I am very excited

I am very excited. Mike is here. We are doing things. They are fun.

I am not under threat to post something about his visit under penalty of a violent shaking at all. This is totally my choice.

Happy I am
Everything is great
Little bit of a cold
Probably be gone by tomorrow

Mike likes London
Even the crappy weather

Heh.

The post where I confess my greatest fear

I am afraid of a lot of things. Zombies (if you think I'm kidding get me into a discussion about them, then you'll see), debt, being torn to bits by a pack of wolves when I go up to my apartment (the one in A.P) at night, Kate deciding to really off herself while I'm over here.. the list goes on!

But only one fear has the power to affect me in my day to day life. And that is the fear of being pushed in front of the subway by a crazy person.

I know, what are the odds. But every single time the train comes to the platform I look around and to see who potentially could be the pusher. I know which stations have extra deep pits for me to roll into in case I do get pushed in front of the train and can't get out. The only part I haven't figured out is which rail is the dreaded "third rail." There's 4 of them. And they aren't numbered.

I'm actually better about it here than I am in nyc. While there seem to be more visibly crazy people in London, I think the crazy people are more malicious in nyc. So when I'm in nyc you will never see me anywhere near the edge of the track as the train is pulling in. In London it's more problematic.

In case you haven't realized, I'm in love with the tube. It's because everytime the train approaches, at least in my tube stop, it looks like a train coming out of a tunnel. And I love tunnels (I blame Hoosick Tunnel). It's also because every time I ride it I imagine I'm in a giant pneumatic tube rocketing to my destination.

So this poses a problem when I'm excited to see the train show up, but am too worried that I'm going to be pushed under it to enjoy it. I'm working on it- I step up to the yellow line and watch all giddy, but use my super peripheral vision to keep an eye on any wouldbe pushers.

So yeah. This is what I think about every day.

Romance and murder, the Victorian Way

London still wears its Victoriana on its sleeve. It's much more visible where I live, one of the villages enveloped by The City's growth and expansion. The first major permanant buildings are Victorian Row houses, before that this was all farmland. The only real change occurred during the Blitz when one wayward bomb fell across the street from where I live. That's why I have to look at ugly post-war architecture when I wake up in the morning.

Anyway, the point it, for all its attempts to be a major modern city, London is stuck at the turn of the last century. You can feel it when you walk from the busy streets into the parks and gardens, you can see it when you walk down Tottenham to my street- both lined with Victorian row houses, and you can smell it every now and again when the Victorian sewers act up after a rain.

Sometimes I'm amazed that I don't have to avoid carriages and people throwing out the contents of chamber pots from their open windows. Or maybe I just have a romantic imagination that runs away with me.

Completely unrelated, I'm in the public library again and if the man behind me doesn't stop rustling his plastic bags I'm going to stab him.

In the Victorian period this would be perfectly acceptable as long as I took the trouble of dumping his body in a river (preferably the Thames but more likely one of its tributaries (now they're all underground)). How's that for romantic.

Hornsey Library

A little kid just ran past me saying "We're looking for Doctor Who, aren't we!"

Yes. Yes we are.

Why yes, I am the crazy cat lady? How could you tell?

Today was beautiful- the weather about 55 and sunny with me not having to go to class. Usually I'd waste this by staying in bed all day, but I didn't. It was just too nice! So I did all those things on my to do list: clean my room, do laundry, mail out cards, get a library card from the town library..

It's so satisfying to put lines through things on my to do list.. If I were a less honest person I'd put lines through them without having done them just to get the satisfaction (note: the satisfying feeling does not come from accomplishing anything- cleaning my room is a pain in the ass. It's purely derived from the act of drawing a line through a word on a list. I know I'm sick, just learn to accept it as I have.).

So I did all this by 2. So now what to do? I'm was not going to go to school on my day off, so I figured, open all the windows, download my new favorite Dr. Who spinoff Torchwood, and drink tea revelling in my line drawing.

And that's when I met El Capitan (translates roughly to The Captain in English for those of you with poor Spanish). El Capitan is the neighborhood tomcat who can be heard at various hours of the evening fighting and having sex. As these are cats, usually it's one and the same.

El Capitan came bounding up our wrought iron spiral staircase (you're jealous, I know) that leads down into the backyard to come hang out. Unfortunately, these stairs lead into Lily's room so I couldn't let him in. We hung out, I petted him, he chatted to me and I took some pictures. The next door neighbors saw all of this and I'm officially an international crazy cat lady.

Whatever. This cat is a badass. He has one yellow eye and one blue eye and is covered in scars. Everyone should hang out petting El Capitan if they have the time. He is second only to Handsome George of Episkopi in terms of tomcat greatness. I have pictures of both of these cats in case anyone wants to see them.

Anyway, here is a picture of me with super teased hair (no hairspray necessary!) which will probably help you visualize me in 10 years (add stinky grey sweater and 20 more cats).