Birthday and New Years

Lu is sleeping on my sister's futon, tuckered out from last night's alcoholic festivities. She got onto an airplane at 6am so she could be in NYC to surprise me for my birthday.

With so much running around, I havent had time to finish up my blog about Prague. That's fine, with so many of you dear readers on vacation, I have a sneaking suscpicion that you will be reading all of December's entries in one huge swooping parusal anyway. So, much like everyone else I too have New Year's resolutions that I intend on keeping. With no other reason than needing a public forum to broadcast my shortcomings, here they are in no particular order:

1. Finish my fucking book. Seriously, no more false starts, I have found the voice I want to use, the characters that will be developed, and the over arching theme as well as figuring which of my antics translate into funny-book stuff.

2. Go to New Zealand and work on an organic farm. This is the year of me playing Jesus and finding a flock of sheep to herde.

3. Continue with the hot body project and keep up my weight loss.

4. Read. Not only pop fiction, but major literaray works as well.

5. Procure a real apt, with furniture and give up the refugee look. I am 25, I deserve real furniture, and not the shit made at Ikea.

6. Admit the inevitable, and move back to NYC next year, and become a writer. Seriously, spending the last few days here makes me realize that I am a NYer, and I cannot imagine my life doing anything else except for writing. I need to stop being afraid of being poor, and stop taking the safe way out with my life. Except, I only want to live on the UWS, I want a puppy and Sarah Jessica Parker's shoe collection.

Ok, off to my hair appt. And then home, a bottle of champagne, and a short skirt tonight. I am in the mood to pick up an older man, any takers?

There's no place like home

Yes, you see the sign. God, I fucking love it here. Why did I leave again? Oh yea, something called a near nervous breakdown.

But it’s funny, as soon as I landed, and got my new cell phone number—and yes, I have the mark of the beast in my phone number, 666 is God trying to tell my something—I watched myself go back into my old habits. Walking down the street with my phone attached to my ear, not even in the city for more than six hours and already I drank half of a large carafe of wine with a friend—although, for the first time, I did get drunk under the table, God I love having lost weight—and of course, shopping and the spa.

It was weird being ‘home’, walking through my old neighborhood and feeling like I never left.

Off to the supermarket and then a run this morning to prep me for shopping today.

I turn twenty-five tomorrow. Holy fuck

Christmastime musings

I know I am supposed to write Part II of Prague, but be on the look out for that tomorrow—the spirit is moving me in a completely different direction today. Christmas in England is a pretty big deal, with almost everyone, except for a few Chinese students, going home for the holidays. Most left last week, with the last stragglers leaving yesterday or this afternoon. Suffice to say, I am a bit lonely right now sitting in my room, waiting for my mastercleanse salt water wash to take effect and clean my bowels, because nothing makes you want to wake up each morning than knowing you are going to piss out of your asshole for a few hours each day.

I seem to be up to my same bag of tricks much like when I was living in NYC. Whenever I was lonely, or bored, or just downright depressive, I try to find my entertainment at the expense of others, i.e. craigslist. And what a glorious distraction craigslist has been for the last few lonely days! I’ve noticed several key trends: in London their casual encounters section is not as graphic as the NYC section. In New York, it seems that posting for liaisons with big dicked black men and average sized white men and thick Latino men-- well dicked men in general, have increased as the holiday approaches, while in London posting has significantly decreased over the holiday season. Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is what I am putting my Oxford degree towards—sociological analysis of online personal bulletin boards.

Craigslist is my boredom safety net because it is constantly updated, and people write some pretty fucked up things—and remember on craigslist, someone is always more fucked up than you. Which makes me feel a lot better about sitting in my room for about fourteen hours a day dreaming about food. For maximum time wasting, I tend to read most of the ads, but trying my best to skip over the one lined dick pics that say, “I want to cum” because if I wanted to see a penis, I would have downloaded porn and, it doesn’t make me feel better seeing somone’s member and knowing I haven’t had sex in a very long time. I am looking for the depths of humanity here! Not masturbatory aids in the form of digitally retouched photographs. So I look for the odd poor soul whose ad entertains me with his desperation of trying to find someone to love him, as I pass my time in Oxford like a prisoner waiting for his release date. But I have a confession, there is one ad that I am sickly intrigued by and sometimes am curious to respond to, the sugar daddy/older married man for a mutually beneficial arrangement. Now, I know that part of the reason why I am attracted to them is because of my Pretty Woman/Disney fantasies that a hot, older, dominant, man will take care of me, and financially and emotionally fund my eccentricities.

However, with my impending twenty-fifth birthday, I’m realizing a very fucked up observation—no longer am I sugar baby material! Most of these men want women who are below twenty-five, as if the mid-twenties isn’t young and sexy enough anymore. It seems once a woman hits twenty-five its assumed that if she is single she must have a lot of baggage, much like the jaded thirty something women who are still on the scene looking for their Mr. I’ll-settle-for-this-one-right-now. I wasted my early twenties being drunk and not taking advantage of the sugar daddy arrangement, and there is no way I can make up for lost time, unless I begin to lie about my age.

So, readers, I am celebrating my twenty-fourth birthday. Again! And if there are any sugar daddies reading this in the UK, I can assure you that I have the emotional maturity of a fourteen year old gal. Play your cards right, I can even look like one ‘down there’.

But perhaps I really am feeling this impending twenty-five. Since its been so cold here in the UK, I spend my days inside, perpetually cold, sipping herbal tea and trying to get some novel writing accomplished. Last night was Friday night, and instead I stayed in with my newly purchased hot water bottle and watched the Constant Gardener with the few remaining international kids before they left for their Christmas holiday. All I need are fucking knitting needles, and a pack of Parliaments and I will be my grandmother—except my slippers are much cuter, they are cashmere.

So, I am not that happy about my course. It’s not that intellectually demanding, the teaching is very different than found at an American university, and to be perfectly honest, all I am going to get out of it is another useless degree and the name ‘Oxford’ to drop at cocktail parties. As we know, dear friends—and loyal long time readers, I consider you the dearest friends of all—I get a bit self-destructive when I am unhappy. It’s enjoyable to make people squirm who are responsible for your unhappiness.

I have to do an ethnography for my qualitative methods class. Now, I know the safe answer could be to examine different religious groups (i.e what students have done in the past) or, I can be creative. To be perfectly honest, religious rituals, unless there are snakes, child sacrifices, or mutilating babies’ genitalia (thanks Jews!), are quite boring. Trust me, I’ve been members of distinctly different religious groups. So, I decided that I want to write an ethnography on something that I am very passionate and interested about—sex work. I would like to interview either a prostitute or a professional dominatrix (and if I could find a dom, then maybe I could also incorporate my own experiences and make the person reading it completely uncomfortable). Could you imagine, an old Oxford professor reading about penises being tied up and an ethnographer relaying her own personal experience what it felt like being paid to electrocute some naked man?! Genius I tell you.

So, in a fit of procrastinating the stats assignment that I still have yet to do, and the test that I still have yet to study for, I’ve been looking up Oxford escorts and BDSM dungeons (plus, maybe I could moonlight here as a dominatrix—I mean, the pound is nearly at 2:1). And you know how google has that lovely function that saves your past searches, so when you type in ‘Oxford’ for example, it will populate it with your last query—mine was escorts and BDSM. A dormmate of mine came over the other night, and was using my computer to look up Oxford movie theaters. Well, guess what came up?

Everyone thinks I am weird here anyway. Which is very true. Does someone normal allow strangers a glimpse into her fucked up mind and life?

And finally the part that I am sure you all have been waiting for—my progress on the master cleanse. First of all, I have not cheated and have lost a bit of weight. Getting over the pissing out of your ass and cravings for real food, it really isn’t that bad. Granted I am smoking like a pack a day, and read menupages.com as I am drinking my lemonade mixture, hoping that I can trick my mind that I am having the food I am looking at on the computer screen instead of the crap lemon water that I have been drinking for five straight days, but it really isn’t that bad. Plus, I am nearly into my sister’s fat jeans aka my skinny jeans. And may I say, seriously, I am looking fucking hot. I am thinking a strip club on my birthday night out.

But what I am most excited about heading home for is indulging in the things that I have not been able to do here such as champagne, dirty old men, fine food (Gramercy Tavern for my bday lunch) and partying with my gals when I am home. And when I walk off that plane, touch down onto American soil I think I may kiss the ground, thankful that I am home, of course wearing my Burberry scarf with impunity.

Prague--Part I

You know, as much as I take the piss out of this country’s quirks and the sexual ineptitude of its inhabitants, I have to say when my plane touched down in London Heathrow my heart sang a sigh of relief. For someone whose ambition was to get her passport fully stamped before it was time to renew it (I have one more page left and 3.5 years to go), and how many times I’ve responded “I was out of the country” when my friends wondered why they couldn’t reach me, I seriously hate fucking traveling.

I am a home body. I am like an old cat, once I mark my territory, my surroundings become my home and I hate leaving. Hence my bedroom is perfectly me with clothes strewn about, my linens smell a bit from needing to be washed, and at the moment I am sitting cross legged in my college sweatshirt and a pair of PJ bottoms with my down comforter that I’ve had since I was eighteen wrapped around me. My only forms of human interaction have been at the gym getting my passcard swiped and the occasional IM conversation. And to be perfectly honest? I am fucking ecstatic. It’s why I am so hellbent on being a writer, I can’t imagine having to work in an office and wear actual pants throughout the day. Unless if I have to, I really don’t like dealing with reality and prefer the confines of my own perfectly architectured home.

But, the flip side of my personality, I’m plagued by this pesky thing called curiosity. And with the continent a short flight away, and Ryan Air banner ads filling my computer screen advertising one penny flights (not inclusive of tax and fuel surcharges), I felt compelled to leave my little self-induced bubble. Some people claim that the town of Oxford is their bubble, while I on the other hand am much more content with far less—I’ll settle for free reign of my flat whilst my roommates are away.

Berlin as I wrote was pretty uneventful, due to my fear of German beer as a result of gaining about thirty pounds from the stuff when I last lived there, and with the promise to myself that I would cut out the drinking, I wasn’t really in the mood to do any serious partying. So, I lurked on AIM messenger pretty often (you know you are having a great time on vacay when you sit on IM waiting for your friends to wake up and chat to you), I saw Casino Royale ‘ins Kino’ (in the movie theater) and walked around the city that I love but also am frustrated by. Like if they only spoke English in Germany, my ass would so be in Berlin. Except, since I am a language dilletant due to my ADD affliction, once I get to more difficult lessons than, “Hi, my name is Shannon. I come from the US. Where can I buy a martini?” I grow discouraged with the amount of time that learning a new language necessitates, so I give up. Hence, I can speak about five languages, not very well, not very fluently, about what you need to speak to the cleaning lady, “How are you, How is the family, and by the way, you missed a spot.”.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me vacation is synonymous with booze, random hook-ups, and shopping trips. But since I didn’t really feel like a tourist in Berlin since I’d already lived there, wasn’t drinking at the moment, haven’t been into the random hook-ups for a while, and have no money to shop, I had to act like a normal human being in Berlin, hence why I was so excited for the East.

I feel Prague is a lot like the neighborhood NYC restaurant that got a great review in New York Magazine, once the rest of the world finds out no longer is it quaint and friendly—but instead begins to take on a life of its own. Prague may have been beautiful and captivating years ago, just as it emerged onto the world’s stage from years of communist rule, but I have to be honest, with the scores of North African men trying to sell me boat trip tickets in front of the Charles, souvenir shops littering the characteristic Bohemian streets, and rude fucking Czechs who don’t care whether their tourists live or die, I have to say that is wasn’t my most favorite city in Europe. Oh, and with the dollar at an all time record low, it isn’t that cheap either—especially when the Czechs try to inflate your bill and take advantage of your lackluster language skills.

Maureen (friend, travel companion, Fulbright scholar, and blogger) and I arrived into Prague’s Central station late at night—like around ten pm-ish. If Berlin was reminiscent of the East Village during the 1980’s, then Prague’s central train station was reminiscent of Port Authority during the Pre-Guilliani years. First, there were homeless people all over. Fine. Oxford has a small homeless population, and usually if you ignore them, they will leave you alone. However, Eastern European homeless are very different then the loveable-chavs who try to sell you a Big Issue in this country—Eastern Europe they look like they were caught in the Chernobyl blast. Ratty clothes, physical deformities, missing teeth, no loveable dog to humanize them a bit, they are seriously fucking scary. And Maureen and I were there around ten pm.

Having traveled a lot by myself I’ve learned, when you arrive into a new place you survey the train station and try to find the information desk. Here you can ask questions such as, “how much should a taxi cost to my hotel” (to make sure you aren’t ripped off), “how does the public transport in this country work”, etc. The information booth acts like your miniature guide, and usually they speak English.

We get off the train and look for the information booth. We follow the i-signs to this abandoned booth with a sign that read, “We speak Czech only, go downstairs for English.” Not a very good sign when you arrive into a country that an information booth only speaks Czech. We go downstairs, and first go to the hotel information desk as we wanted to know where our hotel was. Now, I know you should go to the main information desk, but most countries—especially when there isn’t a line, will answer your questions, you know because most people have been travelers and understand being two women can be a bit harrowing in an Eastern European train station at quarter after ten at night. The hotel guy tells us that we need to go to the other information booth. Fine, it wasn’t his job, no harm done.

We walk over to the other information booth—about ten feet away from the asshole hotel guy. We ask her where our hotel was, and instead of explaining the hotel’s location, she hands us a map and tells us to find it. Now, if this was NYC, where the streets are numbered and there is a logical order to the urban planning, I could understand her rationale. However, Prague, is not laid our rationally, it is an old European city with changing street names and windy paths, and mini-streets off of the main ones—if you are not familiar with the city, there is no way you would be able to figure anything out. And there are weird homeless guys in the distance.

Realizing that we weren’t going to win with her, we decide to take money out of the ATM and find a taxi. Keep in mind that our hotel is about 2 Km away from the central train station—roughly 1.5 miles, aka, if we had our bearings we could walk there. We walk over to the taxi stand and inquire about rates going towards the Wenssealar square area. Now, when a taxi driver tells you to hop in while ignoring your costing question, this is a bad sign.

“We aren’t getting in until you tell us how much money it is.”

“No, get in, get in, I can take you to your hotel.”

“How much will it be!”

He shows us this craptastic laminated sign, that quotes the cab for $40 Euros. Taking account the conversion, that is roughly $50 dollars to travel about one and half miles.

I laugh in his face and tell him that it is ridiculous, because the hotel is only about 2Km away.

“Ok, so name your price.”

“Tops, seven Euros”

He laughs in my face and tells me, “Good luck finding someone to take you for that price.”

How the fuck can he get away charging that much for going such a short distance, and then I see a Japanese woman out of the corner of my eye talking to him and then shortly, handing over her bags.

Fucking yen.

Needing to get to the hotel, but not paying forty Euros for a taxi trip, we have to find the subway. Except in the train station, the entrance to the metro isn’t marked. We wonder the train station for about twenty minutes, going on wild chases thanks to some Czechs’ sense of humor who find it funny to send the American gals in the opposite direction of where they should have been going. Hearing English, I turn around and ask some backpackers how we get to the metro, and she tells me quite efficiently in her Australlian accent, “Down the stairs and turn left.”

We find the metro station, and need to buy tickets. First of all, the machines are all in Czech with some English scrawled on top of the machine. Secondly, we both have one thousand Czech Crown notes in our wallets and no coins, and of course the machine only accepts coins. After buying an overpriced sandwich, we get the coins to buy our tickets.

Now, I know an Eastern Europe four star hotel is not the same as a New York City four star hotel—as indicated by the bell hop with a stuttering problem.

“Hey, so do you know where I can get food at this hour?” I ask.

“Iiiiittt…iiiittttss…iit…it’s o..o..oh..ohhn…on tha..tha..thaaaa..corner.”

Four minutes later, and I still have no idea what the fuck he was saying.

Maureen and I awake the following morning, while she is plotting her touristy stuff, I do my morning vitamin ritual, take water from the sink and swallow my pills, and then take advantage of the free breakfast. I get dressed for my morning run, excited to see the city in the daytime, set to the tune of “Kickass run mix” on my playlist. When I am in a new city, to me the best way to discover it is to try to get completely lost. Run in the craziest directions, and then try to find your way back. It’s so much fun because as you are worrying about how to get home, you don’t realize how far you are actually running.

I’m in my running zone, lip-syncing, day dreaming about when I will be on the today show talking about how famous I am, when suddenly I hear a rumble in my belly. I stop, thinking that it was a cramp from scarfing too much breakfast too quickly. But then the “cramp” travels down to my lower abdomen and I am in pain—and desperate to take a shit. Now, keep in mind, I can get by in five languages for directions, etc. Five languages, none of them Czech.

I walk over to an old man, “English, Deutsch?” (English, German?)

He ignores me.

I am panicking because I have no idea what the hell to do. My glorious “get lost while you run” may be costing me my panties and self-esteem any moment, and I have no idea where I can go to the bathroom, nor how far I am from my hotel.

He sees that something must be wrong, and I take out my map, and point to where I want to go, and pantomime the question “where?” with a smile as I am crossing my legs, hoping that my stomach can hold on for just a bit more. He rattles off directions to be in Czech/English and I start to run. Except, running is making it worse, so I have to downgrade to a slow walk.

And once again, I am lost.

I repeat the charade show for some old ladies, and fifteen minutes later I burst through the hotel, as Maureen is still inside the room, and run into the bathroom, and stay in there for about fifteen minutes.

Now, keep in mind that prior to this trip, I haven’t seen Maureen in about four years, so we don’t have the level of intimacy that allows girlfriends to talk freely about bowel movements. So, yes, I am very embarrassed, especially since I had to close the door to prevent the stench from wafting into the room.

Maureen is getting ready to do touristy stuff, and I decide to stay close to a toilet, and take my time showering. Later that day, I try to get myself lost in the Old City of Prague but am supposed to meet Maureen at the Old-New synagogue for services that afternoon. I’m walking around the city, trying to get a feel for it, and my body once again betrays me. Throughout the old city, I know almost all of the bathrooms there. By the way, The Grand Hotel’s was quite nice and you don’t need to pay for it in the afternoon.

I meet Maureen ten minutes late and we need to stand on the security line. You know you are a hated people, when you have to pass through a security screen in order to pray. And although I rarely make it to services, despite my New Year’s promises to do so, I was really moved by the Chanukah candle lighting. Especially since the synagogue was built in the 1200s and is one of the oldest in Europe. It was pretty fucking cool, especially since I saw how medieval Jews separated the men from the women—two feet deep of reinforced concrete with tiny slabs cut out so the women could peak through.

Maureen and I are standing around, trying to find the place where we are in the service, and I hear an East Coast accent and eavesdrop on the conversation. I interrupt, and explain that I too have no idea where we are in the services. We end up chatting, she is backpacking with her friend, and decided to go to services, much like how me and Maureen were on vacation and decided that the cheapest way to see the inside of one of Prague’s most famous synagogues was to be practicing Jews for the day. We make a few jokes about how Czech Jewish men are the only good looking men in Prague, and a friendship is forged. All of us decide to walk around the old square, visiting the Christmas markets (which are a lot of fun—mulled wine will land you on your ass), viewing the astronomical clock, and a whole host of the other Prague tourists traps. I will admit, as much as the city sucks during the day, it is breathtaking at night, as the North African men go into hiding into the alley ways trying to sell you hash and weed instead of boat trips, and the souvenir shops close.

“You know,” one of the girls tells me, “I think you’ll really get along with my friend Calem.”

“Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He’s from England too.”

Part II continued tomorrow.

At the moment, am in Oxford, putting my body through the master cleanse in an effort to look very fucking hot for when I get back to NYC. But, I must admit, pissing out of your asshole for three straight days, is not a very pleasant experience. Off to the store right now, to buy some more supplies, library to try to get some work done, and hopefully some writing this evening.

Oh yea, five fucking days until I get home. I miss my city.

I am not a kitty piddler, I swear

I Just completed the first leg of my journey. You know, when you aren’t drinking, it makes for a very boring vacation. Like, what do you do when you aren’t spending all night in a club getting fucked up and dancing the night away? Oh, I know, internationally blog.

It was my first time back in Germany since I “studied” (using the term very very loosely) abroad there almost four years ago. At first when I arrived, I felt eerily comfortable, I somewhat understood what people were saying, I was familiar with the neighborhoods, the subways, the culture—never cross against the light, or else the police will ambush you and write you a ticket or you will be tsked and chastised by the Germans who you are standing around with. But then as my few days wore on, the feelings of “Auslander”—the German word for foreigner but literally translated means outsider, began to take hold. It’s exciting being a foreigner, hiding behind language difficulties when the homeless ask you for money, but it wears off when all you want to do is go into a pub and randomly chat up strangers.

Evidently not many people in Germany go running outside. And of the few that do, tend to be people who can speak the language.

When I go out running, it’s like a spiritual journey for me. I put on my music loud, tend to dress really poorly and a bit shady as when you have to keep warm fashion is the last thing that you are thinking about, and huff and puff for about the first ten minutes. I went running through the park by my friend’s place, getting into the zone, lip-syncing to Sean Paul, and I see a bunch of children taking a class trip through the park. They couldn’t be more than six years old, and were really cute—especially when they all turned around in unison and looked at me with a hint of fear in their eyes. As I was running a little girl drops her hat, now keep in mind I speak no German and I look a bit scary when I am exercising. I pick up the hat and run towards the girl, “Sie hatten! Sie Hatten!” Now, keep in mind that the word “hatten” I just made up, assuming that the word for hat had to sound just like its English world, but angrier. And nobody in their right mind would refer to a small child as Sie (polite you) As an aside, hatten loosely translates into have, as my friend told me later. S

As I am running towards the little girl roughly saying in my broken German, “She have, she have” the children take off and start to run, and this captures the eye of their teacher who gives me the German leer—the same nasty look when you cross against the light. I give the hat to the little girl, and the teacher looks like she is ready to pounce and prevent me from molesting her, and all I wanted to do was to giver her back her hat.

In Prague and off for my run this morning and then sightseeing. Will put up pictures, and I am safe, and didn’t drink last night. Instead I sat around on the internet in my hotel room—fucking not drinking blows.

Oh the irony

I’m off to Berlin/Prague tonight—leaving in the middle of the night in order to get to my 6am flight on time, but for a penny, it is kinda worth it. And due to Ryan Air’s bullshit baggage restriction of 15kg (about 35 lbs) I have to wear as many of my sweaters as possible.

Hmmm, is anyone else struck by the irony? A Jewish gal leaving in the middle of the night having to wear as many of her clothes as possible as not to arouse suspicion (I’ll put it in my hand luggage once I board the aircraft).

Also, God must really not want me to get any ass, or is protecting me from my beer goggles. Possibly cute Portuguese man texted me last night, and first of all his phone number had the sign of the beast, 666. And then when I went to text him something witty back, my cell phone wouldn’t allow me to return my text.

I am taking this as a sign, and crossing him off of my “to-do” list.

But, off to my much needed vacay until Sunday. Will be bringing my computer so will try to post, at the very least pictures, but we know how those former Soviet Bloc countries could be like…

A night defined

So, it only took me four days to forfeit the goal—I drank last night. Wait, let me rephrase that. I raced my liver’s ability to process alcohol in an effort to maintain my very very strong buzz—it worked out too well, as indicated by the sent folder box of my cell phone and the drunken IMs I wrote last night. By the way, I do miss you babe, but we both know I can be a bit excessive with my affection after I consumed about three shots of tequila, two extra large martinis, and four double vanilla absolut and diet cokes—all within a five hour window. Surprisingly, I wasn’t supposed to go out last night. I was going to sit in my room and look at the stats assignment, again, hoping that the answers would come via divine intervention instead of at the expense of having to crack open a book.

But I ended up snapping.

I don’t know if you, dear reader, have ever spent copious amounts of time in your room—so much that you’ve long crossed the threshold from being labeled as anti-social to most probably depressed, but there comes a point where you’ve had enough! No amount of staring at the stats book will get the assignment done, especially as you’ve taken to your role as social secretary with a bit too much gusto and instead spend your time plotting for bops, coming up with ball themes, and trying to rationalize as an unemployed student I deserve a pair of Manolo Blahniks to go to the ball in—I mean, it could also serve double duty and incorporate a bit of style into the white trash gown that I have to wear for the wedding that I am a bridesmaid.

At first I took my need for distraction out on my closet and my make-up, and spent a good hour trying out different looks and pouting into the mirror. And I look hot dressed up as an ‘80’s rocker, it must be my strong jaw line that is a tad reminiscent of old skool super models who reigned when neon was cool. I put up my hair in a high ponytail and arranged my bagns in a high bouffant. My eyes look a bit lacking, so I make them smokey, and then add my too pink blush to my cheeks to finish off the look. And with each addition of sparkly adornment I added to my skin, I began to feel a bit better! I then searched through my closet to find the most trashy outfit to go with my look and decided on a shirt dress, wide belt, fishnets, and leg warmers. Much like the sip of my first drink last night, I wasn’t supposed to actually go through with it, in this case walk out of my flat. But it’s just that I looked so cool, and was too lazy to exert any more effort into finding an outfit that wouldn’t look half as cute. So, I left my dorm room, dressed up to meet my friend who was working at the college bar.

Now, let me explain it like this, the college bar in Oxford is a lot like the tv show Cheers. There are about ten people who are regulars and whose lives revolve around its operating hours—you know, because it is an additional place where one can hang out besides the common room. Most people at college, however, use it to complement their social life—keeping the intended purpose of its existence. They have such full lives with friends from their programs and extra-curricular activities, that they only show up when there is something going on, such as a bop (what they call a party here) or as a pre-game destination to kick off a long evening. You then have some students who’ve never step foot in the college bar, and they are either very very cool with many friends from outside of college or are Chinese and never leave their room. And then you have people like me and my friends—a cast of characters who rival the gang at Cheers. Think of my position as a mixture of the brash talk of Rebecca Howe and the little girl naiveté of Diane Chambers. We even have our own resident Cliff Claven.

For me to show up at the college bar dressed like an advert for the totally eighties commemorative disc set took a lot of guts. Or just maybe it just acted as a testament to the lethal combination of attention whoredom and laziness. But I looked very good, and I was happy that something was able to show off my newly toned legs.

My friend was working behind the bar, and greeted me with two consecutive questions, “Hey Shannon, how are you? What are you drinking?”

And with the smug self-satisfaction of sadists with ascetic personalities I reply, “Oh, I’m not drinking. I’m staying sober until my twenty-fifth birthday.”

“Oh that’s rubbish! I don’t understand the point of self-inflicted punishment”

“I’m not punishing myself over anything, it’s just the quickest way for me to lose weight is for me to stop drinking.”

I am going back to NYC. I want to have an amazing birthday, a great New Years, and thank God for my credit card when I go shopping at Saks, Bergdorff, and Bloomies’ post Christmas sales. Plus, let’s be real here folks, the hotter you look, the more fun you have. Unfortunately for me, moderation is not a word I understand. And if it isn’t that I have such a high tolerance for alcohol that I need to consume what equals about half of bottle in order to truly “enjoy” myself, than it is the lowered inhibitions that make the kebab van’s artery clogging treats not seem that laden with calories and fat—God damn craving for chips and cheese after a hard night of drinking.

So I stick to my resolve of sobriety, until he puts a drink in front of me.

“So, what are we going to do tonight! I just want to let loose and get fucked up!”

“You know, we can go to Filth [the gay club],” my gay friend suggests.

“You’re the alcohol enabler and I’m the fag enabler,” I say motioning towards the drink he placed in front of me. “ You know, by the way, I am not drinking that shit. I have to look cute when I head home.”

Glossary of terms:
Fag-enabler: (n) A person who enables the gay man (fag) by accompanying him to the gay club and offers other support of the gay lifestyle. A pejorative term used by the Christian right to call out gay allies. Since we are so smug with our irony here at Oxford, my friends and I have appropriated it as a term of endearment and to replace the dreaded term fag-hag which implies a fat ugly woman who needs the unconditional love of a gay man. I just like gay men because I can be as affectionate as I would like without worrying about mixed signals.

My hetero friend responds, “But, I really don’t want to pay a cover charge and,” he hesitates, “I would like to pull tonight.”

I think this summarizes my life here at Oxford pretty fucking well. Everyone is on the prowl, no matter one’s sexual orientation.

The drink sits within an arm’s length, as he and my other friend are taking sips while we discuss what to do after the bar closes.

“I just want to go out,” I lament. “I’ve been cooped up in my room for the last three days and I need to let loose.”

As the conversation continues to run in circles, the drink’s pink color and fizziness become very appealing. Frustrated that this is the same conversation I’ve had throughout my life, it seems no matter how old I am, my location, nothing changes. And after spending three days locked in a room by yourself, when you see people you want it to be epic and make yourself sorry that you’ve missed out on something, anything. There is nothing more disappointing when you realize that everyone is just as lame as you. Wanting to have fun, and needing an outlet that didn’t physically exist in Oxford, I had to settle for a mediation of reality. And so I drank from the cup placed in front of me. And the weird thing? Despite drinking from a straw a very strong drink, I felt nothing.

“I really wouldn’t mind going fagging,” I say, not that convincingly.

“Oh, so now it’s a verb?” My gay friend asks, half laughing.

“Well, it makes the most sense, that is what I am enabling, you know?”

Glossary of terms:
Fagging: (v) the act of going to the gay club and dancing all night

We end up compromising, have a drink at a cocktail bar around the corner and then my gay friend and I head out fagging for the evening. Being in a gay club, there is no other way to cope than drink. A lot. We end up closing the club down.

Now, it’s a rare night when I can confidently say that, holy shit. I looked good. And perhaps it had something to do with the obscenely short dress I wore, or maybe my painted on make-up, but I was a spectacle walking home, especially since the streets were littered with drunken chavs.

On my stumble home, I pass a group of men and I hear them click and whisper “pssst!”

Drunk, and not thinking the most level headedly, I turn around and yell at them, “Go fuck yourselves and jerk each other off.”

“Oh come on, hey, pretty lady let me talk to you,” the ring leader of the pack says.

And I don’t know what possessed me, perhaps it was that I was so drunk that I was stumbling home, or the fact that a man outside of the fishbowl that is Oxford found me attractive, or maybe, I was looking for a little entertainment for the evening, and nothing can make you feel better than exchanging witticisms with strangers—you know, it explains why the beginnings of a relationship are so stimulating—but I walked towards him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you any disrespect, it’s a compliment where I’m from”

Leave it to me to have an exchange on cultural understanding at three in the morning.

He asks me, “Where are you from?”

“New York,” as confidently and arrogantly that the name of the city implies. I continue, “Where are you from? Has to be something Latin if that is how you call women.”

“Portugal”

“Oh,” I say looking him up and down, “explains your eurotrash look.”

And so we chat for a few minutes, and in the haze of beer goggles, he seemed to be cute. But very thin. And thinking back on it, could he have been a chav—it’s easy to mistake a chav for eurotrash when you are drunk.

But, I have to admit, when I woke up this morning, I didn’t have any of the usual regrets that I normally have after I drank too much. Maybe it was because I was escaping into something rather than escaping from something, with my alcohol consumption letting me forget my stats, the unread books that sit on my shelf, and just let me enjoy my time with my friends. The goodwill extended to today where it just felt eerily like home, post drinking lunch and then hanging out with a friend. Except here Cafeteria (the Chelsea restaurant) was replaced with this organic shop and walking along the Hudson was replaced with doing rugby conditioning and tossing around the ball in the very English rain.

But much like home, after a recovery meal and kick ass run, I returned to my bed, with the same comforter I’ve had since my undergraduate days and read the Sunday Times in bed, caught up with my American tv shows, and now, chronicling the weekend’s events in the blog. There really are snippets of home to be found, I just need to work hard to find them.

25 in 19 days

I heard today another friend of mine is planning on leaving NYC. This brings the grand total up to about ten people who have either physically or metaphorically left the city—either leaving NYC completely or just not leaving the couch in their Park Slope brownstone, a spoil of the dating war, much like how the vapid use of the terms “monogamous” and “we” become entrenched in his/her vocabulary. The sudden use of those words also magically implying ten-fifteen pounds of comfort weight and a disdain for activities they once enjoyed, such as blowing lines off of toilet seats and finding remnants of last nights fun—still in bed, fast asleep via the alcohol coma. Funny how a full-time job and a girl/boyfriend will change a person’s definition of “letting loose”.

When I heard the news, I was in the library, trying to do work, but instead checking facebook and messaging half of my buddy list. I looked over at one of my friends and told him what I just found out, “You know, when I finally make it back home, I won’t have any friends left. Either their own sense of fiscal responsibility and a desire for a quality of life has made my friends leave or they’ve been claimed by the ring, and are in the midst of planning their weddings.”

“Come on, Shannon. You aren’t that much older than me. Are all your friends really getting married?”

“You’d be surprised. It’s the age between 23-25 where people magically start finding the person who they want to settle down with. I went from having all single friends to hearing incessant chatter about engagement rings and the politics of moving in with someone—all within the span of a year.”

He looks at me as if I told him Santa really exists.

“Dude,” I say, “I am fucking serious. I can tell you don’t believe me but wait! Talk to me in a year and half on your twenty-fifth birthday and then retake the inventory on singlehood.”

You know, this birthday is psychologically damaging for me. It’s like I couldn’t wait for my twenty-first birthday—no more expired drivers licenses saying that I was a very youthful twenty-seven year old, nor having to dodge places that were busted the week before in one of Guilliani’s “safer New York” crackdowns. The age equaled freedom, from the frat parties being the only place where an under-age gal could score booze, and being able to price compare Stoli and Grey Goose vodka inside the package store, and no longer needing to rely upon one of my friends who would grab the cheapest shit off of the shelf. After the twenty-first birthday, your life is marked by other milestones. College graduation, first job, for me, having sex—that make the birthdays afterwards pale in comparison. No longer do the birthdays signify your maturation, but instead what you accomplish.

Except for the twenty-fifth birthday—the birthday is a milestone in of itself. Because, no longer could you fudge that you are in your “early-twenties” and hide behind its implications of naiveté and prolonged adolescence. You are in your mid-twenties: two years closer to the average age of marriage, usually at “mid-career” status professionally, and often already a recipient or soon-to-be of a graduate degree. It’s an age that marks being a grown up.

Although I get shafted for presents because my birthday is so close to Christmas, I do have the one luxury that I get to watch everyone else grow numerically older first. And it’s great, because for an additional twelve months, I get to feel like the youngest—except this birthday, I don’t think it will be the case. And one of my favorite people in the entire world, who made my experience in NYC, is leaving.

I was telling my mother about it on the phone this evening, my frustrations with being in a graduate program that I don’t find interesting, how all of my friends seem to be settling down, and I am stuck in this limbo—in a foreign country I am hesitant to put down roots because I know I’ll eventually go back to NYC.

“You know Shannon,” she says, about an hour before I wrote this, “who’s fault is it? If you would just stop moving around and stayed put, then maybe you would find someone.”

Thanks Jewish mom. Because we both know if I pretended to be an English rose, and actually gave a damn about assimilating into a culture in which I represent the antithesis of, that the English boys would magically stop being shitty in bed, and have enough cojones to touch my breast during a heated three hour make-out. Or at the very least stop blushing when I mention the words penis and vagina, or when I answer truthfully that I’ve fooled around with girls. Or they just think I am a whore—if only they knew I talk brazenly about sex because my vagina is like a combination lock-- you only get access if you know the code. And these boys are very far off, so far that I’ve begun to develop a pavlovian response to the accent. I haven’t been this celibate this long since my fat days in college. And at least I had my wife to share my bed with then.

But that’s what I’ve been reduced to here. A regression due to the lack of accountability, much like that plagued me during my undergraduate days. My life here is fleeting—I hopefully will be working in London within six months—and theoretically could act with behavioral carte blanche here due to my transient status, however the fish bowl that is collegiate life prevents me from doing anything more than a little dirty dancing during the bops. Try finding a non-committal fuck buddy in the land of the serial monogamists while your friends watch, and then proceed to talk behind your back about who you are hooking up with, because you have been acting awfully friendly to that boy over there... I’m craving the anonymity of city living, being able to retreat into my room undisturbed, and run to the store in my jammies and not worry if I’ll run into my crush—which inevitably happens anyway.

Oxford is a weird place. I thought I belonged here, the bastion of the old skool, where the socially inept but intellectually genius were protected by the towering gates of the college that not even Rupunzel’s rescuer would be able to scale. But the longer I stay, the more I realize that I needed this break to make me realize how much I crave reality—even if mine involved a gold card, expensive shoes, and a job where I bought inanimate ad space for legal drug pushers (aka the American pharmaceutical industry). I’m not an academic. And I’m not saying this because I am discouraged with my almost-failing status in statistics. It’s just I’m coming to realize that this is my greatest joy: sitting in my room, writing all night, with cigarette breaks interspersed throughout the creative process. Plus, I am way too social—as indicated how I was a natural nomination for social secretary of my college.

But, like my therapist told me on Thursday, I need to stop shutting down when I’m confronted with my feelings of anger and frustration. Embrace it, channel it into something productive, and since I am here, I might as well try to kick some ass. And, anyway, London is only an hour and half on the train away anyway. But seriously, I’m really excited about going home. NYC is like the gal/guy you take for granted because you met them at such an early age and had no idea of the shit that is out there.

Off to Berlin and Prague in three days, and the wanderlust in me is excited for the change of scenery.

A typical Oxford day

I don’t think I’ve ever had as much of a love/hate relationship with a place than I do at Oxford. The days are grey, as most of us are transient our friendships are fleeting, and life as a student here is a perpetual game of Catch-22—nobody tells you what you need to know, only when you fuck up. Oh, and by the way, never tell your advisor that you don’t feel like you have enough work, especially when you are barely passing your statistics course. I knew selling my company to a lonely man for a passing grade would come back to haunt me.

But then there are days like yesterday that remind me why I came here in the first place, and why I haven’t indulged my inner-adolescent and dropped out in protest of the frustrating classes, the lack of communication, and my obvious cash-cow status--Oxford is notorious for admitting foreign students for the benjamins, much like how a whore markets her only worthwhile asset. But then there are days like yesterday that are so typical Oxford that you cannot help but be swept up in the fantasy coming to life and embrace your status as a cliché, even more so than when the Japanese tourists try to snap your picture when you are in subfusc.

If I had to pick one inanimate object that typifies Oxford it is the bicycle. Walk past any academic building and you see herds of them parked, standing upright, crammed together waiting patiently for the student to finish class and cycle home. The bike serve as a preferred mode of transportation for perpetually time crunched students, you know because we hate to be torn away from our work and not because we couldn’t get out of the bathroom because of the post-drinking…let’s say gastro-intestinal problems. It shuttles the broke grad students who live a few miles out in Cowley quickly into the city center, helps you get your groceries home in a timely and non-arm strenuous fashion, and it acts as a means of self-expression. The bohemian English (the subject not the people) students riding old fashioned ones with skirts billowing in the breeze, sans helmet (I swear this is true) and the power hungry MBA students all cycling their tricked out mountain bikes, complete with shiny headgear to protect the brains that will be earning them millions of dollars.

And of course, I refuse to get one when I arrive.

First of all, I am a rollerblader. The last time, since yesterday, I’d been on a bike was when I went backpacking through Europe my first time and decided to see the Dutch countryside in Gouda. And, in Gouda, much like my youth and the way I operate a motor vehicle, I was a renegade. I had complete disregard for hand signals, almost ran over little old ladies on the side walk, and nearly crashed it when I tried to simultaneously bike uphill and scarf a herring sandwich. Europeans treat cycling much like how they view recycling, way too fucking seriously.

If you walk around the city center of Oxford you see cyclists obeying traffic signs, signaling to cars, passing each other on the left, and sharing the road with cars. It is a pretty harmonious relationship with the exception that there are no bike lanes and every year a few people get run over.

I’ve had a license since 2003 and I still don’t understand the rules of the road—I only drive on highways. I still have difficulty crossing the street here—it takes me ages to cross the street since I make sure that traffic isn’t coming from either direction. And, I can’t even properly maintain my heels and other clothes—why would I invest in a bike—an accessory nobody would see me look cute in! And anyway, I’m a walker. With NYC as my playground for the last few years, I’ve developed this attachment to walking, the pace allows me to keep my head in the clouds and practice my speech for when I address my alma mater when I am a NY Times bestselling author. Or at the very least fantasize about sex—which I have been doing quite a lot of by the way.

But yesterday, in a very Oxfordian twist to my day’s plans of studying and completing the ego shattering statistics assignment, my friend invited me to go pick up free bikes. Evidently, there were so many unclaimed bikes at this one college that they cut off the chains and were allowing students to take them, for free! Now, I never wanted a bicycle. Hell, I think they are completely annoying. But when something is given out for free, especially when you have to eat cabbage because you’ve been priced out of buying Broccoli, you jump at the free shit. Plus, I thought joining the Oxford bike riding cult would lift my spirits—think Full Metal Jacket where the Marines say, “This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle I am useless.” But replace rifle with the word bicycle, and you have the Oxford cult.

My friend and I walk the few miles to pick up the bicycles and when we get there, I realize why the college wanted to get rid of the bikes, giving them free to the students. . The bikes were “condemned”. Aka that there was something seriously wrong with each of them. Either cut break lines (someone must have pissed someone off), rusted chains, structural defects that made riding them completely unsafe, or slashed tired (again, someone must have pissed someone off—is there an Italian mafia I don’t know about here?). But the girl who was showing us the bikes was a member of the bike cult.

“You know, it just needs a tune up.” She says, blatantly ignoring the cancerous rust that engulfs the bike.

Uhm, I don’t want to have to get a tetanus shot each time I take my bike for a spin, thank you very much.

“What’s wrong with this one?” She asks, after taking out her bike kit, and getting her hands dirty with grease and spider web gunk, trying to salvage one of the least condemned looking.

Oh, you mean the mold that is embedded in the handle bars?

But how do you tell someone that you don’t love her hobby as much as she, and the thought of having to repair a bike yourself actually repulses you. Nevermind that you’ve seen girls get gouged in the eyes and ligaments torn on the rugby pitch. Because, you know, that shit is cool. But anyway, I would never ask a non-rugger to play rugby. So why are they trying to convert me to the cult?

After about an hour, I settle on this white bike. A bit rusty, a tad wobbly, but the best of the bunch, and you know, it’s free! The only draw back with this bike? The chain needs to be oiled, and it was stuck on the hardest gear.

My friend and I take our bikes and begin the trek home. Trying to get into the True Oxford spirit, and not wanting to be the obvious American, I try to obey traffic signals and act like the other cyclists—except, I don’t know what is healthy rule breaking, and what is unacceptable. We cycle down the road, towards home, and we aren’t even a hundred yards away and we are confronted with our first obstacle getting home—crossing the street with a bike. Crossing the street is an intuitive thing, it’s something we’ve been socialized into since we were young. Look left, then right. When we are going at fast speeds, either via car, rollerblades, or bike, we rely upon our instincts to take over. Except my instincts can cause me to DIE since they drive on the wrong side of the road here! So, my friend and I, too scared to cross try to avoid it by staying on the same road, but then give up ten minutes later when we realize we have no idea where it is taking us.

So, we dismount, and wait for traffic to clear—on both sides of this very busy road.

Once the road is clear, we peddle, and merge with traffic and begin to try to acclimate ourselves into the cult—sharing the road side by side with the cars. Now, I want to let you in on a little secret. The reason why I am such a terrible driver is because I am petrified of sharing the road with people. I have this sick idea someone is going to sideswipe me off the road, or that I’ll lose control and side swipe them. Like seriously, ask anyone who’s driven with me, and I drive with complete concentration because I think I may be called up to battle with the wheel for my life at any moment.

Except yesterday, I didn’t have the protection of steal and plastic safeguarding my journey. Hell, I didn’t even have a bike helmet!

I’d be cycling down the street then suddenly I’d feel the breeze of exhaust and see that a double decker bus was about three feeet away from me. This caused me to cycle slowly. So slow, that an old man passed me and gave me a dirty look, thinking that I was making fun of him. Like, I don’t think you understand, cycling in this city, especially not knowing traffic laws and which way to look when crossing the street made cycling home the most harrowing experience of my life. Especially when the bike lane disappeared and turned into the bus lane, which the buses expected to share with you.

I rode as close to the sidewalk as possible, and shut my eyes each time I heard a bus pull behind me. And prayed.

So, my friend and I returned unscathed with our newly saved no longer-condemned bikes. As we are walking our bikes into college, we hear the fire alarm go off. Evidently, they were testing the fire alarms in the dorm and we were expected to vacate—or be forced to listen to the shrill pitch. By happenstance, a few of us returned home roughly the same time and decided to head out to a café. Double espressos drank, cigarettes smoked and the merits of Borat versus Brasseye debated. I need to do that more often, hang out with people outside my normal social circle, because each time I do, I am pleasantly surprised.

Afterwards my friends and I met at college for the carol services—the first time I’ve been inside a church, with the exception of weddings, as a practicing Jew. I stood silent when they recited the Lord’s prayer, yet I knew the words to Oh Come All Ye Faithful by heart, oh the joys of growing up a product of mixed marriage.

But it was so Oxford yesterday especially by ending the day by going to chapel with your friends. I felt somehow better connected to my predecessors who were forced to go to compulsory chapel and study Latin. Except I’m a Jewish woman who’s only flirtation with Lain was with two years of Italian in high school. But, let me imagine that something ties me to those who’ve come before me, besides my American check book paying nearly twice as much since I am non-EU. Dinner in Hall last night followed the Carol service, with the Master reciting Latin to us before we are permitted to sit.

It’s frustrating here. On one hand I try to balence my youthful romanticism alongside my NYC cynicism with the place. But then there are days where it lives up to every one of my expectations, once again raising the bar higher, while simultaneously making the drop to reality harder.

Oh, in other news, go fuck yourself to those who think I couldn’t stop drinking. Day 3 is creeping up and my only interaction with alcohol has been a sip of wine to try. I am going until Dec 28 sober. Especially because my waistline is on the line. Come on, you really thought I was doing it trying to be healthy? HA HA.

A birthday wish

So, I turn 25 on Dec 28th and I was thinking, wouldn't it be poignant if I remained sober until my birthday? And had the first sip, a nice cold glass of Veuve, the day when I turn 25?

I'm just tired of having a perpetual hangover. So, no booze until Dec 28. Bets are being taken as to how long this kick will last.

Reflections on the end of term

So, I know I’ve been on a hiatus. My blog has been empty, I barely leave my room, and have now developed a talent-crush on Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers—his melancholy vocals capturing exactly what life is like with six hours of sunlight a day. Even when there is a SAD lamp that sits on my desk, bottles of fish oil vitamins strewn across my room, all in quiet protest of the unopened package of prozac that sits in my top dresser drawer next to my birth control pills. I mean, if I can manage my menstrual cycle, what’s the difference of using something to help with my emotions? Except that I am so neurotic about the potential for weight gain that the blisters covering the pills remain unpopped.

To be perfectly honest, the reason why I haven’t been writing as of late is because I’ve been in hiding—both physically and emotionally. If I don’t leave my room, there is nothing to write about. And I’ve emotionally shut myself off because I’ve been fighting admitting the obvious: graduate school at Oxford is a fucking joke. Ok, maybe just my program. Instead of providing me with the intellectual challenges that I’ve been looking for since my undergraduate days, I’m left staring at the clock wishing that the girl who thinks she is always right would shut the fuck up and stop monopolizing class discussion. Except that she won’t, because there isn’t anyone else saying anything.

Maybe I went to the boot camp of undergrad institutions, where it was not uncommon to have to spend about 10 hours a day on work (nevermind the classes you had to attend), where you were the wild gal if you went out drinking on Thursday night, and a liar if you said that you never kissed a gal. And maybe I am not acclimating to the educational cultural shock that in the British system, how you are expected to be far more self-motivated than my pampered American ass would care to admit, but it seems that something is a bit amiss.

This term I have three classes: a ten person seminar that discusses key sociological debates, where we read about 500 pages of material then discuss it for an hour and half; a statistics class and lecture where I am learning how to program data and get frustrated because none of it makes sense in the book, and a research methods hour long lecture that I stopped going to after week three—because we are evaluated on the class by writing a paper in MAY on the subject matter. Even if I did go to class, I would have forgotten the material anyway. Might as well just teach it to myself when I need it. Plus I worked for a shady market research company a while back—I know how to manipulate data and research design in order to keep my clients from looking too bad.

Now, do me a favor, think back to your undergraduate days. Honestly, how much of that did you spend doing work? Now, decrease the amount of work you did in undergraduate by 75% and you have my typical day. But the funny thing is, I still managed to be busy—nursing hangovers, wasting time updating the shrine to myself on facebook, buying music off of itunes, and watching bootleg American television shows online.

As a result, I’ve become horribly boring. Everyone’s lives revolve around their own little world, but mine used to be interesting. Drinks at SoHo House, NY Fashion week tickets, getting drunk and vomiting on a Craigslist guy, dating every single unsavory character in NYC—although my life in NYC was pathetic, it was at the very least entertaining.

And with that old life, as a result from my misery, I developed escapist dreams. Thinking, as I balanced a spreadsheet, I was meant to be in academia, living on a farm in a small town, with a loving husband and some cute kids. Well, after one term at Oxford, I realized that I am not an academic type, the thought of spending years researching data sets is my ADD and dyslexic hell. Although the countryside is beautiful, I am BORED. The town is claustrophobic, people knowing who you are very quickly and I am quickly growing bored going to the same places, with the same people, talking about the same things because our lives are so similar! And the loving husband? I refuse to date English boys because of their excessive politeness that has left me kissing for hours with hands not leaving my shoulders. Yes, you read that correctly, twenty-four year olds who can’t even make it to second base. I like mean boys. And outside of NYC, I am at a loss to find them.

But that is the scariest thing for me right now. I took out $40K in loans thinking that I was one step closer pursuing my dream, and finding an Oxford husband. And, I’m not closer to either one of them—not because I can’t get them, but because I am realizing that I don’t want them.

I guess you must be asking, where the hell did all of this come from? I seemed/am happy! My biggest crisis during the days is whether to eat lunch at college, or to eat it in my room. No more crying at my desk, wishing for better things! Blame it on London. My reserved NYC where I vomit in my friends’ toilets instead of on the street, and of course drink in massive excess.

Last Sunday I hung out with my friend from college, needing emotional comfort after a hellish Saturday night. We decide to meet up around Covent Garden, for a quick lunch so that I could make it back to Oxford before nightfall. But, when you haven’t seen a friend in months, what is wrong with a bottle of wine to loosen tongues, and serve as a catalyst for better conversation? And we all know, when one bottle is opened, why not just go for the second, you know? So a quick lunch turned into a four hour booze fest that left me too inebriated to navigate the trains back to Oxford, and not fall asleep on the train and end up in Wales.

We head over to her place, taking the tube because taxis in this country are a luxury that are afforded to the employed, although at this point I needed water and a bed. Just as I’m asking her, “How far is it to your house from the station?” We run into her roommate. Who, Ankana tells me, is also a half breed Jew. Nice. Her roommate is going to a sold out show, and was wondering if we would like to go and meet up with a few of her friends for drinks before hand.

Interesting how without an invitation, the bed is a perfectly good place to be. However, once you have a place you are no longer as exhausted.

We go to the bar, have drinks, and make fun of British men, where I am told by the fortieth person that I intimidate British men with my brash talk of sex and clitorises (it’s been a lonely semester by the way). I am drunk. I spent the day drinking a bottle of wine, and have now just had two large glasses of wine.

Sarah, Ankana’s roommate, suggests that we “Blag” our way through the door, aka, pretend to be someone important and try to get a ticket.

As an aside, it is one reason why I love this country. One of my friends was asking me how I could live here, especially knowing that I would never fit in. But that is the beauty, surefire indications of someone’s status and class and personality traits don’t apply to me, as I was socialized outside their culture. People just see a NYer, who makes fun of herself, who is attending Oxford. I love it. It’s anonymous here for me—people having no idea about what it means when I tell them I went to HS on the North Shore of LI.

I love hiding behind my Americaness here. It’s unexpected, and when you play the cards right, it can be utterly charming, in that big golden retriever kinda way.

Sarah suggests that we blag our way through by saying that we work for a magazine. And since Ankana looks super young, she could pass as my intern.

Being drunk, I decide that I should make a costume change—you know, make me look cool and writer like. I hop into the bathroom, and change into what I drunkenly think a writer would wear: Uggies, jeans, a wide belt, and a cute t-shirt. Not too dressy as I am trying to impress anyone, because my talent should be enough. As I mentioned, I was trashed.

We walk out of the bar, and I am craving a cigarette but finished my last one inside. I go to the Deli with Sarah and leave Ankana with Sarah’s friend. When we come back from around the corner, Ankana has a ticket in her hand. Evidently, some dude couldn’t go to the show, and since it started he gave Ankana the ticket.

Knowing that I am the only one who needed to get in, and being so fucking drunk, I walk up the bouncer:

“Excuse me, where is the will call”

Use American expressions, so they realize that you are not one of them

“Will Call?” He responds?

“The place where you hold tickets for the press?”

He points to some woman.

I reach into my wallet and get out my Massachusetts ID. I walk up to the woman he pointed at and as I am handing her my license, “Hi, My name is Shannon [insert last name]. I’m here with the Village Voice.”

“Oh, ok. Once second.”

She comes back, “We don’t have anything for you.”

“Damn. I’m a freelancer for the Village Voice and I thought my editor confirmed everything. I am supposed to write about the band, because they are heading to NYC. You know, I don’t mind paying for the ticket, it’s just that I need to write the article”

“You shouldn’t have to pay for the ticket. One second, let me see.”

She talks to a big fat woman at the booth, and she calls over“Did you talk to a woman named Celia?”

I give an innocent look, “Honestly, I’m not sure. My editor arranged everything. I think that was it.”

“Yea, she’s ok!” The woman yells to the girl at the door.

And I’m in.

Now, when I drink, I should not be left alone. Already I am impressionable, as Ievident from “blagging” my way through the door. But, when I am left alone, I am even worse.
I was loaded when I walked through the door, and when we got inside, we all decide to go to the bar and get some beer and take some shots.

This is where my night gets fuzzy. I remember getting loaded and meeting a two seventeen year olds who I sat in the bathroom telling them to go to college. And even more surprising, she sends me a message via myspace the next day. I don’t remember giving her my name.

Then I ran around pretending to be from Vogue and telling people if I loved or hated their outfit.

But the funniest? I left the concert before the main act even got on, because I was so fucking loaded. I don’t remember if I waved to the woman who got me in or not.

I do remember the bus ride, though. I remember getting a wrap sandwich. I remember putting down my bag. But I do not remember falling asleep in my friend’s bed. Nor taking off my belt, as I spent about twenty minutes looking for it, when it was next to her bed, on the floor.

And much like my life back in NYC, I went to my group meeting on Monday morning without any sleep, reeking of booze and cigarettes, and sat in the corner, slurring my words, trying in vain to show them that I did try to do some work.

You know, it’s the drama that I thrive upon and I miss. The stressful situations. The anonymity giving you unfettered access into different worlds. And I don’t have that here. I think I am beginning to see what growing up in a small town could be like.

Oh, and another thing: don’t tell your adviser that there isn’t that much work, they really don’t take that too well. But, what the fuck do I care? It’s not like I am staying here for an extra year—my ass is heading to London next fall. And applying to journalism school that winter for the following fall. I just hate it that everyone was right.

Drunk and Uninteresting

I've spent the last eight days drinking heavily, waking up at noon, staying in bed all day, doing no work, then drinking heavily again. I don't know why I am doing this to myself, what pleasure I find at the bottom of the glass--perhaps it is just a distraction from the routine in life at grad school. And how I am so fucking bored here. BORED BORED BORED BORED.

Oh, by the way, thanks for the notes of concern.

That's why I havent been writing, there is nothing interesting to write about--except for my London weekend, where I pretended to be a writer from Time Out NY to get into a sold out show, then proceeded to counsel these 17 yr olds in the bathroom--like, that is fucking interesting.

Drunk and Uninteresting

I've spent the last eight days drinking heavily, waking up at noon, staying in bed all day, doing no work, then drinking heavily again. I don't know why I am doing this to myself, what pleasure I find at the bottom of the glass--perhaps it is just a distraction from the routine in life at grad school. And how I am so fucking bored here. BORED BORED BORED BORED.

Oh, by the way, thanks for the notes of concern.

That's why I havent been writing, there is nothing interesting to write about--except for my London weekend, where I pretended to be a writer from Time Out NY to get into a sold out show, then proceeded to counsel these 17 yr olds in the bathroom--like, that is fucking interesting.