The man who is tired of London is tired of life

Well, I would have updated sooner, but we were in the sketchiest hotel of all time and it didn’t have internet (or ensuite bathrooms. or window curtains that resembled curtains rather than huge ragged muumuus), so I could not. Now we are in London, the whole family, together again, making our way through the merrie olde capital of merrie olde England.

Which involves, in our case, lots and lots and lots of hauling luggage up and down flights and flights of stairs (especially on Daddy’s part). In the sketchy hotel, we were up three flights of stairs, and if we wanted to see each other, we had to go down three flights of stairs and up three flights of different stairs, because that’s just how the building was constructed. Cruelly. With cruelty in the hearts of the builders. Now we are in a flat that is up 78 steps; and my mother and father had to carry all the luggage up by themselves because my sisters and I were off seeing a play.

(We saw Wicked. It’s Idina Menzel’s last day on the West End, and it was great fun. I’m not going to say anything about my sisters’ gullibility because I don’t want to embarrass them.)

And my mum and I went to the British Library, where they had many fantastic things and I could read the letters in secretary hand but not very well because the light was dim. And there was this tremendous Waterstone’s near the sketchy hotel; its tremendousness was incredibly tremendous and extensive. I would have appreciated it more had I not been running up and down all the stairs there (London is not wheelchair friendly!) trying to locate my father and sister; however, I am not so dead to joy as to fail to appreciate it at all, and thus it gets a mention here.

And I have a nice new copy of The Ground Beneath Her Feet (thus far my favorite Rushdie book), and I am going to go and read it. Or else watch an episode of Friends. Decisions, decisions.

The Resemblance between T.S. Eliot and Cilantro

(This came to me while I was eating yummy chicken tikka something for dinner. It had cilantro in.)

I know that I love T.S. Eliot and cilantro. I love them both, in my heart, with a deep and abiding love that looks on tempests and is never shaken. But every time I return to them after an absence, I am at first disappointed. I open up my T.S. Eliot book, or I put a little piece of cilantro into my mouth, and I’m like, Hey. This isn’t that great after all. This is so much less good than I remember it being.

But then T.S. Eliot says something totally brilliant and exactly right; and then the cilantro taste that I love appears once more, even more delicious and wonderful than I could possibly have remembered it, and the world makes sense again.

(I guess that by saying that I am disappointed in the initial return to these things that I love sort of undercuts the tempests never shaken thing. Shut up.)

(I thought of this because I was eating my chicken tikka and rather late on in the chewing process of each bite, I could taste a most amazing and delightful taste that made my tastebuds sing little songs of joy, and I said, Something in this food tastes fantastic and Steve said, Cilantro? and I took another bite and said, Oh. Yeah., and Steve said, You are so predictable. He’s just jealous because he doesn’t like cilantro, so he can never know the delicious perfection of finding cilantro in a dish that would otherwise have been just ordinary.)

The birthday of darling Steve, and reflections on Christmas

It is today! Hooray! Today Steve is 23 years old (GOD that’s so old!), which means he is three years older than I again and all is right with the world. When we met he was three years older than I, and it always seems weird for him to be only two years older, even though he spends more of the year that way.

Steve has a new high-powered job in computers that I do not understand — he explained it to me but computer language just baffles me so I listen sweetly and take absolutely nothing away from the conversation except that it has something to do with PHP, which I also do not understand. But it’s a good job, so yay, darling, I’m glad that on your birthday you have a pleasant computer job that you enjoy.

Today we are celebrating by having calzones (I was going to take us to Nando’s, the Portuguese restaurant, but I’m buying him a proper present instead and making calzones) and watching Jesus Camp. And having a present for Steve, which I almost bought yesterday but then I was like, naaaah, he wouldn’t want that, and I bought some other stuff for his Christmas gifts, but conversations between yesterday and today have provided a few clues that he might actually want that, so I’m going back and getting it and it will be a nice birthday present. (Steve, if you’re reading this, it’s just a big pile of poop. Reindeer poop, in keeping with the season.)

I love buying presents. Christmas is bad for me because it indulges me and I just want to buy more, and more, and more, and more presents for everyone! Because I love it so much. Whenever I am feeling glum lately, I look at my Advent calendar which only has 21, 22, 23, and 24 left to open (well, actually, it has 14, 22, 23, and 24 left, because I don’t know what went wrong but I somehow opened 21 prematurely and failed to open 14, and then 21 wouldn’t close properly, so I just decided to make 14 the stand-in for 21, as they’re the same day, just a week apart), and then I look in my closet, which is where all the presents are, and it cheers me up greatly. We have stockings, and an exciting and mysterious present for me from Uncle Jim and Aunt Gina, and the presents I have gotten for Steve, and in just a few days I’m going to be getting up early and putting all the presents out underneath the little flat Christmas tree.

I would also like to take a moment here to thank Mumsy for being such a Christmas goddess all my life. I get all choked up when I think about the wrapping extravaganza that her room becomes in the days leading up to Christmas. Plus I am going crazy with curiosity about this present from Uncle Jim and Aunt Gina, and it’s taking all my willpower not to unwrap it now and just pretend I did it on Christmas Day. So thank you, Mumsy, for hiding our presents from us until Christmas morning. I plainly am not to be trusted.

It is freezing here, finally! Steve says it’s -3 C in Colchester and Ipswich, and I am all about the coldness at Christmas. I have long-sleeved Christmassy pajamas that are dying to be worn. I went shopping yesterday and I was as happy as a clam because I did not get hot once. I was nice and cool all the time.

I saw a starling! Like in Mary Poppins! It flew into my flat by the windows and I took a picture but as soon as I got close enough to take a good picture, it flew away.

Also, I was just thinking about 101 Dalmatians, and you know the part where they come back with all the puppies and Roger says, “Why Pongo, you old rascal!” ? You know that part? Is Roger implying that Pongo has fathered all of these puppies, and is he looking upon it with approval? I mean, I think that even a young virile Dalmatian like Pongo would have difficulty producing that many offspring along the road to finding his own original fifteen puppies; but if he could manage it, I really don’t think Roger should be encouraging that behavior. I think it shows a lack of sensitivity to Perdita.

Well, this post has been all over the place. I shall pull it all together by saying that 101 Dalmatians ends at Christmastime, which I love, and today is Steve’s birthday. Happy birthday, Steve!

I really have to say this (though it hurts me)

Jonathan Rhys Meyers has done something completely unacceptable, which is that he has grown cheeks. I don’t know why he felt this was a good career move. Look at this picture. Or this one. Or this one. His cheeks are all hollow and barely existent, which works really brilliantly, and there’s this sense of brooding and being above it all and you know you should tread carefully with this one, cause he’s dangerous. Right? Am I right?

Well, I just watched Match Point last night, and apart from the truly appalling dialogue (but Emily Watson was cute), what really horrified me was what has happened to Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Look at this. Do you see? That hollow cheeks thing, it’s all gone. And, here, this is even worse. God, in this one, he looks just normal and you could pass him on the street and be like, Whatever, I have just walked past a normal person with no brooding and no tragic past. And even when he’s trying his best to regain that brooding superiority thing, being all edgy-looking, and honestly, for someone who has ruined himself totally, he pulls it off pretty well, even then it doesn’t quite work. See?

I’m so disappointed. It’s just a terrible mistake. Some people should never have rounded cheeks, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, you are one of them.

My favorite movie review of all time. Ever. Seriously. Even better than the Rent ones.

It is this review of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang over at Plugged In Online, which (and God knows I quote) “bring[s] to your doorstep penetrating editorials and cutting-edge analysis of entertainment and cultural trends, along with first-run music and television reviews.”

(Hang on; just then while I was over at the About Us section of Plugged In Online, I found the most excellent thing ever in their FAQ section. You know what one of the questions is? It’s “Do you have any articles or know of good Scripture passages that can help hone my family’s media discernment skills?” I swear. It says that. That is one of their frequently asked questions. Help hone my family’s media discernment skills. You can say it’s frequently asked, Plugged In Online, but I DOUBT IT. )

Okay, back to my main point, which is about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (le very funny flim Steve and I just watched). Here is the link to the full review, but just to give you an idea, here’s an excerpt about the Dirty Homosexual Content:

To distract police from a corpse they’re loading in the trunk, Perry grabs Harry and gives him a lingering kiss. (Harry is disgusted, however, and there’s never any hint that he’s now interested in exploring his latent homosexual feelings.)

Awright. That was my favorite part. But the whole thing’s good, really. The flim exploits is R-rating, you know. It exploits it. If only there were a higher rating for families to shun even MORE. That’d really be better.

Yeah, so Steve and I just watched this flim, and we totally failed at figuring out what was going on in advance, except I did guess what was up with the panties only I thought it was too obvious and not clever enough so I didn’t say anything to Steve, and it turned out I was right, and then I told Steve I was right but there’s no reason for him to believe me because it’s soooo easy to say it after it’s been Revealed, and I should have said it in the first place and he would have known that I was a genius.

I was going to say something else that was very funny indeed about this flim, and it would have made you all laugh, but now I’ve totally forgotten what it was. Sorry. I guess all this honing of my media discernment skills (thanks, Plugged In Online!) has distracted me to the point that I can no longer remember the (probably impious) comment I was going to make. That’s what happens when you hone your media discernment skills. (I have now written “skillers” for “skills” like six times. I have no idea what’s up with this.)

I’ll just leave you with this thought: Robert Downey Jr., presumably angry at the world for his drug issues, named his son INDIO FALCONER. Indio. Falconer. Downey. That really is the kid’s name. So if you ever think about calling your son Indio, please remember the following two things: 1) only druggies do that; and 2) Just add a G! And you’ll have the lovely, lovely, lovely name of Indigo! Indigo! Doesn’t it feel pleasing on your tongue? Innnnnnn-digo! DO NOT STEAL THAT NAME IT IS MINE.

A Spain-themed date (though not deliberately)

Yesterday Steve gave me part of my Christmas present early, which was that we would go out to dinner together at La Tasca and then go to see Pan’s Labyrinth, which was this Spanish film that was sort of a dark fairy tale and looked really nifty and I’ve been wanting to see it for ages. So it ended up being very Spanishy, but we did not think of that until afterwards.

It was one of those nights where everything just goes exactly perfectly. Like, I did something stupid when I bought my weekly bus pass, which was that I took the sheet in which you are meant to place the ticket, and I didn’t take the ticket itself because I didn’t realize there was one. I’m dumb. But then when we went into Colchester, the nice bus office people gave me another one for free! probably because they realized I was American and didn’t know any better.

The food at La Tasca was delicious, especially to two people who have been wasting away longing for spicy food or really any halfway decent restaurant food. We learned a new word, chorizo, which means sausage apparently. We each got paella (a rice dish; mine had chicken and seafood and Steve’s had chorizo), which was pretty nice, but it wasn’t spicy and we were all about the spice; so the objects of our devoted rejoicing were the patatas bravas and the pork on a skewer thing that we can’t remember the Spanish for. The patatas bravas were these potatoes cooked absolutely to total perfection and covered in a spicy tomato-based sauce that was amazingly fantastic; and the pork (although I do not eat pork usually) was equally perfect and equally sauce-covered. Every time we took a bite of one of those dishes we went Mmmmm! MMMMMMM! and were sort of like that scene in Chocolat where they’re having the feast and putting chocolate on everything. Remember that scene? That was me and Steve.

Then off to the movie, which was playing in Ipswich at six (yes, we ate dinner really early), so we had to hurry hurry to the Colchester train station, and do you know, there was a train leaving in four minutes from the time we got there? Which was perfect! And we got to the Ipswich cinema right at six, and we didn’t even miss the previews! We also didn’t miss a whole ton of ads. Loads. Thousands. Half an hour of ads, seriously. Well, almost.

Here was the thing about the flim, however. It was really good, and I liked it a lot, but it was a lot less joyous than I was somehow expecting. And I wasn’t expecting it to be that joyous, because it was one of those things where the little girl is caught up in warry events in real life and she has this rich fantasy stuff happening to her and it’s never really clear if it’s her imagination or the truth. In this case there were Fascists and guerrilla fighters. Being all scary. With lots of graphic violence. Like they cut this guy’s leg off! They just cut it right off, slice, in one swell foop (I closed my eyes for that part). And the Bad Fascist bashed this chap’s face in with a bottle (I closed my eyes for that part). And this women stuck in her knife into the Bad Fascist’s mouth and ripped it sideways so he had extra mouth (I closed my eyes for that part too). And then he took a big sip of whiskey or something, and it fell out into his ripped-up cheek and stained the bandage (I didn’t close my eyes for that part because I assumed that the guy was smart enough to tilt his head sideways when he drank the damn liquor! but he wasn’t, and it was icky).

Otherwise, very good. And the music was fantastic. But I wouldn’t take your kids to it. Alert everyone. It’s coming to the US on 29 December, I think, and if you know anyone who’s like, A pleasant children’s movie! I will take my children!, then tell them NO.

Oh, and our new Spanish word came in handy! because they used it in the flim! Chorizo! While the Bad Fascist was investigating the bag of stuff that the woman was taking away to the guerrillas, preparatory to torturing her brutally (he thought, but actually what happened was she had a knife folded up in her skirt and she folded it out and untied her hands while his back was turned and stabbed him twice and did the mouth-ripping thing), he was all, “Tobacco–Chorizo–” and I patted Steve’s arm helpfully to alert him to the use of our new vocabulary word. Sausage.

So if you’re somewhere and you see a La Tasca, hit up the patatas bravas and pork on a skewer. I liked it so much that I am yearning to return there and have pork and potatoes again. FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

If Steve and I had stayed home we’d both be dead now.

Because here’s how our dinner-planning conversations at home go.

Steve (or Jenny): I’m hungry.
Jenny (or Steve): Me too.
Steve: Are you still cheap?
Jenny: Yup. You?
Steve: Yup.
Jenny: Awright, Taco Hell it is!

And now Taco Hell is spreading e. coli through their green onions, which I don’t think occur in my cheesy bean and rice burrito or my steak quesadilla (wow, that makes me hungry to imagine), so I guess really I wouldn’t be dead, but I bet there are green onions in some of the stuff Steve gets. So even though I am craving Mexican food like a madwoman and would be totally content with even the fake fast food version of the fake American version, it’s probably best I’m here and not there, because I don’t want to die a death that could have been prevented by lower intake of green onions. That would just be silly.

I want Ninfa’s. Beans. I want Ninfa’s beans. And a burrito. Or a quesadilla and some salsa. I am making my stomach rumble with distress and dismay; I can actually make out the words “Take me home!” in its rumbly rumbling. I can. Seriously.

Jenny's Adventures in the Town of Colchester

Yesterday I bravely sallied forth into town all by myself in order to get a lot of Christmas shopping done (in fact all of it). This was very brave of me because I have only ever sallied forth into town once before, and then I was with Steve, and it was rainy and bleak and I was depressed with all the rainy bleakness so I wasn’t paying any attention whatsoever to where we were going. Colchester is a nice little town, and it was sunny and cool yesterday so I did not object to wandering around the town for a while. I only had three very serious missions to accomplish, which were my Secret Santa present and Jane Patton’s present and the library, because those have to be sorted out soonly because Jane is heading off home and Secret Santa will take place on either Wednesday or Thursday (I forget which) and my books were due at the library.

First I wandered in and out of charity shops (there are lots) and heroically didn’t buy any books although I wanted to very badly, but I knew that I had to save my money to buy presents for other people. I had no idea where anything was, but I wandered about very pleasantly anyway because I did not have anywhere specific that I really had to go to, and in this way I found lots of cool stores, including one called Traders of the East (or something like that) that was a proper headshop and made me miss Portland, and a Waterstone’s and a HMV and other nice things. And I found the library by wandering around until I saw something that looked familiar and discovering signs. Stalwartly.

This wandering business was fine for a while, because I didn’t have anything particular in mind, but ultimately it became problematic because I kept seeing things that I viewed as options for presents, and so I would go off somewhere else to look for other options, and by the time I had decided that the first option was the best one, I had no idea where that store was anymore. The box that contained the final Secret Santa gift was ripped at Woolworth’s, and I went to so many other places looking for a different one, and nobody had any. Not Debenham’s, not the electronics store, not Peanuts (well, they did, but very fancy shmancy ones), not the Co-Op Department Store, not Marks and Spencer’s–nowhere! And then I had to find my way back to Woolworth’s. And when I would go off to do price comparisons between, say, Virgin and HMV, I would find myself incapable of finding either one.

Plus on the rare occasions when I had a vague general idea of where I wanted to go (e.g., go straight down this road until it ends and then take a right), I would espy shops that looked promising and pop inside, thinking that I would just pop inside and then come back out and then continue on my way. But for one thing, all the big shops have doors on both ends, and I kept coming out the wrong side of the store and having no idea what was going on; and for another thing, when I came back out of the shop on the right side, everything looked different because I had turned around and I had been so focused on going straight that I hadn’t paid attention to which shops I was passing so I didn’t know which direction to go straight in.

However, I was wholly successful, and I bought:

1. Jane’s present
2. Secret Santa present
3. Several small things to stuff in Steve’s stocking (oo, how alliterative)
4. a tiny thing for Mum
5. a tiny thing for Bonnie
6. Eileen’s present
7. wrapping paper
8. three books for myself

In defense of the final purchase, can I just say that I was wandering around totally lost with no notion of how to get back to the bus station or find a bus stop that picked up the 78 or the 61, and I was tired and my feet hurt and I had a bunch of bags and there were all these alluring charity shops, and this one charity shop, it had books all 3 for 2, and I just wasn’t strong enough to resist. I bought Lorna Doone (which is not quiet and peaceful like Black Beauty, apparently, which is what I had always supposed, but actually swashbuckling and exciting!), The Moonstone (to be abandoned when I leave, as I already have a copy), and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (by Jeannette Winterson, about whom I have heard good things). And it was only £2 for the three of them.

And you know what’s just cruel? It’s just so cruel. At Virgin they had all of Sex and the City, all of it ever, all six seasons, for £49.99, which is a hundred American dollars, which is like a third of what they’re charging in America for the big pink set of all the seasons, and it doesn’t do me any good at all! Because it’s the wrong region! Stupid region system. WHATEVER, you big stupid region system pooface.

(I handle disappointment with grace and maturity.)

Oh my GOD I am such a slacker!

You know what happened? No, don’t bother guessing, I’ll just tell you. I finished watching all the episodes of Heroes that have aired so far, because Bad Jane Patton got me addicted to it. And then I was like, Woohoo, I’ve watched all the episodes of Heroes that have aired so far; now it need no longer distract me from my important work on my important essays for my courses. How industrious I will be now that there are no new episodes of Heroes to distract me until late January.

But then I was like, Hm. Kate Cronin (hereafter to be referred to as Bad Kate Cronin) raved to me about a show called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I’m going to take five minutes away from working on my important essays to look this show up on Wikipedia. (The moral of this story, by the way, is that procrastination just feeds upon itself and leads to more and more and more procrastination.) So I did, and I thought it looked interesting, and the hologram chick from Serenity (a much less cheerful character than that description might imply) was in it, so I thought I’d just watch one episode, just one little episode.

And THANKS A LOT, Bad Kate Cronin, because now I am totally addicted to it too, and every time I think I should be working on my essays my brain points out that it would suck a lot less to watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and then I just can’t resist. Plus do you know how many episodes of this show there are to catch up on? Because I don’t! It could be INFINITE like Friends! I just don’t know! The siren call of its entertainingness could just keep going on forever!

Bad Kate Cronin and Bad Jane Patton, stop introducing me to television shows. I am way susceptible and it’s not fair. And I have work to do.

Now let me return to the heightening sexual tension between that chick and that guy, and the only hinted at but certainly not far from the surface sexual tension between that other chick and that other guy. Don’t do drugs, other guy! It’s such a mistake! She’s not going to have your babies if you do drugs! All right. Just so we’re clear on that point. And snorting coke at Studio 54 is the same thing Roy Cohn did (according to Tony Kushner, whom I trust implicitly), and I know that Studio 54 and Studio 60 are not the same thing, but there are only five numbers in between them, and you don’t want to be five numbers away from being Roy Cohn, do you? Yeah. Didn’t think so.

My dad’s better than your dad

So wait. Here’s how totally good my father is. (You’re going to be so envious.)

He was teaching this graduate course, right? It was like program and practice evaluation (yeah, I totally don’t know what that means), and my father was the teacher of it. That’s my father because he is a Mighty Teacher of Graduate Courses in Social Work. And he taught the course with such incredible skill and talent, that not only did people come up to him afterwards and tell him it was the best and most useful course they’d taken that semester, but also in the final class everyone applauded for his excellent teaching abilities.

Which is very unusual indeed, especially (I expect) in a course called Programs and Practice Evaluation. And they did that before he told them they weren’t going to have a final exam. I wish I’d been there–it sounds like the most Dead Poets’ Society thing ever. They probably all saluted him as he walked out because of his excessive awesomeness.

You might think your father’s cool, but, as I believe I have amply demonstrated, my father is cooler.