Year: 2009

Today at the cafe I took my headphones off and instantly got sucked into a vortex of chat.

Specifically, someone tried to talk to me about irrational fears, and I exclaimed “That kind of cancer is no big deal! Don’t be such a wuss!” Strangers at surrounding tables stared in shock.

Ladychat FAIL.

Later I invested in expensive moisturizing products, only to be informed (by a helpful teen) that I now smell like moist towelette.

I decided to buy a typewriter – found they are now archaic and expensive – remembered I own one – dug it out of storage and discovered it only needs cleaning and a fresh ribbon – googled for a solution – and discovered almost all UK typewriter repair shops are in Norfolk and Suffolk (aka nearby).

Huh.

Tonight as we walked across Jesus Green I noticed one of my fellow boaters was out in the dark calling for her lost cat, and it struck me that I have grown accustomed to common lands functioning not just as public space but as my own backyard.

We use the space to play, eat, read, and cycle, ignoring the grandeur interspersed with grazing cattle and monuments to martyrs. The commons are more evocative of this university city than any of the closed colleges; I don’t know when I will leave, but I already know that I will miss them.

My kid, five when we left Portland and almost thirteen now, stopped to watch someone practicing tricks. He asked “Which of our friends ate fire?”

I know many circus performers, but he has only met a few. “I’m not sure who you mean,” I replied. “Bob? Remember, she lived in a house called The Palace, with a trapeze in the front room and a half-pipe out back.”

“Half-pipe?”

“Skate ramp.”

“Oh. So she lived in the most fun house ever?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I don’t remember.”

Reading Isherwood, listening to Al Stewart, bidding on prosthetic eyes, and ignoring posh wanker undergrads: another ordinary day in Cambridge.

Exacerbated by the fact that my offspring just said I’m more like an arcade token than a trophy.

I just did the math and realized I spend more on coffee in a single day here in jolly ye olde world than I would have invested in a week of groceries in Portland. Huh.

This is largely down to the fact that the Northwest offers (whether you wish to partake or not) an informal gift economy of favors and hookups. When I moved here the exchange rate and high prices were intense, but the really shocking fact was that I had to pay at all.

The grownup offspring needed to renew her U.S. passport. She reports it is difficult to do so if you don’t know your social security number, phone number, or the full name of your biological father.

Huh.

Well, I mean. I know his name. I can even spell it!

While she was in the embassy I wandered around, discovering amongst other things that Mayfair freaks me out.

Mostly though I pondered the choices I have already made, or refused to make, or accepted by default.

Recently I was offered an opportunity that is tempting, but I am feeling fretful about doing something that doesn’t entirely suit. If nothing else, Cambridge has taught me that this is a valid concern.

But then again, Cambridge looked great – from a distance. How can you know if a new job, new town, new relationship, new anything, will work – until you get there?

And, somewhere just behind or under the ponderous practicality of questions like ‘where should I live’ and ‘how to educate children’ and ‘health care: entitlement or luxury? discuss’ is my essential inescapable reckless nature.

Cause you know what I think is really super fun?

Making unilateral life changing decisions without considering the consequences!

This morning I had to venture forth early and skip my traditional morning at the Front Room. At a new indeterminate cafe I was tormented by conversation wafting from a nearby table.

What should we call the hipster version of Ladies Who Lunch? This subgenre is mercifully absent from Cambridge life….

Then it was time to accompany my elder child to University Open Day with 1.2 million teenagers, genus Wistful and Artistic.

This offspring was nonplussed by potential peers lounging in the hallways, but I pointed out that you should never judge a school by the ambivalence or ambition of the haircuts.

I certainly never would have finished university if I had been paying attention to such things.

That kid I evicted from the Dundee House in Olympia, WA back in 1994? The one who lived in his van, or the woods, or squatted the dorm kitchen?

Tonight he accepted a prestigious award and presented his research at the Royal Society.

You know when you were a child, and some teacher told you that learning to write cursive with indelible ink was mandatory for future success? And how that admonishment was just the start of a series of inflexible rules about costume, behavior, achievement, and attitude? Lies. Every single one. The real secret to success is simple: you have to want it, and work. Details do not matter.

I woke this morning with the somber reflection that even insomnia is more fun in London.

We had a late start over eggs florentine & coffee at the Front Room (mmmm, my favorite London cafe) before dashing around the city running errands and imbibing additional treats.

Then in the evening we accidentally attended the Oxford Street Xmas lighting ceremony. With Jim Carey pulling the switch!! Double ick! I didn’t know! I was just trying to buy a pencil!

Eventually we battered our way through all the carolin’ and wassailin’ and successfully purchased thirteen identical black turtlenecks.

Remember my fond hope that changing spectacles and putting the hair up would disguise my identity? Dashed once again!

Regardless, I’m away to London with a shoerack, an extendable fork, two computers, and one stroppy teenager.

Evidently my notion of packing for a fancy event remains calibrated at “whichever garment crumples small enough to fit in my pocket.”

What does one wear to a lecture and reception at the Royal Society?