One Before Edinburgh

Can't believe it! Tomorrow is my first real trip while I have been over here! Then another next week then my final week and I am home. Hope I don't die from excitement here. Unfortunately I messed up my booking (forgot AM/PM isn't used here!) so I had to pay a refund fee which sucked big time but at least I got a later train. I leave midday Tuesday but I think I will have internet so I should at least be semi reachable if it is important (I'll let you use your judgment on whether something is important.) Any ideas where I should go when I get there? I can walk the city in a few hours I hear, so I should be able to cover most of everything.

So yes this past weekend, I went to Canterbury on Sunday. But the night before, I was hungry and made some bad food choices (canned tuna in oil, later microwave Indian) so I went to sleep earlier and I ended up getting all nauseated and thought I was going to vomit: the first time not from alcohol since High School! hah! So I am feeling horrible and leaning over my garbage can in my room and I am looking for stuff to do to keep my mind off it. Econometrics homework (as was suggested to me after the fact) I don't think was going to cut it at the time...

It was realy bizarre but I felt really alone right at that moment, the most alone I can think in recent memory. I really wanted someone there, right there, right at that moment. But I knew there was no one and it was only me and I felt God-awful. It was really a creepy, desolate feeling. I wanted someone there but I knew it couldn't be...

So I go on Gmail and I see that Daniel my old roommate was online, so we talk. Well it went for a while and I barely got 3 and a half hours of sleep and he is in Moscow, so God help him. But what did we talk about? I'll say this at the risk of being called gay by my friends who were slamming someone we know back on the Hilltop who does it: poetry. Yeah I admit, sometimes when I feel inspired I write it. I make no claims that it is good or that it will help foster world peace, but as I said, when I feel inspired and something comes to me, I write it down.

So we were talking about methodology and form, aims and how to treat the reader. It's not easy trying to write good poetry and the aims and goals and how to achieve them are difficult to figure sometimes. My problem is I have no patience for editing, which is bad. I have ideas and even if they come out bad, I feel if I edit it I would lose it. Also I think I really just write poetry for myself (to show to others too also: it's sort of complicated to explain...) and how it comes out is maybe mental healing for me or just trying to express what I feel and damn the winds if people don't like it, or I am too lazy to edit, or it comes out reading like garbage. But then again I do want presentable poetry...hmm...maybe I just need to stop being lazy and edit better :-P

However by the end of the conversation I was feeling much better and was able to go back to bed. So yes, after long talks about poetry, sleep deprivation was a major issue as I went to Canterbury. Everyone's favorite tour guide Simon gave us a show of the town and then I went to a really creepy Canterbury Tales museum. The creeptastic part was the mannequins because they were really bizarre and reminded me of Genesis's "Land of Confusion" music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBdUz_IJ4VA Also the Priest who told his tale was pretty funny: really only because he was telling the story of Russell the Fox and "Chanticleer the Cock" Yes I think we were giggling like middle school boys the whole time. How could you not? That is the most ridiculous name ever!

The Cathedral was really pretty architecturally and also I saw the library where William Somerset Maugham's (famous British author, for the illiterati) ashes are spread about. Towards the end, I walked around the town market and looked at the vendors and shops. All in all it was good and the lack of sleep didn't really affect me luckily.

On unrelated note: British food sucks, but orange-banana juice from Sainsbury's is very creamy much more so than in the US: quite nice.

Another unrelated note: As if you didn't need a reason to hate the Kennedys, here is even more: they lobotomized their sister and got away with it. Is that fucked up or what? Damn them... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy