And may all your Christmases be trite

Alive! She's alive! And almost made it through finals. The psychological burden of procrastination makes me forget how easy I have it, taking only three courses. American university--should it be in my future--is going to tear me apart. I've been trying to compile a list of things that would make staying here--should it be in my future--not so bad. So far, I have: living with Lucy. But I just started yesterday, so check back for updates! Not. Alright, I'm exhausted. Trying to rearrange one's sleep schedule is exhausting. But the days seem like they're worth so much more when I don't sleep through them. Sunlight is a valuable currency here. I'm considering bottling it up and bringing it back to people as Christmas presents--"Genuine, Scottish Sunlight! I know! It's unbelievable! ..A book? You got me.. a book? I got you Genuine Scottish Sunlight and you got me.. a book? What kind of friend are you? What the fuck is happening to my life?"

Merry Christmas, all.

MEH MEH MEH

How I feel about monster English Lit. papers, Art History finals, the drama wrought upon my existence by the Amtrak website, and the fact that I have to sit through two whole weeks of waiting before I get to snuggle up with my male of choice and get drunk with all my best friends. 

May your days be merry and bright!

This week was filled with drunken Christmas cheer and dreams of snow. Hibernation at its finest. Movie watching, scrabble playing, snuggling up like kittens. Wine drinking! Holiday charades. Waltzing in the middle of the street amidst a rogue patch of flurries. Hiding from the cold. Sliding around on icy sidewalks, trying not to fall. Boots, hats, scarves, big coats, big grins, no money, Otis Redding, and I'm going home soon. All before the beginnings of exam hell.

But I ain't been condemned yet!

"What happens when greatness does not occur?"

I will post in this regularly. Else, what's the point?

The past few weeks have been fairly eventful. There was work, and then there was significantly less work. There were lots of sunny days, a couple rainy ones. There was Ridhima's birthday. She bought everyone shots of tequila, and we danced our little hearts out to terrible music. It snowed that night, when we were walking home. I munched on falafel and watched my friends throw snowballs at each other, scampering around the desolate, white streets like little kids meant to be home sleeping. Yes, lots of tequila that weekend. My parents visited for Thanksgiving. It was nice, but strange seeing them; I can't really imagine what it's going to be like to go home for break after living on my own, making my own rules, single-handedly bringing about my own tragic demise for a couple months now. Ridhima and Shaun came to Thanksgiving dinner. I ate partridge, or attempted to. It was a wrestling match of sorts, and I'm not so sure that I conquered much on my plate besides the vegetables. It was completely surreal. I wish there were pictures. Bought a fedora. Some fabulous gun-metal gray oxfords..

I'm very much looking forward to going home for Christmas break, although seeing my parents has admittedly made me a bit anxious about it. I wish there was some way we could all just accept each other and get off each other's backs. I want to have fun over break, not conflict--that's what I'm putting on my Christmas list, anyway. I'm so looking forward to seeing all my wonderful friends. I miss their faces every day.

Tomorrow I have an oral exam, for French, which is going to be predictably nightmarish. I'm anything but fluent under pressure; I doubt there will be much noticeable difference between myself and a stammering donkey come the dawning hour of 4:30. However, after that, I'll have a grand evening of smoking and munching and drinking and just being a decadent motherfucker.

Tonight.

Wake up 5 pm. Smoke with Lucy. Doodle with Lucy. German Market w/ the gang. Fireworks. Mulled wine. Bratwurst. Ferris Wheel. More wine. Back to Lucy's. Stop at Tesco for liquor and snacks. Scrabble game on Lucy's big bed. Cookie party. Smoke more. Drink more. Words. Someone fucks the game up. We've been unintentionally cheating. No one's keeping score. Cranium? Too distracted. Banter. Everyone passes out. Wined out. Snuggle. Wake up. Out we go. Call Ben. Smoke with Ben. Call Rob. Smoke with Ben and Rob. Search for ping-pong accoutrements with Ben. Fail. Watch informercials and ridiculous late-night reality shows in the common room until 6 am. Laughter. Cynicism. A perfect saturday.

What a nerd.

So my step-sisters showed my mom my facebook photos, and all she had to say to me was, "They were so nice!"

Some days I think I'd feel better if I tried harder

I wish I could go back to before the papers were written, when, in the heat of procrastination, I must have thought of every cool thing there is to do instead of writing a paper, ever. Now I'm bored. And out of money. And hungry. I wish I had a Greasy Chinese Takeout dispenser in my room. One day..

I need a snuggle buddy. Just someone to hang around my bed and make me laugh, nuzzle my hair, and just make life in the box a lot more fun. I think I've mentioned something like this before. Honestly, I'm starving for human affection.

Things are changing. I'm sad. I need hugs.

True love..

..lies solely in embarrassing, mushy, kissy face screen-grabs.

"But nights are long in winter, when darkness comes down at four o'clock and people have time to think of everything."

It's saturday night, and I'm so exhausted from relentless pot smoking that I've opted to just curl up into bed, where I can be tired and silent and useless in a place where nothing is expected of me. By body needs a break. My mind needs a break. I've far surpassed any amount of legitimate, intellectually stimulating marijuana usage. Now I'm just getting silly; silly and slow. You know it's time to take a break when you just don't feel cool anymore.

This week was really tiring, and frustrating at times. It's left me feeling very honest. I want to be as honest with others as I try to be with myself. It's just so much more work to put on an act, even if it is an unconscious one. Fuck it, fuck it all. I want to communicate with people who want to communicate back. Where do I find these communicators? To my good friends: you've spoiled me! I just need someone to take care of me for the next few days, until I stop feeling like such a vulnerable little deer that people keep mistaking for a bear. You know, someone to move into my room, make me tea and bring me good food when I'm hungry, make sure I write my English paper, spoon-feed me cough medicine to put me to sleep, read me stories about positive people doing positive things..

God, I need to get laid.

This week on our show..

I've been experiencing this cold sweat thing every time I fall asleep lately. I guess that's kind of gross, but I've been feeling honest. I suppose I could blame it on my flannel duvet cover trapping the heat, but I've had this duvet cover for about two months now, and this only started happening recently. The only possible answer is a psychological one. Today, upon spacing out during my English lecture, I racked my brain for possible subconscious catalysts for the cold sweats. I guess there are several things that could be compiling to form one big cold sweat producing ailment, but there is one, definite possibility: Ira Glass' voice. I've been falling asleep to This American Life for the past two weeks or so, since around when the sweats began. Perhaps nasaly Jewish voices aren't as soothing as I'd always assumed. Ugh, perhaps my subconscious is being narrated by the talk radio lovechild of Woody Allen and Lou Reed.

Well, let the troubleshooting begin.

Blame it on the pits

I've been swamped with work. In a matter of two days I've completely conquered the University of Edinburgh library, and even stayed until about closing last night, slaving over research for my Art History paper. Afterwards I met up with the lot for drinks at the Library Bar, stumbled in cinematically with my cumbersome stack of old, smelly books on old, smelly art . I hadn't eaten anything all day, so the two Newcastles I consumed went straight to my head and it was good, clean post-library devotion fun, but getting myself up at quarter to eight this morning (the earliest I've risen since my move here) after a mere three hours of cough-stricken slumber was significantly less enjoyable, mostly because of the mysteriously nasty hangover hiding in my stomach and head. Boy am I a lightweight. So anyway, I popped out of bed, orally went down the list of things to accomplish before I could come back to my box and crawl into bed (I've begun talking to myself, it's wonderful) and got my sorry, sluggish ass out the door, into a taxi (fuck it), and up the steps to the library where I shuffled around returning books, climbing staircase after staircase, trying not to puke, and pillaged the fourth floor for any information on some seriously boring, seriously irrelevant "Dutch masters," which I then copied into my notes at a table by a very sunny window that made me so hot I felt like I was going to keel over from dehydration. Needless to say, it was far too sunny a morning. Then it was from the main library to the Art History library, an annoying trek, but made less annoying by the morning's first and only salvation: a breakfast sandwich. Yes, the force is strong in the Breakfast Sandwich. Its healing powers are unmatched in terms of greasy, toxin-absorbing matter. And so the day ensued, boring errands, hours spent in dispassionate studiousness for "my fun subject". Tomorrow morning I have to get up early again, for Art History nonetheless, to give a presentation on a dusty old Jan Steen painting that no one ever has, nor ever will, give two shits about. "My fun subject," has not been so fun this week. But next week will be better. Next week I will feel accomplished, and I will feel relaxed.

Change

I got a sassy new haircut for Obama.

"I forgot how fun it is being friends with a heterosexual male."

Great sunday. Big breakfast of poached eggs at Dean's, followed by a stroll around the pond, and the first two Bond movies watched from a duvet nest on the couch and accompanied with lots of really premium munchies.

Do you smoke enough weed?

Today was a right lovely day. I managed, with the help of Dean's incessant wake-up calls, to roll out of bed no later than quarter to one, when I threw on a sweater and scarf, listened to some Macy Gray (my breakfast of choice), and began the journey over to his flat--a trying, albeit familiar, journey. At least once a day I find myself shivering at the bus stop, waiting, for what seems like a very long time, for the 29, which I always seem to miss by about two minutes. Once on the bus it takes about 15-25 minutes to cross town, depending on the traffic and level of hustle-bustle in the city. Today was a busy day. By the time I reached Dean's the morning sun was beginning to segue into the prolonged dusk that arrives every day at around 2:30, and seems to last for hours. Hours of dusk. Later, I would comment on how lovely it is to be able to exist in that kind of light for such a lengthy period of time, and I would realize that I'm actually beginning to love it, just a little bit. But not now; now I was feeling the bottle of wine that I topped off last night and trying to figure out whether to suppress or give into the ever-growing urge to tell Dean "fuck it," and just borrow his bed for a very long, marijuana-induced snooze. But going to the Modern Art Gallery had been my brilliant idea, and I'm trying not to be lazy. I'm trying to have integrity, or at least convince my friends that I do. I brought some of my mom's Fed-exed homemade cookies with me, a token of my appreciation for him letting me cat around his apartment all the time

So, yeah, we went to the Gallery. And it was absolutely wonderful. We walked the back way, along the river, through a damp forest of sorts, the path carpeted in wet, yellow leaves and mud. We went up moss-covered stone stairs, crossed wooden bridges, stopped to observe the ducks and trade whatever duck knowledge each of us had filed away in our brain. Runners sped past us and old ladies puttered about with their dogs, who all looked very pleased. At one point a brigade of three boys on bikes made their way past us down the path, and when we caught up with them, they had discarded their bikes and were now intricately observing their environment. One was taking pictures. I liked to think that they were gathering clues, like the Hardy Boys. The path finally spit us out right onto the back of the Gallery. We saw just enough art, didn't overdose (it's easy to do that with modern art). Then we sat on the terrace and indulged ourselves with big vats of coffee and cake, talking shit and gazing out upon the lawn and the trees beyond it and the tops of buildings peaking up over the trees and their silhouettes against the faded, amber sky, and that's when I realized how lovely the dusk is.

Wait, what's going on?

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263

Daylyte $avngz

MONEY$$

It's currently 5:28 and I'm still awake, so apparently I was just kidding about all that "getting to bed at a decent time and not being such a fuck" stuff. Not much has been happening. Wet, windy weather. Been hanging out at Dean's flat a lot. Taking the bus. Drinking all different kinds of beer, mostly all from North America. Drinking lots of coffee, as well. Listening to Woody Allen's band at all hours of the day and night. Reading The Turn of the Screw. What a creepy story.

I can try to toughen up

These past couple of days have been such excruciating, tiring doozies. I feel like something has absolutely wrung all the energy and spunk and life out of me. I need to start getting to bed by midnight on school nights, setting aside money for one decent dinner out a week, and just spending my money on things like fresh, healthy food instead of cigarettes and booze, strippers and Baby Grand Pianos. I need to start my day off with a croissant and cappuccino from Peckham's at a reasonable hour and not rely on a fiend-like amount of double espressos when I roll out of bed in the early evening. I waste too much of the day sleeping.

But, really, I'm doing okay. I'm learning. Although my spirits have been sort of in the sewer, and although the university isn't all that I hoped it to be, it's fun to be living alone in a city, any city. Hell, it's just fun to be on my own. Hanging around in my underwear all day on Saturdays and Sundays, reading, cat-napping, listening to nice music like She & Him, watching movies in bed and laughing at things to myself very loudly. I've taken this box of a room and created a nest of sorts out of it, and it is very cozy, especially compared to the outside, the goddamn freezing outside with the dangerously gusty wind. It's getting intolerably cold.

This morning I just jumped in a taxi instead of walking to class--a novel, warm decision, well worth the money, and, the more I think about it, what I perceive to be a must in regards to getting to my Tuesday morning English tutorials on time. It feels nice to treat myself to things like taxis on blistering mornings. Makes me feel like I'm doing an alright job of taking care of myself. Said tutorial was crap and I'd really care not to discuss it. Afterwards, I somehow ended up sitting around enjoying a cup of coffee and a joint with this guy from my tutorial, Dean, who ended up being a pretty interesting person. Plus, I think we managed to seek out the only sunny spot in Edinburgh--I couldn't remember the last time I sat in the sun.. in organic warmth, not radiator warmth. I look forward to many more post-tutorial, marijuana-induced chats with my new friend. What else happened today? I treated myself to a delicious sandwich from this deli that I knew had to be good judging from the line spilling out of it's door and down the block. What else had I to do but stand in a queue waiting for probably the freshest food I've eaten since I've been here (this consisted of avocado, smoked cheese, roasted red peppers, and a lot of other good stuff on the most divine cracked-wheat bread I have ever sunk my teeth into) and then proceed to consume it next to a friendly hobo on the sunny side of Nicolson Square? It was lovely. Tonight I went to the film society screening of The Great Dictator, just to hear Charlie Chaplin speak. He has a charming voice. Tomorrow I bite the bullet at buy a UK telephone. I like to think I'm not being swallowed, bit by bit, by this tartan serpent of a country.

Been down to Dixie and dropped acid on my tongue

Well, we made it to Glasgow--a feat that, 24 hours ago, I wouldn't have believed us capable of. But we did it, we managed to find our way to the bus station, onto the bus, off the bus, into a taxi, and into the concert. After the concert, we did it all in reverse. Technically, my foot didn't touch one proper Glasgow street at any point during the excursion, and all I saw of Glasgow was through a cab window; Jenny Lewis might as well have played in Edinburgh. But I'm forgetting to count my blessings: I'm just glad she came to Scotland at all. It was like a little slice of home, much needed and much appreciated. Plus she's just so darn great. It made me quite homesick when it was all over, homesick for aimless driving around in Lisa's big ol' truck, stoned as a whore in Bethlehem, perhaps with my feet hanging out the window. It made me homesick for sunnier weather and rummage sales and kissing and the farm and sitting around watching funny television with funny people and all the times I stayed up to watch the sun rise, before everything stopped being wonderful.

(Photos courtesy of Catherine)

From one Pseudo-Scot to another

I wasn't sure about the kilt thing at first, but I've thought about it, and Marc Jacobs just looks really, really good.

"Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive."

Not much is new in terms of schoolin'. Lots of boring poetry lectures and crap art history lectures and more down time than I know what to do with and more walking than I could ever want to do with. At least we found pot, after a long, weary search; it is a strangely unpopular substance here, here in Land of the Shitty Hash. The other night I watched Kingpin on the really nice television in Ridhima's pantry with Russell and Charlie. That was a lot of fun, and probably the highlight of my weekend, as it was the first completely non-boring night I've had here thus far, i.e. it didn't involve sitting around aimlessly in an anonymous pantry nursing a flat beer, gazing upon the remnants of parties long past. I forgot how much I enjoy just lounging around and watching a good movie with a group of friends who all laugh at the funny parts--I watch far too many serious movies. From now on, I only want to watch movies in which people laugh and laugh often.

Tomorrow's my day off, which isn't saying much, as I really don't do much on my days on, but I suspect I will sleep until around noon, whenceforth I shall emerge, ripe and strong and healthful from the covers, and attempt to salvage the day by running a slew of tiring errands. I've consumed three bottles of orange juice in the past twelve hours--I'm determined to get healthy, shake this cough, stop this smoking (at least until the cough ups and gets out of my lungs), eat some real food, and, on the whole, just not feel as much like shit all the fucking time.

"and we would be warm and in love"

I am very lucky to be in love with my best friend, but it is very hard when there is so much of one person to miss.

Learned to crawl on the kitchen wall

Somehow, at 2:30 am, I ended up sucked into a video chat with, one by one, the entire Radin family, which was funny and kind of awkward but completely wonderful because I got to talk to Shira and she was wearing adorable pajamas with little cartoon cats on them and she blew me kisses when she had to go to bed. This made up for both of Jared's parents hesitantly telling me that I "look tired," and just talking to Mitchell Radin in general.

So it's 2:30, I just woke up about an hour ago, I slept through my "Rape of the Lock" lecture, and thus, I'm going to find some food, read "The Rape of the Lock", and lecture myself about it.

You're standing on my neck.

Well, doing my laundry wasn't as bad as I surmised it would be. It was fucking worse. First of all, by the time you get all your clothes in machines that actually work, you've spent about fifteen quid on laundry tokens. Then your clothes only dry half-way, assuming that, unlike me, your dryer actually keeps working for the whole cycle, and then, unlike me again, you aren't left with a heap of wet clothes in the middle of your floor because you ran out of fucking tokens and the building in which the Righteous Token Machine has been locked for the night, gone to bed gingerly so that tomorrow it can, once again, only spit out half the amount of tokens that you've paid for. Do I sound bitter? Are you picking up the "half" motif here? Saying I am about "half" satisfied with the quality of the laundry system here would be a flattering, completely sarcastic overstatement. I miss my cleaning lady.

So I had a long day. Classes from 10 am to 6 pm, interspersed with about three double espressos and one seriously strange excuse for a pastrami sandwich. How come it's never sunny on the days when I actually leave my room? Wind and drizzle, all the time, never real rain; it rains half-way, and it's gray, and pretty soon it's going to start getting dark at like, noon just like EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER has warned me about, and that's gonna be a real blast. "Oh, Scotland. You know, it gets very dark there in the winter. Yes, the days, they are very short. Oh, that's going to be depressing."

The only solution to a day like this? Sidecars at the pub down the block; I'm allowed to throw tantrums if I'm drinking sidecars. Hey, it worked for Zelda Fitzgerald.

Hoe cakez

Dinner tonight: one bag of kettle chips, one peanut-butter & jelly sandwich, two cups of tea, one British-equivalent-of-Cup 'o Noodles, and a lot of hummus. I really like to think that I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't walking multiple miles a day.

Our love is simple

Well, here I am at Blogspot.com because livejournal is, like, so tenth grade. I said I'd never cave.. then my friends list just became so boring.

I'm living in Edinburgh and it is very, very cold, despite what Wikipedia may say about its "surprisingly temperate winter climate," or something like that. In fact, it is so cold that I was hesitant to leave my room at all today, save for a brave expedition to the store for chocolate chip cookies and some "yoghurt" covered peanuts. What did I do in my room all day, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I watched many episodes of Daria, read half of American Pastoral, and indulged in an inordinate amount of napping. If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was turning into the great L. Greco herself. Despite sleeping through my only lecture on Friday, blessing myself with a homemade three-day weekend, I still managed not to go grocery shopping, not to do my laundry, not to explore my massive English Lit. anthology.. not to do anything at all but lie around in my underwear wishing I could write like Philip Roth and talk like the characters in The Life Aquatic ("How did you get my espresso machine?" "We fuckin' stole it, man."), with the exception of an exciting, three-am adventure into the city to find a late-night snack (enter: probably the worst and best 1/4 pounder with cheese I've ever consumed, washed down with a couple shots of Jack). Oh, college.

What am I doing in this fucking city? I hope this all turns out to be right. I hope I find it in me to create something soon. I think I'll pray to the Good Lord to send me some unbearably funny friends. It feels good to laugh, it feels good to laugh hard. I'm tired of being the only one who tells funny jokes; I'm tired of walking; I'm tired of inflation; I'm tired of this goddamn useless British DVD player that spits out all my wonderful movies in disgust. Send me a familiar face, send me fresh vegetables, hell, send me to the moon if they've got a Whole Foods.

I've just been sent the new Jenny Lewis album, Acid Tongue, by my good, good, wonderful friend, Ben Dunbar. We're talking Tom Petty, we're talking Fleetwood Mac, we're talking a little early '90s, but most of all, we're talking motherfucking Jenny Lewis. I can't think of a better pickmeup for an alienated ex-pat than J. Lew. Thanks, Ben. You're a real pal.