9:22 a.m. 11 July 2002
Here I am! At last. I can finally replace what is really not a very exciting entry, being as it basically says “I’m not writing an entry.” Now that I’m at work and all.
That’s right. At work. Real office. Doing, in fact, business. Which I said I’d never do. I also said I’d set out an internet café budget so that I’d be able to update frequently and e-mail frequently. Look how well that turned out. The thing is, it turns out to be quite difficult to set up an internet café budget (though Carrie, always more capable than me, seems to have managed it) when everything you own is actually earmarked for the rent budget. Including your shoes, mobile phone, and stainless steel, state-of-the-art tweezers, if necessary.
Yes, rent here is expensive. Very expensive. We’re going to have to stretch to have anything left over, but we’ll manage, after all. And the good thing is that this flat we have is really very nice.
Goodness, so much news! This is what happens when I don’t update. Yeah, so. First few days in the hostel were enough to convince us that we needed to get an apartment soon. As soon as humanly possible. Even if said apartment consisted of two boxes and a trash bag situated in a lovely, gated, mildew community.
Not, that is, that the hostel itself was so bad. Really, it wasn’t. They give you rice krispies for breakfast, and as many slices of bread as you want, and the beds, Carrie proclaimed, were the most comfortable she’d ever slept on in her life. (Why this is I don’t know. These weren’t as-seen-on-tv fancy mattresses or anything. Just metal bunk-beds with little mattress pads. But Carrie loved them.) It was more the living-out-of suitcases and being unable to have a telephone number or address. And the FIG-factor.
FIG stands for Freaky Italian Guy, of which there was one in our room. Very. Freaky. All we knew about him was that he was Italian. And that his preferred garments, in which he spent a large amount of time while walking about the room, were: a) a towel. Around his waist. The towel the hostel gives you. I.e., more like a large washcloth. And b) this pair of very, very tight, see-through, sparkly brown undershorts. More like hot-pants, really, than underwear. This in itself would have been distressing enough, though I probably could have chalked it up to Mediterranean uninhibitedness. But there were . . .other issues. Issues of . . .um . . . self-gratification. Yeah. I think I’ve said enough. Like I said. Very high FIG-factor at this hostel. Especially the F part of FIG.
So you see that we were seriously in the market for a place to live. With that in mind, we looked at everywhere we could. And discovered that in this city a) no actual british people live in central London b) £80 per week ($130 or so) buys you something along the lines of a triple-bed closet with shared mildew facilities c) we still wanted the closet. And the mildew looked really useable.
But still, we held out a little. That is, for six days after getting there. By which time we jumped at the first place with a floor and ceiling.
No, that’s not true. Actually, we looked at a number of places, and finally settled on our lovely Willesden Green pad. Look how cosmopolitan. I called it a pad. Actually, that wasn’t cosmopolitan. That was dumb.
But it’s not a dumb flat. It’s a really really pretty flat, if more expensive than several we looked at. It’s about a 50 minute tube ride away from my work, but the ride doesn’t seem long. The getting up at 6:30 a.m. is hard for me. (I know, I know, children are starving in China. And getting up at 2:30 in the morning. In fact, children in China don’t even get sleep. Sleep is rationed there. Only one sleep per six months.) But the ride is fine. And it really is a lovely flat. It’s a studio loft. Translation: one room with kitchenette and bathroom, top floor. But it’s beautiful. Skylight, and it’s really bright and airy (aside from the kitchen, which for some reason, probably a dead body behind the stove that we’ll discover in shock in horror one night, smells), beautiful wood flooring, nice, modern, matching wood furniture. Really very nice. And the rent isn’t too, too bad, I guess. Everything here is expensive.
We are pretty convinced that our landlords are in on a global conspiracy of some sort, though. That or a drug ring. They appear to have no office, instead collecting rent in one of their empty properties and doing deals in their fleet of unmarked green jeeps, circling Willesden Green and the borough of Brent like a school of dogdy green sharks.
Or at least, they must have an office, but they won’t tell us where it is when we call. Instead they give us vague generalizations and tell us to meet them behind the Sommerfield with a bag of unmarked bills. They also have some sort of incredibly weird electricity system in which you have to take a power key to a specific store and charge it up and put it in your meter, rather than paying a normal way. We’ve already messed up and run out of electricity once.
But the one who sold us our place is nice enough. His name is Newton. And I think as long as we don’t break the rules, we won’t get on their bad side. And be subjected to the tender mercies of Master Fish.
Master Fish is the unseen controller of the whole little operation. Most likely. You see, Master Fish must be behind everything that’s behind-the-scenes in Willesden Green. That restaurant down the street from us called Master Fish is obviously just a front for the real Master Fish, who is a global crime lord. With a name like Master Fish, that’s what the truth has to be. Also, the trash cans outside the restaurant say not Master Fish, but Mr. Fish, an obvious sign that there’s something fishy, so to speak, going on here.
Sorry.
So, yeah. We have an apartment, I have a job (the people are all really nice, and I have real work, which is nice), and I’ve had a date. That’s right. With a guy who asked me out at the tube station. Yeah, it’s weird. Don’t think I really like it. His name is Shane, he was born in St. Lucia (did I seem like a horrible colonist by saying “Oh, that’s where Derek Walcott is from, right?), and there’s nothing wrong with him at all. Besides the fact, of course, that he weirdly strikes up conversations with girls he meets at the tube station and asks them out. I mean, despite the whole tube thing, he’s not a homeless person. Or a psycho, as far as I can tell. He seems pretty normal. Works as the IT director at Chelsea Hospital. Parents live in New York. Has a masters in business operations or something.
But still. I don’t think I’m really cut out for dating. I mean, you just sit there and talk about things that aren’t very interesting with someone you don’t know, presumably hoping that somewhere along the line this will lead to sex. That is, unless you decide that you’d rather it didn’t, in which case you say “Sorry, I’m busy Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,” and that’s that.
I don’t think the whole process is very conducive to my operational style. (Look! I sound like a business writer!) He’ll probably call me again (seemed to take it for granted I was going out with him again). I’m not sure what I’ll say. I mean, I’m not really interested in any boyfriends right now. Nope. Either propose joining my polyamorous family or leave me alone. Nothing in between. No, not really. But it kind of seems that way.
I came to work extra-early today so as to miss him at the Tube. I may have to start doing that all the time. But oh well.
Man, there’s something wrong with me, isn’t there. But I just don’t know that I’m cut out for . . .all this . . .you know? No. I’ll just focus on uncovering the secret, deadly operation of Master Fish. I’d better keep my deboning knife to hand. You never know what can happen when you’re dealing with slippery characters like that
Here I am! At last. I can finally replace what is really not a very exciting entry, being as it basically says “I’m not writing an entry.” Now that I’m at work and all.
That’s right. At work. Real office. Doing, in fact, business. Which I said I’d never do. I also said I’d set out an internet café budget so that I’d be able to update frequently and e-mail frequently. Look how well that turned out. The thing is, it turns out to be quite difficult to set up an internet café budget (though Carrie, always more capable than me, seems to have managed it) when everything you own is actually earmarked for the rent budget. Including your shoes, mobile phone, and stainless steel, state-of-the-art tweezers, if necessary.
Yes, rent here is expensive. Very expensive. We’re going to have to stretch to have anything left over, but we’ll manage, after all. And the good thing is that this flat we have is really very nice.
Goodness, so much news! This is what happens when I don’t update. Yeah, so. First few days in the hostel were enough to convince us that we needed to get an apartment soon. As soon as humanly possible. Even if said apartment consisted of two boxes and a trash bag situated in a lovely, gated, mildew community.
Not, that is, that the hostel itself was so bad. Really, it wasn’t. They give you rice krispies for breakfast, and as many slices of bread as you want, and the beds, Carrie proclaimed, were the most comfortable she’d ever slept on in her life. (Why this is I don’t know. These weren’t as-seen-on-tv fancy mattresses or anything. Just metal bunk-beds with little mattress pads. But Carrie loved them.) It was more the living-out-of suitcases and being unable to have a telephone number or address. And the FIG-factor.
FIG stands for Freaky Italian Guy, of which there was one in our room. Very. Freaky. All we knew about him was that he was Italian. And that his preferred garments, in which he spent a large amount of time while walking about the room, were: a) a towel. Around his waist. The towel the hostel gives you. I.e., more like a large washcloth. And b) this pair of very, very tight, see-through, sparkly brown undershorts. More like hot-pants, really, than underwear. This in itself would have been distressing enough, though I probably could have chalked it up to Mediterranean uninhibitedness. But there were . . .other issues. Issues of . . .um . . . self-gratification. Yeah. I think I’ve said enough. Like I said. Very high FIG-factor at this hostel. Especially the F part of FIG.
So you see that we were seriously in the market for a place to live. With that in mind, we looked at everywhere we could. And discovered that in this city a) no actual british people live in central London b) £80 per week ($130 or so) buys you something along the lines of a triple-bed closet with shared mildew facilities c) we still wanted the closet. And the mildew looked really useable.
But still, we held out a little. That is, for six days after getting there. By which time we jumped at the first place with a floor and ceiling.
No, that’s not true. Actually, we looked at a number of places, and finally settled on our lovely Willesden Green pad. Look how cosmopolitan. I called it a pad. Actually, that wasn’t cosmopolitan. That was dumb.
But it’s not a dumb flat. It’s a really really pretty flat, if more expensive than several we looked at. It’s about a 50 minute tube ride away from my work, but the ride doesn’t seem long. The getting up at 6:30 a.m. is hard for me. (I know, I know, children are starving in China. And getting up at 2:30 in the morning. In fact, children in China don’t even get sleep. Sleep is rationed there. Only one sleep per six months.) But the ride is fine. And it really is a lovely flat. It’s a studio loft. Translation: one room with kitchenette and bathroom, top floor. But it’s beautiful. Skylight, and it’s really bright and airy (aside from the kitchen, which for some reason, probably a dead body behind the stove that we’ll discover in shock in horror one night, smells), beautiful wood flooring, nice, modern, matching wood furniture. Really very nice. And the rent isn’t too, too bad, I guess. Everything here is expensive.
We are pretty convinced that our landlords are in on a global conspiracy of some sort, though. That or a drug ring. They appear to have no office, instead collecting rent in one of their empty properties and doing deals in their fleet of unmarked green jeeps, circling Willesden Green and the borough of Brent like a school of dogdy green sharks.
Or at least, they must have an office, but they won’t tell us where it is when we call. Instead they give us vague generalizations and tell us to meet them behind the Sommerfield with a bag of unmarked bills. They also have some sort of incredibly weird electricity system in which you have to take a power key to a specific store and charge it up and put it in your meter, rather than paying a normal way. We’ve already messed up and run out of electricity once.
But the one who sold us our place is nice enough. His name is Newton. And I think as long as we don’t break the rules, we won’t get on their bad side. And be subjected to the tender mercies of Master Fish.
Master Fish is the unseen controller of the whole little operation. Most likely. You see, Master Fish must be behind everything that’s behind-the-scenes in Willesden Green. That restaurant down the street from us called Master Fish is obviously just a front for the real Master Fish, who is a global crime lord. With a name like Master Fish, that’s what the truth has to be. Also, the trash cans outside the restaurant say not Master Fish, but Mr. Fish, an obvious sign that there’s something fishy, so to speak, going on here.
Sorry.
So, yeah. We have an apartment, I have a job (the people are all really nice, and I have real work, which is nice), and I’ve had a date. That’s right. With a guy who asked me out at the tube station. Yeah, it’s weird. Don’t think I really like it. His name is Shane, he was born in St. Lucia (did I seem like a horrible colonist by saying “Oh, that’s where Derek Walcott is from, right?), and there’s nothing wrong with him at all. Besides the fact, of course, that he weirdly strikes up conversations with girls he meets at the tube station and asks them out. I mean, despite the whole tube thing, he’s not a homeless person. Or a psycho, as far as I can tell. He seems pretty normal. Works as the IT director at Chelsea Hospital. Parents live in New York. Has a masters in business operations or something.
But still. I don’t think I’m really cut out for dating. I mean, you just sit there and talk about things that aren’t very interesting with someone you don’t know, presumably hoping that somewhere along the line this will lead to sex. That is, unless you decide that you’d rather it didn’t, in which case you say “Sorry, I’m busy Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,” and that’s that.
I don’t think the whole process is very conducive to my operational style. (Look! I sound like a business writer!) He’ll probably call me again (seemed to take it for granted I was going out with him again). I’m not sure what I’ll say. I mean, I’m not really interested in any boyfriends right now. Nope. Either propose joining my polyamorous family or leave me alone. Nothing in between. No, not really. But it kind of seems that way.
I came to work extra-early today so as to miss him at the Tube. I may have to start doing that all the time. But oh well.
Man, there’s something wrong with me, isn’t there. But I just don’t know that I’m cut out for . . .all this . . .you know? No. I’ll just focus on uncovering the secret, deadly operation of Master Fish. I’d better keep my deboning knife to hand. You never know what can happen when you’re dealing with slippery characters like that
Labels: being dumb, England, quotidian, space
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