Its 6:23 am in New York City and I am WIDE awake. It started as the kind of awake where you lay in bed (yes I even have a bed to sleep in here) with your eyes closed and wait for the morning sunlight to seep through your veiny lids, but then I realized there was no sun rising. I figured it must be the middle of the night. Get up, bathroom break. Check my phone. I'm not in London anymore; the sun isn't rising at an absurd hour, making sure I never over sleep.
My tickets home were incredibly cheap, especially considering I booked a three day layover in NYC, but as a result I was forced to fly AirFrance via Delta. [shit]. I was forced to fly from London to Paris, and then from Paris to the states. I know, I know; it makes no sense. The shorter flight got a little interesting when we hit a storm. The excitement went a bit like this.
Intercom: "Bonjour, hello, we are heeting a bit of turboolawnce, just a leetle chop chop, but everyzing will be fine."
Then we fell from the sky.
I'm not one to be nervous on planes. Ever. I've done the transatlantic flight about 4 or 5 times now and have been flying nearly my whole life. I don't enjoy it but I've never been a nervous flier. But that bit of turboolawnce was more like someone handed our plane to a toddler who had just discovered he head these apendages attached to his shoulders that could wave sporadically around, and well I got a bit scared.
But the plane landed fine.
The flight from Paris to JFK was excitement free. It's impossible for me to sleep on the long flights. A combination of excitement and this feeling of being cramped keep me from ever dozing off, so I read an entire book from cover to cover. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Not a literary masterpiece but a good plane read nonetheless. I then flipped through the inflight entertainment. Everything was in French. When I managed to find the option to switch the menu to English, a new form of entertainment abounded. Several of their movie title translations were just slightly off. My favorite was Hangover 2. It translated to "Very Bad Trip 2." I found this hysterically funny, the two perfectly primped, gorgeous Dutch girls next to me dubbed me odd. (They slept nearly the whole flight sitting up, their arms crossed, eye masks perfectly in place. Not human.)
So I'm in the states, in New York, a bed in Queens, and its exciting. Living abroad is wonderful and London is great but it's hard to be so far away from you heart. Sometimes there's a hollow ache in my chest, one that echos down into the pit of my stomach, and I realize I'm homesick. Not just for Ohio and it's hills and trees and my family and friends, but for a country that as soon as my plane lands I feel like I'm back, I belong. New York is still not quite my home sweet home but I'm close to my heart here, I can hear it's faint beating in the distance, and I'm comforted knowing I'm only four days away from being back in the place that [nearly] fully gets me, the place that made me. Plus I'm in New York for the first time in my life, with one of the greatest friends of my life, so things don't get much better than this.
Usually at this point in my sleeptime blogging I would say I'm off to bed or something of the like, but the odds of me falling back to sleep are slim. So instead I'll tell you I'm off to Hulu (God Bless America) and know that those Ohioans of you that are reading this, well I'll see you soon.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Thursday, 8 December 2011
I am the Worst Blogger Ever
I've said this several times before and I make no excuses...except I do. Work, school, work, school, publications, anthologies, travel, work, school...other than that, no excuses. So how do I summarize the past few months in one blog post? Well odds are I probably can't. (We've already discussed I am no good at this blog thing.) But below is my best shot.
1) Uni is hard. Kicking my ass hard. Add onto that the need to finish my final edits for the Chicago experimental class anthology and beginning the prep stages of my dissertation, and well it's a wonder my hair isn't falling out more than normal right now.
2) Spain. I went there. Santiago de Compostela to be exact. I went to visit my dear friend Jaime (James), the most recent addition to the group of Americans I know abroad. Summary: Santiago was unbelievably gorgeous and the perfect break from the smog and congestion of London. Plus Jaime is my writing (and perhaps even real) soulmate. Check out her blog, she's basically a genius and named her cat after Virginia Woolf. Basically she kicks major ass. [dances-with-woolf.blogspot.com]
3) Jaime [and Alberto] visit London. They came for five days...five very ridiculous days. There's no real way to summarize the insanity that ensued that weekend, but see below for two short stories to summarize the general mayhem.
Story #1: Jailbirds
My friend Jaime and her roomate Alberto came from Spain to stay with me this past week/weekend. They got in Wednesday, which ended up taking them all day because the tube was having all sorts of problems, and then were supposed to go out on the town during Thursday while I worked. First problem: I locked them IN my flat. Yes, in London this is possible.
My door has two locks (well actually four but we never lock the other two...someone must have thought at some point that my flat is in the ghetto...its not), the one is just a regular automatic door lock that can be undone from the inside, and the other is a skeleton key door lock that has to be both locked and unlocked from both sides. Major fire hazard I know. I had to work at 7:45, meaning I had to rise at 5:45 (after going to bed at about 2am) so I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind and, well, I locked them in my flat.
Cut to work where I log on facebook to read a frantic message from Jaime who informs me that they are jailbirds and also that there is no coffee in my flat and she might kill Alberto. (Jaime drinks about six cups of coffee a day as a result of living in Spain). Evidently Alberto was playing my flatmates guitar and singing some song about "stuck with jaime inside a house, she's hunting for coffee like a trapped mouse."
I manage to get off work early to go set them free, but by the time I get home my flatmate has come back and released them and they were on the tube on their way to my work....figures.
Story#2: Alberto pulls a Mysterious Houdini
Alberto is probably the most unusual person I have ever met. He''s also extremely intelligent and really funny. Saturday evening we got fairly intoxicated for Thanksgiving so I went to bed relatively early (midnight I think). At about 6am I awoke to what sounded like someone throwing a brick at my window. I assumed it was either a drunk person or a pigeon so I stayed in bed. Then the noise happened again, accompanied by a loudly whispered, "KESLEY!" I got out of my bed and opened my curtains to find Alberto standing in my front yard with a soccer ball...
Crawling downstairs I unlocked the door to let him in. He is giggling so of course I assume somehow he got high (I know of no connections in this city and there's no smoking in my house). I grumble my discontent and go back into my room and fall asleep only to have him wake me up moments later to ask for the keys again as he left his bag outside.
The next morning while Alberto is showering Jaime asked me what happened...evidently she only saw Alberto and I standing in the hallway and then saw him come into where she was sleeping giggling, so she assumed we had had a late night hanky pank of some sort) I told her about the nights events and we both decided that he must be a Houdini because I locked us IN the flat when I went to bed meaning he COULDNT get out.
When he got out of the shower I asked him 3 questions:
1) How did you get out?
2) Where the hell did you go?
3) Where did you get the soccer ball?
His answers:
1) I have no idea
2) I walked for about 50 minutes, met some old guys, smoked a spliff, got lost, then came back.
3) I must have stolen it from a yard.
To this day we have no idea how he got out....Our only thought is that maybe my roommate and her three friends came back in the middle of the night and he snuck out when they came in...but he doesn't remember.
4) My boss has been on holiday. In Mexico. For two weeks. I've been waking at 5.45 for work and closing the clinic at 9pm...with classes in between. I can't decide if I should hug her or strangle her upon her return. Hug probably, I'd like to keep my job.
5) 11 days of Mayhem. It's less than two weeks now until I am in Ohio again, and honestly my heart can't wait to be back in the heart of it all. The days leading up to this triumphant return (where no doubt my mother and I will both sob like big babies at the airport and generally make huge fools out of ourselves) are, as always, hectic. We have our work Christmas party tomorrow night, which I've been told tends to get out of hand. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a bunch of Aussies and Brits. Next week is the last week of classes for the semester, followed by project cramming. Then it's an eight hour flight to NYC on Friday to stay with the wonderful Jonathan Julian for a few days, and then back to Ohio on the 19th! My life is always crazy, and although sometimes its overwhelming and seems to be more than I can handle, I'm [fairly] sure I wouldn't have it any other way.
1) Uni is hard. Kicking my ass hard. Add onto that the need to finish my final edits for the Chicago experimental class anthology and beginning the prep stages of my dissertation, and well it's a wonder my hair isn't falling out more than normal right now.
2) Spain. I went there. Santiago de Compostela to be exact. I went to visit my dear friend Jaime (James), the most recent addition to the group of Americans I know abroad. Summary: Santiago was unbelievably gorgeous and the perfect break from the smog and congestion of London. Plus Jaime is my writing (and perhaps even real) soulmate. Check out her blog, she's basically a genius and named her cat after Virginia Woolf. Basically she kicks major ass. [dances-with-woolf.blogspot.com]
3) Jaime [and Alberto] visit London. They came for five days...five very ridiculous days. There's no real way to summarize the insanity that ensued that weekend, but see below for two short stories to summarize the general mayhem.
Story #1: Jailbirds
My friend Jaime and her roomate Alberto came from Spain to stay with me this past week/weekend. They got in Wednesday, which ended up taking them all day because the tube was having all sorts of problems, and then were supposed to go out on the town during Thursday while I worked. First problem: I locked them IN my flat. Yes, in London this is possible.
My door has two locks (well actually four but we never lock the other two...someone must have thought at some point that my flat is in the ghetto...its not), the one is just a regular automatic door lock that can be undone from the inside, and the other is a skeleton key door lock that has to be both locked and unlocked from both sides. Major fire hazard I know. I had to work at 7:45, meaning I had to rise at 5:45 (after going to bed at about 2am) so I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind and, well, I locked them in my flat.
Cut to work where I log on facebook to read a frantic message from Jaime who informs me that they are jailbirds and also that there is no coffee in my flat and she might kill Alberto. (Jaime drinks about six cups of coffee a day as a result of living in Spain). Evidently Alberto was playing my flatmates guitar and singing some song about "stuck with jaime inside a house, she's hunting for coffee like a trapped mouse."
I manage to get off work early to go set them free, but by the time I get home my flatmate has come back and released them and they were on the tube on their way to my work....figures.
Story#2: Alberto pulls a Mysterious Houdini
Alberto is probably the most unusual person I have ever met. He''s also extremely intelligent and really funny. Saturday evening we got fairly intoxicated for Thanksgiving so I went to bed relatively early (midnight I think). At about 6am I awoke to what sounded like someone throwing a brick at my window. I assumed it was either a drunk person or a pigeon so I stayed in bed. Then the noise happened again, accompanied by a loudly whispered, "KESLEY!" I got out of my bed and opened my curtains to find Alberto standing in my front yard with a soccer ball...
Crawling downstairs I unlocked the door to let him in. He is giggling so of course I assume somehow he got high (I know of no connections in this city and there's no smoking in my house). I grumble my discontent and go back into my room and fall asleep only to have him wake me up moments later to ask for the keys again as he left his bag outside.
The next morning while Alberto is showering Jaime asked me what happened...evidently she only saw Alberto and I standing in the hallway and then saw him come into where she was sleeping giggling, so she assumed we had had a late night hanky pank of some sort) I told her about the nights events and we both decided that he must be a Houdini because I locked us IN the flat when I went to bed meaning he COULDNT get out.
When he got out of the shower I asked him 3 questions:
1) How did you get out?
2) Where the hell did you go?
3) Where did you get the soccer ball?
His answers:
1) I have no idea
2) I walked for about 50 minutes, met some old guys, smoked a spliff, got lost, then came back.
3) I must have stolen it from a yard.
To this day we have no idea how he got out....Our only thought is that maybe my roommate and her three friends came back in the middle of the night and he snuck out when they came in...but he doesn't remember.
4) My boss has been on holiday. In Mexico. For two weeks. I've been waking at 5.45 for work and closing the clinic at 9pm...with classes in between. I can't decide if I should hug her or strangle her upon her return. Hug probably, I'd like to keep my job.
5) 11 days of Mayhem. It's less than two weeks now until I am in Ohio again, and honestly my heart can't wait to be back in the heart of it all. The days leading up to this triumphant return (where no doubt my mother and I will both sob like big babies at the airport and generally make huge fools out of ourselves) are, as always, hectic. We have our work Christmas party tomorrow night, which I've been told tends to get out of hand. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a bunch of Aussies and Brits. Next week is the last week of classes for the semester, followed by project cramming. Then it's an eight hour flight to NYC on Friday to stay with the wonderful Jonathan Julian for a few days, and then back to Ohio on the 19th! My life is always crazy, and although sometimes its overwhelming and seems to be more than I can handle, I'm [fairly] sure I wouldn't have it any other way.
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