"Attack me, Woman!"

...shit-talks Henry to me during our game of checkers.

Sat 130am

Oh man. My body hates me. Jet lag: like a thousand, me: 0

Friday morning I never went back to sleep. Thank God for Girl on the Train. She's kept me highly entertained so I don't just drown in the internet while I lie in bed. However, at this rate I'll need another book in about 4 hours. 

Speaking of the internet... (I buckle into a puddle of fury and disgust.) Every time I go online, I'm struck dumb by political news. I can't even put words to the boil of anger I feel at every way this administration is basically trying to annihilate anything that isn't old, rich, white and male. These last few months have turned me from someone who refused to speak politics out of respect for other people's beliefs to an emotional, marching, rallying, Twitter devouring mess who likes to troll John Cornyn and makes calls to my TX representatives (I say I'm my mom. She agrees with me and gave me her permission so, shhhh!) despite my stupid, yet petrifying phone anxiety. 

I feel so privileged in ways I never felt or realized before, and it's important to me to fight for people who aren't as lucky as I am. I also feel minimized in ways I've never felt before, and that fucking pisses me off. All of this has me at a fever pitch to fight the patriarchy. 

However. I want and need a vacation and that makes me feel like a spoiled brat. So when I hopped online last night and read about Pence breaking the tie to end Title X funding to clinics that include abortion services and about Breitbart targeting Kamala Harris (fingers crossed, our future President!), I decided that every day of my vacation I would donate to a progressive candidate or group. Last night was Kamala Harris. Tonight it was DSCC. Tomorrow it will be Beto O'Rourke. Shut up, Guilt, I'll be back on the phone April 19.

"To die will be an awfully big adventure."

Back to London, Friday am. I leave the house after hours of puttering and head to Hyde Park. The air is crisp and damp so that it feels like Fall but it looks like Spring. Trees are just now budding and Spring flowers look as if they've literally just birthed themselves from the damp, dark soil. It's stunning! I'm excited to be here a few weeks so I can come back and watch Spring bloom more and more. 

The park is full of people, dogs and ducks. One thing I love to notice about places I travel is the differences in native species, particularly the birds. When you can walk through a park and see four other types of ducks OTHER than the regular white or brown ducks you see all the time, I thinks that's just the coolest thing ever. It makes the world feel exotic and special. 

I seek out two specific destinations in the park to pay homage: Princess Diana's Memorial Fountain and the Peter Pan Statue.  I see Peter first. My jaw drops. He's gorgeous. The statue is of Peter on the rock as the water is rising, and the water is made of different characters and moments in the story. It's the moment when Peter's daring heart overcomes his fear and it beats to him, "To die will be an awfully big adventure." I have this quote tattooed on my ribs. For my favorite quote from my favorite story to be in front of me in such a stunning representation takes my breath away. 

Princess Diana of Wales Memorial Fountain

Princess Diana's memorial is similarly poignant. It's not a fountain you would picture in your mind. It's far too large to get a decent picture, but it's not showy in any way. I become emotional when I read the  info placard on how the swirling and cascading of water that meets in a calm pool represents her life, and how the bridges giving people the opportunity to meet at the heart of the fountain represents her openness. Once I read that, I walk all three access bridges, crossing the heart of the fountain each time to honor Princess Diana's legacy. 

Mummy & Maisie

Henry the Destroyer

In the afternoon I meet my old friend Crockett and go with her to pick up her kids, Henry & Maisie, from school to take them to the park. Sounds like no big whoop, right? It's actually a big whoop! The nicest parents, the cutest kids with THE CUTEST ACCENTS, and crisps! (That's chips to us Yanks. I'll talk about crisps a lot on this trip. The U.K. has the best flavors.) Crockett's friends are beyond lovely with city suggestions for me, and a random surprise free ticket to see The Glass Menagerie that evening! Free. Ticket. To Tennessee Williams!! 

Thai or die

After the park, the bulk of us go to the local pub for pints & dinner. I have fantastic pad Thai (Thai or die!) ("Stop trying to make fetch happen!") and get my ass slammed in checkers by Henry. He's seven. He mocks me without mercy. It's so fun. 

Whimper...

I head to the theatre for The Glass Menagerie and I'm beyond excited. The main thing I want to do this trip is try to see some theater. Scoring a ticket in my first 24 hours feels like a giant win and a great omen for the rest of my theater going! 

Except. JET LAG. The play starts and my head immediately falls as I fight passing out with everything I have. It's. Torture. I lose and sleep until intermission. Feeling sacrilegious, I go home at intermission and pass out dead. 

Stupid jet lag. 

"YAAAAAAY!"

...is what Stella said when she saw her Crystal's Hot Sauce and bottles of kombucha :)

3am

I could barely keep my eyes open at 11p and thought, "My body has already adjusted to the natural light cues. I'm a modern miracle." I zombied into bed excited to be so freaking tired and fantasized about getting a decent amount of sleep. 

Now I'm up. Up, up. Up like it's 6am but it's 3am. No yawns, no fog, I'm Wide Awake. Poop, I'm not a modern miracle. I promised myself I would read instead of play on my phone, but blogging isn't playing, so to catch up:

I got to Stella's sweaty and cranky. She's texting me and I'm trying to conserve texts bc the International plan I bought from Verizon is pretty shitty. I'm a huge fan of Verizon but I hate the Int'l Calling Plan and having to think about what number text this is is making me petulant. I'm ignoring my phone, though I'm dying to text back.

Once I let myself in Stella's flat and see the flights of stairs I have to scale with The Motherfucker, I have to take some deep breaths and Have a Talk with myself. It goes like this: "Calm down. This isn't a conspiracy. It's not Stella's fault you can't text mindlessly and even if you knew how many stairs you'd have to climb with that heavy Motherfucker, you still would have packed fifteen lbs of kombucha. Only you are ruining your trip right now, nothing and no one else. So chill the fuck out and let's reset, yeah?" I make an excellent pseudo mom. 

I cross the finish line of getting all my crap upstairs before I let myself even look around so I can really enjoy the moment. AND I DO BECAUSE STELLA'S FLAT IS WONDERFUL. I run around gasping and greeting my favorite parts in a bad British accent I use all the time, not just when I'm speaking to British things. 

my beautiful bedroom

"'Ehllo pretty pictchah! 'Ehllo behdrooom!! 'EHLOOOO LOVELY ROOFTOHP DECK! You awe GOHJUSS!!!"

Stella's lovely living room

I scope out the kitchen and decide to go to Whole Foods to grocery shop because it's right down the street. I can be annoyingly purist when I travel and only want to shop at the "real places", meaning places I don't associate with America, but right now I'm tired, I'm on a health kick, and it's not like I'm in a quaint little village, I'm in London. 

As I walk to Whole Foods, my head on a swivel when I cross the streets because the direction of traffic thing, I wonder HOW America and Great Britain got so opposite. When the founding fathers settled the thirteen colonies were they like, "We're gonna be so different, that we're going to do everything backwards and opposite! Screw you, Mum!"?

When I get home from the store and rip into my rotisserie chicken (weirdly HALF the price of an American Whole Foods rotisserie chicken- have I mentioned how much I love grocery shopping? This is how I geek out.), my marginal disappointment at shopping in a familiar chain completely vanishes. My chicken looks waaaay more chicken-y than any American chicken. It's little legs aren't docked at the default chicken leg place, they're much longer! And the body isn't perfect- in fact, his body looks like it lived a real life, and I can kind of see what my chicken looked like when he was living on the farm! (Shut up, this is my fantasy, and in my fantasy my chicken had a long, lovely life on a family farm before he was slaughtered and plucked so I could get my protein.) This chicken would never fly in an American supermarket. And with that thought, I happily eat my little friend. 

Keys in the door... 

"HIIIIIIIIIIII!", "HAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!", we chorus. Stella's finally home! We laugh and hug and laugh and catch up until she has to go to bed. I'm so happy to be with my friend. 

And now everything is all caught up! And its 8pm LA time so I'm due to be sleepy in about two hours when it'll be 6am here. Man, being a modern miracle would have been so cool...

"I'M HERE!!!!!!!"

...is what I texted Stella when I stepped inside her gorgeous, amazing flat. But let's catch up.

Earlier today...

1 hour til landing

God I love Virgin Atlantic. My great flight started about 9 hours before my flight when I reached Jeffrey, a sweetie with a Scottish accent, on their customer service line because the computer wouldn’t let me in (WHY put O or 0 in a record locator??). After gently and sensitively pointed out my mistake, he noticed I didn’t have a seat. When I asked for a window, Jeffrey, put me in a window seat in a row next to an empty. God bless Jeffrey. 

my "bits and bobs bag"

Another reason I love VA: my "bits and bobs bag" filled with travel necessities. Also their movie selection had a great variety and their TV selection included Fleabag, which is phenomenal. 

I’d planned on taking my Ambien the instant the plane went wheels up, and literally had the pill in my hand, when the attendant handed me a menu. I forgot they feed you on good flights! For free!! I was the opposite of hungry, but I’m a stray cat and I live for free food. So I watched Bridget Jones’ Baby until they came back with dinner.

(BJB: Not the train wreck BJD2EoR and obviously nothing can touch BJD. Not as bad as it could have been, likely as good as it was going to get all things considered. McDreamy just keeps getting hotter and no one has a better happy smile than Mark Darcy. And I cared about their relationship, which is basically a rave review as far as watching a movie on a plane goes.)

(Someone just farted in my vicinity. I’m so jealous of them right now.)

The choices: Pork Ragu, Chicken Pesto or Veggie Thai Curry. Thai or die, always. It was a red curry and rice and about 3 1/2 jalapeños spicy which is pretty risqué for airplane food. It came with a heckuva nice salad and the cutest little salted caramel ganache that I couldn’t help keeping. I’m off desserts again, but it was so adorable I couldn’t bear to send it back to the trash where it would probably get soiled by old ragu or be the only lonely little ganache in the dark trashy world because everyone else’s ganaches wanted them. So I’m going to find him a good home.

Almost there!

After dinner I took half my Ambien because I’ve been on a hydration kick which has me peeing hourly. At the last second I had a paranoid fantasy of falling so deep asleep that I wet my seat. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at me since my leggings are black and already a little shiny, but the smell would give me away and also I’d freeze if I had to sit in a wet seat for hours. SO I broke my pill in half and passed out dead. THANK GOD AND JEFFREY FOR THE EMPTY SEAT NEXT TO ME.

I woke up with about three hours to go. Time for another movie. I picked Bad Moms. Sigh. I’m really fighting the urge to defend my movie choices… 

I lose, my urge wins: On planes, I like watching the same crap you’d watch on a hungover Saturday, when you’re too lazy to change the channel and know you’ve got nothing but time so you surrender to rom coms and anything else that won’t make you think too hard. Plus I love Mila Kunis. I want her to live in my pocket and coach me through life.

(BM: Not good, all over the place, and trite, one-dimensional everything, but somehow I wasn’t mad about it. Prob the Kunis factor. And I love Kristin Bell. Now Katherine Hahn… I like KH but I HATED her in this. Wire hanger in my ear drums, secret jalapeño juice in my eyes hate. I’m personally mad at the director for casting her and at her for doing the role.)

And out of the blue we’re landing!!

90 minutes after landing

Oghhhhgoddddd. The customs line is long and slow. It makes for good people watching though. I'm in the non-UK/EU line so my line buddies are from all over. Most everyone is on their phones (me included as I type) so it makes for easy lurking. 

But boring lurking. Rare conversations, no meaningful gazes or glares. This is reminding me a lot of Wall-E :( 

There is a couple in the quardroned section and I wonder what got them there. Passport problems, status problems...? Lately, at every check point I imagine I'm a spy or criminal so that every time I get waved or stamped through I feel the thrill of satisfaction and relief. 

Gross. I'm a privileged white looking American asshole. I get to pretend so I feel a lick of anxiety. Meanwhile, millions of immigrants and refugees travel in constant fear. It's disgusting that I have it easier than most because I won the skin color/nationality lottery. 

Well, this got less fun fast, but that's our world now, isn't it? In related news, I just realized by LA time I'm overdue for my antidepressant. 

3 hours after landing

Roly Poly, me & the MF

I made it to Stella's place with my luggage, Roly Poly and the Motherfucker. Roly Poly is a little black case who rolls and is sweet and easy to deal with. The Motherfucker is a motherfucker. Big. Red. HEAVY. It's my fault, obviously, but that doesn't stop me from getting pissy about it. 

In addition to my stuff, I packed fifteen lbs of kombucha. Stella asked for a single bottle, but I wanted to treat her to more. I knew the suitcase was overweight and I figured they'd make me get rid of some of it, but (Thank you, Virgin Atlantic, kinda) they didn't. I was psyched until I had to heave myself and my stuff all over the airport, on and off the tube, up flights of stairs, on and off the bus, up and down the street when I got a little lost finding Stella's place, and then? Up three flights of stairs once I got to Stella's.

But I'm here now! And starving, so off I head to one of my favorite travel past times: grocery shopping!

“Well, I’m sitting in the middle of LAX so I could easily blow up here, too…”

…is what I reminded my dad who was having London bomb anxiety. Why was my dad worried about London bombs? Because I’M FLYING TO LONDON!! And my dad is a worrier. Also the world really sucks lately.

I’m traveling, therefore I write about it. Its the only real writing discipline I have. 

So here I sit, two and a half hours til my flight. I’m so early I scored one of the cool personal couches Virgin Atlantic has at their gates. 

Leggings!

Nerd alert: I’ve been here for 45 minutes. It’s International Travel, they say three hours, I follow the rules, because I was raised by my mother. Also I’ve been looking forward to this trip for months.

Right, the trip! I’m visiting Stella. Besides being the best bestie in my whole world, she also has an awesome job that takes her awesome places sometimes (and Baltimore other times. JK, Baltimore, she loved you.) which is a great excuse to visit her! 

When London happened, she was all, “You’re coming!” and I was all, “Uh YEAH.” but really in my head I was like, “mmmmmlifemoneyTexasjobsapartmentpoor.” This went on for a while. Then, I read the latest in a years-long list of self help books (You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, highly recommend) and there was a part about living ‘as if’. I’ve heard it before, I’ll hear it again, but in that moment, I thought, “I want to travel. If I really want to travel, I’m going to fucking travel and things will figure themselves out as far as mmmmlifemoneyTexasjobsapartmentpoor.” 

So here I sit, five months later, definitely on the backside of things figuring themselves out, not the least of which includes semi-moving to Texas, becoming my dad’s primary caregiver, moving back in with my mom, dealing with seemingly endless bank/moving /medical shit, getting an evil nurse’s aide fired, and having to admit to myself that my depression had hit a critical stage and it wasn’t something I could muscle through any longer. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a shitty five months. 

BUT I’m happy now. Thanks so my family, my friends, my therapist, the staff at my dad’s facility and my dad’s antidepressants (I got my own prescription today! Yay!!) I’m finally here, out of The Shit. The broad strokes of my situation are the same; however, the natural progression of time has handled the situational shit and the gorgeousness of Lexapro has given me the head space to get some perspective. (I swear to God, I would do a national commercial for Lexapro for free if they’d let me.)

All of the above is just a long way of saying, I need this trip, I deserve this trip, and I intend to enjoy the hell out of it. 1 hour til take off! Yay!

Dinner! They give a chip :)