webcowgirl | Entries tagged with i love it here!

Oh dear. The last two night I've been rather irresponsible.

Last night: three hour long dinner (with 5 people total). Two bottles of wine. Home 11:20.

Tonight: hysterical Forbidden Broadway at the Menier (with the Westend Whingers, who were namechecked on stage, during a song. Oh, the envy). This was followed by more white wine, poured by a lovely gentleman who was regaling me with tales of singing "I Feel Pretty" with a men's chorus in Norway. Time flew. Home at 11:15.

Ah, summer. These long days just encourage staying out too late and the heat leads to grabbing whatever beverage is at hand - too frequently something with alcohol in it.

I am, however, having rather a good time. Hope the rest of the week goes as well as these last two days have!

Current Location: londinium
Current Music: Hot town, summer

Well, at some point this summer I started going to Streatham rather more than occasionally to do water aerobics with

spikeylady. I did this because 1) I wanted to get her out of the house 2) it's fun 3) it means we get to hang out all evening.

Three months later and hey, look, #3 is still a massive motivator for me. I've ditched my gym membership in favor of a new exercise routine I think will do more to help me reduce stress than my current one. Basically, one night of aqua, two lunches of Pilates, and, bang, a much happier me. I mean, the whole goal of the gym thing was to reduce my blood pressure, right?

So in keeping with that I was off to Streatham for a long overdue visit with Miss

spikeylady. We had piles and piles of visiting to catch up with (conclusion: October was generally crap for me; there's hope that it may improve; her new job is ace). Sadly, the aqua start time had changed again, but in retrospect we were both relieved to be saved the extra 15 minutes of workout time. When we returned,

ciphergoth was mixing up a pasta bake, and we flopped on the couch and snuggled up with some of the wine left over from Saturday's party. Shortly after

lilithmagna showed up, and the pasta was done, and we got into the conversation! Obama, America, the Supreme Court, absentee voting, the NHS and the US medical system, Andrew Jackson, "what America stands for," how do Americans think, can the Republicans steal the election, Alexis de Toqueville, "Shining City on the Hill," JFK, was Bush the worst American president ever, transexuality,

ciphergoth's star turn on DailyKos, EVERYTHING. Everything everything everything. It was great.

I, I, I felt like my own person. I felt like I was talking at a high level of intelligence about things I really cared about, about everything, like my whole life had been a preparation for having conversations like that. It was so great! And there was warm food and wine and I felt like I was home. It was great. I can't wait to go swimming again next Monday.

So ... I headed out of work to go to the bar I randomly got fixated on today. I had planned on not doing anything tonight, but then J got done early, so I thought, hey, why not meet him at the pub ...

and he shows up with an entire pack of people we knew in Seattle! Leader of the pack was Theo, my old partner in arms from the Early Music Guild - over the three years I was on the board there, we had a lot of talks about stuff, and I really enjoyed the fact that despite him being incredibly more educated than I was on all things musical, he still treated me as a valued co-conspirator. He was on the last day of his month long trip to Europe with his family (one of them being

deliriousminuet, a classics student at U Penn), who were (gasp) just coming out of the Russell Square tube stop as J walked by. So he brought them with, and his text saying, "Boy, do I have a suprise for you" was very right.

And then

steer and

rosamicula showed up, as

steer had seen my post!

And by golly we were there for two and a half hours. God, it was fun to catch up.

When we split up, we headed to Yoisho and then stayed THERE for another two hours or so. We were chatty.

In short, though I spent more tonight than I was intending to, it was ace. I love living here.

I spent the whole night at

robot_mel's drinking and talking about BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS. I realized at some point that 1) it hadn't fazed me Bill was reading Sader Masoch in German 2) people don't normally ask me if I'm reading Proust in French (but my answer, "No, because I want to finish it in this lifetime" seemed to suffice) 3) maybe I'm in some freaking culturally elite group but I DIDN'T HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR IT but somehow the fact that "reading in the original language" came up just didn't seem like a surprise though I've never met anyone who reads in that many languages. Not that I apologize for my occasional dip into good books anyway but it was all just great! BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS! Why Gatsby is or isn't any good, is Steinbeck annoying and if so why isn't Kerouac, is fandom about 19th century literature just too sad for words or do we have some hot tips to share ;-) , what does it mean to be an "American" novel, funny stories about singing on the tube, how to tease a cat that likes to eat peas, how to get your maximum caloric intake from a vending machine when you have 50 cents, college jobs we held that didn't cut the mustard, favorite divy restaurants in Seattle, what an average bar tab at the Mercury looked like for each of us, why Dai Yu was burying flower petals and is Dream of the Red Chamber essentially a Chinese Gothic novel; and so on.

I feel alive and happy. This is exactly why I moved here. Too funny we had dinner with people we could have met in Seattle - but never did!

We had a great evening tonight. First,

shadowdaddy and I went to the NFT to see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with

interior_lulu. While in years past I might have hated this movie for being overbearing and overacted, nowadays I found it witty and funny and a complete blast. I really think I need a black, haltertop, backless pantsuit like Jane Russell was wearing during the "men in flesh colored swimsuit" routine - I basically wanted to run into the film and steal every outfit they had on in every scene. It was FAB, darling.

Afterwards we had a good appetite going and we drug Miss I with us to Snazz Szechuan for some killer food. As her lips burned and tingled, she admitted that yes, it was delicious, and yes, you could taste all of the different flavors through the peppy hot spices. We wiped out two of the four plates of food but slowed down midway through the "fragrant spicy beef slices" and then just sat around smacking our lips and going yum yum. God, it was great, and it was wonderful to go there with someone who could really appreciate it.

Anyway, great night, great food, great company, great movie. I did this day right, and it does feel DONE.

Tonight I went to this event called "Hide and Seek: the Sandpit" held at Shunt Lounge.

Wow. The space. All of these bricked arches high overhead. A bit musty. All of these bizarre set pieces tucked in here and there. A 50's game hall. A Turkish den. A house, in the distance.

Where I was going, there was piles of people playing games. A lot of them were the standard Fluxx/Chez Geek/Werewolf, but there were also games being trialled. I tried "Gossip," a version of werewolf in which you try to discover the dirty secret and down-low lover of your hated rival. I was the Cobbler, I hated the carpenter, I was dating the Actress and I .... was a flasher. Or so it said on my card. The actress and I secretly exchanged yellow roses at some point. It was fun but all took a little long. That said, the space was exquisite and I would like to make it my little private get together place, permanently.

Earlier in the evening I met

babysimon in "Hoxton" and had dinner at Shish. This was supposed to be the "catch up with Simon and listen to what he's been up to" session but somehow I wound up talking rather a lot. It's been a long ten weeks and I've been a bit holed up over here in my flat, what with Christmas and the cold and the houseguest and all, and actually I had some stuff I've been sitting on, mentally. It was good to unload and while I'd feel like a bad friend for not listening more, it was probably a pretty equal exchange, so that's just what being friends is, isn't it?

Unfortunately at some point this evening (I suspect in the bar) I lost my lovely red and black paisley 100% acrylic pashmina. Oh pashmina of colors rare, when will I ever see your like again? And with that, it's time to donate some money to Obama and go to bed.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in to get me a membership to the Donmar. I've now succeeded in getting tickets to the Ewan Macgregor Othello! I am excited! You guys rock!

Also: damn, I've got a lot of Shakespeare coming up in the next six months!

PS: Pilates at the downtown YMCA ROCKED!

Just look how sunny and nice it is outside. The sun is still really low, so the shadows off of the rocks on the river banks are really long, but, by God, that is sunlight shining through the arches of the bridge and sunlight highlighting the branches of the poor naked tree near my window and sunlight hitting the tower of All Saint's church (no crazy priest walking beneath to be killed by a weathervane, alas).

I am so walking to work today. Only two more days and I will be on vacation!