets, tablets, syrups, teas, and lozenges overflowing in my arms. I spontaneously tossed some antibacterial handwipes and two Miffy kleenex boxes onto the precariously balanced pile before dumping it all unceremoniously onto the till counter.

And so the attack began: two caplets in, one fizzy vitamin c drink. One vapour-action dissolving lozenge, one mug of sickly sweet and tangy lemon and honey flu tea, two more caplets, one more fizzy vitamin c drink. A tablespoon of the cough syrup down, causing a violent gag reflex due to a flavour that can best be described as 'bile-forward with a vomit-like finish,' causing the entire bottle to be promptly binned with a swear word and a silent prayer to the absent Nyquil gods. And so goes the diet, for five straight days.

Is progress being made? I don't know. I definitely feel like my body's not my own, which can probably only be an improvement given how I treat it when it IS my own. Other than that, a sort of homeostasis seems be in place, the two warring halves of sick v. well each making headway at various times of the day, only to eventually call it a draw, as though they're staring each other down across a battlefield, daring one another to try and pull something funny. 'Okay, you can make the nose run, but I draw the line at adding a cough. You at least want a tickly throat? Okay, then relinquish some fatigue. Hey! Don't you DARE draw that mucus gun unless you're prepared to give up a headache. Okay, agreed.' And so the camps skirmish and symptoms attack and then retreat, taking turns, and no side seems to be winning the war...I fully anticipate my body remaining encamped here indefinitely, eventually pulling out playing cards and trading cigarettes.

In the meantime, if I seem a bit dull lately--and I mean dull here in the lack-luster, not-as-brightly-shining sense of the word, not the ennui-inducing sense of the word, although many apologies if the latter is the one that is more descriptive--then I promise you it is only a spell and it will ideally be over soon. After all, I've got a vitamin cannon up my sleeve.