i refuse to title this with such a buzzword

I had planned to write about my trip to Paris.

24 hoursish (27 to be precise) filled with lots of adventures — spending almost as much time lost as not lost, random French men trying to get me date thier sons (ok, that only actually happened once), and of course the sightseeing and eating – neither of which are to be scoffed at. I had brilliant revelations and semi-spiritual experiences written in down in my rusty-red journal, ready to be polished and posted. But frankly, I’ve been uninspired. My mind has been stuck on something else.

Terrorism.

It’s never something I gave much thought to. Other than after September 11th 2001 of course, when we all watched the towers come down over and over. when we all wore our red-white-and-blue ribbon pins over our hearts and raised money for some related organization and had moments of silence. but even then, it was a tragedy that had occured far from home. It struck our nation, but it was surprisingly easy to put the worry out of our minds living in Farmington Hills, Michigan. What danger were we in there? Any terrorist wanting to blow up the Civic Theater or Twelve Oaks Mall would probably be so moronic they woundn’t even be able to pull off a successful attack. Then I left for college at Albion, and somehow, my risk of encountering terrorism decreased even further. Granted, we have muggings occasionally, and terrible racial and socio-economic division issues that are disasters waiting to happen, but no one is crashing any flaming Jeeps into the side of the Kellogg Center screaming ‘Allah Allah.’

Not like today in Glasgow. Not like there would have been last night in Piccadilly.

Lately, I read the book “The Good Life”, which was about two well-to-do New York City families after 9-11. As I read, I realized how far seperated I had really been from those attacks. I had a cousin who had some friends who had parents who worked there. But in reading this book, I began to glimpse what it might have been like to watch this evil strike your backyard. To live in a cloud of smoke and chaos. To live never know if terrorism lurked right around the corner. Never knowing if this minute would be your last.

Now, before I go any further, I feel it imparative to seperate myself from this connection I’ve been building. A disclaimer, if you will. First, I can not even pretend to know what is was like on 9/11 or 9/12 or whenever in NYC. I’m not trying to. Second, the terrorist attacks thus far in London have been thwarted. Which puts me in a different postion all together.

But. The nightclub, Tiger Tiger, infront of which all this took place is in the heart of a place where I go out frequently. My roomates went to that exact club last weekend. The locations of both of those failed Mercedes car bombs are not even a mile from where I will be working starting on Monday. And starting Monday, I’ll be joining the morning and evening tube commutes on two of the biggest tube lines in the city. Right before the anniversary of last year’s bombings. And while it’s not like I’m checking my closet and my refrigerator for men with explosives, I can’t help but feel (at the very least) struck by the closeness of something which, to me, has never really felt like much more than a sad but distant event. or a big machine at the airport that puffs air at you while someone else checks to make sure all of your liquids fit inside a one quart ziplock bag.

In typical British fashion, the new prime minister has urged everyone to go about their business, if you will. It’s a mantra, clearly, of which am am fond, but I’ve never really had to live it in these contexts. The head of home security urged citizens to go about life as usual, and so in an effort to fiegn compliance, I decided to go grocery shopping. For whatever reason, grocery shopping seems to have reccuringly profound meaning in my life, so it seemed like the perfect blend of existentialism and normality. However, a torrntial downpour stopped me (and the rest of Lodon it seems…the streets were like a ghost town), and I was stuck sitting inside, wondering what normal people do during their normal lives. I decided to paint my nails, pour a bowl of cereal, check my email and write in my blog. when my nails have dried sufficiently, I’ll probably turn on the Garden State soundtrack and clean my room. The very essence of normality.

Tomorrow I’ll go grocery shopping. and Monday I’ll get on the tube and go to work. I’m taking my own advice. Why?
I’m a Brit now. And what do Brits do?

They go about their business.

“If we are alive, let us go about our business…” -Thoreau

yours.Rachel

zebra print goes with everything, right?

Today, while I should have been studying for my final tomorrow, I went shopping.

I needed to get a bag to take to Paris with me, and on route I discovered Zara having an enormous sale! I got a cheap bag and new sunglasses (to replace the other 2! pairs that I broke!) I bought a fabulous pair of skinny black pants (almost a satin material, they’re a great basic, and they make my ass look quite good, if I do say so myself), a very euro-trendy satin dress (‘that’ll be perfect for events I run in my internship, right?’ she says), and a FABULOUS pair of zebra-print platform pumps. Because zebra print goes with everything, right?

and now I’m blogging for god sakes. I am brilliant at this whole ’staying focused’ thing.

yours.Rachel

can a girl still make good brownies in a well-tailored suit?

Oh the duality.

In less than a week I will begin my internship, and I can’t wait! I’m incredibly excited to be working at Essence Communications – running around like crazy in a self-proclaimed high energy work hard/play hard environment. What’s more, this will be the real begining of my professional experience (Make-A-Wish aside), because from the moment I begin here, I will be continually focused on the process of setting myself up for my future dream career. At the end of this summer I will polish my resume, and as soon as I get back to campus I’ll start the process for next summer. Jack Morton, Liz Claiborne, calling Juan at BMO and the like. I want a big corporate job next summer… I want to wear a suit. Take a minute to swallow the vomit in your mouth, and continue. When I’m in a suit and stillettos I feel alive. on top of the world! This is that girl who got incredibly worked up over a stupid marketing class over the summer while she was in London. the girl who carrys a franklin covey and a resume with her everywhere. the one who is going to make it, and no one’s going to stop her.

I get so lit up sometimes when I think about it. Work/jobs/business is a game. A big and sick game that can drag you though the mud and leave you broken without a soul or a cent. A game with which I am completley infatuated. a game I want to beat.

I listen to or read myself sometimes and I almost shudder to see what I’m saying, or, rather, I feel like I’m supposed to shudder. I feel like I’m supposed to think that’s wrong or unhealthy. But frankly, I don’t care. I want what I want, and I’ll never be able to convince myself that I want something different. If that really isn’t what’s going to satisfy me, I’ll need to find it out for myself. probably by falling on my ass.

And yet…

As I walk around South Kensington and through Hyde Park, I can’t help but feel called by my maternal instincts; I watch young mothers run exuberantly after their children, rock their strollers back and forth, or pick up their screaming child from the pavement, brushing off their foreheads and scraped knees before setting them back on their scooter, undoubtedly to get them home quicker so they can disinfect and break out the band-aids. The other day, I was chatting with a girl from my flat in our kitchen – the highly-pierced punk rock scrapbooker, as it were – and she suddenly interjected “You are such a mother! It’s so sweet!” I guess even the ‘hardcore’ kids see it. I don’t even really know what “hardcore kids” are, but I guess they know mothers when they see them.

And beyond being a mother in the traditional sense, I find myself compelled to mother eveyone else in my life. People have started coming to me to have their papers edited, and I’m happy to do it. I really like working with people through their papers, helping them do something that I’m pretty good at. And even just doing the flat dishes, or taking out the trash. I actually like doing things that I think will make everyones lives a little better. And… It’s driving me crazy to be here when sometimes I want to be back in any number of places in America – advising, caring about, laughing with, baking for, and loving my best friends. When I read blogs or emails or whatever it is, I want so much to be there that I pick up the phone or the pen or the keyboard and I do everything I can. I will not stand to see my friends sad…I’ll do everything in my power to change that. I would do anything for the people I love, and that love is the only thing in the world that drives me as much (or more?) than my desire to win.

People say, why does it need to be one or the other. But that’s just it. I’ve never been good with in betweens. And the problem is that winning and loving are so often in direct opposition with one another. Have you ever tried baking brownies in a well-tailored suit? I have. and Literally, too. The problem is that it’s really hard to move around in a suit, and you can’t mix the batter as well when you’re so constricted. (I almost always use my hands to beat instead of a mixer) And, you always manage to get something on your suit. And you can’t go into a meeting with flour all over the front of you.

suddenly, I have the inescapable desire to tweeze my eyebrows.

and I guess that’s all I can do. indulge my desires to shape my destiny by shaping my eyebrows. and wait? for the redness to fade away.

Here we go…

“On the other hand, you have different fingers.” – Jack Handey

“The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

yours.Rachel

the land of dreams

with all of this talk and Facebook talk of weddings, I dreamed about a wedding. Of a friend, or maybe better called an aquaintance, I suppose? Or…whatever. That’s unimportant. ish…

anyway. I was at this wedding. In your party; I was a bridesmaid, and it was the rehearsal dinner or some sort of party in which the immediate family and the wedding party were partaking. We were having the party at this Italian place, but we were playing kiddie-games. the kind we all used to play in gym class…kickball, that sort of thing. < at which, of course, I am terrible> The groomsmen were nice enough but preppy as hell, and the bridesmaids were me and 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or some bridezilla number of hyper-blonde hawaiian-tropic-model-tan girls…I kept feeling like I was mistakenly placed in the qualifying round of the Miss Florida pageant. What was I doing here, and who were these girls? and who was their friend? And you kept looking at me, like no one else was there but us, going “I think they’re really serious about this.” Like this was a big joke you’d planned that had gone awry.

Kinda strange, right? *shrug*

I have a final in 40 minutes. I got up early to study for it. haha. That was a good joke…

yours.Rachel

it tastes better when it’s stolen.

* * * I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed in a pair of boxers I stole from a boy, eating a green apple cut in slices with peanut-butter. Like the ones we used to steal all the time from Baldwin. and it tastes almost like home. * * *

From the begining, I blocked this weekend out as my weekend to study. With 2 papers, an enormous project and presentation, and two finals on deck, it seemed like a good time to cool off and crack down… funny how things never work out the way you think they will. I spent my weekend hijacking hours from homework, and every stolen second was delicious.

Thougts? In brief… for fear of boring you as I revel in glory of the now gone weekend… * passion fruit mojitos are succulent little joys * Wake Forest Kappa Deltas are pretty cool… hey maybe there ARE a couple people here like me! * Cheesy music is premium for dancing with the girls, and there’s nothing more valuable than girls you can go out with without drama * Rain is a way of life in London * with 7 cups of tea in 4 hours, a girl can do anything * Nashville readhead sweethearts gone NY ladies are fantastic * Nutella, with ANYTHING, is fantastic * People are not always what they appear *

Hyde Park Calling was this weekend, and my redheaded Nashville to NYU friend and I braved the torrential down-pour for an incredible 8 hours of fun! Jet was great and Chris Cornell is a god – the sheer scope of that man’s musical career is astounding. I found myself singing along to almost everything he played… which, as I realized later, was somewhat amusing. during one of the songs, a couple of 30somethings turned around and asked us who had dones this song originally. “Soundgarden,” I said without missing a beat. This stuff was a part of my childhood – those angsty hard rock middle school years when I had friends buy me parental advisory cds and I adored Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit. (that’s right, while you were all crushing on teeny-bopper Lance or Justin, I had my heart set on a man with black eyes and a monkey costume…) I took a minute to laugh at myself, wondeing how many other 19-year-old midwestern sorority girls can recall Soundgarden and sing along with Alice in Chains… come to think of it… how many people reading this blog know who they are? Never the less, even my partner in crime for the day was enchanted by Mr. Cornell’s beautiful rock voice and beautiful self. We would have his babies, we decided. Then down with the umbrellas and into the pit for Aerosmith. They were, as one might imagine, amazing. Epic and showy, but talented as well. Tylers hammy-ness was incredible as he trotted around in his sequined pants and made love/messy-blow-job-faces at the camera. They were utterly ridiculous, and that’s half of what made them so fabulous. When they finished, we spent an hour getting lost and getting home; along the way we stumbled on a private drive of houses 4 times the size of my own… on Hyde Park, in London. Can you even imagine?

Today was spent recovering…finishing my advertising class, grocery shopping and wandering around London totally aimlessly, and realizing how much I love helping people. (That’s another post for another day). All of which while I should have been studying.

And again, I’m stealing time from studying. Blogging at half-past midnight when I have a paper to revise and a final tomorrow moring. Which was charming for the weekend, and I love that I did everything I did. But now losing inspiration, as I’m sure you can tell. I’m back to reality, living like a normal person. working my ass off.

“The right man is the one who siezes the moment.” – Johann Wolfgang von Gothe

yours.Rachel

one time, this girl from NJ called me a ‘midwestern-milk-maid’

as usual, the circle line had come to a screeching halt. and there we all were, circled around two poles starting to sweat in the stale heat, staring up and down and out the window at the dark dirty bricks. We’d picked up the London Lite, but that didn’t last long. “If I have to read one more thing about Posh’s watermelon and booze diet I’m going to scream.” she said. We all chuckled, and mentally inventoried the detachment strategies we had already used. <1. Look at the map and make sure you know where we’re going – check. 2. pull out your cellphone and play with it even though it doesn’t get service down here – check. 3. read trashy free newspaper until you want to vomit – check. 4. compliment someone’s shoes, bag, or jewelery – check. 5. Say something funny that won’t incite conversation – check.> We realized that this fairly predictable travel delay was going to shift the time balance just enough that we would run out of things to do before we got to our stop — this left one daunting choice. conversation.

Our marketing project group tries to do as little of this as possible, as we can never seem to find anything we have in common except being partners in anal-rape via Jacqui Bishop’s grading system and our mutual dislike of the arrogance and general idiocy of a certain member of our group. (The “there’s nothing to do in London but drink” guy. among other things.) That part excluded him of course, and really, you can only talk for so long about bending over and taking it from a class that will be over in 6 days. However, to our amazement, we found another experience we had all shared – going to high school. The Russian sat in the window having secured herself a seat, while our group’s most obsessive member (I know you’re shocked it’s not me) was on her way to an interview, probably getting hysterical. But there the rest of us were, talking about what our high schools had been like, and finding ties and rifts. The girls had all gone to schools like mine – competative, suburban and wealthy, and college focused, while ‘nothing to do but drink boy’ had come from a working-class town where he was the one who went to college. “Most of my friends just went and work the night shifts at stores, and a lot of them got married. they have kids now.” The girls were shocked, as most of us are in utter disbelief that we’re begining to buy cocktail dresses for a few of our older friends’ posh weddings, financed (like the big beautiful rocks, I’m sure) by mommy and daddy dearest. After an almost-screaming-match in which we thought ‘nothing to do but drink boy’ was trying to tell us you had no more troubles once you had a baby, I discovered that in his typical sort of meandering (but well intentioned, I realized, way), he was trying to defend his friends. He finally found the words he was stumbling for…”College isn’t for everybody. Not everybody is smart like that, you know? It’s just, like, some people are better at just working. And they’re happy. You know?” It hit me. He was a fish out of water, there with “Jew from Jersey who used to work at a NY casting agancy girl”, “Worked on high-budget fashion runway shows girl” and “Been to 12 countries before the age of 20 girl”. And there we were, snobs, who’d spent too much time in the world of privilige.

We realized then that three of us were from the Midwest – the highest concentration of Midwesterners I’ve found since I was home in Michigan in May. We started laughing about accents – that “A“. Bag of chips. Jacqui. Accent. We talked about snow days and how we never had them even when it was freezing and a foot of snow. or how funny people were – Californians, East-coasters, Southerners, ‘We live in southern-Illinois but are practically Confederates-ers.’ essentially ever “er” that wasn’t from the midwest. (but we made fun of them too). While he went from rural-Minnesota to Boston and she went from suburban-Toledo to Arizona, I was headed from suburban-Detroit to what feels like Boston now, and New York one day. She was willing to give up her dream of fashion event planning because she wanted to move back to the midwest…”Not home like where I grew up”, she said, “but home.” he wasn’t sure, and I was…sure that I’m getting out of this place and getting to New York. “It’s crazy out there”, he said. “The people are just, like, nuts. or something.” and we all laughed.

I like to play amateur psychologist, and I’ve always picked him out as ‘the kid from Minnesota who went out East and developed arrogance as a defense mechaism’, to which I have always accredited his swaggering step and “I’m too cool for this” attitude. But I never gave him credit for it. And she’s always been nice, but her Versace sunglasses, dark voice, and billowing cigarette smoke have always hid her deep brown eyes and sparkling smile. the same one he seems to flash to us when he’s not paying attention. The same one I have.

And there it was. ‘worked on run-way shows/Versace and cigarette girl’ , ‘nothing to do but drink/swaggering step boy’ and ‘been to 12 countries before 20/midwestern-milk-maid/a lot left to learn girl’ were none of those. For a moment, we were one. ” ‘I’m from the midwest and what-the-fuck am I doing in this place’ kids.”

* * * * *

The train finally arrived at our station, and we went to work. hours in the business Library. And while he was away, she told stories about his hooking up with her roomate all the time, and then telling her about his girlfriend at home. and he kept saying this project was stupid. And they all rolled thier eyes. But when he said under his breath “I feel like all my ideas get shot down” I heard him.

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” -Winston Churchill

yours.Rachel

I should be writing a paper right now…

that’s the other thing. about Artists. Musicians. Poets. and people like me who can never seem to get colors or notes or words to say just what i want them to say…

people who feel the world washing over them like the surf <all I want to do right now is find a beach and lay in the sun feeling its warmth on my body and the cool salt spray> or like a storm.rain in buckets.London rain. better carry an umbrella with you, girl.

oh baby when it rains it pours…

we’re a bunch of nuts. freaks. I mean like crazy-ass-mother-fuckers. ever noticed that? torturing our minds and everyone else’s as we throw ourselves into that surf… bobbing and kicking and flailing our arms as we fight the undertow that we can’t seems to live without. digging our feet into the shallow ground or braced against a rock the waves pound our bodies and we let go and let the aftermath of posiedon’s rath guide us back to the shore – coughing up water, and salt.

take everything I say with a grain of salt, baby.

and grains of sand. between my toes as i walk down the beach, dripping, leaving footprints. <i love looking back and watching the impressions my wet feet have made in the sand> The wind blows – cold – and raises the hairs on my arms and i turn longingly to the sea. watching the swimmer, and the surfers as they take their turn riding the whitecaps. resentment? not rightfully. envy that fades to detachment – detachment bleeds to contentment. As the cool wind blows agian the water on me beads, rolls off. Leave speckles in the sand. and a smile.
…Let it be…

Life like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea… -Y tu Mama Tambien

“When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do nothing but that.” -William Shakespeare

yours.Rachel

4 weeks.

a month. and I can hardly belive that very soon I’ll be done with my classes, half done with my program, ,and begining my life as a working woman. And maybe it’s the looming presence of finals, the gray sky and a full week’s forecast of rain, or a manifestation of that up and down warning chart of our projected emotional roller-coaster drawn by the off-campus study people at every one of our excessively long meetings, but I can’t seem to shake a general feeling of…yuck. A dull headache and a rock that’s been sitting in my stomach for the past few days. The neurotic and obsessive dreams I’ve been ripped out of every morning with a Bee-beep! * Bee-Beep! Bee-Beep! Bee-Beep! *

Hauling ass to class – late – only to spend the next 4 hours with my eyes glazed over, behind a mask of make-up and studious head nodding, clammoring around inside my head. Like a giant closet whose spring (summer?) cleaning becomes my sole fixation at times like these, and I shuffle through the things hung and climb up the shelves on the wall (I’m too small to reach the top by myself). I always manage to reach for something off the top shelf, and as I tug on it blindly, 5 more things come crashing to the floor with it. From here, there’s nothing to do but have a seat in the midst of it all and sort through my new discoveries – things dusty from their long-term residence at the back of the top shelf — some I would rather have stayed there. Those are the ones that go right back where they were… for another day maybe. or not.

It’s times like these that I miss my girls. my sisters. my loves. The ones who come <without fail> knocking on the closet door, bringing with them the Garden State soundtrack and all of our others (the ones made for other lives that we take as our own), fully willing to just sit with me on the floor – sorting – and eventually laying down with our faces to the heavens – laughing hysterically. I miss late night random road trips to Taco Bell. and meetings/dinner dates at Baldwin, where making a meal worth eating is the challenge that seems to reduce everything else to coffee talk. or the lodge – even when we’re all lying around in the midst of what seems in the moment to be apocalyptic drama.

See the thing is, for anyone who has any soul left in them, life can be a battle sometimes. Wherever you are. whatever you do.

I miss standing on the front line togther — fighting it with you.

“It is easier to sail many thousands of miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with 500 men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone. It is not worth the while to go round the world and count the cats in Zanzibar. -Henry David Thoreau

yours.Rachel

PS. on a lighter note — there is a wet Russian man in his Calvin Klien boxer briefs walking around my room … my roomate’s ex. He’ll be staying here all week … … … … …

and now he’s doing push ups.

please laugh at my life. Lord knows I’m laughing like crazy…

stripper shoes

My BlogStats inform me that someone was directed to my blog this morning from a search engine… they searched for “Stripper Shoes”.

Not my Scene…

Yesterday I stumbled into a place that, until a month ago, would not have been my scene. A bookstore. I seem to have a growing interest in reading, which, along with any other act that hinted intellectualism, has been taboo since my youth as a form of rebellion. If grew up with an entire wall of your living room completely covered by bookshelves and a mother with 3 masters degrees, you’d probably have spent your childhood refusing to read too. But I seem to be giving in, and I was happy to discover this small resale bookstore on Gloucester Road from which all proceeds go to Oxfam (an advocacy, development, and relief organization). I bought 3 books which, I think, fairily accuratley describe where my head is at for the moment. “The Good Life” by Jay McInerney (an interesting portrait of New York high society, and 9/11), Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell (she wrote the original book “Sex and the City), and an amusing reprint of a 1930s manual to single-woman-dom “Live Alone and Like It”. I began “The Good Life” last night, and I am adoring it…

I woke up this morning at 8:30…without an alarm. gross. After a dream where I was getting married and everything went wrong, there was really no getting back to sleep. (I can tell I’m sick because in the little time that I do spend sleeping, all I have is frusteration dreams) I finished most of a presentation and a paper (now all I have left is one paper, one enormous project, and 2 finals…and a week and a half. yikes!) by 11:30, and decided to throw in the academic towel. I opened up my journal, flipping to the “To Do List” page. I decided on Camden Market – a supposedly great little collection of boutiques and marketplaces, as well as a haven for Brit Punks. My friend from NYU said she’d been there and was somewhat under-impressed, but I maintained high hopes. “It wasn’t my scene” she said, “but it was interesting enough.” Though the forecast threatened rain, I’ve come to realized that someone in London will always say it’s going to rain, and about half of the time it actually does. I decided to risk it, but not fully expecting a weeks worth of good luck to hold, I brought an umbrella. I tried a new shade of lipstick – a dark shade that complemented the red wine color of my nails… I felt quite dramatic in my black and red, but I liked it, and I went on my way.

I hopped aboard the tube, changed to the Northern line, and began to observe my fellow travelers. Immediatley I spoted a young guy dressed well with a mohawk, and a young couple one with purple hair and one with blue. I knew I was headed in the right direction, and I was not at all surpried that they rose from their seats to exit at the same stop as me. What I was not expecting though was what I saw when I came out from the tube stop. Hair in every color and gravity defying style imaginable, piercings and tatoos, tights printed with cartoons, clownish costumes the color of glowsticks, plaid and leather torn to shreds and spikes the size of my pinky-finger….The kind of people I didn’t think actually existed except in music videos and at raves or the DEMF. Immediatly upon exiting the tube stop, I was approached by a monk collecting money for charity “Are you from The States?” He asked? I stumbled over my answer as I gave him some coins…I’ve gotten used to blending in with the Brits, and even being asked for directions. But even with my dramatic lipstick, it was clear that I didn’t belong.

It was three hours of complete sensory overload. A voice in the back of my head kept telling me to take out my camera, but it was all I could do to weave my way between booths and boots and bondage straps trying to absorb it all…I wasn’t ready to photograph this yet. I began in a open air market, browsing clothes and accessories like the natives wore, navigating my way through a labarinth of tiny isles with when the rain started to pour. Glad I’d brought my umbrella, I headed to the street boutiques filled I saw big plastic stripper shoes like the ones I’d gotten as a gag-gift once, but I felt strange even associating myself with them. The thing about this place is that people actually wear the crazy things you see in these stores. Usually, you pick up these clothes or shoes and show them to your friend and have a laugh about it, but here you turn around and see walking manicans. It’s incredibly intriguing, but something makes me wonder. People with an image so carefully crafted I wonder what would happen if you accidentally bumbed into them and messed up their hair, or spilled something on their shoes. Maybe that’s why the wear the spikes and spike heels…for self defense ?

From there I headed to the indoor market, which to my delight, was filled goods more accessable to the general public; I found myself uncovering treasures of art, clothing, leather goods, jewelery, and decor with average British people. It was comforting to be in a place where not everyone was violently individualistic. I stopped to grab some “chicken noodles” from one of the many ethnic food stands that fill these sorts of market places, and as I walked back to the tube, Ipod on shuffle, I reflecting on the the epic wardrobes, the interesting potential gifts in the marketplace, the incredible photography opportunities, and the strange deliciousness of mass-produced greasy generic Asian food.

I decided to stop at Harrod’s on my way home, to see how the other half lives. Again, floored by the dramatic atmosphere, I entered the Mecca of commercialism. Ornate doors with uniformed doormen, ushering wealth clientelle and bug-eyed tourists into an Egyptian motif lobby with stairs and lifts taking visitors to all 6 floors. I covered the first 4, like a kid in a candy shop. A candy shop where a parental figure loomed over my head constantly remeinding me not to touch anything. Like the marketplace, this was another candy-shop filled with all the things people dream about but no one actually wears. Every famous designer, with their collections of handbags or shoes or their summer lines set on display for the amusement of tourists and the consumption of the very few. Every so often, I would turn around to see one of those manicans...tall and skeletal, with every tiny detail from the shape of their eyebrows to the zippers on their enormous designer bags crafted with such careful precision..I though very hard about trying to mess up their hair or spill on their shoes as well. Without punk spikes, they may at first seem less threatening, but they probably had body guards and an unstopable legal team within arms reach. Needless to say, I decided not to antagonize these fierce creatures either, and I went on my way. I strolled rather quickly through the shoes, clothing, and accessories, as it was clear that I didn’t belong there either. I’m not used to feeling that intimidated by money. Not that I’m a millionare by any means, but I’m well aware that I’m a lucky girl who has seen and done a lot of things in my short 19 years. But today, with my casual kate spade tote and my semi-designer jeans, it was quite clear I was of about as much value to the people there as the rubbish from one of the store’s many cafes.

I could blend a bit better with the crowd in the china and homegoods departments, as they may have been couples registering or buying gifts, from a background similar to mine. I admired the china and, as in my custom in such stores, I picked out my favorite patters there as well as in crystal and flatware departments. I perused the fine porcelin, but upon finding the large Lladro collection that lacked my Lladro, (“The Happiest Day” – If I ever get married, I am going to have it…If you know me well we’ve probably already had that conversation, or it’s coming soon.) I concluded that this store wasn’t all it was craked up to be. This observation was solidified when I found that much of the furnature resembled the style of my house (British people really aren’t ones for design), and that the beds were all flat, in that minimalist-Scandanavian style that IKEA made popular in America….not a single beautiful dark wood one, and none with beautiful bed-posts. I scoffed. Three strikes, Harrods. You’re out. In my mind, it’s you who’s rubbish.

Directly on the path home was a Burberry store – not the flagship, but with its size it could have been. I’ve always admired Burberry things, so I though I’d take a turn through and windowshop to cheer me up. But as I walked in, I was greeted by an icy stare, and the clerk at the door proceeded to follow me from a distance as I browsed, presumably to make sure I didn’t steal anything.

Great. now I’m not just rubbish, I’m a criminal. I ran out the first door I could find, and retraced my steps around the exterior of the building to get myself headed in the direction of my flat. I looked up at the displays in the enormous windows… Slim white models without eyes or lips or features of any kind dressed in earthtones and Burberry’s utilitarian-chic style, surrounded by large decorative balls like giant mirrors. It was hard not to walk by and look at myself in the mirror-balls — hair windswept with roots just starting to come in, pale complexion with a couple of blotches I just couldn’t seem to cover, lipgloss that had faded to an awkward half-color, and an already round shape only exmeplified by the mirror balls…

Enough of that! I dashed across to the other side of the street, putting in my headphones and returning to the shuffle I’d left in an attempt to blast out the voices of inadequacy that kept getting lounder and louder. A new song – a few notes and then the words…

“I don’t need your Spiritual Pollution…”

The clouds from earlier had broken and the down-pour from the moring was over…it was now so bright I needed my sunglasses. I stepped lightly along the street and reached the park, and as I walked along it’s edge I could see parents pushing strollers with gleeful children and a woman feeding her baby from her breast on a bench. I cut into the park and watched the lovers lie in the grass as the young boys kicked around a football and tourists flashed big smiles to their photographer counterparts…

a little girl in a sunny yellow dress being chased by her brother ran straight into me, and then looked up at me with big eyes and the kind of intent stare that only a child can get away with. I lifted my sunglasses and smiled back. Her mother dashed over and picked her up, apologizing profusely. “Don’t worry about it”, I smiled. “They’re really sweet kids.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth and before she could even respond, the girl had squirmed out of her arms and was off running agian. As the mother smiled and ran off after her I called out “Good Luck!”

“Vast and fearsome as the human race has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.” -Winston Churchill

yours.Rachel