I'm back at work after taking a sick day as a result of my headcold, and I'm starting to wish I'd taken today off, as well. It's been a bit of a frustrating week. The house in Leyton has fallen through due to the fact that none of us have UK-based rent guarantors, and the other house that Carrie and Karim found (which was cheaper and closer to school) I didn't like. They're going to try to set up some more viewings today but, as ever, I won't be able to go with them. I feel bad, because they were ready to take this place until my sick-ass self came in and was like, No. It's plenty of space, it's just in this very unpretty brick-and-concrete complex of boxy flat/houses and has textured hotel wallpaper and feels so unwelcoming to me. But now I feel like a problem child, and like I'm making life difficult for everyone around me. I wish I could tell how much of my reaction to this house was me genuinely not liking it, and how much was just me being sick. Because house-renting is one situation where I feel like I shouldn't settle for something less than what I'm happy with, but I don't want to dismiss it for the wrong reasons.
I also bought a bike this week, which would be cause for celebration but for the fact that I don't think I like it either. It's this chunky little road bike which was cheap and works great, but is a bit heavy and slow for my taste (which makes a difference, especially as I'm going to be biking 15-20miles a day once school starts). Luckily, they have a no-problem return policy, so I think I'm just going to trade it in for a slightly pricier, much faster one tomorrow. It's frustrating, though, to think you have a problem sorted and then to realise that you don't.
Maybe I'm just being a princess this week, and pouty and way too difficult to please. Maybe it's the headcold. Regardless, I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow, the knots will have started to untangle themselves, and my mind and lungs will be more clear.
Friday, 14 September 2007
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Oh no!
And now I have a headcold! Gah! And every itty-bitty muscle and fiber in my Whole Body is sore and knotted and stiff! Ack!
Plan for tonight:
Chicken noodle soup (or equivalent)
Cup after cup of ginger tea
Youtube or DVD
Bedtime at 8pm.
Engage.
Plan for tonight:
Chicken noodle soup (or equivalent)
Cup after cup of ginger tea
Youtube or DVD
Bedtime at 8pm.
Engage.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Bleagh.
You know those days where you're just generally pissy and irritable for no reason?
I'm having one of those days.
I'm having one of those days.
Monday, 10 September 2007
I guess I was tired
I overslept this morning by a good two hours, but in exchange for being late to work I got a dream that I wouldn't have traded for anything. I was in the backseat of a car, driving through a green and unknown city with a man I [have] love[d], talking and laughing and catching up and working out the time difference between London and Florida. I showed him my scrapes and bruises from my cycling accident; he introduced me to his friends. They were all very impressed. I pretended to be a campy gay man, and we all laughed.
And as much as it sucks to wake up and realise you were meant to be in the office ten minutes ago, the glow I got off that dream was the best way to start the day.
In other news, the bike is broken again. I've decided to stop calling it "my bike" because I am officially relinquishing responsibility for it. Besides, Maria lent it to me for the summer, so technically it's hers, and she found it in a bush outside a prison. So. Apparently the bottom bracket needs to be replaced, and I've decided it's just not worth it. So happy early birthday to me, I'm going tomorrow after work to buy my own used ride, graciously funded by my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
This weekend also marked the finding of a house for next year! While I was at work on Friday, Karim, Carrie, and Baerbel pounded the pavement all day looking at places, and then took me to see the pick of the bunch on Saturday. It's kinda far away - it's in Leyton, which is Zone 3, and it will be an hour commute into work by either tube or bike (though only a 15min cycle ride to school) - but the house is lovely and newly refurbished and furnished and CHEAP. We'll probably be paying less than £290pcm each, and we'll have loads of space. I'm very pleased. The landlady is very nice and very involved, and we're all currently trying to clear the necessary hurdles with finding guarantors, filling out the necessary paperwork, etc. Hopefully we'll be moving in on the 1st! How exciting! And plenty of space means plenty of room for visitors...
Other than that, I saw Peter Brooks' The Mahabharata at the Barbican yesterday, complete with post-film discussion with the man himself, and worked Saturday night. Tonight I have my induction class at the Circus Space. And then I go to sleep - perchance to dream?
And as much as it sucks to wake up and realise you were meant to be in the office ten minutes ago, the glow I got off that dream was the best way to start the day.
In other news, the bike is broken again. I've decided to stop calling it "my bike" because I am officially relinquishing responsibility for it. Besides, Maria lent it to me for the summer, so technically it's hers, and she found it in a bush outside a prison. So. Apparently the bottom bracket needs to be replaced, and I've decided it's just not worth it. So happy early birthday to me, I'm going tomorrow after work to buy my own used ride, graciously funded by my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
This weekend also marked the finding of a house for next year! While I was at work on Friday, Karim, Carrie, and Baerbel pounded the pavement all day looking at places, and then took me to see the pick of the bunch on Saturday. It's kinda far away - it's in Leyton, which is Zone 3, and it will be an hour commute into work by either tube or bike (though only a 15min cycle ride to school) - but the house is lovely and newly refurbished and furnished and CHEAP. We'll probably be paying less than £290pcm each, and we'll have loads of space. I'm very pleased. The landlady is very nice and very involved, and we're all currently trying to clear the necessary hurdles with finding guarantors, filling out the necessary paperwork, etc. Hopefully we'll be moving in on the 1st! How exciting! And plenty of space means plenty of room for visitors...
Other than that, I saw Peter Brooks' The Mahabharata at the Barbican yesterday, complete with post-film discussion with the man himself, and worked Saturday night. Tonight I have my induction class at the Circus Space. And then I go to sleep - perchance to dream?
Friday, 7 September 2007
Ramblings from a rambler
I found myself thinking this morning about Megan Erickson, a really incredible woman and Peace Corps volunteer that I met in East Africa. She was my age, and conversational/fluent in Swahili, and spoke the local tribal language as well (she was based in Rombo district in Tanzania, about halfway up Mt Kilimanjaro), and she was kind, and funny, and so capable and mature and, well, a woman. I don't feel like I've necessarily earned the title "woman" yet, but this woman definitely had. Maybe that strength of self has something to do with living on your own in a developing country for two years trying to make the world a better place.
It's funny: in a lot of ways, living in London has been harder for me than living in Uganda (though this thought could easily be the result of fuzzy memory.) I do have the sense that I've learned more about myself at LISPA than I did volunteering. But I also think that I felt like I was more myself in Uganda. How does that work, I wonder?
It feels sometimes like the older I get, the more I have to face up to my insecurities. The funny thing is, these insecurities are often ones that I don't remember ever having before. The one that comes up most often is needing to be liked, wanting to be loved. This comes up a lot in my interpersonal relations (especially here, where I wouldn't say that I've found a "best friend" per se, the way I tend to find them in other places and eras [high school, college, Dublin]). It's strange, a year into my friendships with a lot of these people, to still feel that they're largely casual friendships. Especially since I so often desperately want something deeper, more profound. And I often end up feeling like these people are "so much cooler" than me, and feel a little weird around them because I want to be their friend, even though I am their friend, and I'm always playing low status and rarely really just relaxing and genuinely being myself. Speaking to Gemma on the phone the other week, I said, "I think I need to stop trying to find my place in order to find my place." And that's it, really. I need to just be, and have faith, and everything will fall into place.
I realise, too, that I project the image of being enormously self-sufficient and independent a lot of the time (or at least since I moved here.) I'm always running around and doing things, and if I can't find someone to go with, fuck it, I'll go by myself. And there's nothing wrong with that - in fact, I think it's important sometimes to push myself in that way. But it's important, too, that I acknowledge that if I need people in my life to a greater degree, I'm the one who needs to make an effort in that direction, too.
That's another reason it's been so lovely to be living with so many people this summer. I'm surrounded by people all the time, and I love it. I'm an extrovert, what can I say.
The other icky side of the "needing to be liked" thing is that I think that it sometimes stands in the way of my being a good performer - or rather, the best performer I can be. I truly believe that I have the potential to be a great performer, but I can only unleash that potential when I get over myself and ideas of how I should be, and get over other people and ideas of what they think of me. I'll never be able to achieve that true transparency of great performers until I let everything else fall away and just let myself enjoy, and breath, and listen, and be.
Hmm... I'm sensing a pattern here.
This summer has been so great, because it's given me the space to think and absorb these experiences of myself over three continents and 18months. There's nothing particularly ground-breaking or new about these thoughts, but I haven't been able to articulate them all in quite the same way and in the same space before, and I think that's valuable. Not that this is the most articulate self-examination in the world, but that's not the point. This is for me more than anyone.
In this moment, I'm thinking that something else that might be important for me is to stay in London after I graduate. I'll probably change my mind. Most likely more than once. I don't even know if it would even be logistically possible to stay here. But it may not be the time to come back to Minneapolis after just one more year. I get the sense that I still haven't figured out who I am away from that home yet, and I'll need more time to figure it out. But who knows, really? Sometimes I look at all the people I love who are there, and all the amazing art and community and joy that city has to offer and I can't wait to get back and be a part of it all. So I guess I don't know (another recurring theme). Everything is possible. The only thing for it is to wait and see.
It's funny: in a lot of ways, living in London has been harder for me than living in Uganda (though this thought could easily be the result of fuzzy memory.) I do have the sense that I've learned more about myself at LISPA than I did volunteering. But I also think that I felt like I was more myself in Uganda. How does that work, I wonder?
It feels sometimes like the older I get, the more I have to face up to my insecurities. The funny thing is, these insecurities are often ones that I don't remember ever having before. The one that comes up most often is needing to be liked, wanting to be loved. This comes up a lot in my interpersonal relations (especially here, where I wouldn't say that I've found a "best friend" per se, the way I tend to find them in other places and eras [high school, college, Dublin]). It's strange, a year into my friendships with a lot of these people, to still feel that they're largely casual friendships. Especially since I so often desperately want something deeper, more profound. And I often end up feeling like these people are "so much cooler" than me, and feel a little weird around them because I want to be their friend, even though I am their friend, and I'm always playing low status and rarely really just relaxing and genuinely being myself. Speaking to Gemma on the phone the other week, I said, "I think I need to stop trying to find my place in order to find my place." And that's it, really. I need to just be, and have faith, and everything will fall into place.
I realise, too, that I project the image of being enormously self-sufficient and independent a lot of the time (or at least since I moved here.) I'm always running around and doing things, and if I can't find someone to go with, fuck it, I'll go by myself. And there's nothing wrong with that - in fact, I think it's important sometimes to push myself in that way. But it's important, too, that I acknowledge that if I need people in my life to a greater degree, I'm the one who needs to make an effort in that direction, too.
That's another reason it's been so lovely to be living with so many people this summer. I'm surrounded by people all the time, and I love it. I'm an extrovert, what can I say.
The other icky side of the "needing to be liked" thing is that I think that it sometimes stands in the way of my being a good performer - or rather, the best performer I can be. I truly believe that I have the potential to be a great performer, but I can only unleash that potential when I get over myself and ideas of how I should be, and get over other people and ideas of what they think of me. I'll never be able to achieve that true transparency of great performers until I let everything else fall away and just let myself enjoy, and breath, and listen, and be.
Hmm... I'm sensing a pattern here.
This summer has been so great, because it's given me the space to think and absorb these experiences of myself over three continents and 18months. There's nothing particularly ground-breaking or new about these thoughts, but I haven't been able to articulate them all in quite the same way and in the same space before, and I think that's valuable. Not that this is the most articulate self-examination in the world, but that's not the point. This is for me more than anyone.
In this moment, I'm thinking that something else that might be important for me is to stay in London after I graduate. I'll probably change my mind. Most likely more than once. I don't even know if it would even be logistically possible to stay here. But it may not be the time to come back to Minneapolis after just one more year. I get the sense that I still haven't figured out who I am away from that home yet, and I'll need more time to figure it out. But who knows, really? Sometimes I look at all the people I love who are there, and all the amazing art and community and joy that city has to offer and I can't wait to get back and be a part of it all. So I guess I don't know (another recurring theme). Everything is possible. The only thing for it is to wait and see.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
The bike-master, now that it's fixed
Man, sitting in front of a computer all day just sucks the life outta me! I keep meaning to blog, but can't seem to scrape together a sufficient amount of energy. Forgive me, then, this rather brief and boring post.
So remember how I mentioned that my bike had a flat tire (again) so I didn't ride it all last week? On Saturday I finally had the time to walk it to the nearest bike shop (a little over a mile away) and have them take a look at it. Turns out that my new front tire didn't have a seal all the way around the opening for the air gauge-thingy, so there was this little piece of metal poking out that was systematically puncturing all of my innertubes. (Thanks a lot, assholes who sold me said defective wheel and didn't notice the first time I took it in for a flat tire. Consider yourselves named and shamed. Though I suppose, in fairness, they did change that first tube for free... well, whatever. These guys are my bike heroes from now on.) But now it's fixed! And so to celebrate I biked ALL OVER LONDON all weekend long. I clocked almost 35 miles in two days. And no flat tire in sight! Woo hoo! Other highlights of the weekend included stumbling onto the London's Fittest Firefighter contest in Covent Garden, having a picnic lunch in Hyde Park with my dear friend Becky of SPW fame, and getting my hair cut for the first time in (ahem) a year.
A year.
I'm so bad at general girl pretty-maintenence things. Seriously, I don't even know how to apply eyeshadow correctly. I'm a failure at being gendernormative in the appearance-upkeeping sense.
But that's neither here or there. Monday came and went largely without incident; last night I saw this awesome lady, who has previously sang with the Polyphonic Spree and played with Sufjan Stevens. She is so so cool, and the venue was so so tiny, and the tickets were so so cheap, and we were so so close. Honestly, could've shined her super shiny shoes from where I was standing, mouth agape, staring at this awesome lady. Everyone check out St Vincent. And know when you listen to her stuff that it is all her. It was just her onstage with a guitar, about eight different pedals, two microphones, and some crazy drum/sample machines. She is one crazy multi-taskin' talented lady. I had a great night.
It also just felt really good to feel like I was taking advantage of this city. My friend Seiriol has a show going up at the Barbican that I'm hoping to see this week or next, plus the new Complicite show. Despite the fact that my shoulder is still a little stiff from time to time, I've booked my Induction Class at The Circus Space for next week so I can start taking acrobatics classes. I'm biking more than ever (close to 20 miles yesterday), and I've got lots of ideas of how to fill my time when I'm not at work. It's only when I'm at work that I get a little crabby, a little restless, a little blue.
Also on the horizon: the house-hunt. Wish me luck.
So remember how I mentioned that my bike had a flat tire (again) so I didn't ride it all last week? On Saturday I finally had the time to walk it to the nearest bike shop (a little over a mile away) and have them take a look at it. Turns out that my new front tire didn't have a seal all the way around the opening for the air gauge-thingy, so there was this little piece of metal poking out that was systematically puncturing all of my innertubes. (Thanks a lot, assholes who sold me said defective wheel and didn't notice the first time I took it in for a flat tire. Consider yourselves named and shamed. Though I suppose, in fairness, they did change that first tube for free... well, whatever. These guys are my bike heroes from now on.) But now it's fixed! And so to celebrate I biked ALL OVER LONDON all weekend long. I clocked almost 35 miles in two days. And no flat tire in sight! Woo hoo! Other highlights of the weekend included stumbling onto the London's Fittest Firefighter contest in Covent Garden, having a picnic lunch in Hyde Park with my dear friend Becky of SPW fame, and getting my hair cut for the first time in (ahem) a year.
A year.
I'm so bad at general girl pretty-maintenence things. Seriously, I don't even know how to apply eyeshadow correctly. I'm a failure at being gendernormative in the appearance-upkeeping sense.
But that's neither here or there. Monday came and went largely without incident; last night I saw this awesome lady, who has previously sang with the Polyphonic Spree and played with Sufjan Stevens. She is so so cool, and the venue was so so tiny, and the tickets were so so cheap, and we were so so close. Honestly, could've shined her super shiny shoes from where I was standing, mouth agape, staring at this awesome lady. Everyone check out St Vincent. And know when you listen to her stuff that it is all her. It was just her onstage with a guitar, about eight different pedals, two microphones, and some crazy drum/sample machines. She is one crazy multi-taskin' talented lady. I had a great night.
It also just felt really good to feel like I was taking advantage of this city. My friend Seiriol has a show going up at the Barbican that I'm hoping to see this week or next, plus the new Complicite show. Despite the fact that my shoulder is still a little stiff from time to time, I've booked my Induction Class at The Circus Space for next week so I can start taking acrobatics classes. I'm biking more than ever (close to 20 miles yesterday), and I've got lots of ideas of how to fill my time when I'm not at work. It's only when I'm at work that I get a little crabby, a little restless, a little blue.
Also on the horizon: the house-hunt. Wish me luck.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
The moment you've all been waiting for
Thanks to the support of Kevin Obsatz, Avye Alexandres, Sam Morrison, my parents, and Dante Culpepper, and in honour of Erin Schlabach's 30th birthday, I am a rock star.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
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