04 May 2005

paradigm

Hello from London.

I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be minding three children in the English countryside.

But I didn't realize I'm need a tourist visa to go to China* until the boy and I were flipping through our tickets last Saturday.

And he was the one who spotted the subscript fine-print, which was only on his itinerary, not mine.

Tomorrow I'll wake up early enough to be outside the Chinese consulate an hour before they open. Then I'll wait and fill out some forms and pay some money and go on my merry way, trying to make the most of this expensive detour (museums are free here, so that helps).

Hello from London, where I lived before and hated it. I forgot or never noticed that "Way Out" means "Exit" and that "Cornish Pasties-Best Hot Or Cold" is a boldfaced lie.

I want to throw a brick through the window of my old house. I want to ask for a tour of the Gherkin, even though it's not a tourist spot. I want to sneak into the special exhibitions at the Tate.

I will do some of these things.

Mostly I will be grown-up and read my books and take my mental notes with me wherever I go. The city's not so bad when you don't have to be here.

I want to go home. I want to take care of my father in Texas. I want to take care of my best friend in Rhode Island who is taking care of her mother in Connecticut. I want to spend night with my boyfriend in Amsterdam and sack out on my sister's couch in Rhode Island. I want to visit my mother just once. I want to be in graduate school in New York already and I want to take the kids I nanny with me. They could play with the kids I used to nanny in Rhode Island, but who really live in New York. I want to be on vacation in China, half touristing, half scoping out future jobs. I want to be volunteering in Thailand. I want to go out and party all night - I'm in LONDON, yeah, baby, yeah. I want to go home and I want nothing to change and everything to change.

Hello from London.

*I know, duh. It's a Communist country. I'm lucky they don't need a stool sample.

betholindo at 21:11

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