Tlönista

Party in Nio Esseia

Friday was one of the secretaries’ last day at work, so afterwards we all went out to a cozy little bar nearby that serves about a gazillion different kinds of Belgian beer, and chips and mayo in pint glasses, and stayed for hours drinking and having a laugh and what not. A few lawyers who’ve worked at the firm in the past dropped by, too. Just a nice relaxing evening after a long day and a truly long week.

It was much better than the previous Friday, which was another such get-together in a posh City bar/club. Now, I know I’m a lightweight, but I’m not such a lightweight that I should get drunk on two glasses of wine, and be sick to boot. My co-workers bundled me into a cab and sent me home and I was the object of much gentle ribbing on Monday. My first time being drunk and frankly I don’t see the appeal. I was quite embarrassed, but told myself that if I can’t have a youthful indiscretion or two now, honestly, when can I?

Jet Lag

When I was younger it was far too early to imagine what I would be doing “when I grew up”, and later on it got bad and there was no future I could see for myself but annihilation – self-hatred and anxiety drowned out all thought. Now I come out on the other side of it, newly born, as gawky and awkward as if I were a teenager again, muddling along and euphoric with independence.

It’s not exaggeration, I think, to say that that years-long spell of depression was a transformative experience, and the shock of so rapidly going from there to here has me reeling yet with a kind of existential jet lag.

Chelsea Dagger

Sitting in the little café over my lunch break having a jacket potato with beans instead of cheese, because of that article in the Metro comparing the relative health benefits. It’s very cloudy outside, about to rain any minute. Here I have to carry an umbrella with me all the time.

There’s a damp draft by my regular seat by the door and I’ve got to go back to work in five minutes. Then that Fratellis song comes on the radio and for a few moments all my everyday worries become insubstantial, and I feel light as air.

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.