Seven steps to a bad day

1. Stay in bed too long and rush to get ready.
2. Be unable to get out of apartment building due to jammed door.
3. Wait 7 minutes -- for second day in a row -- for a red line train because of delays.
4. Wait 25 minutes for a yellow line train because of delays.
5. Arrive to work 45 minutes late.
6. Discover approximately 5 cuts on hands after applying hand sanitizer. (Cuts due to this week's arctic weather?)
7. Develop a headache around 11 a.m. that doesn't go away until about 6 p.m. and leave work early as a result.

Let's look at step 2 a bit closer as that's really the only out-of-the-ordinary portion of this terrible day.

The door to get out of my apartment building has a push lever like in the picture below that locks it. I pushed it, heard it click, looked closely and saw it unlock, but as hard as I pushed, the door wouldn't open. I kept pushing for several minutes, but still, nothing happened.

As I was already running late, I decided to go to the basement and exit through the garage. So I took the elevator down a floor but, as I walked through the garage to the door, realized that I don't actually know how to open it. Or, even, if it's possible for me to open it without having a car. I waved my hand around the door looking for a sensor, and even jumped on the cable that cars drive over to trigger it, but alas, I don't weigh as much as a Buick, and nothing happened.

Defeated, I got back in the elevator headed to the lobby, forgot this though and went back to my floor, then walked back down to the lobby and tried again. Still nothing. At this point I began to wonder if my two weeks away had made me forget how to operate the door. (Like how I've been having trouble working my shower.)

But no, it wasn't me, it was definitely the door. Panic started rising from my stomach to my throat as I continued my fruitless pushing. And, also, why in the hell weren't there any people leaving for work? Then, just as I heard the elevator whir, signalling someone was finally on their way down, the door swung open and out. Finally, freedom! Sweet, sweet, cold freedom. 

However, given the way the rest of the day went, I probably should have just gone back to bed the first time the door wouldn't open.

Photos: here and here

That is my life

Last week, for the fourth time in my life, I lost a shoe whilst walking in a crosswalk. Now, when I say lost, it doesn't mean the shoe was actually lost. Shoe came off, I stopped in middle of road, slipped shoe back on, and kept on my merry way.

I was explaining this to some people and this is the conversation that followed.

Anonymous 1: You should put your number inside your shoe, so it will be like Cinderella and someone will find it.
Anonymous 2: That might be the smartest thing you've ever said.
Me: Um, hello! I don't actually leave the shoe behind, I pick it up.
Anonymous 1: Oh, well, maybe you should leave it behind.

Then Anonymous 2 chimed in and they both fantasized about someone coming into my office, putting my shoe back on my foot, declaring it a perfect fit, and then falling madly in love with me.

Sadly, the dating well has been pretty dry lately. And I'd like to say I found this completely preposterous. But, it's not the worst idea ever.

I did walk 500 miles and I did walk 500 more

Friday morning I stepped out of my apartment building and in to a crisp fall morning. Glancing briefly down at my Rainbow sandals, I thought about backtracking to change into some warmer shoes. But since Rainbow weather is quickly coming to an end, I kept moving forward. Not five seconds later -- whop -- my flip flop strap broke.

These shoes are five years old, perfectly broken in and perfectly molded to my foot. Now, because they are so worn, the tread is gone and the shoe itself is so smooth my foot doesn't always stay in it whilst I walk.

I shouldn't be surprised that the portion of the strap that started fraying three summers ago should finally give out. Though I am surprised that it broke just outside of my apartment building and not somewhere along my commute, like on the metro escalator or four blocks into my eight block walk to the metro or four blocks into my eight block walk to the office.

They were good shoes. They've been with me since the summer of junior year, purchased to carry me across Europe. Which they did, from England to Germany to Austria to Spain to France to Italy...

...back to Chapel Hill, including graduation...

...and to everywhere I've been since.

On hot days, on cool days, in rain, in sand, in the Red Clay Mud Incident of '06, they were there. Au revoir brown rainbows, skinny strap, it has been a good run. (Well, technically, a good, long, walk.)

Now in Technicolor

I bought this cardigan at Banana Republic in June or July and wore it for the first time today:
Standing up on the metro this morning, I looked down to see the woman seated next to me wearing the same cardigan, only hers was gray. So it looked something like this:

Given how many embarrasing things happen to me on a regular basis, it might be surprising that I consider wearing the same outfit as someone else to be in the top three of most embarassing situations ever. Even though I shop at mainstream places like BR, I still spend time each day deciding what to wear and I don't like looking like someone else. Even if it is the technicolor version.

But alas, my attempt to invent teleportation on-the-spot by closing my eyes and wishing, failed. Instead, I just had to laugh. Of all the cardigans in all the metro cars in all the world...

A Comedy of Errors in 20 Steps

Step 1: Receive 16x20 collage frame as a gift.
Step 2: Fill frame with pictures.
Step 3: Move to Arlington.
Step 4: Have brother break glass in frame.
Step 5: Hang frame with broken glass on wall for year.
Step 6: Move in to D.C. and leave frame in box for two years.
Step 7: Move again and decide to hang frame.
Step 8: Travel to Rockville to purchase new glass for frame.
Step 9: Break glass in half on metro.
Step 10: Decide to use glass anyway.
Step 11: Recycle original broken glass.
Step 12: Drop glass.
Step 13: Cut thumb.
Step 14: Freak out.
Step 15: Stop freaking out.
Step 16: Look down.
Step 17: See cut on foot.
Step 18: Freak out
Step 19: Stop freaking out.
Step 20: Laugh hysterically.

Getting it together

In general, as appreciated as they are, I don't handle compliments well. There is always the urge to immediately deny the truth of the compliment, steer the compliment-giver to another subject, and of course, pay them a compliment back. I'm not sure why this is, other than being supremely uncomfortable with both attention and even the perception of conceit. This is especially the case when people compliment me on being "together." Even writing that out is hard because the arrogance and cockiness oozes out of the word. But let me finish.

Whether it be my clothes, actions, or decisions, they've been described as "together" more than once. And in some ways, maybe it's true. I know myself and my goals, plans, and beliefs. But 99% of the time I am most decidedly NOT together. And I never know what to say when that "t" word is thrown out. Except to immediately start listing the litany of reasons why this is laughable and pretty much unbelievable.

Like when I realize there is a stain on the hoodie worn to work. Or when a co-worker introduces me to her family and my shoe comes off as I get out of my chair. Yes, I met this person's family with one shoe off. While wearing a Beatles t-shirt. And earlier this week, wearing a new top and jacket, the tags still firmly attached to each as I went about my day. (Thankfully, they were tucked in and no one saw.)

That is not "together."

I have bad days. Actually, bad weeks. An entire month of bad. And even an entire semester once. Some days I just can't seem to shake life and get it together. Some days are so un-together there is no choice but to give up, come home, put on my pajamas, and get in bed.

Some days my room looks like this:

Is this the room of a together person? Dresser drawers that are never closed, an over-flowing laundry basket, an unusable desk chair, piles of paperwork, and jeans and shoes that forcefully eject themselves from the jungle that is my closet? Hardly.

No one is as "together" as they think they are or may seem to others. No one.

Friday Soapbox

This week I've:

• Fallen on the metro escalator.
  
• Twice.
• Same escalator, same knee.
  
• Cut my finger while cutting carrots.
• And then wore a pirate bandaid to work.
• Missed my cup when pouring hot water for tea and got my hand instead.
• Been unbearably cold 90% of the time.
  

But I've also:

• Had champagne on three different days.
• Searched for "Audrey Hepburn" on Etsy and fell in love.
• Uploaded a year's worth of pictures to Facebook.
• Finally used the sewing machine I got for my birthday.
  
• In January 2009.
• Had an amazing dinner with a friend.
• Volunteered.

So the verdict is still out on how the week went. All I know is right now I'm watching musicals in my pajamas while drinking tea. So it's all good.

Day 248: Can you hear me now? (No.)

For years the cell phone curse has been squarely on the little brother. Prior to buying my own, I had just three, keeping them all for the time required of the contract. As soon as I buy my own, I have one that turns itself off, and now another, that has been dropped in water. Yes, I dropped my cell phone in a waiting-to-be-cleaned salad bowl full of water.

I went to grab it off the counter, but the gentle tap slid it toward the sink and into the bowl. For the benefits of all reading, I have depicted the harrowing scene in a comic drawing. Though there really is nothing comic about being phone-less for many days as I hope and pray the battery will resuscitate itself. (Still waiting.)

Key to understanding my drawing.Re-enactment of the crime scene. (The black box represents my despair. I'm way deep.) I had to do it like a photo strip because I don't know how to change the margins of my blog. Oh well.

Day 226: Oh my knee

"I once tripped on an escalator. I fell down the stairs...for an hour and a half."
- Demetri Martin

Oh, Demetri, your witty observations always ring so true in my life. Only I fell up a metro escalator…for about 15 seconds. Which feels like an hour and a half when juggling a laptop bag and purse, and trying to keep my Rainbows on while struggling to stand upright. Which will be difficult for the next few days as my left knee is twice the size of my right. (Well, two and a half times the size as my right side is bigger than the left anyway.) Can I please win the lottery now before I kill myself on public transportation?

Day 189: I need a vacation after my vacation

It's my first day back to work after a week's vacation and I'm lame. I'm tired and cranky and lazy and lame. And I have a sore collar bone thanks to a run-in with the trunk of my cab as the cab driver yesterday nailed me on the sunglasses and shoulder with the trunk lid. (Complete accident, he felt really bad, did not knock a few dollars off the fare.)

So today I had a sore collar from my near-death experience, and had to take a backpack to work. Those are the new lame things. I love my backpack, and lots of people use them, but it makes me look 10 years old and reverts me back to a college student who just wants to sit on the quad or sleep or work in the library or sleep.

Picture, not at all related, to un-lame this post. World War II Memorial:
(I need to figure out how to do that thing where you make something in the foreground really sharp and the stuff in the background kind of blurry. On purpose. I've only ever done it on accident.)

Day 181: Insert Flipper theme song

What is the one thing a perpetually clumsy person should never do? Engage in any activity or wardrobe choices that will only increase their chances of disfigurement/facial bruises/general public mortification.

Meh, I prefer the rebel life and wore flippers in the pool and on the deck. And stupidly, on the pool ladder while trying to get out of the pool. Awkward doesn't begin to describe the contortions I attempted when trying walk up the steps with them, before remembering they are not permanently attached to my feet, after all.

This is my life

At about 2 p.m. today I realized I only had blush on one cheek. Thus I either looked lop-sided, with one incredibly-defined cheek bone. Or like I'd been slapped. Which would explain why the people on the metro this morning were extraordinarily pushy: they thought I could take the abuse.

C'est la vie

This weekend can probably best be described as the weekend that should have been. Nothing terrible happened, no grand plans were set awry, just little hiccups all along the way that made me kind of just want it to be Monday and have it all over and done with.

I let myself sleep quite late on Saturday as a reward for not sleeping well all week. I’m not sure why this has been the case. Someone asked if it was because I have a lot on my mind, and for one of the first times in my life, if not the absolute first time, I don’t. I’m on the cusp of leaving this great place and going home, and I’m ok. Everyone at work is asking me what my plans are, and other than a destination and an ideal career goal, I don’t have any. But I’m ok. And though occasionally when I’m asked this I flashback to senior year, and my heart races and I feel the panic threaten to consume me, it goes away a second later, and I’m ok. (And unlike last year I don’t have to restrain myself from clawing the interrogator’s eyes out.) So in conclusion, not sure why I haven’t been sleeping well. But I’m ok.

But on Saturday I got up, got ready, and set out for Hammersmith to return two ill-advised Primark purchases, sans receipt. This meant waiting in a queue to have them tell me to do so I’d have to exchange them for something else, then searching for other items (the easy part), and then queueing again for the fitting room, and again to pay. Once I paid, I was told in a childish “I’m taking my toys and going home” tone that because I didn’t give them a receipt, I wasn’t getting one. This is unfortunate as I bought a turtleneck whose hanger was marked as a 12 (and I know by now not to go by the hangar but I did anyway) but was actually an 18. So next weekend I will have to repeat this all over again.

I should mention Saturday’s weather. It was clear and sunny, warmer than it has been, but still in the 40s and somewhat windy. I let the shining sun fool me while I was dressing, and thus wore a short-sleeved turtleneck and a blazer, with a pashmina and gloves, but no hat. By the time I got to Russell Square with the intention of loitering around Bloomsbury for the remainder of the afternoon, I was freezing. I decided to just get a pizza at my favorite pizza place - a place frequented while staying at the Mentone for summer school - and then hopefully find a sunny spot where I could eat it, and then get on with my day. Ha.

While walking to the pizza place along the Brunswick Centre, previously mentioned in here, some miscreants threw ice from about four flights up down at me and a few others. The height at which it was thrown, and the force at which it crashed on to the pavement in front me, would have almost assuredly meant a trip to the hospital had it hit me. I looked up to see the little bastards laughing, and immediately wished awful, terrible things to befall them. I wanted nothing more than to scream up multiple expletives, ending with some sort of “I bet your mothers secretly hate you!” insult. But despite having the mouth of a sailor too much of the time, something in me simply will not let me shout up multiple storys, in public, words like that. I just rest easy knowing they probably have bad teeth or mullets. (Stereotypes, I know, but I nearly died!)

At this point, I gave up. I went back to my flat, ate my now semi-cold pizza, took a nap, watched a few movies, including “Notting Hill” on BBC4.

Sunday I had higher hopes for. I woke up at 9 refreshed and alert. I read a Bill Bryson book for awhile, made myself an interesting breakfast, entry on that coming tomorrow, and then set out with the intention of going to Covent Garden. I got sidetracked by Waterstone’s and a book I’ve been eyeing since September, newly in paperback and half-priced. This resulted in browsing for an hour because it would be silly to just put £4 on my card! After this I decided I really didn’t want to walk all the way to Covent Garden, that I really just wanted to sit and read and write at Café Nero. I debated this for entirely too long, thinking I shouldn’t waste the time I have left here sitting in a coffee shop. But you know what, a very wise person (coughAshleycough) told me that even if it’s as simple as something like sitting in a Café Nero or eating at EAT, I should do it because in a few months I won’t be able to. So that’s just what I did.

Got in line at Nero craving a warm Panini and a cup of tea, only to discover they didn’t have my favorite kind of Panini. Strike one. Decided to go for a grande cup of tea and a muffin instead, only to realize I had spent my £5 on pizza yesterday and had less than £3 in change. Strike two. One muffin and one impossibly small and over-priced cup of tea later, I settled into one my favorite spots and pulled out my notebook and pen to write. Strike three. No pen! Not only do I always carry pens, I’m a writer, I should have one surgically attached! I’m pretty sure the first thing they teach you in “Being a Writer 101” is to always, always have a pen! I’m in a stationary store, tons of pens lie one floor beneath me, but I sat for an hour – while eating, drinking, and writing, not just thinking – debating if I should just take all my stuff, thus losing my seat, and go buy a pen, or if I should just take my bag and leave my coat and Waterstone’s purchases, make a mad dash to buy a pen and return. In the end I decided, given Britain’s zealous commitment to safety, and tendency to dispatch police cover to any suspicious, abandoned object, which they presumably blow up at some point, to gather my belongings, buy a pen (or in my case multiple pens) and then come back and find another seat.

But before this I made a quick stop to the bathroom, where I proceeded to drop a battery in the toilet. Now this may sound random, but it’s really not. I always carry extra batteries with me for my digital camera. (But apparently not a pen. Maybe writing’s the wrong calling.) Despite the toilet being…clean…I still had to put my hand in a public toilet to fish out a battery that never holds it charge long, and definitely won’t now. And of course the sink in the bathroom was one of those brilliantly designed marvels that only lets water out if you push in on the faucet with one hand, thus not allowing you to form a lather with the soap with both hands, or even really get your hands wet enough as you are also juggling a coat and bags and a purse. Don’t even get me started…

I wrote for awhile, and then decided to make my way to the grocery store to pick up some Super Bowl munchies. What kind of munchies for American football does one buy in London? Well, I bought chips and dip, classic American fare I feel, but then some hummus and pita bread and brie and crackers. And some veggies to offset some of the carbs. What can I say? I’ll be up until 3 or 4 in the morning watching the game, obviously not how it’s done in the States, so it’s ok if my food is a little off as well.

Tune in tomorrow for my Super Bowl recap, and then later for the results of my great biscuit search. And I plan on updating my blog EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. No really, I do. I already have entries for Tuesday through Thursday, the plus-side of having to wait until 11:00 to watch the Super Bowl was that I had lots of time to write. So come back soon!

The only way is jumping

Pictures will be added Tuesday 24/10/06.

While weekends are definitely made sweeter the more tiresome the week is, I really would appreciate them just as much without the loooong work weeks. Nothing bad or out of the ordinary happened, just long and tiring. I think I fell asleep at 9:30 two, possibly three nights this week. I have no idea how I used to stay up all night during college doing work, and still put in a full day of work and classes and hanging out the next day. And as I write this I realize that next month I will have been out of college for six months. Wow that just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Anyway, once again the TimeOut London web site gave me something to do this weekend. Without fail, everytime I check out the site I find something to do. This Saturday it was the Bloomsbury Festival, in, you guessed it, Bloomsbury. More specifically Brunswick Square, less than 100 yards from the Russell Square tube stop, and the neighborhood I stayed when I studied here. I love any excuse that brings me back to this area. As it was the first area of London I ever saw and explored on my own, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

I started off listening to a quartet perform on the main stage, Portico Quartet they were called. They played mellow music with no words. I am terrible at music instruments, but one guy had a cello, one a drum and cymbals, one a long gold brass instrument, and one some metal thing I named a goompa, after the villains in Super Mario Brothers. Yep. I then walked around some of the stalls they had set up, as well as what was billed as Bloomsbury’s first farmer’s market. I bought a cheap beaded bracelet and necklace set at the stalls, an infamous 1.50 Borough Market brownie, and then potatoes and tomatoes at the farmer’s market. I felt very grown up for some reason buying vegetables at a farmer’s market. And then kid-like as I marveled at the purple cauliflower. I would have bought some just because of the way it looked, but it would have been too pretty to eat.

I then made my way across the street to The Brunswick, for an “aerial performance.” The Brunswick is this concrete monstrosity that reminds me more than a little of Davie Hall. It has flats on the top and shops on the bottom. (“With condos on the top, whose rent keeps open our shop…” Sorry, “Rent” break.) Last summer when I was here it had nothing but the tiniest Boots ever, sketchy-looking flats, and temporarily housed my favorite sandwich shop. Now, however, it’s been transformed. It’s still a concrete mess, but is in the process of becoming “Bloomsbury’s high street.” There’s a giant Waitrose supermarket, a cinema, cd store, Superdrug, French Connection and some other higher-end shops, and of course a Starbucks. There are lots of benches in the open-air center and on this day performers and musicians.

Anyway, on one side were performers suspended from wires, doing some type of interpreative artistic dance. It began with a woman wearing angel wings on the very top. The site of this made a little boy behind me start screaming, and kind of scared me a bit too. It’s just surreal to look up and see an angel standing eight stories up on a roof. I’m used to seeing odd things in the city, but not angels on top of shopping centers. Other performers came out then, climbing on the sides and two went down the middle and “danced.” (By the end I swear they were just flailing.) It was interesting, if for no other reason than seeing people come out of the back doors of their flats and seeing people suspended in the air in front of them. I don’t know if they weren’t warned or what, but one lady looked especially intrigued/terrified.

The performance ended and I set off for lunch at my favorite pizza place from last time. For 3 you get a personal pizza and a soft drink, as long as you take it away. So I did just that, and ate it in the shade in Russell Square. Russell Square happens to have one of my favorite fountains ever, which is saying a lot as most of you know fountains are in my top five of favorite things ever. Well they would if I actually had a codified list, which I don’t. I’m anal but not that anal. Yet. Anyway, I like the fountain because there are no barriers, it’s just there, you can walk right up to it and through it. It just feels like a natural part of the landscape, like it springs from the ground, and it wants people to be near it, to enjoy it. It was the first fountain, and I still think the only fountain, I’ve seen in person like this.

After lunch I went back to the festival to join a free walking tour on the history of Bloomsbury. It had started raining by this point, and would continue off and on the rest of the day, but the tour was still enjoyable. It was led by a short, thin British woman, whose name I don’t know, but I named her Jane, because she just seemed like a Jane. She said things like “such a grand old boy” and “blight on our history” and I just found her very British.

But before the tour was officially underway, a short pause while I run into a low-lying tree branch that I swear appeared out of nowhere. I hit it so hard, and it was such a surprise, that after I ran into it, I looked up, saw the branch, and thought, “Hey, a branch, I should move.” Then I realized my teeth had rattled and my head was throbbing. Too late to duck. I think only two people saw me, actually that can’t be true, there were a lot of people behind me, but they did ask if I was ok while trying not to laugh. I wanted to be like, “It’s ok, laugh. Happens all the time.”

Although I must take the time to say this. Just like last time I traveled, I am not as clumsy in this time zone, on this continent, as I am at home. I know no one will believe this, but it’s true. While I occasionally trip on the uneven sidewalks, I barely run into things, never just fall out of nowhere, and I have not once fallen while running up and down the many stairs at work 10 or 15 times a day. And yes, I am knocking on every piece of wood right now and muttering “no jinx no jinx” under my breath.

Anyway, the tour was based on walking the boundaries of where the Foundling Hospital was in the 1600s, and looking at a map from 1769. It had its boring bits, I really didn’t need to know the history of stucco, but as “Jane” was constantly pointing out what original in the neighborhood, I really enjoyed. I literally get chills when seeing a plaque on the sidewalk that’s been there since 1730, or a doorway there since the 1800s, or the window to the room where Charles Dickens wrote “The Pickwick Papers,” even though I’m not even a huge Dickens fan. Jane clearly knew her history and had a love from her neighborhood that made the tour very nice.

I had planned on going to the Foundling Museum after the tour, but it had started to rain and I was tired and my back sore, so I sat at a Pret on Bernard street to read. I then went to Aldwych in search of a cheap store I had seen awhile ago, only to discover it was a “New Look” store on High Holborn. In other words, a store of which there are at least two of on Oxford Street, where I had just been on Friday. It of course was raining hard at this point and I was irritable, tired, and wet, so I cheated and took the tube home instead of walking, and made myself a good meal of a salad with my fresh tomatoes, chicken, and farmer’s market potatoes. The most well-balanced meal I’ve had in awhile.

Sunday was rainy and cold. Church, long lunch with people from church, to the library to stock up on books, and then back to the flat to read, drink tea, and watch BBC. We finally got our tv to get English-speaking channels, with an antenna that means everyone has an ever-present aura, but at least it’s in English. And I have been reading up a storm here, I think three books last week alone. It helps having nothing to do on reception at work. And it’s the best way to unwind after work too.

In general, I’d just like to say I’m happy here. I miss home, but I’m not homesick, I love it here, but still want to try other places. For once, I’m not restless. And it feels great. And Mom and Aunt LuAnn will be here in less than two weeks and I’m so excited I can barely stand it.