put your forks down. seriously. it's getting gross.

at first taking a car into the city from gatwick seemed, i don't know, glamorous. my family has traveled my whole life precisely because we do things....um, frugally. short of stuffing us kids into luggage, my parents did it. one room apartments in wales. one meal a day until my sister developed a stutter, a sure sign of a small person nervous breakdown.

we packed 7 items for each child, each trip: one pair galoshes, one nightgown, one dress, a pair of good church shoes, one flower press, and one scrapbook. and underwear. my mother was convinced you could cinch a nightgown at the waist, pair it with boots, and have the hippest children in hyde park. the flower press and scrapbook were for distraction-- at museums we were allowed to collect ticket stubs and candy wrappers and postcards. outside: flowers. this gave us girls incentive to, you know, go through this whole travel thing without making everyone else crazy.



so, calling a car this morning seemed glitzy. while the train would have spit us out at victoria by 9 (we flew in at 8), the carride took over two hours. stopped traffic. only, on public broadcasting--a roundtable discussion of wordsworth's trip to germany with his sister, dorothy, and coleridge. at first i was rapt. kent looked at me expectantly, as if i might pump my fists at the sheer mention of the prelude. but after a while...

so far: i'd forgotten the insane preoccupation with kebabs here. unsurpassed.
i saw my student, reem, in the atlanta airport. she seemed mortified that i'd followed her there.
the plane movie contract: nightmare. john cusack cannot be saved.

i miss hannah. i don't want to talk about it or anything. just like i don't want to talk about the new r&b version of "fire and rain."

the goal: i'm here to museum as a verb. specifically--tate britain, tate modern, british, national gallery, and the national portrait gallery. also, portabello road markets. also the statue of boadicea, the female leader of the celtic tribe who nearly overthrew the romans here in 61 ad.

no shopping. no shows. good eats and art, bitches. and i'm going to starbucks every morning for an hour and reading whatever i want. and not feeling bad about it. that's right. i'm going to hop past those locally owned brew houses. why? because i can. "petulant?" han, you've seen nothing.

so far, aptly, nora ephron's wallflower at the orgy.