leggy blonde goodbye

hey england.

it's been real. i know we had our fights, and i spent a lot of time cheating on you (in thought, not in deed) with america. but you have to understand, that's a 20-year relationship - i can't just let it go, even for a minor fling with you. of course, we had good times too. i met some amazing people through you, who i hope to stay in contact with for the rest of my life. and i'll see you again, i'm sure, but really, there's no future for you and me. we're just not that compatible. you see...i miss produce. i miss berkeley and rockridge. i miss san francisco at night. i miss the possibilities i see everywhere when i'm home. i miss my dogs and my family and my house. i miss the smell of BART and the taste of village market skirt steak and the feel of warm chaise underneath me and the sound of the pond and the view of the golden gate. i miss the weird bits of americana even neil gaiman - a brit - can appreciate when he looks at my country. it's time to go. and even though i'm longing to be home again, i did have a good, productive, once-in-a-life time here. i would do it again. but not anytime soon.

faithfully america's,

daisy

beginning of the end

my mom is here, and we saw the SatC movie tonight. pretty good, for a chick flick. there were seriously like 30 minutes of commercials (not even previews!) before the movie, too. we grabbed some dinner afterwards.

tomorrow, plans involve wandering around oxford and going into shops that i had no interest (read: money) going into before. i also think i'm going to pick up my presents for my sweet kenyon kids tomorrow.

the weather has been less than ideal the last few days, doesn't it always seem to rain when you're leaving someplace?

last dance

i think last night was the last time i'll go to a club in oxford. it just couldn't be any better. the music was awesome, the dj was AMAZING (one of them, anyway), i danced for about four hours. straight. the only downside is i lost my british cell. of course this happened because earlier in the night while talking about iphone paranoia with jon, i told him 'i wouldn't worry about it, i'm usually so paranoid about losing my phone that i never have.' WOOPS.

moving backwards in time, i had a straight up lovely final dinner with dara, jon, and brady, we dropped some hilarious embarrassing secrets on each other, and somehow even got free limoncello thrown into the deal.

we proceeded to a few pubs before going to the club, and it was awesome to see everyone out.

mom gets in to oxford today, so i'm super excited to see her and catch up.

Wellllllll,

the club fell through, but I went to a pretty funny comedy show, and yesterday turned in my Joyce paper. I have my final tutorial tomorrow, on Simon Armitage. Here's his poem "Kid":

Kid

Batman, big shot, when you gave the order
to grow up, then let me loose to wander
leeward, freely through the wild blue yonder
as you liked to say, or ditched me, rather,
in the gutter ... well, I turned the corner.
Now I've scotched that 'he was like a father
to me' rumour, sacked it, blown the cover
on that 'he was like an elder brother'
story, let the cat out on that caper
with the married woman, how you took her
downtown on expenses in the motor.
Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker!
Holy roll-me-over-in the-clover,
I'm not playing ball boy any longer
Batman, now I've doffed that off-the-shoulder
Sherwood-Forest-green and scarlet number
for a pair of jeans and crew-neck jumper;
now I'm taller, harder, stronger, older.
Batman, it makes a marvellous picture:
you without a shadow, stewing over
chicken giblets in the pressure cooker,
next to nothing in the walk-in larder,
punching the palm of your hand all winter,
you baby, now I'm the real boy wonder.

Here's my Armitage-y poem, my last assignment at Oxford.

Note: Mom, don't be offended at this.

Family Vacation (after Simon Armitage)

At the bed and breakfast, I expected to be disappointed
And I wasn’t disappointed by my expectation.
This was clearly an old person’s hotel, full of dust.
I found a racist book called “Chocolate Charlie” in my nightstand.

Because there was nothing to do, I was forced to play
Hours of chess with my younger brother in the mote-filled lobby.
They actually served tea and scones in the afternoon.
My mom told me “you don’t need them, Daisy”
As usual, using my name like punctuation instead of a name.

There was a golf course-cum-trailer park in the town
Which was famous for the amount of pot its inhabitants smoked.
There was a racist pinball game in the golf store.
Because there was nothing to do, we were forced to explore riverbanks
By the side of the road, and seaside restaurants perched on cliffs.

We found those roadside attractions, but we didn’t go in.
We found a giant fallen tree, and walked it like unskilled tightrope walkers.
We found drunk driver being arrested outside the hotel one night.
We found the giant trestle bridge a dozen acres from the hotel’s garden.
We found one of the best pizza places we’d ever been to, and ate there twice.

The vacation only reinforced the thought in my mind
That somehow, my misery is transformed by time elapsed into beauty.
Because there was nothing to do, we were forced to be creative
And though I’m sure I couldn’t stop complaining at the time
I look back and am surprised, because who would want to go back there?




Family: what was the name of this town again? I totally forget.

Another great day.

So yesterday woke up not expecting big things. And I was right, but there were fun things. We had the (first?) annual St. Catz Summer Fête, basically a mini-summer sendoff, complete with carnival games, genuinely impressive magicianry, hookah (my poor lungs), and homemade (alcoholic) cider. It was an unbelievably gorgeous day, and I had a really good time wandering from "mesopotamia" (the field where the fête was was between two rivers) to the tennis courts to watch some friends play. I went to a greasy Chinese restaurant for dinner with most of my friends here, then out to ice cream, which was absolutely perfect. I headed back to my room, and ended up watching the British cult classic "Withnail and I," which was awesome. We rounded out the evening with a few episodes of Clone High, and then passed out.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I just edited my James Joyce paper, I'm going to return all my books today, take out the last one I need (to do my final piece of work here; a poem), go into town to top up my phone (maybe with my piles of change that I need to get rid of), grab a few groceries, etc. Tonight I'm going into London to one of the best clubs in the world, called The End, and stagger back to Oxford in the wee hours.