The Institution for Affording Immediate Relief to Persons Apparently Dead from Drowning.

This was the London Royal Humane Society’s name in 1774, before it decided to opt for something a little clearer, and, err, less Monty Pythonesque.  I swear I am not making this up.  I will always wonder what “immediate relief” was offered for persons “apparently dead,” and whether they meant apparently dead as in, apparently dead but not really, or apparently dead of drowning but actually had a stroke or got hit with a brick.  Also, what did they do with the not-quite-drowned, who did not yet “appear” dead? Did they wait for them to apparently die?  Or where they the province of the Institution for Affording Eventual Relief to Persons In Danger of Being Apparently Dead from Drowning? We will probably never know.

Greetings, mes Chers.

So, not only did I completely lie about writing part II of my activities in the next couple of days, but I grossly underestimated my immune system’s capacity to fail [Warning: This Post is incredibly long-winded and self-indulgent.  Do not read on an empty stomach].  Two days after celebrating my return to health, I got horribly sick all over again.  Two weeks later, I can’t really say I’m much better (or worse, for which meagre compensation I suppose I ought to be grateful).  Now, I know I’m a bit of an insomniac who likes to run herself into the ground, but I also take tons of vitamins, herbal remedies and eat pretty healthily, so it’s a little bit exasperating to have such a pathetic excuse of a first line of defense against germs.  More than one nutritionist/allergist has suggested I get myself tested for food allergies, because it might be continual exposure to an allergen that is chronically depressing my immune system.  Somehow, this would make me feel a lot better.  Like then, my immune system would have an excuse for being so pathetic, and I could either change my diet or just remind myself, that hey, it’s super busy dealing with my allergies so it’s not really its fault that I catch everything.  And yes, I DO tend to personify my immune system.  Also my hair, and various inanimate objects. 

I discovered recently (thank you Hyperbole and a Half http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com, the only blog I occasionally remember to read, whose author, I cannot help feeling, may be my long lost twin, because we think in nearly identical ways) that I’m one of those people who sees numbers and letters as attached to certain colours (I mean I knew I did, I just didn’t know it was a thing certain people experienced), and personifying random things, like spoons and chairs is part of this trait – synesthesia I think it’s called.  It’s supposed to mean that I’m also good at math, but I’m afraid, as you all know, THAT sure didn’t pan out.  Although possibly my unholy nightmare of a grade three teacher beat the mathematical abilities out of me, and it’s her fault and not that of my brain that I can barely add.  It also means that I hoard things and feel sorry for items on sale and want to buy them, even if they’re hideous or just totally bizarre, because I secretly feel that they feel left out for not being taken home by someone. The Island of Misfit Toys totally upset me as a child and still kinda freaks me out every time I watch Rudolph.  I think it would’ve scarred me for life if they didn’t all get “adopted” in the end.

Anyway, so I got hideously sick again, and a number of the symptoms led me to believe I might well have an ear infection or something, so I wanted to make a doctor’s appointment.  But I also knew, as a foreigner with student travel insurance, that I had to contact my insurer first before I took any action or it might not be covered.   And thus I embarked on one of the most maddening and inefficient undertakings yet on this trip.  See, first of all, bear in mind that my internet and mobile connection at my apartment is sketchy at best.  For whatever reason, our building seems to be kinda in a dead zone, so phone calls out, whether via skype or normal phone, particularly long distance, are very fraught endeavours involving a lot of dropped calls and swearing.  Second, I lost my voice, so I could only rasp semi-intelligibly at people across the already bad line.  Third, nothing worked the way it was supposed to.  Naturally. 

Before I left I did all my homework and signed up and/or notified everyone I could for my coverage.  The person at Ihaveaplan sweetly handed me several different plan ID cards with the numbers to contact if anything should go wrong health-wise.  It was supposed to be an easy procedure involving a quick call to a knowledgeable person on a 24 hour hotline.  If anyone ever tells you that this is how your travel insurance works, either you have a much less stupid plan that I have, or they are LYING.  No one seemed to feel that they were the person I was supposed to be calling. My “travel health Passport” card offered me two numbers, an emergency number and a regular number.  A possible ear infection hardly seemed like an emergency, so I called the regular number.  It took me to a Blue Cross operator who assured me that they knew nothing about my plan and could not deal with me.  They insisted that it was entirely up to my university provider of their plan to tell me what to do.  But unfortunately, not only does the university provider have limited hours, but they only list a 1-800 number to call, which my UK mobile refused to recognize and skype kept dropping the call.  In the end I think I talked to about 8 different people, all of whom insisted I needed to call someone else, often the person I’d just got off the phone with who had directed me to them.  Finally, I ended up dialing the emergency number and whisper-yelling at the person who picked up that I didn’t care what they thought about the possible emergency-ness of ear infections, no one would help me and I was not hanging up till someone explained to me what the hell I was supposed to do so I could go to a clinic the next day.

Then I was put on hold, long distance for 20 minutes, while she figured out what do to, followed by another 20 minute conversation where she seemed to be recording my information on stone tablet, judging by the amount of time it took her to get my name and birth date down.  Then, we had the following conversation.

Operator: Okay, so I’ve got your information, what’s the problem then?

Me: I think I have an ear infection and I need to know what procedure to follow or who to notify to insure that my visit to the doctor is covered by my insurance.

O:… Okay…Are you sure you have an ear infection?

M: Um, no, (since I’m not a freaking doctor), but I feel really ill and I’m in a lot of pain.

O: Ah… well… let me check something again, I’ll be right back

10 minutes later

O: Okay, so you think you have an ear infection?

M: Yes.  Also, ebola.

O: Well, we have to open a file.

M: A file?

O: Yes, we will use your information to start a case file on you.

M: And then?  
O: Well, we send it to the insurance provider and they will notify you in a few days if your visit is covered.

M: … And in the meantime???

O: You must do what is medically necessary.

M: UH? And that means?

O: You must do what is medically necessary (sounding like secret code).

M: Okayyy…. And what if it isn’t approved?

O: Then you have to pay for it.

M: And I won’t know until after I see the doctor?

O: Yes.

M: So, why do I have to call in advance then?

O: Because we have to open a file.

M: Right.  Well.  Um… thanks.

O: No problem.  Have I addressed all your concerns today?

M: …

Keep in mind that by the time I got off the phone it was 2 am and I was so sick I wanted to cry and smash things and then die. Awesome.  Several days later I was informed via email that my visit to the doctor was “allowed” and “covered.”  Sweet of them to let me know, I thought.  I like to picture how this would’ve gone down if I’d been in a car accident, was unconscious, and someone else had to check whether my visit was covered.  Probably it would hilarious, but I would also probably die of a brain haemorrhage while my concerned advocate waited on hold. 

That night, I had one of my more fabulously weird dreams.  I can dream pretty bizarre and vivid dreams at the best of times, but fever and cold meds tend to up the odds. This time around, I dreamt (because my psyche is basically the plot to a Disney film), that I was a princess who had to marry a prince to restore peace between our warring countries.  To achieve this laudable peace, I was sent to find him in a marble maze that vaguely resembled the guildhall complex in London.  See, I could only marry him and achieve peace if I found him and we recognized each other, and ourselves, for who we were.  Now this may seem obvious and simple, but my brain had a few more tricks up its sleeve. So I kept walking past him and sometimes, I’d recognize him, but I wouldn’t know who I was, and other times I knew who I was, but not who he was. Likewise, he sometimes knew me but not himself, etc.  To make it worse, sometimes, I WASN’T me, or he wasn’t him.  I kept walking past him faster and faster hoping that if I walked fast enough we’d both be ourselves and know who we were at the same time and be able to finally end the war.  Just at my highest level of panic, I woke up and remembered that I was just a delirious PhD student who needed to visit the doctor and thankfully wasn’t responsible for world peace. 

Meanwhile, back in the realm of the actual, the doctor I went to see next day, who didn’t seem fussed either way, whether I was on an insurance plan or dropped off from Mars with an intergalactic infection, thankfully sorted me out, without needing to ascertain if my visit was “medically necessary.”  

Vikings invade London.  Again.

In other news, just to make me angrier than ever with my medical insurance, I just found out that my entire claim for the summer got sent back.  Half of it because, the student plan misdirected me to send my receipts to the new provider instead of our previous one, and second, because Blue cross managed to lose my receipts and now denies ever receiving them.  Meanwhile, BC is steadfastly refusing to return the receipts that should’ve been sent to the previous company, because “that’s not what they do.”  Also, I cannot talk to them in person about it, I have to talk to my university provider, who diligently listens to my questions and problems, miss-records them, contacts Blue Cross and then writes me to tell me a) things I already know about B) things I didn’t request to begin with because that wasn’t my particular problem. 

Because the past month has truly been the queen of ludicrous bureaucratic tangles, on top of everything else, not only did my bank account info get stolen by a fraud ring so that the bank decided to freeze my cards (all the while insisting that I could still use my online account, which turned out to be completely UNTRUE and required a collect call that I couldn’t make from my mobile cuz that’s not allowed for some reason in the UK), but some paperwork for my research grant got messed up (my travel dates somehow never reached them even after obsessive double checking on my part before I left), and I suddenly had to race around gathering letters from committee members and writing appeasing letters to mollify a very annoyed granting agency.  Honestly.  And I was wondering why November was such a lack-lustre month. Writing all this down, I’m kinda amazed ANYTHING worked out.  Or that I had time to eat breakfast.

But enough rambly ranting.  I owe you an update of my fabulous activities, not just my near apoplectic experiences.  I know you’re all breathless with anticipation.

Let’s see, when last I left off telling you of my activities, rather than the slings arrows of my existential angst, I was off to Richmond for the day, to wander along the river and look at the deer.  Which was lovely and the deer were everything I dreamed that English deer might be. 

Also, there were Ents.

See?

Shortly thereafter, I relocated to East London to housesit for my host supervisor. And I got all giddy enthusiastic about everything again, because his house had… a dishwasher, a dryer AND a shower!!!  It was like A PALACE.  Although, I missed my roommates not being around to convince me that the odd random house noises weren’t serial killers or zombie invasions.  You know the scene in the horror movie where the girl’s alone in the house, and there’s a crash in the basement, and she decides that, though it’s “probably just the cat,” she has to go downstairs to investigate?  And then something hideous eats her?  That’s totally me.  I don’t know why, but somehow, worse than getting eaten but whatever is waiting down there, is NOT KNOWING whatever is waiting down there.  Like I’d much rather die knowing WHICH monster or serial killer is in my basement, than live not knowing.  Perfectly rational, right?  This was also when I got sick for the first time, so I wasn’t exactly at my most sane.

By the way, do you ever have a terrible day, and you’re about to complain about it to someone, and then they’ve TOTALLY had a far worse day, and while, you feel really bad for them, you also feel super annoyed, because your day is NOTHING now?  During those moments, I always want to be like, oh yeah? Well *I* just survived a zombie apocalypse.  Top THAT.  Cuz really, who could?

In the meantime, because OBVIOUSLY being sick doesn’t mean I should stay home after the archives and rest, I had a theatre blitz.  During November, I saw Crazy For You, Chicago, Wicked, and Driving Miss Daisy.  They were all FABULOUS.  I would’ve attended more, but eventually I crashed, plus I’m only allowing myself discount tickets, which somewhat limited the blitz.  Chicago was probably my favourite musical, because I’m a cynic at heart, but Miss Daisy was the most stunning talent-wise, with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones. Even if she IS an Oxfordian, I forgive Redgrave because she’s wonderful.

I also developed a burning desire to visit Epping Forest while I was, relatively, near by. In fact, I wanted to walk there, and really thought I could though I know about my terrible sense of direction, and was aware that it was about a 10 mile walk.   But I thought it’d be a good weekend activity when I was marooned out in Walthamstow because they kept shutting down the tube for upgrades, and I figured I could bus back.  Partly, I liked the idea of visiting an actual forest, and partly I wanted to visit Queen Elizabeth (the first)’s hunting lodge there.  

 I think I set out three times before finally giving up and taking a bus there.  Not only did I wind up going in the wrong direction Every. Single. Time. in spite of writing out a map for myself, but I’d always sorta figure out which was I was supposed to be heading just as the sun was setting, since of course, the light by November is already fading out around 3ish.  I’m sure I burned like a million calories and was extremely healthy and all, what with all the aimless walking, but it was kinda a new low for my already crippled way-finding abilities, and by the time I finally arrived, Epping forest had begun to seem like Shangri Lah or Brigadoon -  a mythical place that is only available once every 100 years, or only if you approach in the right state of mind, or if you are wearing only purple, or something.  It was pretty nice, but not really a forest by my standards. 

I mean seriously? Beware Cattle?  Where I come from, that would be a farm.  A FOREST in my country has warnings about bears and cougars, not cows. 

It was still sufficiently woodsy for my tastes, but brought home forcibly the annoyance of being a Girl Travelling Alone.  Cuz there were all these windy, overgrown paths that I really wanted to explore, but they were also pretty deserted, and out of my home context, its always difficult to figure out how safe a particular area is to wander about alone.  Now you may think I’m being paranoid.  However, not only do I have a patented Crazy-magnet – in any situation, left to my own devices, I will somehow draw in the one mentally unsound person present, like a moth to a flame – but, the first time I set out for the forest and headed into the woods, I met a genuinely sketchy person.  Up until that point, I’d mostly been thinking gleefully of wandering off into the wilds for an afternoon, with my own worry my probable lost-getting. Halfway down a trail, I spotted a middle-aged man, with a small dog peering out at me from the trails edge.  As soon as he saw I spotted him, he dove back into the undergrowth, and by the time I got level with wear he was, no sign of him. Suspicious, but stubborn, I continued onward for a bit, then looked back.  Sure enough, there he was peering out at me again, and once again he dove back into the bushes.  Since I was also beginning to feel this trail was going to get me hopelessly lost, I decided regretfully to turn back.  Cuz, though I may be a coward, I’m not a complete fool, and this didn’t seem like normal behaviour.  And naturally, he was totally hidden when I passed back that way but re-emerged to spy once I was past.  Now, perhaps he was just a harmless eccentric who is terribly afraid of women walking alone in the woods, but it seemed unwise to bet on that.  This is the infuriating thing about hiking on your own.  Especially because I have this burning desire to get into as remote spots as possible, but am at the same time pragmatic enough to realize that this is not really a very bright plan.  As a result, I spent a lot of time dissatisfiedly skirting the edges of Epping Forest, wishing I had a crossbow or amazing martial arts abilities, or could unless my inner wear-bear.

  

 Oh well, at least I learned what Elizabethans like for dinner.

Oh, by the way, if you’re getting tired, you should STOP NOW.  This post still goes on for several more pages.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

At the archives, I valiantly pursued a series of dead ends. Looking back on November, the other day, I was wondering what on earth I’d been doing, research-wise, until I realized that I tend not to count anything that doesn’t pan out, any busy work (like conference proposals and seminar attending), or any background research I do.  For example, I’m bouncing between about 5 different libraries, and each one has a distinct system that takes a considerable amount of time, even with knowledge of it, to learn the most efficient way to access its resources and sweet talk the librarians/archivists.  But, true to crazy perfectionist form, if it hasn’t revolutionized my planned research, I somehow decide it doesn’t count as real work and therefore shouldn’t have absorbed any of my time.   Which is silly and something I need to work on if I’m not going to drive myself completely insane.

I also squeezed a couple of weekend trips, to Cambridge and Norwich, and then to Edinburgh.  I was lucky enough both times to get fabulous weather, which is pretty impressive for mid-November.   At Cambridge, one of my committee members who happens to be spending his sabbatical there, kindly took me around to several of the most beautiful colleges, King’s College Chapel (where Tudor monarch worship as a replacement for Catholic saints is eerily apparent). We also wandering along the Backs, and I even squeezed a half day at the library and popped into the museum just before heading off to the train station. I would definitely like to explore Cambridge at a more leisurely pace, and felt instantly jealous of all the students who study there. 

Then it was on to Norwich, to meet a long lost cousin none of us knew we had.  Essentially, one of my grandfather’s brothers was stationed in Norwich during the war while recuperating, and it seems he did a little more than recuperate.  It’s doubtful he even knew he left behind a son, and my cousin apparently only discovered his Newfoundland heritage when he got into genealogy and his mother decided maybe she should let him know who his actual dad was.  Since then he has had a burning desire to reconnect with all that remains of his Canadian family.  Now these kind of meetings can go either really well, or terribly ill, and I wasn’t at all sure what to expect.  If this was a movie, this would be the beginning of an epic period piece/family saga, bridging the years and continents, and our meeting would uncover the secret of a lost love or buried treasure (I always sorta hope everything I undertake will uncover buried treasure or secret passage ways, but so far, no luck).  It didn’t, but it did uncover a perfectly lovely branch of the family.  D, his wife and I had a great day and a half touring around Norwich and trading stories about our crazy family members.  

I, for example, learned that my cousin (his half brother) in Newfoundland is the proud owner of a scarecrow on his front lawn, holding a sign that states, “Thank you Mr Harper for ending the Long Gun Registry.”  Somehow, I don’t think we’d see eye to eye.

Next weekend, I travelled up to Edinburgh.  Now that was truly fabulous.  My most recent old country roots are Scottish, so it was kinda exciting to finally get to a place where I actually KNEW my people came from, and see plaques dedicated to their activities and family tartans and things (basically, I’m a sentimental sap).  Also to see little old ladies everywhere that were twins of my great aunt Nan, a wonderful, ferocious but tiny 90 year old Scotswoman when I knew her, who terrified my parents at my birth by nearly crushing my newborn head with the force of her traditional Scottish blessing.

Everything about Edinburgh was wonderful, and I really really want to go back and explore more of Scotland.  Thanks to the great advice of R, who I got to reconnect with after much too long away, I installed myself at a fantastic B&B just outside the city centre, where they produced intimidating but delicious breakfasts that included both haggis and blood pudding.  So yes, I’ve tried it again at last, and I have to say, I don’t think it’s ever going to be my thing.  Haggis, on the other hand, was quite nice, but the “tatty” scones where my favourite. 

I managed to squeeze in a visit to the library, which was all the more impressive since I forgot half my archive accessing credentials, and lost my BL card, which might have allowed me in without them.  But fortunately, R’s husband works at the archives, and very kindly put in a word for me, so that they new I was a law-abiding grad student.  What else did I do?  Basically, everything.  I went on a ghost walk at Greyfriars Kirk yard (and saw the castle-like school that was the inspiration for JK Rowling’s Hogwarts), I visited the Edinburgh Christmas market…. And that was pretty hilarious. 

Here I am at a German Christmas market in Scotland that happens to sell First Nations dream catchers. Also frog Buddhas. 

I visited the Castle, naturally, and went on a fascinating tour of the Real Mary King’s Close (Edinburgh has built upward over the centuries, so this sixteenth century bit is now underground), and hiked halfway up Arthur’s Seat before a rainsquall and the early sunset drove me back down.  I also took a quick tour around the Scottish parliament and joined R’s book club for the evening. Oh, and bought myself a really nice whiskey, which, strictly speaking, perhaps I oughtn’t to have bought, but I don’t feel guilty AT ALL.

 

And that, my dears, is finally IT.  This post has become the most gargantuan one yet, and you’re probably sick to death of me and my activities by now, so I’m going to sign off.  Next up, England vs Sweden: The Christmas Experience.

Kisses and Penicillin.

George Michael is Getting Better

The title of this post was going to be I’m Not Dead Yet, but then I saw this in the Evening Standard, and Everything Changed.

How much do I love that the Evening Standard likes to use Monty Python quotes to update readers on GM’s health?  One of the things that warms my heart about British newspapers, in addition to gleeful Monty Python references, is their dedication to the pun.  It’s like Elizabethan humour never went out of style.  Finally I have found my people. Also the withering sarcasm, which gloriously, is not limited to the newspaper.  For example, the other day, someone tried to get on the bus without paying and the driver said, without skipping a beat, “This isn’t Hogwarts, Darling: here you have to pay.”  If a bus driver in Vancouver sassed back so wittily, I would shake his hand.

Anyway, yep, this is your first official George Michael Sighting.  Now I know, you’re thinking, what?! This doesn’t count! But please recall that I never said anything about seeing him IN PERSON. In fact, I believe I promised to be so oblivious that I would be unable to spot celebrities even if I fell over them, so be pleased with what you’re getting.

The other thing that makes me happy about this update (apart from absolving me from obliviousness for once, since OBVIOUSLY I cannot be expected to spot someone who is actually in bed in the hospital) is that it seems GM and I share a common bond – the English Death Cold.  I can’t really blame this on the English, it appears by all accounts to be rampant everywhere, but I like to think England has embellished it with its own clever little twist and that THAT’S why I’m still shuffling around sneezing and hacking.  I guess I should regard the fact that I too am not in hospital recovering from pneumonia as a major accomplishment.  Because let me tell you, the one thing my lungs love to do better than anything, is develop a serious infection.  It’s their favourite hobby.  But perhaps the gods felt that breaking my hand was enough drama for one year and let me off the hook.

So yes, I have been sick and thus utterly absent from the interwebs the past couple of weeks.  Remember the part where I said I was blogging cuz I’m lazy and can’t maintain all my correspondence. Well, nothing makes me lazier then feeling like hell, and now I’m trying to catch up on everything in an orgy of guilt and Protestant Work Ethic.  You probably thought I died.  PSYCHE.  (heh, bet you thought THAT joke was deader than a doornail, huh? Not for me). 

But though absent, I had not forgotten you, my dears.  In fact, my heart was filled with longing to regale you with my adventures, and I even tried a couple of times to write, but it always went horribly wrong and devolved into something a little like this:

My head hurts, my throat hurts, my eyes hurt, my hair hurts. I hate everything and I am probably dying of a combination of Swine flu, Spanish Influenza and the SWETYNGE SICKENESSE.  Don’t try to rescue me, it’s already too late, here is my last will and testament.

Or feverish ramblings in nonsense rhyme form. Seriously.  When I was a child, even the mildest fever would send me off into a Hallucinogenic trance the like of which only an acid trip can replicate.  Which pretty much cured me at age 4 from the desire to EVER deliberately get high.  Cuz they were are always of the fearful paranoid kind, where everyone I knew became unrecognizable monsters and random things, like wrinkled blankets would send me into a panic – seriously, I remember my Dad having to take me to the living room and remove all the throws from the room because I kept freaking out that they were “too Crinkled.”  Thank God, that particular awesome symptom wore off with adolescence, but its replacement is nightmarish nursery rhyme jumbles that go round and round in my head like a merry go round from hell.  It always begins innocently enough with me trying to remember a snatch of poetry, or a phrase I’ve heard somewhere, but next thing I know I fixate on something and my brain starts spitting out an endless garble of background chatter that won’t cease.

So in the midst of the death cold one night, on the way home, where, incidentally, I kept imagining seeing toads everywhere, which was the first warning sign, the old nursery rant started up, and I thought, hey, let’s be all creative and free association and update everyone one my current state – maybe it’ll be amusing.  The result… wasn’t pretty. Dickinson set me off this time – I kept trying to remember a complete poem…

And found my self muttering away, faster and faster:

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant, success in circuit lies too brightforourinfirmdelightthe truth’s superb surprise… Likelightningtothechildren… explained? Claimed? Blamed? I hate it when I can’t remember the whole poem… damn… I wonder if I remembered to turn off the gas on the stove? I’m pretty sure I did but still gas is… gas! Gas! Quick boys, an ecstasy of fumbling, yellow stars are falling down, falling down, my fair lady, oh, camptown ladies sing this song, doodah, doodah… I wonder if that was meant to be Camden ladies. There’s a racing track out that way I think, bet my money on a bobtailed nag, all the live long day…. Gah, here we go, will I even sleep tonight with the moon out … whenever the moon and the stars are set, whenever the wind is high, Yankee doodle went to town, riding on baloney, if you hit him in the face then you can call him phoney. ARGH, shut UP, brain.  I can’t even take more medicine yet…”

Believe me I could go on (the next morning I found two pages of this.  I know.  I’m frightened too).  But since this is a boring to me now as it was mesmerizing at the time (where I was all like WOW, look at me, I’m T.S. Eliot), I’m gonna leave it at that. 

Anyway, between the crazy and the grumpy, it didn’t really seem like the best time to write.

[Ooh, in an interesting side note, (wait for it, this is SUPER exciting), Swine flu and Spanish influenza, which are like, pathogen ancestors or something, tended to attack the able bodied healthy most violently, and to most fatal effect, and, at least in the case of the Spanish Influenza, this was actually because people’s strong immune systems went into overdrive.  Their immune responses were TOO strong, and that’s what killed them. Sorta. According to what wikipedia tells me.  Now, this is interesting because the Sweating Sickeness, which swept in out of nowhere in the 1500s, decimated the population for a couple years, and then utterly vanished, was so called because its victims would break into a sudden fever induced sweat, become disoriented and die WITHIN HOURS.  How did such a crazy virulent disease then just VANISH in a couple of years?  Perhaps because we are witnessing the progenitor of the Spanish and Swine flus, and once it was no longer new on the block, people’s immune systems either fought it off all together or didn’t flip out quite so much and it just seemed like a regular nasty flu.  Amazing, right?  I should’ve been an epidemiologist.  Also, it explains why I, who picks up EVERYTHING, somehow skipped swine flu, or didn’t notice that I had it (I did get a mild flu around that time).  Because my immune system SUCKS, so it wouldn’t have the cojones (why does it seem less vulgar to me if I say it in Spanish?) to flip out and get me into serious trouble even if I did have it.]

Anyway, that brings me to the next thing I want to tell you, and it has nothing to do with England, but it’s my blog, SO I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT.  And it shall be called:

I Hate Everything.  It Must Be Thursday.

It’s not Thursday right now, FYI.  This is just a Dramatic Renactment involving my feelings about homesickness and travel.

So, some of you may have been under the impression, based on my previous entries, that I have spent my entire time in England in a euphoric rhapsody over EVERYTHING.  Which doesn’t really fit with what you know about my general personality in everyday life.  Let me clear that up.  For every two days of blissed out joy, I have a couple of days or times a day where I become deeply overwhelmed or staggeringly grumpy, or both, over everything that is not LIKE HOME.

I remember noticing this when I was on exchange in France, and it really did seem that the homesickness would attack on schedule, certain days of the week. My general approach to travel and new places is to treat everything like a fascinating anthropologic adventure, where even hideous annoyances are all part of the Charm and the Learning Experience (witness me, first week, all, ooh, tube delays? HOW EXCITING!!!! I am PERSONALLY experiencing commuter congestion IN LONDON. EEE!!).  Naturally, even crazy travel-obsessed me can’t maintain this state permanently.

I tend to get incredibly tragic about everything particularly when I’m tired or hungry (if you ever hear me going on about how everything I’ve done in life is futile, just hand me a sandwich and I will perk right up in about 20 minutes), but homesickness is an entirely different beast.  The feeling is particularly strong when you’re operating in a different language.  The game starts to go sour on you, and you just want to go around to all the extremely French or Swedish or whatever people, and be like, look, time out, it’s been really fun and all, but I know you all secretly speak English and have peanut butter, so can you just cut it out for today, cuz I’m not in the mood.  We can play again tomorrow.  And of course you can’t, cuz they’re not playing and you’re the weird one who doesn’t fit, which doesn’t improve your mood in the slightest.

It hasn’t hit me here all that hard.  What with it being the birth place of my first language, and the host of all my obsessive academic fascinations, and its dedication to tea, England is probably one of the few countries I can truly imagine relocating to happily if I ever had to leave Canada behind. But still, there are times when it’s just damn annoying. 

So there are days when I stagger around in a towering GRUMP, doing my best to restrain myself and be forbearing with everyone for being so terribly English, and not having normal teriyaki sauce in their stores, or parking in ways that continue to baffle to me (and conform not at all to the side of the road the car is supposed to be on or the direction it’s supposed to be facing, by the way).  And NO ONE appreciates my incredible forbearance and just goes on being English and not having teriyaki sauce.  Which is a great trial.  During these times, it helps to go and quietly gaze at THIS and think how superior my homeland is to EVERYWHERE ELSE:

Or to think of the Thames.  But then I realize, I’m just having a “Thursday” and sure enough, next day, everything fine and acceptable again.  

And there are also days when I just totally overdo it, so I go from extreme joy to total freak out.  I’ll be tripping around Camden Market after a long day in the library, IN LOVE with everything.  Amazing tights! Lacy fanciful clothes that I don’t really need but would love to wear! Antiques! Vintage furs!!! Hooray!!! Bliss!! It’s all so wonderfully awesomely amazing…wait…where’s the exit again?  Haven’t I walked by that door like six times now?  Man I’m hungry.  And tired.  Oh God, WHERE is the exit?!?  Wait, that’s not the exit I wanted.  Which direction am I facing?  GAH.  That’s the same damn door again!!  That vendor clearly thinks I’m insane.  I am seriously never going to get home. 

And suddenly I’m all like, Help! I'm trapped in Camden Market!! If I don’t find the way out and a tube station Right Now, my head is going to explode and I’m going to have a tantrum.  Is it okay to call the police and ask for rescue?  If I give them my name and address will they have someone pick me up and take me home? I need to Get. Out. of Here.

So it goes.  As you can see, I have not lost in travel my capacity to be an overreacting spaz, though I have to admit, most of the time, I am ANNOYINGLY happy.  Like if I had to put up with me, getting all excited over Roasted Lamb crisps, I’d probably smack me (and yes, those exist).

But the first two weeks of November did severely test my capacity for sanguine patience, because in addition to being sick and sometimes homesick, I also was house sitting, which not only threw me out of all my usual routines, but kicked off a spate of lost-getting that amazed even ME.  And that is hard to do.  Not that the house sit and East London wasn’t fabulous, and of that more anon, but it all sorta came together to make November a rather trying month.  As a result, I’m only just getting back to you now, adoring public, but I promise to be better in the future.

To that end, I have decided that this was the introspective blog entry. Since so much has happened since last we talked, I’m going to break this into two parts so my post doesn’t crash the entire internet and rival the Fairy Queen for length.  SO you’ll just have to wait till tomorrow (hopefully) to hear what I’ve been up to when not being grumpy and sick (or actually, while being grumpy and sick).

Love, Typhoid Mary

A Map or Descriptione of Thamesis and the Citie of London: A Series of Tragi-comical Sketches of Troynovant.

 Yup kids.  That’s what they called London when they were setting up for an Ancient Bloodline and they were still feeling rather backwoods to the Continent.

Did you miss me, dear reader? (Actually, readerS.  I have four official followers now!! Now I just need to collect disciples and I can start a new religion!)  It’s been little over a week since I last wrote and I’m sure you’re all desperate to know what I’ve been up to. (Of course you’re not, you’re busy people. But you’re my captive audience, so pretend you are.)  Anyway.  Have I been up to things? Yes, loads.  So much so that sometimes I feel I need to spend a whole WEEK staring at a wall in my bedroom and recovering.

The thing is, I know my time is limited, and I’m living in a FABULOUS city that has about 5 million different wonderful options to pursue Every. Single. Day.  And being the obsessive perfectionist I am, AND because I love adventures, I want to do it all.  Simultaneously.  I can see this is going to be the major hurdle to overcome while I’m here.  Because I both long to hunt up every scrap of paper in England that has ever mentioned pageantry and the Thames, plus every bit of interesting Old Stuff also lying around (seriously, see last post. I LOVE old things. You know that Atwood book (Lady Oracle?) where her main character’s lover thinks she’s having an affair because she’s so obsessed with the various fascinating oddments in Portobello Market that she sneaks off there for hours every day?  That would be me.)  In the meantime, there are pubs, shops, teashops, galleries, shows, historical sites and parks which are all calling my name.  And the River.  SO, I have been keeping a schedule that runs from about 8am (out the door) to 1:30am (in bed but probably still reading and/or plotting what to do tomorrow), because, yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m still pouring lovingly over old books and maps at the library every day as well.  I stay at the Library until 5pm, then take off to walk along the river or visit one of the many lovely churches in the downtown core.  Then it’s errands and home, quick dinner, out to a pub or show, home to skype my dearly beloveds and finally bed. Repeat.   

Now perhaps you have more energy than I do and scoff at my limping pace, but I don’t think I can keep this up forever.  My problem is that I need to be up early to catch the archives, but I am physically incapable of going to sleep early. So my sleeping hours get shorter all the time.  The other day I felt so exhausted and discombobulated (K, wasn’t this like, our favourite word find in high school?), that I simply stayed home and brought the inner chaos into order by cleaning, organizing and decorating my room.

Anyway, I plan to burn the candle at both ends for as long as I can.  This may mean that by the time I return to Canada, I am catatonic with information overload, but you’ll put up with me, right?  SO, I have, since arriving….

 Wandered along a fair chunk of the Thames (and documented its infinite variety obsessively in endless photos), and London.  Partially in an attempt to teach myself how not to get lost *quite* so often.  Checked out Camden Market.  And by the way, I am IN LOVE with Camden Market.  It and Portobello Market are my truest of loves here. It has everything I love best. Antiques, fascinatingly patterned tights, cheap quirky clothing, a bewildering array of food, and just… a general atmosphere that I love.  It’s like what Kensington Market is trying to be, but three times the size with three times the amazing stuff and people.  Plus you can take your food and eat along the canal.  Poked around there one afternoon until my head nearly exploded with joy and over-stimulation.  Was in very great danger of buying THE ENTIRE MARKET.  Luckily, my wired money hadn’t come through yet, so I didn’t dare by anything but vitamins.  But next time, heaven help me.  I may singled-handedly resuscitate the stumbling UK economy. Last Sunday I rambled around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, and by the way, when stumbling around London, do you ever suddenly get the unmistakable feeling that Queen Victoria is watching you?  Well She IS. 

And Albert.

Creepy.  Stumbled across his memorial in the midst of the stereotypical English parkland and wondered if I’d accidentally transported myself to some bizarre mash-up of Ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence.  A little to Popish for proper Victorian Protestants.  The puritans would totally flip.

Looked at the Tudor portraits in the National Portrait Gallery (Oh Henry VIII, you weren’t all that bad-looking until you got that leg injury and became an overweight crazy-pants), and stopped upstairs for tea and scones (scones AMAZING.  Hot and crumbly apple-raisin, with clotted cream, naturally. Tea, not so.  Fine, but K, I think Secret Garden still wins for cream teas. Although, I admit I was a bit frazzled by the time I got there, so perhaps I didn’t do it justice). 

When I am not having Important Cultural Experiences, I am meeting the other Shakespeare/Ren people at King’s College (they’re all lovely) and catching up with the various friends I have known that happen to be in London now.  For example, my good friend Sean was in town the week I arrived with his band, Blood Ceremony (currently on their European tour), so naturally I had to go say hi.  They were AWESOME and their fans were super adoring which is really great to see.  If you happen to have a love for bands who pay loving and playful homage to Black Sabbath, and seventies euro-vampire films, you should definitely check them out.  

http://www.myspace.com/bloodceremony

Meanwhile, D is working on an album of her own, and I’m having a great time watching her work with photographers and makeup artists as she and A craft a music video for her songs.  Seriously, why didn’t I come up with a career that required me to dream up awesome costumes to wear and get photographed in them?  Clearly made the wrong choice there.  Definitely hoping I get to see her perform her own stuff somewhere official before I leave (although it’s also just great to have someone around the house who plays the piano fabulously. 

Um, what else? Went out to Soho the other night with D and her sassy friend from the Savoy, and discovered that when people are out dancing here, they sometimes buy each other a round of Champagne.  Of the fancy kind.  Apparently that’s a thing. Kinda hilarious.  Also the club was playing all the nineties standbys, so it was kinda like being back in undergrad in some sort of alternate reality that didn’t involve cheap beer and paralyzers (how did I ever drink that?).

D and A have been introducing me to their favourite pubs, and I had a very Educational Experience the other day involving cider, mould and ginger beer.  Let’s just say, cider here is more deadly than it appears, and if your stomach feels a little rocky the next morning, DON’T try to settle it with mouldy toast. Admittedly, the mould part was never part of the plan, but take it from me, it does NOT help.  Ginger beer, on the other hand, is magical, magical stuff and everyone should ALWAYS have some, cuz it totally saved the day for me.  Also, I have learned my lesson and will stick to whiskey from now on.

And now it’s time for a Things I Love About England Moment:

I’ve being paying tribute to Marks and Spensers.  It will always hold a special place in my heart since we had it in Victoria until I was about 11, and I had some of my favourite early dresses from there.  But their food is what’s so exciting here.  English food in general, like everything else, fascinates me.  Like, you can get boil-in-a-bag kippers!! It sounds kinda revolting (not the kippers, my Newfie Grandpa used to give me them on toast), but also fascinating, so naturally I want to try it.  And Lemon curd, and oh, many things.  Like, “Christmas Pudding Wine.”  Does it taste like Christmas pudding, or does it go with it? Is it worth £20 to find out?  Marmite I’ve tried, and honestly, I don’t hate it.  Black pudding I’m still working up to.  I will try most anything once (as long as it’s not bugs), but…well, technically I have tried it.  Once.  And it wasn’t a good experience.  When I was living in France my host mother made it.  Without telling what it was, she stuffed a spoonful in my mouth and asked me if I recognized it.  There was something about the metallic, salty taste that seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place it.  Her response: Pointing to a vein in her arm, “C’est le sang!”  To make this all the more dramatic, and my mental image all the more revolting, she’d just been describing the blood test she’d had that morning in graphic detail, so suddenly I had the impression that I was eating HER blood.  Fantastic.  Haven’t tried it since.

Oh and TEA.  Just as France ruined the North American pastry for me forever, England is utterly spoiling me for tea in the NA café/resto.  Having always been a tea snob, how wonderful it is to get a half decent cup for cheap no matter WHERE you go? Wonderful enough to write a hymn about it.  Or design an Entire Map Dedicated to Tea Drinking.  Which Winston Churchill DID for the Brits to cheer them up in 1940, during that unfortunate little incident with the Blitz.  Really.  A map of how tea sustains people the world over.  And it accidentally calls Vancouver Island Vancouver.  AND it’s for sale in the BL shop.  All of which makes me more happy than I can possibly say.  How long can I resist purchasing this gem?  Only time will tell. 

Why Real Life Often Confuses me and Seems Less Plausible than Fiction: A Study

Sitting around with friends the other night, we were discussing how everyone who’s anyone is getting kidnapped by pirates in Africa right now.  Now this is horrible, both the economic circumstances that set this up and for the victims involved, and I would NEVER want it to happen to anyone (apparently there are over 300 people being held as hostages even as we speaking).  BUT, as G and I were discussing the other night, when you say the word “pirates” my head goes to a very different place.  I CANNOT take the word seriously.  I instantly think of Muppet Treasure Island and Errol Flynn and I’m all like, ooh, pirates! YAY!  They’ll kidnap me, we’ll sing a song about cabin fever on the bounding main, Johnny Depp will drop by for whiskey, someone will have a pet anteater called Flaubert and I’ll finally get to learn how to fence.  Before I know it I’m smiling dreamily and planning my pirate wardrobe.   Which is terrible, and G and I would both like to petition that we come up with another word for these people.  Because Hollywood has totally skewed my sense of reality, even though I know that both pirates now and Ye Olde Swashbuckling ones were horrible, and richly deserved to be drowned by three tides, chained to the Thames riverbed.  Okay, no they didn’t.  Nobody does.  But that’s what they did, AND I saw it yesterday (the spot not the pirates, although OOH PIRATES… wait… here we go again…) when I took my three hour tour up river to see the flood gates and Greenwich Meantime, and they pointed it out. 

AND the pub across the river where the naval officers responsible for their arrest would have a pint and watch them drown.  Reportedly.  Doesn’t surprise me.  People in general are horrible when it comes to stuff like that.  Just look at all the pictures of Dead Gaddafi.  I mean seriously, is this Ancient Rome? Why don’t we put his head on a spike and skip around a bonfire and be done with it?  But anyway.  Pirates.  Find a new name.  This is your task for this week.

And the Thames was as gorgeous as can be in the sunshine, and I had a lovely and entirely research appropriate time.  And froze myself solid cuz I refused to go below deck to get warm in case I might miss something.  And got so irritable about it all that I started grumpily thinking to myself that I didn’t really see what the big deal is about the damn river that everyone from Kipling to Woolf to P.D. James and Sansom can’t stop writing about it (Sansom seems particularly obsessed with describing the E. Mod. River, and yes, even in my downtime I am reading mystery novels that reference the Thames.  Because I am THAT dedicated).  Now, after I warmed up I confessed to myself that I was probably just hypothermic and tired, but, can I confess a heresy? The River Thames doesn’t fascinate me.  What has been done on and along it fascinates me.  That people seem endlessly rhapsodic about it fascinates me.  The river: not so much.  Maybe I’m just being a North American Snob here, but, yeah, so what, it’s big, it’s tidal, it can be treacherous.  Couldn’t it at least manage a waterfall or a rapid or two?  I mean, you want to see spectacular rivers, go to BC.  Or Quebec.  Like the Duke of Queensbury, I can’t help thinking sometimes, “"What is there to make so much of in the Thames? I am quite weary of it: there it goes, flow, flow, flow, always the same."

Apropos nothing, had crazy dream about fighting a a giant lion on the Heath, defending the other walkers with the fire-poker battleaxe, and awoke in a sweat having slashed the lion’s tongue (didn’t want to kill it, but it wanted to revenge or something, and anyway I felt terribly guilty about the whole thing).

Now what makes this interesting, is that apparently the super rich of England’s favourite thing to do in the eighties was keep large jungle cats.  But recently the laws changed and they had to give them up. Did they turn them in to zoos? Oh no, they just released kitty into the English wild.  So to speak.  D has just informed me that there has been a “big cat” sighting in the last couple of days on the Heath.  Awesome.  Also, I’m psychic.

I frequently visit Hampstead Heath and I love it in all its moods.  It always provokes fits of philosophical musings on Mortality and Destiny in me –  they take me like sudden agues. Something about wandering around the same wild land that I know Keats, Freud and countless others paced, and leaving as little trace as they.  Came across this house over a rise and felt very Elizabeth Bennet for a moment. 

I like to go up to Kite hill and watch the skyline of the city.  Legend has it Guy Fawkes planned to watch the explosion of Parliament from here, and it would be a perfect spot.  This morning, I actually say Parrots. Or parakeets?  I’d been pretty sure I’d been seeing them, but I finally got a picture. 

They seem to run wild on the Heath.  I don’t know how they survive, but then there’s a number of things scampering around the Heath that shouldn’t really be there (See above).  I am beginning to see a pattern in fact.  I think there is a secret plan in the UK to transform itself into a Tropical Paradise, in time for the polar ice dissolution.  A tells me tigers or something have been sighted in Wales.  Can you imagine if I see one there?  I’ve been to places that actually HAVE tigers in the wild, so how hilarious would it be if I’m poking around the seashore in Wales, being all broody and Arthurian, and I happen to see a tiger stalk by? 

I see quite a lot of English wild things out this way too.  Foxes, swans, Kestrels and so on.  Apparently history records that Richard I brought swans to England as gift from Queen Beatrice of Cyprus, and I’ve no doubt he did, but they can’t have been the first swans, or the Saxons wouldn’t have been going around calling their mistresses “Swan-neck” all the time.  Ooh, and an owl flew directly over my head the other day and I thought irresistibly of Harry Potter. And how much do I love the foxes?  They always seem so apologetic, glancing back over their shoulders at me as they lope away.  I keep wanting to befriend them, so we can have melancholy-wise discussion when I leave about how becoming unique to one another in all the world has done us both good, although we shall cry…

By the way popped by Trafalgar square the other day, and saw THIS atrocity.  Apparently in aid of a "fan rally" for football.

Poor Trafalgar lions, eclipsed by an inflatable bear.  The lions are wonderful. Maybe it’s something to do with my early obsession with Narnia (oh, and by the way, apparently the Heath is supposed to be CS Lewis’ inspiration for Narnia.  So I am literally wandering around the land just past Ward Robe and Spare Oom Every DAY.), but the lions always make me want to climb up between their paws and go to sleep.  I feel like this happens in one of the books (K?).  SEE how I’ve been brainwashed by early literature?  Yes, I know, I’m crazy.  We’d already established that, right?

Anyway, it’s long past time for me to Shut Up.  I have overstayed my welcome in a tres posh Italian café in Hampstead Village, where all the poshest of the posh people seem hang out, and must away cuz we’re off to Richmond for D’s birthday this afternoon. 

George Michael sightings: Still Zero

PS Though my roommates have seen Boy George twice this week, so that must count for something, right?

Kisses and Kippers