Month: September 2009

Away to London with my darling daughter, where we took afternoon tea at Selfridges and discussed her marvelous plans for the future.

We also managed to get trapped in a cupcake commercial! Why do these things always happen to me?

I finally found semi-acceptable new spectacles (shock!), but the store won’t make em without a recent exam (drat!).

I don’t LIKE my real prescription! It gives me headaches. I did the math, and it would be cheaper (and easier) to fly to NYC for new spectacles. Though that is impossible without a passport.

Sigh.

In other local news, it is conker season!

Will this be my last in Cambridge, the UK, Europe? I have no idea.

A looming postal strike serves to underscore a series of raw yet subtle questions that have only become obvious since I achieved indefinite leave to remain.

In the most cautious way possible, I am asking ‘do I feel safe now’ and ‘where do I belong.’

Both of these were irrelevant until I had the right to stay in the UK. I’m still ostensibly just a guest worker, a glorified visitor with benefits, but the new status does confer nominal permanence.

Finally, at long last, I have the right to live in a country committed to basic social equality.

No matter what criticisms my British friends might have of their homeland, I do love this country. I am thoroughly enamored to the extent I am not just willing but thrilled to pay massive taxes to support the NHS, and social housing, and state education.

The question becomes: does the UK want me? I’m not so sure.

To distract myself from the insidious oozing worry of waiting for a new passport I have been poking around various social networking sites. They definitely offer some amusing interludes, though I suspect the main purpose of Facebook is to connect me to people who never missed me anyway. If they were being, hmm, what is the word? Honest.

While that might sound cruel, think about it – I am certainly not hard to find. My internet slug trail is long, wide, and gooey.

And this is not a recent anomaly – I have friendships extending back decades before social networking sites made everyone feel as though they are one click away from intimacy. I keep track of people, stories, files, ephemera.

In fact, I remain amazed at how many people I still know from compulsory alphabetical seating in junior high.

This afternoon I signed, dated, and mailed my stateside passport renewal application. Including original documents, not least the visa and indefinite leave to remain certificate.

For the next little while I’m a foreign national dwelling in the UK with no identification or proof of residency.

Ick.

Then I spent two hours shopping for, and six hours making, food I could buy in approximately two minutes down the street from my Seattle house.

The infestation of tourists has finally abated for the season, and the difference out there is amazing…. I hardly ever feel an overwhelming urge to smack divinity grad students.

Marisa reports the taxidermy collection, funeral house telephone, and precious recordings of the Leavenworth Marlin Handbell Choir (along with the rest of the record collection) have found excellent temporary lodgings.

Did you know it is possible to purchase bulletproof polo shirts at Harrod’s?

In the continuing Ladyfication experiment, I attempted to buy fancy soap at a fancy store for the first time in my whole life.

Though I was thwarted by capitalism (and allergies), thank goodness.

When Gabriel moved out of my Portland house I found a new foster home for the record collection and houseplants, though I forgot to arrange care for the taxidermy.

Why? Because apparently I have “issues.” Like wanting to move back to Portland.

Right now.

Seven years away and the feeling hasn’t dissipated. Too bad about that whole lack-of-equitable-health-care thing.

I feel an urgent desire to scurry off to Paris.

Except I need to renew my passport. Poor me!

To sublimate a thwarted need for perpetual motion I am making chili con carne & corn bread while listening to Berlin.

It is like I’m back in 1982 all of a sudden.

Observation: the worst part of having your picture in the newspaper? It becomes very clear who reads newspapers.

I am sufficiently exasperated by Cambridge that I no longer wish to enumerate the reasons. However, I would like to offer a tip to locals: if you have been rude, or dismissive, or ignored me every day for, hmm, five years…. I noticed. Whether your attitude derived from the fact that I am tattered, tattooed, and/or not affiliated with the university, know what? I’m not offended; I don’t care.

I simply do not want to know you. To be precise and succinct: you are not interesting.

First day of school, and first day cold enough to build a fire: autumn has arrived!