Tlönista

I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. A bit later than Jennie because I got that stupid AirPort has a self-assigned IP and may not be able to connect to the Internet error. I don’t know how I fixed it; I tried every damn thing. Anyway, I will try to get posting at the usual lazy rate as soon as I can.

Get up, check email and the weather, wash, haul myself into work clothes and haul ass to the train station to catch the 7:45. If I’m lucky, the northbound Northern line isn’t too crowded. Grab a cup of coffee while jotting down a journal entry, decompressing before the workday. Try to get a lot of stuff done and clear the file folders off my desk. Schlep down to my favourite café for “the usual”, jacket potato and a can of pop. Today: not the best, made some mistakes, stressed a lot and my shoulders ache. Get groceries on the way home. Throw together a typical dinner: pasta, with yogurt and fruit for dessert. By this time Jennie’s gone off to bed. Watch Spooks while petting the fat cat, who loves the attention. Run a hot bath for my shoulders. Feel bad about all the stuff that’s gone unblogged and emails unsent, but god damn it, it’s time to go to sleep again.

Islington is nothing like Islington.

Regent’s Park is nothing like Regent Park.

They announce the station at the end of the line, too. “This train is for Aldgate”, and so on. It threw me off the first time, when we were travelling from the airport and I was damn near insensible with jet lag. Across the car from me was one of those digital scrolling marquee things with the message THIS TRAIN IS FOR COCKFOSTERS. I was a little shocked, and wondered why nobody else had noticed that some hooligan had hax0red the message system with profane denigrations in English slang, like that one time someone changed the GO train message to read “Stephen Harper eats babies” and then a colleague had to make an official statement to the fact that he had worked with Mr. Harper for X many years and never in that time had he seen him eat a baby. Then I looked at the map and realized the station at the end of the line was called Cockfosters.

Today Jennie and I went to the orientation at BUNAC, and bought cell phones, and got bank accounts at HSBC, and got Oysters (metropasses), and tomorrow we are going to go look at apartments. Now I’m going to go take a walk in the park.

Update: I got lost in the park. It’s a lot bigger than it looked. There’s a zoo, and a lake, and rose gardens, and swans, and soccer fields, and an entire college, and lots of paths. I might had enjoyed the experience more had it not been dusk and raining, and had I not missed the hostel’s dinner and also the period for half-price drinks at the bar. But that’s okay.