I fully admit to being addicted to reading the Guardian online. The culture pages are like crack to me, and I’m realizing that with every little titbit I am slowly becoming more pretentious. I’m already a complete nerd so let’s be honest, there’s nowhere to go from there but into a deeply over-educated haughtiness.
Case in point, a few months back I discovered an amazing post on one of the Guardian’s book blogs on methods of arranging books. Sadly, for the life of me I cannot find it again. It went through several ridiculously obsessive and silly styles, from arranging by color to size to publication date. My personal favourite is the method of arranging books according to who the authors would be friends with in real life, regardless of when they lived. This is wildly entertaining, as it requires pretention beyond anything that I can come up with before the age of 50.
As a seasoned Barnes and Noble veteran, I fully adore the fact that the Guardian has devoted so much time to the arranging of books. This used to come to pass at the bookstore ALL the time:
Customer: Hi, I’m looking for a book.
Me: Ok, do you know the title?
Customer: No.
Me: How about the author?
Customer: No, I don’t know that either.
Me: Can you give me anything else to work with here?
Customer: It was blue.
Me: Blue. Ok. Anything else?
Customer: I think the main character was Canadian. Or was that the author? I don’t know. Canada was definitely involved though.
Me: Right. Blue with a Canadian association of some sort. I’ll see what I can do.
One of two things would then happen: someone (me/a co-worker/the amnesiac customer) would somehow remember what the book was called, and then find it OR the search would be long and drawn out and everyone would be really angry and finally run off in different directions and hide (including Mr. Amnesia). Usually the latter.
Anyway, if Barnes and Noble had read this article (yes, the entire chain personified should read this article – I’m convinced B&N actually is one collective consciousness, like that space ship in “Event Horizon” but without all the death), they could arrange books by color or geographical association and then everyone would find everything they needed. Except the people that convince themselves that books exist on subjects that no one would ever write about, like how to make birdhouses out of glass swivel sticks or how to teach your dog to play poker. Actually, I think there are actually books about how to teach your dog to play poker (get out your paint brushes). And people do actually ask for books on non-existent subjects. I once had a woman yell at me for a full half an hour because I could find no record of books existing on how to make medieval hats.
Actually, now that I think of it, there were a few random characters that used to come into the store all the time and became notorious. There was a mountain man with a big beard that the booksellers nicknamed Gandalf who was obsessed with German castles. Someone with a nose fetish used to call the store all the time to try to trick female booksellers into talking about their noses (I voted to nickname him Cyrano de Bergerac but he was just known as “the nose guy”). Bookstores seem to attract some obsessive types. The only things that the booksellers find it ok to be obsessed with are books and coffee. And possibly weed, if you work in the stock room.
Just for the exercise though, let’s think how this arranging books by author friend groups might work (you know, just to be obsessive). Now bear in mind that I do this based solely on the writing, and have done no research whatsoever into the actual lives of the authors (which makes the whole thing much more fun, because let’s face it, being historically accurate is boring). It needs to be put it in some sort of mythical place where we can imagine these authors all co-existing, so I choose the unique flavour of hell that is the high school lunchroom. So let’s begin.
The Literary Lunchroom
The bell rings and first to grace the lunch room are the very punctual but not altogether anti-social smart girls. Jane Austen pulls out peanut butter and jelly on white bread and immediately starts to spray wit in all directions, much to the entertainment of her posse of wannabes. The hierarchy is thick among the wannabes, it is a cutthroat game trying to be one of the smart girls. Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood and Sylvia Plath busy themselves over the lunch hour successfully making everyone else feel inadequate. Queen of the wannabes J.K. Rowling tries extra hard to say something smart but accidently overuses the word “surreptitiously,” which the other girls see as a dead giveaway that she’s secretly a C student and shun her.
At a table nearby, J.R.R. Tolkien sits alone making up languages and wishing that J.K. Rowling didn’t turn him down for the Prom. He thinks she’s mildly annoying, but that she could be kinda hot in that elfish sort of way if she would just get off her high horse for a few seconds. He scowls (surreptitiously) and goes back to making up languages. 
Better late than never, Douglas Adams and Roald Dahl bombard his table with a ridiculous concentration of energy in their latest efforts to get him to cheer the fuck up. Doug tries to get him to see the entertaining side of suffering, but J.R.R. interrupts him with a lyrical rant about how human folly only leads to squalor. Doug and Roald whisper amongst themselves about how having too many initials makes people take themselves far too seriously, and they stare down Ms. Rowling at the next table over in a weak attempt to test this theory.
The popular kids show up halfway through lunch with bags of McDonalds, mostly to show off the fact that they’ve all got cars and can go off campus. e.e. cummings is going through a punctuation-shunning phase that annoys his English teacher to no end, but since he’s kind of a Casanova she still gives him straight A’s and constantly babbles on about his creative skills. This pisses off Gertrude Stein to no end, who is at the other end of the cafeteria giving him the stink eye. Doug and Roald decide from their table that the initials rule doesn’t apply to e.e., because he whispers things into girls’ ears that make them go crazy and they really want to know what the hell he’s saying to them so that they can try it too.
Dan Brown sits between Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, and e.e. has to laugh because he knows that the only reason they tolerate him is because Dan has rich parents and always has loads of drugs. Half the high school is addicted to Dan Brown’s drugs, and a few of the teachers too. Dan doesn’t do the drugs himself, he’s just a really good salesman. e.e. spends the remainder of the lunch hour wondering where Salinger has gone. Salinger used to be popular but he suddenly disappeared, and no one knows why. In his place is Ian Flemming, and he’s very cool so no one really worries that much about Salinger. Jack and Hunter decide to ignore Dan for awhile, because after 5 minutes he gets really bland. Lewis Carol has showed up and they’ve been saving him a seat (Dan accidentally sat in it, and apologises profusely when he realises this and goes to sit by whoever the hell it is that wrote The Secret so that they can be bland in tandem).
Elizabeth Gilbert and the Marley and Me guy are running for prom king and queen and stop by the popular table for a few to do some expert PR. They have everyone’s vote there anyway, but they are still really worried they will be usurped by Stephanie Meyer and Dr. Oz, who are a force to be reckoned with. This rivalry has caused a minor upset at the lunch table, but it won’t matter once the votes are cast and everyone is surprised and delighted to see that Kurt Vonnegut and Zadie Smith have won it in a surprise landslide. This single event will cause them all to suddenly realize that there are people outside the popular table who do in fact cast votes.
I’ve just realized I could go on all day like this. I’ve also just realized that the fact that I could go on all day like this is vaguely sad, so I’m going to stop now.
The Literary Lunchroom
spiderman, spiderman
At my new job, I’ve been very impressed that my co-workers immediately managed to pronounce my name correctly. Until this point in time, no one in this country has been able to realize that Kirsten and Kristen are not the same name. From time to time I even got Christian and Christine. I just started answering to anything that vaguely resembled my name, under the assumption that this must be what life is like for people with much more difficult names to pronounce. I’ve come across people named Roisin (Ro-Shayne) and Aisling (Ashley, apparently) and have really began to feel for them.
My husband and I have always thought that the French must be secretly wetting themselves every time Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin is mentioned, as “putin” is French for “whore”. When we taught at a small language school in Dorset for European kids, there was a kid from somewhere in Eastern Europe named Mert (pronounced may-ert) whom I’ve heard got no end of grief from his French classmates due to how close his name resembled “merde”, the French word for “shit”.
This got me to thinking. When we were in China, our students all took on English names so as to better identify themselves to us non-Chinese speaking morons. It was common practice, and a lot of them had apparently been using these names in English class for quite some time. It brought to mind my eighth grade French classes where we all chose to be Gabrielle or Corinne to feel more Francais. For us it was a bit of fun, and usually the teacher forgot which names we had chosen and reverted back to our actual names by the third week of term. This was always epically disappointing in the realm of imagination, as somehow ceasing to be Gabrielle or Corinne also meant the loss of our imaginary boyfriends, Jean-Luc and Francois. Quelle dommage.
Anyway, the other English teachers at our University in China advised us that we needed to create attendance registers where the students would write their names in three ways. Once in Chinese, once in Pin Yin (a sort of phonetic Chinese), and finally their chosen English name. A lot of them chose simple, mainstream English names like Sarah or John, but it became clear early on that creative license was a key factor in naming oneself English-style. In my first class I had a Spiderman.
Here are some of the favourites: Batty (male), Bleach (male), Sugars (female), Kashmir (male), Only (female). My husband had a Space Rat (male) and a friend named Wagon (male. In his defence, his name was actually Wang Gong, so he was logical in choosing the English word that most resembled his actual name). Another of our co-workers had a Seven that sat next to an Eleven (both female), and a Voldemort.
And why not? Someone comes in to teach you English and asks you to choose a name that isn’t yours, for the simple fact that they can actually say it, why not be (for the most part, excluding Wagon) totally arbitrary and choose something unrelated and pointless. It was as if they were saying “Hey, this isn’t my name, and I’ve chosen something that you will never be able to take seriously as if it were. You won’t easily forget that I’m not actually Spiderman.” And amazingly, the ones who chose to be Sarah or John actually became Sarah and John in our minds. Spiderman was always going to be Liang Ming Chao because there is no way in hell I could train my mind to believe his name was Spiderman. So hats off to you, not-really-Spiderman, point well made. Maybe I should have taken issue with being called Kirsten and replaced it with something much more entertaining.
step in time
No internet is not a fun place in my world. I never thought I’d react all that badly to being without it, but there it is. It is like being denied something that you partake in so frequently it doesn’t mark itself on your memory significantly. I’d compare it to being denied coffee or wine with dinner. It’s fine when you’re doing something else, like reading, riding the bus, whatever. But when the moments settle down, you think, “A glass of red wine would be so nice right now.”
I think the reason I hate not having internet is because I can’t write to people. I’m terrible at answering e-mails on time as it is, but I feel so much better about it when I can at least know that the possibility of me being a responsible friend actually exists. I mean, who knows. I’ve not written to Sally in about 6 months, but hey, today could be the day. No internet takes that away from me, and then I have no choice but to worry that poor Sally is sitting there thinking about how horrible I am to have ignored her so completely. If I were able, I could just tell her of my plight… but this requires internet. (I mean, why the hell would I call her? So very archaic.)
Really, I have no friends named Sally, though in the last five minutes I have managed to convince myself to go find one. I don’t think I’d get too far with that, as no one seems to have that name anymore. It seems a good cat name though. (Things to do: 1. Buy cat. 2. Name cat Sally.)
So now I live in London, land of limited internet connection. (BT openzone my foot). It has been 2.5 weeks since my relocation from the peaceful Dorset coast and I’ve managed to learn a couple of things (though not many) about London. The first is that London functions like some giant machine that drains your energy. I get up to go to work, travel around a bit, do some work which is moderately but not insanely taxing, travel around a bit more, end up home. My work day is no longer than it was in Dorset. Quite possibly it is shorter. Anyway, by 8pm I am in my pyjamas, and by 9pm there is really no communicating with me. Apparently I am 97.
But another thing I’ve learned is that THERE ACTUALLY ARE CHIMNEY SWEEPS IN LONDON. No, seriously. Our neighbour had them over to sweep the chimneys in the old Victorian building that we live in. I even got to MEET them. Total disappointment though, as they didn’t look adorably sooty and carried no classic wire brushes. Damn. So I patiently waited for them to suddenly burst into song and dance, and when that didn’t happen I was thisclose to yelling at them, “What kind of crap London chimney sweeps are you, you don’t even sing and dance!!” Honestly, what is the world coming to when there are no dancing chimney sweeps in London, I ask you. Dark days. My bubble is officially of the burst variety. Next thing I know, I will be down at St. Paul’s cathedral only to find out that you can’t even feed the birds for tuppence a bag.
tubes under ground
I had a job interview in London last week. Rather than worrying about the interview itself, I spent my energy worrying about getting myself from the innards of Dorset into London and then across town on the tube. All the while I had to think about what the commute would be like from my future London flat to said place of potential employment. It is going to take most of forever, but it will be a step up from my current commute, which is a bear. I am not exaggerating, it is a classic pain in the ass. There are boats involved. One of them only holds about 50 cars at once and pulls itself through the water by large chains. All this, and I still worried about having to take the tube.
Here’s my biggest tip if you have never taken the London tube before: do not use a black and white computer print-out map of the tube to find your way. The colors mean something, they aren’t just some fun spaghetti rainbow. So when I was trying to figure out what stop I needed, and the polite woman stuck in the ceiling said “change here for Jubilee line”, I had ten seconds to decide what to do. I grabbed my black and white map thinking, “Jubilee. This sounds familiar. Is this actually what I need, or is it just some term that bounces around London and therefore seems vaguely useful but really isn’t. I bet it has something to do with the Queen. Better stay where I am.”
There is something about the mechanical closing of the tube doors that causes you to have the epiphany that you actually needed to get off there. Those bastards are laced with insight, and it sprays out at you right when there is definitely no getting off. So I got off a stop too late and proceeded to follow the signs to get to the other side of the tracks to go back the other way.
This is where the tube REALLY starts to mess with you. It takes so long to cross back over, and getting there is so complex, that once you end up on the other side you totally can’t tell that you’ve moved at all. I was honestly standing there looking across the track and trying to remember where the vending machines were in relation to where I was standing, and what posters were there, and I got really pissed off when I realized that everything is completely the same. I think even the people were the same. It was like that scene in “Being John Malcovitch” where John Malcovitch goes through the portal to his own brain and everyone in there has his face and all they can say is “Malcovitch” over and over.
It was a combination of that, and this (ok, ALOMST. If David Bowie were there it would have been AWESOME. But minus the stripey baby, he's just weird.)
I got there fine, all went well, blah blah. Londoners and English people in general like to bark about how unreliable the tube is. I don’t doubt that it might be questionable, but the widespread complaining about it seems to have affected the atmosphere all throughout the underground. When I was there, everything was operating normally. AND THEY WOULD NOT STOP TELLING ME THAT. I swear every ten seconds polite-trapped-in-ceiling-woman had to let us all know, “The underground system is operating a normal service on all lines.” If you listen to her closely, you can hear a proud and content tone in her voice, and it starts to worm its way into your head and you walk around feeling proud of the tube and content that it works. Not my country, not my city, and I was wandering around feeling like I was somehow responsible for the marvelousness of the system. Go me.
And you know, this is totally the equivalent of those WWII posters that were apparently in the tube everywhere back in the day. You know, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. I love those posters. I have one. With that woman telling everyone that the underground is functioning, London has replaced the posters with a more subtle and slightly creepier system. I say bring back the posters. They are friendly and pretty and I don’t have to wonder where my complacency comes from, I can stare it in the face.
some stuff about some humor
I am sitting here trying to gather my thoughts, which usually isn't that difficult, but our neighbor seems to be tap-dancing on the goddamn wall. Since our houses are connected, this is a major pain in the ass. In addition to this, my adorable husband seems to have taken his inner monologue and turned it inside out. As I am usually the one accused of doing this (not by him, but by any individual who has been in my presence for more than five minutes) it causes a unique reaction. The traits I possess myself, when displayed in other people, simultaneously invoke endearment and annoyance. I've done enough reading in my life to understand that this is apparently common to most of the human race.
It is because of this that I have both a serious love and serious limits with British humor. The line sits somewhere between "The Office" and "Borat". I think it settles just this side of "Peep Show"? But I love "Mitchell and Webb", and they are the equation that brings "Peep Show" to life.... argh. This is so complex. Why the hell is this so complex.
British television has a knack for bringing to life that unique reaction that explains EXACTLY why my husband doing what I usually do to unknowingly annoy people makes me feel like a yin-yang on crack. On the one hand, there is that comforting and relatable familiarity about everything. You feel like you could dive into the moment on the T.V. screen and be at home there. Even when you aren't from Guildford (where apparently everyone in this whole country comes from) and you've never seen people on BBC breakfast go on and on about nothing in particular, you still feel like you could be one of those really englishy English people in some comically embarrassing scenario involving too many peas. I love it already, and it isn't even real.
I'm not even joking about this - there is an actual famous comedy sketch where someone goes into a shop and is chronically misunderstood. He says one thing, the shop owner thinks he's said something else, and for all I know no one is speaking English the whole time. And I laugh at it nonetheless. It is still funny to me and I have no idea what the hell is going on. Something about forks. Or candles. Candle forks, whatever. I love these people. They make hilarity out of absolute air.
But then there is the other hand. The other hand involves showing the populace what happens when you take the bits everyone can relate to and amplify them. This is where I get caught. The comedy sketch or show or film starts out with characters that you empathise with, laugh with, and then things BUILD. And then they pull crap that you would never pull. But they TAKE YOU WITH THEM nonetheless. How the hell do they do this? I end up empathising with some magical relatable assholes. Then I get to a point where I can't tell who I am laughing at more: the crappy individuals on screen, or myself for being such an idiot for emotionally following them into some antics that I would never normally follow them into.
I'd put a youtube clip as an example, but that would defeat my point. You have to watch the full episode of whatever to truly get to the point where it all falls in place and you are deeply embarassed for the characters.
This is why British humor is so effective. If you get that far into the whole thing, you are laughing in multiple dimensions. The reason I get part of the way in and then can't deal with it is because I take a moment and analyze the crap out of whatever I am watching. It only takes a few seconds and you start mentally backpedalling. British humor does not accommodate this. You have to just go with it, or you're fucked. The funny is gone. And then you are just uncomfortable, and the British people you are watching the funny shows with get to laugh in three dimensions - at the show, at themselves, and at you for sitting there like a tosser and being embarrassed for people that don't even exist.
the case of almost-not-really swine flu
The other night I developed a slight sniffle and then lay awake in bed convincing myself I had swine flu. By the morning I had full on sinus issues, and fell asleep in the car on the way to work and dreamt I was climbing a giant red Lego. Four hours later, I was on the bus trying to make my way home, and fell asleep again. I feverishly dreamt I was sitting in strawberries. Possible swine flu-induced delirium is apparently limited to the red end of the color spectrum.
The next morning (or NOON as some folk like to call it) I woke up and realized I had never been home sick in this country, and didn't know what to do with myself. In the states, I would drink loads of 7up and watch re-runs of Little House on the Prairie. There was nothing even remotely resembling this anywhere on television. The closest I could get was Hollyoaks (filmed nowhere near a prairie), which I get confused with Eastenders, which I get confused with Neighbours, even though the Neighbours live in Australia. You see my predicament. I was two steps away from being back in Lego land (which, strangely, is an ACTUAL PLACE in Britain, but that's for another time).
I simultaneously discovered two things. 1. A show called "The Kitchen Pharmacy" where some girl with perfect skin tells you how to cure everything short of the apocalypse with herbs and 2. A show called "Come Dine With Me", where some strangers make food for each other and compete for £1,000 while the narrator mocks them and they secretly mock each other. Both very, very British.
I really hate finding two interesting shows at the same time, because I have to flip between them and try to watch them BOTH, and my brain doesn't keep up with that even on my good days. I always end up thinking that everything would be better if the two shows merged. (Or I get convinced that the two shows I am watching are actually one.... any difference between "Antiques Roadshow" and "Cash in the Attic"? I mean, really?)
British daytime television is a unique cultural slice. It is like ancient sawdust pie served with all best efforts (and then secretly rated by the guests in competition for £1000). We get 35 channels, and among these I found two antique shows, two shopping channels, a show about individuals trying really hard to get in some yellow garden guidebook, and a show where farmers invite archaeologists to their farms so they can dig up old roman walls (that last one sucks you in, I swear. The part of my day spent wondering if they were in fact going to find the roman kiln was nail biting. I’m not even joking, I was THAT entranced).
But that Kitchen Pharmacy woman totally sold me. Check it out: http://www.medicinechest.info/series/kitchenpharmacy . By the end of the day I was completely convinced that I was going to have a little herb kitchen just like hers where I can make hops/lavender pillows for insomnia. And she’s just so cute, and looks so healthy, I’ve become determined to take up her mantle. I know nothing of home remedies, but I am on the hunt for an aloe plant. And lavender, as apparently that goes in every remedy. I might start putting it on my cereal, as it seems to benefit every type of ailment.
This could prove somewhat problematic, as I don’t tend to discriminate when it comes to my enthusiasm for plants. I’ve been known to pull up grass and eat it, thinking it was chives. Stupid-ass grass masquerading as chives, why to they have to look so similar? I’m lucky that I hate mushrooms, or I could have met an untimely end years ago.
We went to the garden centre and tried to find me an aloe plant, to no avail. We did come home with a Venus fly tr
ap though, which is really fun to poke at. I keep looking for bugs around the house to feed to it. I swear though, once that thing came through the door it was like all the bugs KNEW. And they vanished. The plant didn’t eat them, it is still sitting on the windowsill, all toothy and hungry. Poor famished plant. If I don’t find any bugs for it soon, I may have to see if that Kitchen Pharmacy woman has any remedies made of Venus fly trap. I bet she has some kind of carnivorous plant infused balm to cure indigestion or something. Then it won’t be pitiful and hungry anymore, but I bet those damn bugs will show up again.
welcome to england
And then I looked her up on youtube. She is in Seattle singing “Welcome to England” and someone has taken a video on their phone. But the point is, TORI went to SEATTLE and sang about ENGLAND. It was like three pieces of me that are normally far apart suddenly came TOGETHER. And she wore shiny gold leggings. (For the first minute and a half I was convinced you could see up her skirt, but she is wearing amazing shiny gold leggings).
Check it out, and try not to yell at the people talking at the beginning or the people whose heads totally get in the way. It’s a video, they won’t listen (I totally forgot that). Plus, the person with the phone has way better seats than I could afford if I could have gone myself, and I didn’t get to go myself, so I salute you little miss phone-cam, for allowing me to watch live Tori on youtube.
She has three pianos. I have one piano that I can’t even play properly and she plays three. New incentive to practice. Anyway, after my recent trip home to Seattle, I was being a little brat about England. I was cranky and homesick. I’ve even been known to complain about the air not smelling as nice over here. (Though sometimes I stand by that one, yesterday when I took the bus it smelled of cat urine).
Anyway, one of the reasons I love Tori so much is that her songs take awhile for me to digest, and also because they often change meanings for me as time passes. So I’m not going to deconstruct this one. You have to let any song exist as it immediately falls upon you before you gain the ability to let it speak to you properly. And even then, you can’t commit yourself to one meaning, you have to be open to letting things change. Because people change, so why should songs be any different? Or books? Or paintings?
But back to England. I decided to think of things that define my in-between moments over here. Things that I can love or not love depending on my moods. Because that’s what any perspective really consists of, isn’t it? The little things that slip in and become old or new, good or bad at different times simply to prove that nothing is ever static.
Anyway, here are a few:
When we go on coastal walks, my phone thinks we are in France.
If we leave the house before 7:10, we get stuck in traffic behind the same set of cows being moved from a field on one side of the road to a field on the other.
I cannot get a double espresso at my office before 8:30, and I drink breakfast tea without milk.
BLUE VINNEY CHEESE
I cannot say the word “lolly” without sounding drunk. Try it, I bet you can’t either. Especially if you are actually drunk.
Dogs in pubs make me happy. Chickens in pubs freak me out. Even in sandwiches.
When we drive in the summer, the leaves overhead are so thick that the world becomes one big green leaf-tunnel.
Last year, when it snowed, the bus driver suddenly pulled over and ran out. We all thought he’d hit someone, but it turned out he’d seen an old woman slip and fall on the sidewalk and went to make sure she was ok.
Heels: They get stuck in cracks between cobblestones, and I wear them down to the screws in about 5 months. My mind is so used to hearing the high clicking of metal on stone that when I get shoes re-heeled, the absence of that sound makes me think I’ve got gum stuck to my heels or something.
NO DOG-FOULING SIGNS
NATIONAL TRUST VOLUNTEERS. They teach you more than history class.
There are ammonites in the walls.
People on the bus talk themselves. There are enough people on the bus who talk to themselves at one time that it is almost like they are talking to each other. This leads me to wonder if my understanding of conversation is skewed. When I talk to other people, it is likely that I talk to myself, and then they talk to themselves back. I suppose if this is true, then only truly lost people would have misunderstandings.