words.

so, i want to be a writer, but i hate saying it out loud. i think it seems so pretentious. and then, once i declare that intention, i figure i open myself up to all criticism. like: "you don't use the world troglodyte enough" (response: "i don't even know what troglodyte means!"), "your grammar is atrocious" (response: "i'm sort of a futurist."), and "well, write something then." the last isn't really a criticism, just a bit of snide motivation, and i don't have a good response. i do write a lot of first pages, though. and i like to think that i think in a writerly manner which is just the sort of nonsense statment you'd expect to hear from lazy wannabe novelists.

i could take this moment to explore what keeps me back from pounding out readable material, but i am not going to.

i was just reading my friends' blogs today and thought they wrote such beautiful entries about a plethora of things from the mundane to the profound. they are all writers and literature classes should study their posts. really. and i know this sounds like trite praise. but it is not. i was just thinking, "man, i don't know if my writing could convey the simple, resplendent honesty of it all like these do." so i was actually feeling jealous while basking in the life of their words.

and see, now i've gotten sort of pedantic. if that even is the right word.

Ferris Wheel for One, Please

I really vividly remember an episode of Ellen Degeneres' sitcom simply called Ellen. I wasn't actually a fangirl of this sitcom. It aired while I was still a cartoon devotee and could not understand the entertainment factor of watching real-life people interact with the world. I mean, that's what I did without TV. When I sat down to watch the boob-tube, I wanted to see a football-headed boy play it up on the streets of NYC and a masked duck fight crime.

Anyway, one day Ellen was on (I think she/her self-named character had already come out as a lesbian) and she was all about self-empowerment. She was going to do what she wanted regardless of whether she could get other folks on board. One of her objectives was to dine in a fancy sit-down restaurant alone. She goes so far as to actually call ahead and make a reservation for one. When she gets there the maitre d insists that she actually made a reservation for 7 because to dine alone is nigh unfathomable. (And depending on the reservation-taker's handwriting, I one could fairly easily be mistaken for a 1). Comic antics ensue. However, I think it left me with the stigma that dining alone is a crazy, bold thing to do.

Fast forward 15 years or so, I am in Berlin. I figured I was going whether I could rally a travel companion or not (I couldn't) and that I was going to enjoy myself, dangit (I have). I have sat alone in a formal dining setting twice, and truth be told, the food is not as good. It is lonely just me and a book, or me and my stitching. I swear to you the food does not taste nearly as delicious when not peppered with good (or even just halfway decent) conversation. I enjoy a meal on the go (perhaps munched on in a park) much more than occupying only a quarter of a table.

Anyway, I still had the resolve to have fun. So I found out about this Deutsch-Amerikcanisches Volksfest which was basically an American-themed carnival celebrating its 51st summer of operation (I guess it was sort of an institution during the time Americans were stationed in West Berlin). And I went. And I decided to ride the ferris wheel. Oh, and you'd think there may be one or two Americans at a festival boasting "American" as half the title. Nope, aside from the performers (that almost no one was listening to) from Austin, Texas, all I heard was deutsch, deutsch, deutsch. So I sauntered up to the kasse and paid my fare to ride the wheel. And I endured the awkward stare I got from the operator after he asked (twice, the first time he spoke in German to which I replied with a very ignorant sounding "What?"), "Alone?" I nodded my head, while holding it high. Thinking of Ellen Degeneres.

But have you ever ridden a ferris wheel alone? When you are eating you can immerse yourself in your food. On the ferris wheel, I was surrounded by five empty seats, staring out over the tops of concessions tents watching the sunset over Berlin. I even changed seats a couple of times just so the unoccupied spaces could have a little human touch. The ride was pretty and being that high up was a little scary and definitely thrilling. But I kept hearing the giggles and undecipherable German chit-chat of the happy family behind me. I wanted to let out a big belly laugh myself just to throw them off. But then I could immagine the chipper mom saying, "Who is that crazy solo rider. She must have some sort of mental illness. Perhaps schizophrenia?" and maybe the oldest daughter would say, "Maybe she is on some sort of hallucinogenic drug." So, I sat silently. I did take pictures of myself an arm's length away with my digital camera. So there is evidence of the events of this evening.

I may eat by myself, play tennis by myself, sing a round by myself, but I don't want to ride a ferris wheel alone again.

Stonehenge and The Last Unicorn

it seemed to me fitting to post about the 1985 animated feature the last unicorn and the mysterious stone circle erected around 3000 b.c. in the same entry.

people at work asked me what i thought of stonehenge, and my immediate smart-aleck response was that it was rocky--which is an adequate description, if sarcastic and uninventive. but i did enjoy it very much. it was fun to contemplate the mystery and good for the soul to be out of the city and see the rolling green fields of salisbury. the audioguide also included an excerpt from thomas hardy's tess of the d'urbervilles which made me ecstatic. i've been saying i wanted to see stonehenge because of its being an important setting in that novel.

since the visit, i have become mildly obsessed with the idea of ley lines (not obsessed enough to do any research, mind you, but obsessed enough to mention it). the theory of ley lines is that important spots of worship are built along or on an intersection of these invisible lines. very druidic. it had been a long neglected theory until the whole new age movement came along.

to the last unicorn. my, oh my, i can't begin to give a critique. but it was a riot at times. it was screened in an old anglican chapel (and admission was free) and someone gave me a chupa chup lolly, so i don't know that the night could have been any better.

i love this postcard.

i don't love breaking out in stinging blisters after accidentally grazing some obscenely poisonous plant (this morning my hand still stings a bit as i type, but don't worry i shall overcome.)

last night i saw the musical billy elliot. i bought the ticket from a "half-price ticket kiosk" in the heart of the theatre district, and i really think Rick Steves may be right when he calls those ticket booths "scalpers with an address." i bet i could have gotten a cheaper, and perhaps better, ticket from the box office.

anyway, billy elliot was a pretty stunning production. while the first half left something to be desired it really picked up and won my love after intermission.

I feel I owe my public some blogging.

Life has been busy in London (much busier than my student life was in Italy. I chalk it up to volunteering full-time (it is a 9-5 gig, baby) and my one-hour commute each way (but I have been whipping through books.) I am residing with a family, and for their hospitality in taking me in and treating me so nicely I often spend my evenings home in their company chatting or watching some movie, and spend many evenings away from home trying to soak up the sites of this thriving city!

But everything has been wonderful.

Compared to Italy, I feel entirely at home. It is wonderful to actually be able to express myself with my arsenal of words fully loaded! Bless that mother tongue!

I feel like I have done hardly anything though, when in actuality, I have done quite a bit.

I have been to the Science Museum, Tate Modern (and I saw Ai Wei Wei's (free him China!!!) sunflower seeds, not all of them from the original exhibition, but a very sizable pile, about as tall as me), the Tate Britain, Trafalgar Square, the London Pride Parade, the Hyde Park Ward, the play The Woman in Black, seen the outside of Buckingham Palace, listened to Mumford and Sons play in Hyde Park (I didn't have tickets to the concert, but I found a good peep hole through the walls around the official space, and the sound carried nicely on a June afternoon), and have seen the inside of a good many pubs. One Saturday night, we got caught along with a stag party (in American language, a bachelor party) and went pub crawling a bit with a crazy bunch of lads, until we tired of them and just settled in to dance.

I also had a homeless man tell me I looked sexy eating my ice cream. I told him sincerely, "That was not my intention."

And I will do my best to take more pictures in the future! I just bought new batteries for my camera!

in a new york minute

you can embarrass yourself a million times.

i hate being an obvious outsider. i like to pretend i am a cool-as-cucumber real resident of any metropolis i visit. but the time has come to indulge my out-of-towner status because, quite frankly, there's no escaping minor bouts of idiocy when it is me my mother, and my grandmother traveling in a pack.

here's a list of today's blunders:
1-grandma ran across the street, when the sign read "don't walk" mind you, right in front of an ambulance with its sirens blazing.
2-we walked into a broadway show that we didn't have tickets for.
3-i lost my phone. i swear i had had it in my hand. i must have set it down or something, but i have no recollection of what i did with it. i had it in my very hand and then two minutes later i had no idea where it could even be.
4-while stepping off the subway, a tube of mace fell out of grandma's bra.

maybe i'll get some pictures up here. maybe, i took a lot on my phone, so that's not possible.

but life is good.

being a twenty-something is harder than i anticipated. probably because i thought, in my infinite self-conceit, that i would just cruise through it.

but i intend to make these the best days of my life, come struggle, strife, joy, elation, victory, loss, love, heartbreak, pain, healing.

which isn't so hard to do when i have so many wonderful people in my life who love me.

and i am going to london in a week and to new york in three days.

i really am the luckiest kid in the world. i've got it good.