London, Day 1 -- The Astor Victoria

Some people collect snow globes, some stamps, and some shot glasses. My grandmother collects those little engraved spoons. I don’t know why.

I collect places.

I collect significant places – places I call “home,” even if only for a short while. My newest place is the Astor Victoria Hostel in London. 71 Belgrave. Room 12. Home.

I’d never stayed in a hostel before this one, and kind of like the first doll I ever had or the first boy I ever kissed, I find it strangely irreplaceable.



When S and I arrived, we were struck by how gorgeous the neighborhood was – a long strip of soaring, white columned buildings, mostly hotels and obviously frequented by tourists. Our hostel – number 71 – had a bright red door, a well-polished gold address plaque, and a printout of Fidel Castro on the door declaring “I stay at the Astor Victoria every time I come to London!” We schlepped our luggage up six narrow flights of stairs to get to our third-floor room and claimed the two empty beds opposite the window.

Of course, it is never the place itself that makes a home. Homes are made up of the people we encounter there, the connections we make with each other, the moments that color a place in our memory. We spent that first afternoon in London exploring the nearby parks and shops and returned home in the evening to meet our roommates, a motley crew of global nomads.

First we met the Frenchman, Victor, a dark, curly-headed fellow who spoke little English and went about with a generally haunted air. He probably would have been handsome if he hadn’t given such a strong impression of a startled rabbit. He blushed and twitched awkwardly at our frequent outbursts of laughter, though they were never at his expense. Attempts to stifle the giggles or explain the jokes only exacerbated his discomfort. He quickly gave up, went out, got drunk, and stumbled back in long after the rest of us had gone to bed. The drink must have helped him feel more comfortable around us; when we woke the next morning, he was stretched out on his bed naked as he came from the womb.

Apart from S and I, another American girl – Lauren – was in our room the first night. She was freshly out of college and had been traveling for three months with a few friends. Her body was going home in two days, but her brain had already shipped out. She sat vacantly on her bed while the rest of us got acquainted. She introduced herself but then barely said a word, evidently uninterested in meeting anyone new or having anything like fun. She must have been exhausted.



Anna had the lower bunk by the window, and she was at the beginning of her adventure, traveling abroad alone for the first time. She had no real plan – just a few vague ideas of places she wanted to go, people she wanted to see. When I first started chatting with her, she talked entirely too fast, giggled too much, and was so clearly in over her head that I thought I might drown just sitting next to her. I know the feeling of diving headfirst into the unknown, so I felt for Anna, but I knew too that once she started meeting people, she’d settle in. Over the course of the week, she got her feet on the ground and her head on straight, and by the time we parted ways, she at least gave the impression of being travel-savvy, even if she still had a lot to learn.

Above Anna was David, an Aussie surfer on a working holiday. Like Anna, he was on his own and anxious to meet people and have adventures, though considerably calmer and more confident than she. He was the sort of person who has obviously grown up in the sun – like guys from Florida or Southern California – the perfect roast marshmallow golden brown with sun-bleached blonde curls. And he smelled like sun-burnt skin and salt water and Linx, as all good Australian men should. That first night, he split his gut laughing when S asked him if meat pies really had meat in them. He then tried to convince her that as a child, he had jumped on the backs of wild kangaroos and ridden them to school. She finally realized he was joking when he said you can steer them with the ears and I couldn’t keep a straight face. We call this “cultural exchange”.

Reentering Society

finally, after months of being under the weather, am feeling like myself again.

mono's a killer -- not in a life-threatening way, but in the headlines reading "beloved young teacher tragically erased from existence" way. indeed, i wondered many times as i lay on my couch watching old "office" episodes how long it would take someone to find me if i did suddenly kick the proverbial bucket. *knock on wood*



fortunately, we'll have to conduct that experiment another time because i'm back up on my feet now. not exactly running my regular rat race of a lifestyle, but i'm at least out of the house every day. at my doctor's suggestion, i'm "easing" myself back into work by cutting my hours down to half-time for a bit. it's not ideal, but there are certainly some benefits, including the following:

1) instead of chasing after a substitute teacher, trying to plan lessons for her, and trying to grade papers based on what i think she's been doing, i've just turned total control of my morning classes over to somebody else. this drops my stress level in a way that no other chemical-free solution can.

2) i get to throw all my energy (which isn't much, but getting better every day) into my afternoon kids, who are loving the extra attention. my first class of the day has only fifteen students, thirteen of them girls. this is approximately half as many kids as a normal class, which raises the quality of discussions and activities through the roof and allows us to move at whatever pace suits us that day. brilliant!

3) i get a lot of sleep. a lot. typically about ten hours a night. i think the last time my schedule allowed this, i was sleeping ten hours a night in those one-piece jammies with the feet. this is exactly what my body needs; i feel better every day.



but that's just work.

the other parts of my life (ya know, the important and interesting bits) are starting to normalize too. i actually went out with a bunch of friends last night, to many merry cheers of "G! YOU'RE HERE!" every time someone else arrived. turns out i've been knocked out of the game so long, my friends now have a regular spot in this new pub that i hadn't even been to yet! they know all the bartenders and everything! yeesh! of course, i'm not allowed to have anything to drink because of the meds i'm on, but at least i was there!
got to exchange monotales with big'n'tall and hear about his latest brush with death (i'll spare you details, but it involves a chainsaw and a major artery). most of the other people there were casual acquaintances whom i started spending more time with once liz abandoned me to marry some guy and bizarro moved to iowa to pursue her acting career (really).



i'm sure i'll be talking about them more in future, so i might as well introduce you.

first, there's fay. fay's awesome. she teaches elementary school, so we have a lot of teacher-bonding moments. fay's also one of those low-key, confident people who's supremely easy to be around. she doesn't bowl anybody over or dominate the limelight, but she has a way of being in the center of things without ever pushing or interrupting. i wish i could be more like her. she also has one of those on-again-off-again relationships that i don't even ask about anymore because i gave up keeping track.

her on-again-off-again guy is tom, who is generally quiet but always has one of those wry half-smiles on his face. clever, generous, all-around solid guy. the only weird thing about tom is that he hunts every day of bow season. every day. religiously. i don't know anyone else who does that and i think it borders on a compulsion.

every group of friends has that one guy who sits there quietly watching all evening and then with a totally straight face says the driest, funniest thing you've ever heard in your life. by some gift of fate, our guy is actually a pair of twins. they play off each other brilliantly -- never have i met two people who have their act down so flawlessly. they run a little advertising company and are currently working on a campaign for a gay rodeo. what else can i say?

then there's watz. watz is this crazy, ginger-headed guy who works at a bank, which seems totally out of character to me. i can only assume that the intense energy and noise radiating out of him in the evening are just a reaction to being pent up in a necktie all day. last night, while sipping on a gummy bear martini, watz solemnly declared that he has given up on women. he meant this to be surprising, but it was met with some relief from the ladies present, as we've all given up on him.

there's also another girl -- we'll call her bekah. i never have any idea what she's thinking. ever. this is very unusual for me and somewhat disconcerting. for now, i'll leave it at that and i just won't play poker with her.

Shifting, Still

So MJ moved to LA.

I knew this was going to happen eventually. He hates *small town*... Actually, to be fair, I'm sure he hates all small towns. There just isn't enough action here. But he told me like it was supposed to be a surprise, like he was dropping a real bomb. I think he even started with your classic "We have to talk" or "I have to tell you something" or some other line like that.

"I'm moving to LA."

"O yeah? When?"

"In two weeks."

"That'll be awesome. Good change for you. Cool."

I think I hurt his feelings. He said something about how all his "other girlfriends" were mad at him because he was leaving them behind.

I'm sorry, MJ -- I didn't mean that I wouldn't miss you. I certainly prefer you to any other guy I've dated, and in this tiny town where good friends are few and far between, you are one of my absolute favorites. But you are truly miserable here. You need to go somewhere more exciting. Half of our friendship is spent on the telephone anyway, and you can still call me for free, so no worries.

Mazda Concept at the 2007 NAIAS, where MJ taught me everything I know about cars (still next to nothing, but it was a valiant effort).

In other news, Bizarro is moving to Iowa. This is a blow. A deep one. And I did tell her not to go because I would miss her too much. There were tears. This may mean I am a better girlfriend to Bizarro than I was to MJ. Oops. :(

Anyway, for our last big blow-out weekend, Bizarro and I went to my alma mater and saw a play starring my former biology lab partner, who remains the only musical theater major I've ever known who has actually been acting consistently in the four years since graduation. Of course, the best part of the evening for me was regaling our whole party over dinner with tales of our scientific endeavors, especially the time that we went on opposite diets -- me, vegetarian; him, all meat -- then came to the lab after two weeks and compared our piss. I won't bore you with the details, but inquiring minds can email me if you really want to know.

I cross-bred fruit flies with this guy and now he's soakin' up the limelight. I'm so proud.

But Bizarro is leaving Sunday and I'm kind of glad that I'll already be gone on vacation and won't be here for a big dramatic good-bye. I'll be in Sacramento at S's, thinking happy thoughts about reunion and not about more transience, more uncertainty, more people shifting in and out of my kaleidoscope life.

And I'll be there with KC, the Batmanesque hero who rescued me when I was stranded at Bill's auto shop. So that can't be all bad.