une si long post

i believe the time has come to officially start this godforsaken blog. i tried to think about this blog logically, but then i remembered that i am incapable of thinking (or rather, writing) logically, and so this will inevitably be long rambling nonsense. but really, i am just apologizing for myself, which is nothing new. and that is stupid. so here goes, sans apologetics.

i arrived in london yesterday, and i had the same misgivings about the city from the start. i guess it all did not start to well because of the plane ride. sadly i was seated next to a talker---a talker with an annoying lisp. she was a junior at drew or something, studying abroad in scotland, parents were elementary schoolteachers, she played soccer hard core. i learned all of this within about five minutes. obviously i only got the chance to say "and my name is kate" before she launched into the story of her life, and the story of her extended family's lives. and she was offended when i attempting isolation via ipod/nyquil, and the fucking guilt got to me--well that and her continuing LOUD banter. whenever i did open my mouth, she seemed to top me with everything, from silly to sappy stories. my favorite was when the question of significant others came up, and i said how hard it was for me to leave behind the glory of fall semester. before i could utter steve's name, in a chipper voice she jumps in "well, my boyfriend is under water in a sumbarine right now. he has been in the navy since 2000, when we started dating. he works with nuclear reactors. my kids will have cancer. also, my grandfather will probably die while i'm away. so i wont see him again." then she smiles. and then i nod and smile, because from there on out, i was not in the mood to fake suprise or pity. mostly because about five minutes later she told me about her gpa and the exact way in which she got two b's in college.

luckily i was free of her at heathrow, and she probably thought we were great friends. but really, i don't think my fake smile is that good. truthfully that is what i am most worried about here, the fake smile. i really just don't have it down, and i can't tell if that is a good thing or not. because it would be great if people got the hint, but it would also be bad to be stuck drinking in a bar with my one lone cynical friend, whoever they may be. well, not that bad. but luckily, i have met some nice people, and the smiles have been real a good deal of the time. last night was tough, when we had all of that horrible orientation business, and there i was in a room of fake smilers, sitting in a corner looking haggard, unslept, filthy, smelling like plane and absolutely miserable. i realized in my half dazed state that i would have no friends because i looked like the sullen bitch who did not want to talk to anyone, but then i started wondering exactly how bad that would be. as i started looking to a bright future of solidarity, some lovely souls saw me in my isolation and forced me to be social. after a dinner of some very awkward comments (they seemed to think i was a psycho freak when i comically informed them that my friend iggy had (probably falsely) warned me that most baby british boys did not have anything resembling a bris), i felt a little queasy, like i had fucked my chances by sitting there and being glum and kate-ishly awkward. a bumbling mess i was. but then again i also thought, maybe i just made all these people very sad because they realised that those "hot metrosexual guys, omg" were dirty uncircumcised bastards.

so what would such a girl do? why buy a pack of gauloises, of course! bad kate has taken to the cancer cane again---it is as though the warnings in bold letters call me to the cigarettes rather than convincing me that my lungs will turn black, leaving me to die young and wrinkly. but none of that. they taste too good for me to bid farewell just yet. indeed, i need them because i feel like i walk everywhere, and somehow a cigarette feels like a very fitting companion when you are frustrated with new surroundings.

what i do like about this dreary city is the walking involved. i clearly will be taking back those words in about a week after my underslept eyes see the same buildings on the same streets on my 20 minute walk to class each early morning. but truly. i know, i know you walk in new york, but not really. you walk in a basic little grid, and as iggy once said to me in rome, there is no hope for suprise around any winding corners or roads. now london is not rome, and certainly not paris, (poor london got too bombed during the war and sadly did not choose the most...er...charming architects) but i love the tiny streets and the confusion of navigating your way around. perhaps thats just because i am a stranger at the moment---but i really love these first days when i have to really get to know the city. of course some of us are noteworthy navigators of the world/new york state, but for a discombulated baby kate used to simple uptown/downtown and numbered streets, the endlessly changing names and twisting roads is a welcome challenge. sadly, it may become a challenge that does not include the underground (at, ahem, 3 pounds per ride). so, hopefully i will have shitty lungs and great legs by the end of my time here.

luckily my flat mates seem very nice, two french girls and one austrian (or dutch, i got confused as to whether she was telling me her name or where she was from...i think her name is astrid but i thought she was saying austria...), but sadly the bathrooms/kitchens are sort of horrendous. a shower should be a temple of cleanliness, not a hole in the wall that looks more fit for breeding rodents. or for pigpen. he would this shower he would. i thought hartley was bad. i was wrong.

i saw match point tonight once again. the londoners laughed less, possibly because everyone is snooty about their hometown...ha, first time that happens to woody in any city because no new yorker would ever be snooty about annie hall's manhattan for fuck's sake (or manhattan's manhattan for that matter). but it was great seeing in a second time, i was a nervous wreck again--i think i was frightening the newly made friends who were sitting on either side of me. ha, also they had a preview for cache, and it was completely marketed as this absolutely terrifying action packed thriller, with a huge montage at the end only of the little kid with all the blood dripping from his mouth etc. but i guess that is what draws the crowds to such a perfect film. ah, and the theater is wonderful too...it is called "renoir" and it is playing fanny and alexander right now...and it is five minutes away from where i live. it may not be paris, but tis just fine.

anyway, i hate to turn away from this silly post, back to the extremely poorly lit, cold, and shelveless (i am living out of my suitcase) room in which i am living. it seems this post is mostly for me, since i am sure no one cares about these simple day to day activities, and no one is probably reading this anyhow. but you see, here i go with the same old schick. dear old self-deprecation...but we all know the truth behind that one.