Emi and Janine
Posted by: lucie
Emi and I met over a reservation mixup - somehow we both had tickets for the same seat on the same train. Or it appeared we did, until I realized I had given the conductor my return ticket. As I was getting up to surrender the window seat, I did a double take. 'Hey, are you American?' I asked her. 'Yeah!' she chirped. 'Oh!' I said. 'Hi!'
When you live abroad in another English speaking country, the local accents begin to sound as natural to you as your own. A British lilt doesn't register with me any more than an American twang these days, and I often don't realize I'm speaking to one of my people until they've walked away. But Emi and I bonded over our citizenship and quickly got down to discussing the business of visas, immigration and jumping through legal hoops.
She's marrying her British boyfriend of five years in York in just a couple of weeks, and I wish her the best of luck. She was funny, bright and entertaining and even invited me to her hen night in York. Alas, I don't think I can make it but I actually considered it for a moment. I recommend you all check out her web site to see how adorable and talented she is.
On the train home I sat next to a twenty-something bottle blonde in a pink Von Dutch t-shirt who promptly offered me a piece of gum, kicking off another two hour chat. Janine hangs out with WWF wrestlers and has photos of herself with large, scary shirtless men to prove it. She goes over to the States a couple times a year and tours with them, meets up with them when they're in Europe and has been dead passionate about wrestling since she was nine years old.
Despite the fact that she works in a call centre and probably earns meager wages, she'll never let any of them pay her way or even buy her drinks without accepting one in return. She works 12 hour days, 6 days a week, to be able to afford the trips. Say what you like about the WWF and whether the work is worth it, but that is an impressively independent woman.
Janine dumped her abusive ex boyfriend last year. It took him half a decade to start beating on her, and it began in the usual way: he felt so bad after the first time that she was sure he'd never do it again. The second time he was so grief stricken that she felt guilty.
The third time she saw it coming before he hit her. He was in her face yelling, nose to nose, and she could tell he was going to take a swing. So she hit him first. She hit him so hard she fractured his jaw. He fell backward over the couch, knocked his head on the floor and passed out cold, and she kicked him out and threw all his clothes out the window.
Let's Make a Deal
Posted by: lucie
Matt and I had a great weekend, most of which was spent in pubs and/or his flat. I have to admit that some of the mystery is gone; now we've had a chance to get to know each other better it's dead obvious we could never be more than friends. His views on life are so opposite mine, so dramatically ridiculously different, that sometimes all I can do is laugh.
People, I was hanging out with someone who considers himself basically conservative but supports Tony Blair nonetheless simply because he thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea. Someone whose most frequent analogies when speaking about men and women come down to hunter/gatherer times and evolutionary psychology, who isn't particularly bothered about what happens to us when we die ("Get eaten by the worms," he says with a shrug), and who believes only in coincidences - not synchronicity or signs from the universe.
With the Eastern Europe trip behind me, that weekend of fun out of the way, and Matt having taken the edge off the big Tom questions (which don't bear thinking about unless and until I move to Eastern Europe anyway), it's time to start planning my next big move.
I have a one-way ticket to Nepal in November, for a meditation course and silent retreat that end in late December. I need to book a return ticket very soon. That requires knowing where I will return to.
Behind curtain number one: The Northwest.
Freedom from visa issues. Friends I've known for years. Decent job market, the comfort of home and being back in my own country, access to my family... putting down roots at home. Despite the fact that this has been my plan for at least six months, it feels like the least likely short-term outcome.
Behind curtain number two: London.
A chance to fill the longstanding 'education' gap on my CV with a one-year MBA program and continue down the knowledge management path, which has thus far treated me well. I'm good at it, I'm making great money, I enjoy being geeky and it's creative and interesting. I like London, and I could hang out with people like Lloyd and go to Geek Dinners. Getting some kind of qualification would definitley be satisfying. Downsides: living in London as a student (ie poor) would be rough. Also still unsure whether I'd be able to swing the student visa without going back to America to apply for it, which would make things unrealistic.
Behind curtain number three: Eastern Europe.
It's not just that I love it there, which I do - immensely. If I moved back it would be to get back into journalism, which I only pursued full-time for about 9 months. I loved it. I planned to continue in journalism when I got to the UK, but just as it was beginning to look hopeless, a much more lucrative job offer came along and I switched directions. It didn't occur to me that I might be able to go back until I ran into the Irish editor in Edinburgh a couple months ago. that kicked off a long thought process. The bottom line: I love journalism, and if I wasn't afraid of not being able to 'make it' (financially and otherwise), it's definitely what I'd be doing.
I had two editors at the paper in Eastern Europe: one was miserable and hated me; the other was an inspiration and loved me. The miserable one is gone, and the inspiration is now in charge of the entire paper. He's said that if I want to come back I can have any job there that becomes available. He and several other of my former journalism colleagues have told me I'm silly to worry about not making it, as has the Irish editor. The truth is I never really felt like I knew what I was doing, but suddenly people are telling me I'm a natural and should pursue it.
I still don't actually believe them, which is funny, because I'm generally a pretty confident girl.
Right now I'm leaning heavily toward Eastern Europe. My gut feeling is that if I want to pursue journalism I need to jump off the corporate bandwagon, give up the salary and go for it now. It would be the perfect place to get more experience - in a city I love, working for an editor I love, surrounded by friends who are writing books and freelancing for the likes of the NY Times.
I'll apply for a few MBA programs here to keep my options open, I think. And this week I'll call the Home Office to find out whether they'd even let me stay on a student visa anyway. Maybe the choice won't be mine to make.
London Games
Posted by: lucie
Men are delicate origami creatures*
Posted by: lucie
There is so much to think about right now, all in the best possible way. The universe appears to be rolling at my feet. Anything I think I might want is offered up unconditionally.
Two weeks ago I wanted to move back to the States. Last week I wanted to move to London to do an MBA. This week I'm thinking about moving back to Eastern Europe to get back into journalism. My old editor gave me a more or less open-ended job offer when I was in town. "You were doing great here," he said. "I don't know why you ever left."
"I think it was because of that boy," I told him.
Talking of boys, I shan't be thinking about any major life decisions in the next few days. Things are going my way in the love department and I'd rather revel in that than contemplate my career just now.
Those three days with Tom are proving a bit heavier and slower-hitting than I first realized, but it's all still fine. I made him a mixtape. I mean, I really only uploaded the tracks for him, but come on - it was still a mixtape.
I love that I have been able to enjoy what happened between us and keep it in a healthy perspective rather than obsess on whether we should get married and have children, and if so what we should name them, and if we got married whether we would get divorced, and if we did whether it would be amicable, and what would be the cause of it. If I move back something might develop, it might not, he might leave (he's been talking about it for a while), it might get weird for a while, but I'm sure we'll remain fast friends.
Much more remains to be said about Tom, not least of which concerns the strange echoes of my former relationship that emanated from the tiniest details of a completely different man. These are rooted mostly in the fact that he is slightly depressed right now and wants, I believe, to be saved. He doesn't actually need to be saved - he just thinks he does. You could walk up to him and go 'Tom, you're saved,' and he'd go 'Okay,' and that would be the end of it.
But he doesn't know that at the moment. He thinks he's drowning, and boys who are flailing around in the sea like to tether themselves to strong women; women who are bouyant and energetic enough to keep their heads above water. Trouble is, once these kinds of boys have had a rest and re-learned how to swim, they often decide they don't wish to be tied to anyone anymore.
I can do the savior/mother thing easily enough when I love someone, but with the last boy the love seemed to disappear exactly when he no longer needed to be saved or mothered. After 3.5 years I understood this and asked him, as we were slowly untying the ropes and surveying the burns, if he had ever really loved me. In his childish honesty he blurted out that he didn't know.
Oh, such heavy things to contemplate that it's better to just enjoy what was and avoid thinking too far ahead or into the past.
In the meantime, I am off for a weekend of fun with Matt. After work this evening I'm jumping on a train to London, and he'll be meeting me at the station when I arrive. He hasn't lived there long himself, so we plan to go out and be touristy. So touristy, in fact, that there has even been talk of The Eye.
Crossing the friend line
Posted by: lucie
Ladies, if you ever find yourself shaving your legs at the last minute before going out to meet an old friend, stop and think about that. Realize that it means you can't honestly tell anyone later that you never thought of that person in that way and were really surprised to end up making out with them. You shaved your legs, you big fat liar. At 8pm, when you were wearing jeans. You only do that if you're considering the possibility that those legs might be out of those jeans and intertwined with another pair of legs before the night is through.
I've never crossed the friend line before. I can only think of one time when I even came close, but I lost the nerve before anything happened. At the last minute you just freeze and think 'Oh my God, but you're *insert name here*, and' - and there is no and, that's the whole thing. It's too big. It's that person, and there's no slot in your brain for it even though you may have started thinking it was a hot idea. A piano falls out of the sky speeding quickly downward toward your head and playing a little ditty called 'this isn't to be taken lightly.'
Something of this sort happened to me again in Eastern Europe this week, but not until things had got a lot further; not until I was somehow tangled up (literally) with my amazing amazing friend Tom, who I love love love, and he had an extremely sexy 'check us out, we shouldn't be doing this but I'm really glad we are' smirk on his face until, the very next moment, he didn't, and neither did I, and I said 'Tom, this is actually tripping me out a little bit,' and he immediately said 'Yeah, it's freaking me out too,' and that was IT.
After we laid there for another five minutes unsure of what to do, he gently said 'I think we should get up.' We got up and took showers (separately) and I whispered to myself in the bathroom, or to an imaginary Tom, 'Don't get weird. Don't get weird. Do not. get. weird.'
It wasn't that weird. We went out for lunch, acted normally and redeemed ourselves. That said, this wasn't the only night. It was the second of three nights, and the wobbly arc we cut across the three was a little perplexing at times.
On night one I shaved my legs before going out to meet him, thinking hey, Tom and I have never both been single. He's a handsome, classy, sensual boy with exquisite taste in music, and we've always understood each other. We love each other! Maybe we should make out. No, we will never make out. But I'll shave my legs even though we could never make out. (Girls, come on, you know you've done it too.)
We met for drinks and discussed our lives and respective lovers like people who could never foresee wishing they hadn't revealed such intimate details. I said I was thinking of moving back to Eastern Europe (yeah, more on this later) and he suggested we be roommates. Then more drinks and more drinks. We blazed through 5 bars and ended up at a ravey afterhours club too drunk to do anything but melt into a couch and drink more, smiling at each other, well aware that the night was going to take a different turn.
I knew I didn't want to sleep with him, but I wanted to take him home, and in my drunken wisdom I decided the ideal way to clarify my intentions would be to raise a toast. 'Tom, I propose a toast,' I therefore slurred, raising my beer with a smirk. He looked perplexed. I pushed his plastic beer cup into his open palm and raised his hand to a suitable toasting level. 'To us making out but not sleeping together, and potentially being roommates,' I said.
'I think we should sleep together,' he replied without missing a beat, looking me dead in the eye with the most earnest face you've ever seen.
'You do?' I asked, impressed that he was out-bolding me, even if I didn't agree with him.
'No, I think we should definitely sleep together, like lay down together, sleep,' he clarified, employing a strange turn of phrase that betrayed his real intentions. Lay down together like just sleep, only he chose the biblical phrase for having sex? He's a very literary boy who wouldn't have missed the irony. He also has a gorgeous way with words, by the way, though I wouldn't have called that one of his finer moments. Who says 'lay down together'?
Anyway, we soon ventured out into the broad daylight and caught a cab back to my short-term rental flat, which I was sharing with Jen, my partner in annual Eastern European pilgrimage crime. She had the bedroom and I had the living room, so naturally, again in my drunken wisdom, I woke her up at about 8 to let her know I'd brought Tom back, but not to feel awkward because there definitely wouldn't be any sex going on.
We snuggled up and wrapped our arms and legs and necks and hair innocently around each other and made happy little humming sounds and enjoyed it.
Just as it dawned on me exactly how incredible a kisser he was, I heard him telling me what an incredible kisser I was. 'What's wrong with other people?' he asked, meaning why didn't everyone kiss like us, which I've wondered before. 'I don't know!' I replied in enthusiastic agreement, and kissed him some more.
That's when it all took a turn. Tom got a little bit worked up. A lot worked up. We rolled around a bit more before I realized he really thought we were going to have sex and I really didn't, and I ended it with a firm 'I think we really need to settle down.'
We didn't leave the flat until about 5 the next day, and then spent the entire day and next night together. Sorry to keep jumping around here, this is how my brain sees the situation: in descending order of biggest facts - news story structure, inverted pyramid of Tom.
I wasn't entirely sure if I would see him again on my last night. He'd basically put his entire life aside for me for 48 hours and had work to do and things to take care of. I gently asked if he felt like coming out that night and he said yes in an 'of course I do' kind of tone, so we made plans to hook up later.
When he did come out I wasn't sure he'd stay out, and when he did stay out I wasn't sure he'd want to come back to my place again. He did, but there was no kissing this time. Just snuggling and intertwining, and this time he kept his boxers and a t-shirt on for good measure.
He left the next morning, as I was preparing to pack and go back to the airport where it seemed I'd only arrived the day before. The whole trip went by so quickly, but I suppose there was an element of romance, an element of drinking and an element of sleeping until 4 or 5 that contributed.
The city demands a certain intimacy of lovers leaving one another's houses in that almost all front doors have to be unlocked with a key, even from the inside. So you always have to walk people out. We stood in the entryway of the old art deco building off the square, me in my pajamas, he in last night's smokey clothes, and I wondered how best to say goodbye to him. I settled on something about how it had been really good to see him again and might be back soon, then hugged him, then pulled away, then said 'byyyyyyye,' and hugged him again.
He wished me luck with my decision-making, meaning deciding what country I'm going to live in, which has now become a choice between three countries and career paths, one being a return to journalism in Eastern Europe.
'I have a feeling we'll see each other soon whatever happens,' he said, and leaned in to kiss me briefly on the lips, and then Tom was gone.
Babicka
Posted by: lucie
Faith in humanity
Posted by: lucie
I am aglow with faith in humanity today. I've just returned from the City bus depot, where I picked up a bag with my laptop, ipod, digital camera and phone in it. I actually managed to leave a bag containing this many valuable items on the bus from the airport to the metro.
It's a long story involving a man who wouldn't leave me alone, and it ends with me being so eager to get away from him that I grabbed my suitcase and dashed off the bus without looking back. If you'd met him, you'd understand.
I hate to speak unkindly about the citizens of one of my favorite places in the world, but it has to be said that Eastern European people don't have a reputation for honesty. To borrow a phrase from a (Eastern European, so he's allowed to say this) friend: "They'd steal the shit out of your ass if they could."
The contents of this bag would have brought in enough to pay the average city bus driver's salary for many months. No one I talked to held out much hope. "There are some honest people here," my new short-term expat neighbor told me, though the look on his face betrayed a suspicion that he thought he could count them on one hand. Nonetheless, someone turned it in.
I even got to go to Bus Driver Central to pick it up, which was heartening. In their own environment these men actually smile, despite their reputation as the meanest in the city. They responded kindly to my murderous use of their language and refused to accept a reward. Coffee, chocolate, sure, said the bus driver, but no money.
I have been telling and retelling the story of the returned bag, and it is met with universal shock. Someone returned a bag of valuables? In this city? It can happen.
It's sunny and gorgeous here. The fashion disasters remain entertaining, the gruff service amusing, the beer unmatchable.
The man who rented us this short-term flat is, according to the woman who met me with the keys, 'Mr Something in Swimming' and has just won a silver medal at some competition in Stockholm.
I adore this city. I don't think I want to live on a continent that doesn't have this city on it.
Statistically speaking
Posted by: lucie
Friends in London I know from the States: 1
Friends in London I've met while living in England: 5+
Friends in London I know from living in Eastern Europe: 3
Of these:
Friends in London with whom I've been naked in public: 2
Lovers in London: 1
Friends in London who say they want to be my roommate and aren't kidding: 1
All I need now is a purpose and a visa.
Cake.
Or maybe I could be a student
Posted by: lucie
So yesterday, in my desperation to find a way to stay on this continent, given that this had suddenly become my desire, I started thinking more broadly.
I don't have a degree. This hasn't often bothered me as I'm a master of finaggling my way into careers and professions for which I'm technically completely unqualified (without lying). Pressured to explain it, I'd point to a combination of luck, enthusiasm and willingness to knuckle down and learn things at warp speed when necessary. I somehow became a journalist in Eastern Europe, somehow ended up in senior management in England. Don't know quite how, but it happened.
Occasionally, though, it seems my luck in landing out-of-my-league jobs must be bound to run out someday. And regardless, it's impossible to get a work permit without a degree, which makes international living a problem best solved by marriage - and I think we've seen how that can go.
All of which leads to this possibly random point where I quite abruptly find myself: there are one-year MBA programs in England that accept a handful of students without undergraduate degrees each year, based on life and professional experience. There's even a reasonably-priced course in London that starts in February, when my currently planned adventures conclude. And although it just came out of nowhere, this idea feels right.
Assuming I was accepted, it would still be a bit tricky applying for the visa from within the country. It would also leave me in the same visaless situation as soon as the course finished unless I managed to find a company willing to sponsor me for a work permit (which, with an MBA to my name, may actually be possible).
But it would keep me on my continent of choice for now. It would keep me from having to uproot myself and move 6000 miles with no real reason. It would get me an MBA in a year. It would open up some doors. And something about it just rings true.
I've been looking back on my last couple weeks of blogging, wherein the anxiety over being countryless slowly took over, and it has bored me. I'm pleased to say my self-indulgent mood peaked last night when I remembered that self-pity is dull and feels awful. Hence I've made a dual resolution: First: to accept, if things don't work out, that I'm just not meant to stay on this particular continent at this particular time. Second: not to call it 'fate' whilst feeling sorry for myself, and to make sure I do what I must to stay on my continent of choice. Somehow those two are not really at odds.
On Thursday morning I leave for Eastern Europe, where I shall sit in cafes and look out at the hunchbacked babickas scooting to tram stops in the rain, marvel lovingly at thegruff version of 'service' of which all those who live there become so fond, drink the best beer in the world, ride the trams, go for a run along the river and indulge in major nostalgia - and drunken fried cheese sandwiches with mayonaise. So wrong, but so damn good.
Painted into corner
Posted by: lucie
I knew when my ex and I broke up that I should try to smooth the situation over and stay married to him long enough to get my indefinite leave to remain in the UK, which comes after two years of residency. You just reapply for the marriage visa, prove all over again that you're a real couple (not hard to "show" if you keep a joint bank account open and have some bills sent to a mutual address), and get permission to stay forever.
He halfheartedly said he'd be willing to do it, but I couldn't stomach the idea at the time for two reasons. First, I didn't wish to remain tied to him in any way. Second, he really doesn't think things through, and I envisioned myself getting comfortable here only to have the rug pulled out from under me when he decided he didn't actually feel like doing me such a big favour.
I said I wanted a divorce and to go our separate ways, and up until now I've been comfortable with that decision. I've even been convinced that I was looking forward to going back to the comfort and familiarity of the Northwest.
Okay, today I officially admit it: I don't want to go. I want to leave the region of England where I live, without a doubt. But having spent weekends in a few different cities in the past 6 weeks I've come to realize that there are a few places in the UK I'd much prefer to live rather than return to America. I like Europe in general. I feel more at home here. I feel healthier and more balanced here.
Boy, I messed up with that whole divorce thing.
UrbanChill
Posted by: lucie
From the business card:
UrbanChill have taken the traditional idea of massage and turned it on its head. Relaxed and Professional, in your office, event, party or exhibition, you can call on our bright and unique Chillers to come and give energising head & shoulder massages wherever you are.
We encountered this Chiller ("Sophie x") at a posh cocktail bar in London this weekend. 'How much does it cost?' Ms Thing enquired. 'Whatever you think it's worth,' Sophie x replied. The man in the photo thought his 5 minute massage was worth 20 pounds.
Graphomania
Posted by: lucie
"Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply a woman in love. But my friend who xeroxes his love letters so he can publish them someday - my friend is a graphomaniac. Graphomania is not a desire to write letters, diaries or family chronicles (to write for oneself or one's immediate family); it is a desire to write books (to have a public of unknown readers)...
"Graphomania (an obsession with writing books) takes on the proportions of a mass epidemic whenever a society develops to the point where it can provide three basic conditions:
1) A high enough degree of general well-being to enable people to devote their energies to useless activities;
2) An advanced state of social atomization and the resultant general feeling of the isolation of the individual;
3) A radical absence of significant social change in the internal development of the nation (In this connection I find it symptomatic that in France, a country where nothing really happens, the percentage of writers is twenty-one times higher than in Israel.)...
"But the effect transmits a kind of flashback to the cause. If general isolation causes graphomania, mass graphomania itself reinforces and aggravates the feeling of general isolation. The invention of printing originally promoted mutual understanding. In the era of graphomania the writing of books has the opposite effect: everyone surrounds himself with his own writings as with a wall of mirrors cutting off all voices from without."
- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1979
Unbound
Posted by: lucie
It doesn't really matter how many times you've moved, how many countries you've lived in or how well you know that you always make friends, find a job, find a scene and settle in; moments of unshakeable panic still sneak in as another moving day draws near. Experience limits the length of such episodes and draws out the space between them, but they always come.
With the big journey and subsequent move back to the Northwest less than three months away I'm beginning to freak out a little. It's different, though, from the 'who is this person after all and what am I getting myself into' of moving to England with my ex; different from the fear that gripped me as I left my cozy apartment on the east coast for a wholly unknown life in Eastern Europe; different from the cold loneliness of moving to New York City by myself.
This time it's fear of the known.
The broken-hearted, recently single Lucie of several months ago made a decision to return to the States and put down roots at the end of this year. As much sense as it made at the time, I'm beginning to foresee myself feeling trapped there; growing bored, boring and restless. These roots, which once sounded like a source of strength and comfort, now seem like a tangle of potential complications threatening to tie me down. I'm suddenly frightened of oversettling into a life with a mortgage, 2.2 kids and just 10 days of vacation per year.
In light of all this, it's hard not to see my drunken introduction to a travel editor as a sympathetic nod from Fate. A few months in Dublin on my way back from Asia is beginning to look like a distinct possibility. The editor responded favorably to my email; he can't make any commitments as the business hasn't launched just yet, but he expects to know more by the end of the year. He's promised that when he's ready to hire, I'll be the first person he calls. We've agreed to wait and see how it shapes up.
Floating around suits me. Why not let coincidence dictate the path?
Going home probably isn't akin to abruptly writing The End on a volume of one's life; mere relocation cannot claim a person's sense of adventure or self, nor her tendency to bounce between careers and cities or go where life takes her.
No, it's not going home that does that; failing to acknowledge and respect that life is trying to lead you somewhere else is what does it.
Of his singular career, Gene Kelly once said: "I took it as it came, and it turned out to be very enjoyable."
That, I suspect, is exactly how things work.
Psychic Showdown
Posted by: lucie
Or: Peter from the Original Tremont Tea Room vs The Fake Gypsy Fortune Teller of a Northern England High Street
A chalkboard behind the front desk of the Original Tremont Tearoom listed the readers available that day. 'Who’s good at reading tarot cards?' I asked, but the receptionist cut me off with a shake of his head, indicating that he wasn't allowed to recommend. Gazing back up at the dusty board I blurted 'Peter.'
Peter emerged from one of the back rooms smelling slightly of alcohol and cigarette smoke, looking gentle and serene if not in radiant health. Leading me to a table, he asked my name and birthday, then carefully laid out a entire deck of well-worn tarot cards. Each time he filled the final position of the classic Celtic Cross formation he went back and placed another layer of cards over the last, repeating this until the entire deck was thus arranged, a multilayered, intertwined array of symbols.
Peter gazed at this layout knowingly for a minute before speaking. 'Stop buying so many books,' he said at last. 'You won't be able to take them to Europe.'
I hadn't told him of my plans to emigrate because I didn't have any at the time, but he was right about the books. My birthday had recently passed, and someone had splurged on my Amazon wishlist. I was, nevertheless, manically spending all my money hording even more books I intended to read. It was getting disturbing, actually - I had stacks of books piled up in the queue but I couldn't stop buying, buying, buying.
He told me many things, some more specific than others, but the most notable points were the books, moving to Europe and that I would become a writer. I'm not sure how much credit I can give him for 'predicting' my move to Europe, because I ran away with the idea as soon as he mentioned it. The writer suggestion surprised me, but a year or so later I was a full-time features writer at a newspaper. So I think Peter knew a thing or two.
Interestingly, he also asked me if I was pregnant. When I said there was no chance he told me there was a strong vibe that I was about to give birth, perhaps metaphorically - a new idea, some kind of creative baby or something along those lines. In retrospect I see exactly what he was picking up. I underwent a pretty dramatic self-analysis and psychic rebirth in my last few months in Boston that I will perhaps try to explain someday on this blog, but today is not that day.
I'd love to go back and see Peter again someday, but today is also not that day, and the North of England is a far cry from New England and its generations of pagan heritage.
What we have in the North of England is a fake gypsy woman on the High Street who charges a fiver to tell your fortune. I've seen her there many times with her melodramatic gypsy wagon and thought it might be a kick to go and have my palm read. Of course I never thought she'd come within a mile of doing what Peter did, but you know, you figure if someone sits out there all day at least once a week she probably learns how to pick up on a few bits and pieces about people. I suppose I imagined she might give me some little tidbit, however small, to think about.
Whoops. She didn't even try.
Here was my reading:
"You're not a superstitious person. You're going to live to be 92. You're gonna see America."
me: I'm American.
"Yes, you'll go to America. Blue is your lucky colour. Your lucky number is 12. August 20th will be an important day for you. There are two men who have feelings for you. You'd suit being blonde. You should have been a teacher or a nurse. You give your heart too easily. You're gonna have a trip to London. You'll see Scotland. You're going to see America."
Me, again: I'm A-mer-i-can.
"Yes, it's your destiny. You're going to take a course and some exams - something with computers."
Pause.
"That's five pounds please."
The 13.1 mile trudge
Posted by: lucie
Training for a half marathon is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It hurts. It pushes my patience and resolve to their limits. It leads to periodic temper tantrums wherein I stop just short of stamping my feet while ranting to my friends, 'Why did I ever decide it was a good idea to run 13 miles? Who would want to do that? I don't like this, this isn't fun. Can't I just quit?'
I can't just quit, because I can't just quit anything. I have an obsessive nature that won't really allow it. Plus back in the beginning of this 13.1 mile journey I strategically announced my half-marathon intentions to as many people in my life as I possibly could, knowing it would set me up for a mortal wound to my pride if I ever withdrew, and that this would keep me in the game.
I did my first 9-miler yesterday, and you'll think this sounds quite impressive because 9 miles is a long way to run. But I don't actually run the whole way; I take lots and lots of little walking breaks. I can run about 3 miles without stopping, but 9, forget it. I've only been training for 6 weeks! So I ran 8 minutes and walked 2, repeating this until I wanted to fall down on a patch of grass and cry.
Today every major body part below my waist can lay claim to some unique pain of its own. Hips: funny joint soreness that causes me to wobble as I rise from a seated position, looking and feeling like Gramma Lucie. Thighs: general achiness. Ankles: taxed from negotiating uneven grass. Feet: by the time I've actually run this thing there won't be a square inch of foot flesh free from blisters.
The landmarks between here and September 18 are Big Run Wednesdays. Over the next five weeks I'll run 9 miles, 9 miles, 10 miles, 11 miles, 12 miles, then have a week of short runs before the big 13.1 mile feat. (I just typed 'fear' twice before finally hitting that t on the third attempt.)
I also have to do one 3-mile and one 5-mile run each week, assuming my little old granny hips will hold up. This will be a supreme challenge to my willpower as I'm going to London this weekend for Ms Thing's birthday, Eastern Europe next week for 5 days, and popping down the weekend following to see Matt (yes, it's sorted - more details some other time. For now let's just say when a girl wants something she should go take it, not waste time hinting).
I fear I may have bitten off significantly more than I can chew - but that's really the only way to live, isn't it?
Maybe I'll just pop into Dublin
Posted by: lucie
On a whim, I've emailed the editor of the aforementioned travel supplement in Ireland and suggested that I stop in for a few months after my trip to Nepal, Tibet and India to help out while he's starting up his publication. It's a 40-page tabloid insert to be stuffed into a big Sunday paper bimonthly, and is currently staffed by three men: the editor, the advertising director and the managing director.
I said hey, sounds like you guys need a woman's touch over there, and I need more clips if I'm to head back to the States and get back into journalism (still undecided). I'm also intimidated by my own plans to 'settle down,' hence the ever-extending adventure before attempting to do so once and for all. I know I'm just some drunk American girl you met on a stag weekend in Edinburgh, but it's good to take odd chances sometimes, so let's imagine for a moment that our meeting was, in fact, a twist of fate, and see what it might add up to.
What if I stopped in for 2-3 months (3 months is my limit on a tourist visa), I suggested, on my way back through from Nepal/Tibet/India, starting in Feb 06? I'll write the stories I've researched on my trip (one on the monastery experience, one on living/volunteering in Nepal and one on some aspect of India). I'll run around Ireland and write filler content, talk to travel agencies, throw together pieces on buying plane tickets and booking hotels, do voxpops and the like. I’ll help you track down contributors around the world, make coffee, copy edit, help you get a web site up, do tech support, keep a woman's perspective in the mix, whatever. I’m a multitalented and enthusiastic girl.
You can pay me as a freelancer, I told him, so legal status won't matter. You'll have an extra writer/helper around to pile up some stories and get things done without making the commitment to actually hiring someone. I'll go home having spent a few months in another interesting place with some clips in my bag. Everyone wins! You can talk to my old features editor from Eastern Europe if you want - he'll vouch for me.
I wouldn't need to be paid THAT much to get by for just a few months. And it would be cool. I'd get experience and clips writing for a newspaper with a 500,000+ circulation, have some fun, talk to boys with cute accents and have a chance to decide if I really want to pursue journalism again. It would just be a few months.
Most likely he'll write back and say 'hey, I said we definitely wanted to use you as a contributor but this is a bit much... don't think we can make this kind of commitment but I applaud your enthusiasm!'
Still... can't hurt to ask. I'm just being respectful of the fact that, while I was trying to decide what my future career path would be and getting nostalgiac about my journalist days, the universe slid this guy my way. It wouldn't be right to ignore such a coincidence and then look back and ask 'What if?'
Prophecy
Posted by: lucie
I've been telling my girls for a while that I have an uncanny and deep-rooted intuition that when I get to Northwest I am somehow going to get quickly stuck. Serious relationship? Serious job? I don't know what it is, but there's a strong feeling that if I go, I won't be going anywhere else for a long time.
This makes me more than a bit nervous about my plans. It makes me anxious to have more adventures now, to live and love and gorge myself on experience and see the world in the face of the potential end of this phase of my life.
It's good to stick to plans you make, especially if you've formulated them from solid ingredients like reason and self-awareness. So I shouldn't be, for example, thinking that the editor I just met who is starting his own new publication in Dublin and seems to like me and my writing might be receptive to my idea that he hire me, just for a few months, to help him get things off the ground and fill its pages before he's ready to hire full-time staff... pay me off the books as a freelancer and just keep me around for the three months my tourist visa lasts.
That's the kind of thing I shouldn't be thinking about, because I'm supposed to be going home.
Reminder to self: you love the Northwest. You like the people there. They are your people. You understand them and they understand you, and if it turns out to be a mistake you can always pick up and leave again.
Also, you no longer have an invitation from the queen to kick it in the UK, so that's out.
Okay.
Infinite Possibilities
Posted by: lucie
Welcome to All Things Scottish
Posted by: lucie
Adam McIntosh
Posted by: lucie
In Edinburgh I happened upon a market stall where a radiant curly blond-haired hippie boy was selling piles of interesting jewelry. I fixated on a necklace - a chunky oval-shaped piece of gorgeous deep purple obsidian set in silver - but any hope I had of buying it was dashed when I clocked the price tag on the back.
"Are these numbers on the back the prices?" I actually enquired of the sun-kissed hippie boy. They were, he confirmed, explaining that it was quite rare to find that deep purple tone in obsidian, and that he had paid the silversmith twice the going rate to set it in a necklace in order to make it fair trade. Worth it or not, it was still too steep. I put it down and started browsing for something more affordable.
The table was sectioned by minerals and stones, each from a different part of the world, accompanied by photos of our vendor holding the materials in their natural habitats. As we chatted, his story emerged: he travels the world mining and collecting nature's treasures, then periodically has batches of them set in silver and returns to Scotland to work as a street vendor and fund further travel.
We chatted about the different countries he had visited as I continued to pick through the jewelry on the table, nothing mesmerizing me quite as much as the first piece. Catching me gazing at it again, he knocked five pounds off the price. I thanked him but said I still couldn't afford it; he smiled anyway and took out a photo album to show me some snapshots of his adventures in Fiji, New Zealand, Thailand and Indonesia.
"Want to see the little dude who set that piece?" he said excitedly, flipping through the pages and stopping on this one.
The pictures are of his silversmith in Bali; at the bottom you can see our vendor, who I now know is called Adam McIntosh, holding a giant bag of rice.
"Oh wow, and there's your piece!" he exclaimed with genuine surprise, pointing at the middle picture. And there it was indeed, perched on a thick earthenware plate alongside a handful of others - the big fat one on the right.
Adam knocked another fiver off the price and, the story behind this piece of jewelry being too good to pass up, I splurged. I knew he was still charging about fifty times what he paid the little dude, but it seemed somehow reasonable and worthy to fund his adventures and lifestyle.
The other day, as I was going through my pictures, I found the snaps of Adam in all his shiny happy glory and wondered whether he had a web site. Thanks to the wonders of megapixels, Photoshop zoom and the fact he was wearing a vendor badge in Edinburgh, I was able to make out his name and google him.
Turns out he's not just a happy wandering rock collector; he also built his own eco-friendly tree house at the age of 14 and burned it down ("a Viking burial") when he was 18 and ready to start travelling the world. He drives a Mercedes van that runs on vegetable oil and calls himself an 'eco-pacifist.'
Weekend getaways
Posted by: lucie
Based on the fact that Newcastle was a blast, Edinburgh was a blast, and this past weekend was boring, I've concluded that it's all about weekend breaks. Sure, I had a wonderfully debaucherous local night out on Friday, but Saturday boiled down to recovery and Sunday I did little more than go out for a nice long run. People, this is no way for a girl to spend her last three months in any country. We've got to step it up.
More of England remains to be seen before I take my leave of this funny little island nation, and with a place to crash and no particularly expensive entertainment plans at your destination, it's not that taxing on the wallet to get out of town. Giving up drinking on weeknights conveniently saves one enough cash for weekend train tickets.
All of which means it's time to get my carpe diem on and plan more weekend trips.
A friend of mine from the States who moved to London and married an English boy is having a two-night birthday shindig next weekend. Since we've both lived in England I have seen her just once, and that was in Seattle when she had a belated wedding reception for her American friends. How shameful is that? We've been talking about having a girly weekend trip to Amsterdam together, but I don't see it happening due to financial constraints and jobhopping at her end.
To celebrate another year in the universe, Ms Thing is gathering her mates for highbrow happy hour cocktails next Friday night and a followup lowbrow house party on Saturday.
It just so happens that the bossman is out of office next Friday, and I'm also entitled to a little bit of what our British friends call TOIL (time off in lieu) time. This is a very UK concept: if I work late to get a project done or spend a couple extra hours on a train for a meeting, I get to claim the time back later. Being of a more American mindset ("But I get paid a certain salary to take on these responsibilities, so I have to work late when the job demands it - that's my job"), I'm a bit of a sucka when it comes to cashing in my TOIL time.
Well no more, brothers and sisters. My weekends here are numbered, and do you know how much time I've spent in London in the 18 months I've lived in this country? About 2 days, and both of those were for business. It's time to get down there for a party.
Being single is good
Posted by: lucie
Today is my ex's birthday, and part of me wants to send him a little message for the sake of burying the hatchet and sharing an understanding that we've both moved on... but a bigger part of me can't be bothered, because that would lead to 'how have you been' conversations and feeling obliged to maintain a friendship I don't feel a genuine desire to strike up. So in honor of his 27th I have made this list instead.
Since we broke up I have:
- Felt like myself again
- Started writing again
- Smiled a lot more
- Started training for a half marathon
- Joined Mensa
- Had better sex
- Gone back to being a mostlyvegetarian
- Got naked in public with 1700 other people in the name of art
- Had more fun travelling with my girls than I ever did with him
- Made plans for an epic travel adventure
- Quit drinking on weeknights (except when on holiday)
- Tried to explain to a friend in an unhappy relationship that it truly is better to be alone than to be in a relationship that feels like being stuffed in a tiny box, but failed
Happy birthday, ex! I really loved you once upon a time, but for the life of me I can't believe we spent over three years together. I bet you can't either, wherever you are (oh, who's kidding who, we both know you'll be exactly where I left you). Here's a sentimental quote in your honor:
I just hope it was okay, I know it wasn't perfect
I hope in the end we can laugh and say it was all worth it
- Ani DiFranco
