Tag: Tom

Encounters, New York

Betty1 Comment

Last Friday night as I was leaving POI’s apartment, a short, young Hispanic man with a curly ponytail and buckteeth called out to me.

“Hey beautiful.”

I smiled politely and thought of standing behind the locked gate until he walked away, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He leaned against the tree just outside POI’s building. Maybe he lived around here, but probably not. He threw down a cigarette stub as I opened the gate. It was nearly 11PM. I had to get home. 

He walked toward me.

“You married? Gotta boyfriend?”

“I do, I do,” I turned right, picking up my pace and, noticing him keeping stride with me, tossed my head back towards POI’s building, “I’m just leaving his place now.”

“Damn,” he slapped the back of one palm into the other. His next question took me by surprise: 

“Well, you on Instagram?”

I paused at the intersection, my robust Instagram feed running through my mind. A delivery truck rumbled by. I was about to say, “Yeah,” but then thought better of it. I donned what I hoped was a curious look. 

“Instagram? What’s that?” 

He cocked his head. “Woman, you don’t know what Instagram is? You know Facebook?” 

I nodded.

“Yeah, it’s like Facebook, but with just photos. Lotsa people use it now. Everybody use it now! I don’t believe you don’t know what it is! I’ll bet all your friends on it. You pretty! You gotta get on Instagram!”

“Oh,” I said, “Thanks. I’ll uh, look into it.”

The walk sign came on and we crossed the street. He kept on shaking his head, incredulous someone my age was unfamiliar with Instagram. (Honestly, I’d be shocked too). There were two whole avenues to go, I surmised, before the guy –

“My name’s Luis,” he said, holding out his hand.

I shook it quickly and shoved my hand back in my pocket. I wasn’t afraid, not after the Instagram comments, but there was something funny about his eyes. He wore small round glasses which magnified eyes that couldn’t quite focus. One of them looked at me while the other sort gazed off into some distance.

He wore a baggy grey hoodie which was inexplicably lumpy and jeans shredded at the bottom. Short legs. He walked with the slightest swagger, more from pants that were too long and sagging than from attitude. He talked a mile a minute.

“You Asian,” he pointed out.

“I am.”

“See, you’re nice.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Whoa, whoa, look, don’t take no offense. I’m just making observations here.” He said ‘observations’ more slowly than the rest of the words, as though he’d just learned it and was testing it out.

“It’s just I go up to Asian chicks all the time because, you know, I find them attractive, but damn most of the times you guys just run away!”

I laughed, mostly because I had considered running away – or at least back into POI’s apartment – but that might have been rude. And presumptuous.

“Maybe you’re just not meeting the right kind of Asian girls.”

“I guess not. I mean, I finally meet you but you’s gotta boyfriend! Is that why you didn’t run away?”

“No,” my turn to cock my head at him, “Should I be running away?”

“No woman! I’m just bein’ nice! I ain’t shady! I just wanna be friendly and say hi and almost one hundred percent of the time the Asian girls run away! They’re so shy and like…fearful, you know? And all I wanna do,” he kept spreading his palms and touching his chest, “All I wanna do is say hi because I think you Asian girls is gorgeous.”

“Well thanks, that’s really nice of you.”

“Man, I wanna girlfriend so bad. It’s been ten years since I’ve had a girlfriend. But ladies, they don’t want me. They want the tall guy with the stacks, you know?” He held his hands to show imaginary stacks of cash. A Drake song played faintly in my head.

I did know.

I had made it known to friends and family (half jokingly), when I first moved to New York, that I was hunting for a New York billionaire. A few months later I found myself standing in the longest line I’d ever seen at the Columbus Circle Bed Bath and Beyond with POI, who needed new pillows and sheets. I suggested he go to TJMaxx. He had snorted.

“That’s where the poors shop.”

I raised an eyebrow, letting him know that my mother shopped there and so did I (but never Ross, good Lord if you shop at Ross you’ve hit rock bottom). Though when I was in elementary school, I’d been embarrassed too when my mother shopped there. But you grow up, start working for ten, fifteen dollars an hour and realize, “Damn, money doesn’t just come out of my parents’ pockets?”

I told POI, in a mild effort to provoke him, that I intended to marry a billionaire.

“That’s not me, bro,” POI had said, “You’re gonna have to find some other dude.”

Luis pulled his jeans up. It occurred to me I was a good two, three inches taller.

“I know I ain’t aaaalll that,” Luis said, “but I mean, I do honest work.”

I was about to ask but his speech was just beginning, 

“I mean, I’m fearless. I ain’t afraid of nothin’, I could sell drugs and shit but I don’t because it’s frowned upon. I could make three, four times what I make now by selling drugs but it’s not respectful, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah…” I said, “Well, no. What do you do?” 

“I’m a strip club promoter.” 

“Ah.” 

“Yeah, I mean, I pull five, six-hundred dollars a night bringing people in but that’s like chump change compared to selling drugs. But I’m friendly, you see? I’m friendly so it’s easy. I bring in so many ladies-” 

“-Ladies?” I interrupted. 

“Yeah! Ladies! Girls! Women!” 

“To dance?” 

“No! To have fun at the strip club! What most people don’t know is that nowadays, ladies, like yourself, spend more than men at the strip club. Ladies are way more generous – they buy the dancers drinks, they tip bigger, and they don’t cause trouble. They just there to have a good time and they looooove it. They be like, ‘Ooh a strip club?’ (here his voice got high) ‘I never been to one before, let’s go!’ And they come and get all dressed up and like, go crazy because they feel like powerful but also they respect the dancers you know?”

I wondered if I’d ever go to a strip club. Someday, probably, with enough drinks. 

“So,” Luis continued, and I was thankful to see 8th avenue up ahead, “I promote to both men as women but honestly, the ladies are the bigger spenders so I like to bring as many in as I can.” 

I nodded, amused. You learn something every day.

We came to the intersection of 8th avenue and 35th – I stopped and he stopped too. “Well,” he said, “I guess this is where I say goodbye to you. What’s your name?”

“Betty,” I said.

“Betty, Betty, Betty. Betty you’s gotta get on Instagram.”

“I’ll…look it up,” I said. 

He could sense, in the same way I was friendly, that the conversation was over. I was relieved. A wave of fatigue came over me. I wanted to be at home. Wanted to text POI to have a safe flight – he was heading to Asia for two weeks for fun, not work. A very un-billionaire thing to do, but I didn’t want to find another dude.

We stopped talking but remained at the same corner because I also needed to cross the street. I stood for a few moments then turned right, hoping he’d walk straight ahead. Instead he crossed the street and turned right so we ended up at the same corner at the same time. Thankfully, a throng of people had come from the other side, among them, a group of young women looking to have a good time. It was time for Luis to get to work. He reached into his lumpy hoody and pulled out fat stacks – of glossy promoter cards. I picked up my stride and breezed past him just as the throng of people swallowed him up. They couldn’t however, drown out his distinct raspy voice: 

“Get your drink on at the strip club tonight! I be selling crack on the streets but it’s not what you think!”

Travelogue: Photos of Jane Austen’s Bath

Betty1 Comment
We arrived in Bath at 7PM. The sun had gone down and it seemed to be much later than it was. There was a slight drizzle, in keeping with the forecast which said it would rain much of the time, but I did not mind the rain. It seemed right that it should rain in Bath – the rain would dampen the town and intensify the color of things. Greens would be greener. The roads darker, the cobblestones shinier (and more slippery).

Continue reading “Travelogue: Photos of Jane Austen’s Bath” →

Calling Home from a London Pub

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In London, this past week, I visited POI for a second time. On my second night there – perhaps it was my third, I can’t remember – it occurred to me I ought to call my parents. We were on the second floor of a pub in Soho when the thought occurred and I told POI that I’d be back. He handed me his work phone, saying the signal was better, and I took it downstairs, past the bar which was, at 10PM, packed with tall, well-dressed British men. In the States I would have assumed they’d all just come from work, but it was a Saturday night and they seemed to just be dressed that way, regardless. It had been overly warm in the pub and I did not bring my coat with me, finding the cool air outside refreshing. I wondered what I would say to my parents as I dialed. My father picked up, as my mother was teaching her Saturday morning Chinese classes.

“How is it?” my father asked.

“Good,” I said, “We’re out with his friends right now. I just thought I’d say hello. I haven’t called in a while.”

“Well, we’re doing fine too,” he said, and then did the thing he always did when I asked about their weekend plans, which was list all their upcoming dinner engagements. It was going to be a busy weekend for them as well. He listed the usual suspects and the usual restaurants. Same old same old, he said, though I knew he looked forward to it.

POI and I were headed to Cambridge the next morning, and I told my father as much.

“Ah,” he said, “Well. Didn’t you want to study there at some point?”

I laughed. It was typical that he would remember something like this. Every elite school I had ever even just vaguely remarked about wanting to study at, he remembered: Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Brown, “Yeah, and I still do…just not sure what.”

“Oh please, please,” he said jokingly, “One degree at a time. Finish the one you’re working on now.”

“I know,” I said. A group of young, drunk teenagers walked by, some stumbling more than others. They laughed loudly just as they were walking by.

“Are you at a party?” my father asked.

“Outside a bar,” I said, “We’re heading over to karaoke soon.”

“They karaoke over there in England?” he said, “You went all the way to England to karaoke?”

“More or less.”

Other photos from that night are expectedly blurry.

On the curb next to me, three young Chinese people stood staring at their smart-phones, trying to make Karaoke plans of their own. They heard me speaking Chinese and took turns stealing glances in my direction. I smiled. Had they called their parents yet? I wondered what they were studying.

“Well,” my father said, “Enjoy yourself, I suppose.”

“I know, I will,” I looked up to the steamed windows of the second floor, where POI and his friends,- three Asian Americans and two Italians chemistry students – stood chatting around tall pints. I told my father goodbye and to not miss me too much.

“And you try to miss us a little more,” he said, “But thanks for calling.”

“No problem.”

“Oh,” something occurred to him.

“Hm?”

“Write something,” he said.

“What?”

“Write something,” he said, “About your time there. About Cambridge or London or England or whatever it is you’re going to do. And share it with me. I should like to know even though I still think the words on that website of yours are too damned small.”

I nodded slowly, taking in the scene before me on the street on a corner in Soho square, thinking about the people upstairs, all of whom I’d just met. I thought too about the songs I was about to sing in a small, dark room. Inside the pub, one of POI’s best friends in London was buying shots of tequila at the bar. Somewhere down the road, friends of friends were making their way out of the Tube to meet us. More shots waited at another bar. Poorly performed covers of Miley Cyrus. U2 and Taylor Swift and Backstreet Boys. Rent.

I would write, I told him.

We hung up and I went back inside, running into POI’s friend at the bar. He handed me two shot glasses and a small plate of lime wedges.

“Can you handle all that?” he said, “One of them is yours.”

I nodded, and carefully ascended the narrow stairs, spilling just a single drop of Jose Cuervo on my left hand. I was aware that I wouldn’t write anything that night. Or the night after. I wouldn’t write anything for the next two weeks.

On Relationships: Home For Thanksgiving

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Last Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, Grace called and asked if I knew about the storm. 
“What storm?” 
I pulled back my blinds and peered out from my fifth floor studio. The uppermost branches of the side walk trees swayed in the rain that hadn’t stopped all day, but there was nothing that could be labeled a storm. Three hours before I had come home from Magnolia Bakery at Rockefeller Center, shivering from rain. I had asked the frazzled girl behind the counter if she could saran wrap the cupcakes for me. 
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning over, “Can you repeat that? I can’t really hear you over all this.” 
She made a sweeping motion behind me towards the crowd – hoards of people all trying to do the same thing: get cupcakes back home for Thanksgiving. Around me tourists and locals pondered Red Velvet Rockette Cupcakes or Banana Pudding; paperback or hardcover cookbook; T-shirt or onesie? Little girls huddled together, their hair but not their spirits slightly damp from the rain while their dazed parents stood behind them, holding dripping umbrellas. They seemed to be reading the menus but I could tell they were wondering what made them think that coming to New York for Thanksgiving would be a good idea. Despite the rain, the streets (at least around Rockefeller Center) were packed. Umbrellas poked you in the eye or scratched you on the neck. In New York City, Black Friday began on November 1st. 
“Can you saran-wrap them?” I said again, “I’m taking them home to California.” 
She looked at me as though I was the luckiest girl in the world. I certainly felt that way, minus the thought of lugging paper boxed cupcakes home and across country. First world problems, I get it. The weather report said California was somewhere in the seventies. Not a drop of rain in sight. 
Grace snorted into the phone, “Don’t you read the news, Betty?” 
“I looked at the New York Times just a few minutes ago. It didn’t say anything about a storm.” 
“Yeah you looked at the news, you didn’t read it.” 
I imagined her comfortably ensconced next to our best friend Amy on the squashy teal colored leather couch of her childhood home. They would be wearing sweatpants, t-shirts.  
I scrolled through the NYTimes website again, but didn’t see anything about a storm. Weather.com told a different story. Apparently the east coast was getting huge dumps of snow. But in New York City, it had only rained. All day. Still, major flight delays were anticipated. I looked at the cupcakes I had strategically stacked in my carry-on. I wasn’t bringing anything else home except a collection of James Baldwin’s Essays, on which I had a final paper due. 
“Shit,” I said, “Well. No point worrying about that now. Either I’ll make it home for Thanksgiving or -” I glanced at the cupcakes, and briefly a depressing image flashed in my mind: me alone in my apartment on Thanksgiving day surrounded by cupcakes with candy turkeys on them. I shuddered at how tight my pants would be – “I won’t.” 
“Yeah,” Grace said, “Make sure you bring a good book to the airport.” 
We hung up and I went back to staring at James Baldwin, who was in the middle of describing the Christmas he once spent locked up in a Paris prison. There were worse things than being stuck in New York over a major family holiday. But still, I had not missed home since arriving here at the end of August. I had not missed home until home was a day, a potentially delayed or cancelled flight away. 
——
On Thanksgiving Day, I woke up and lay still in bed, listening for sounds of a storm. But there were none, just some cheerful chatter on the sidewalks below. Sunlight poured in through my windows. The storm, if it had come at all, had passed. 
The view while leaving New York. 
The cab driver was from Kashmir. He arrived ten minutes before my requested time and groaned in mock protest when I asked him to wait ten minutes. 
“It’s Thanksgiving, lady! What you want to keep me from my family? You think you’re the only person who has to go home for the turkey?” 
I ran down the stairs, trying not to jostle the cupcakes or break my neck and apologized as I slammed the car door. He was smiling. 
“Oh you rush! No need!” he said, “I joking with you. But I guess you cannot tell over the phone. I ate my Thanksgiving dinner already.” 
He was in his mid sixties with curly once-brown hair and smiling, amiable eyes. Just an hour before, he’d left his house to begin his afternoon shift, mostly shuttling last minute stragglers like me out of town. His home had been quite lively when he left it: he had three grown children, all of whom were he said, “Doing good things, having good children.” 
“But still,” he said, “Even though they grown, when they come home, they are your children. They are always your baby children, no matter how old they are.” 
I nodded, knowing the feeling well. It is both a fear and a fallback and why I intend to stay in New York or move elsewhere – anywhere but back with my parents – after my program is finished. It sounds like the next logical step, but I know how comfortable life is back home and how well practiced I am to close chapters in cities far away only to reopen the doors of my parents’ home. 
“Just the other day,” the driver continued, “I went to see my mother and she told me to clean my plate like I was a five years old boy! I’m old man now, a grandfather! And still when I go home I become my mother’s baby. She told me to clean my plate just like she did when I was small boy, told me to clean it so the plate looked like there had never been food on it!” 
I laughed. He moved his hands with such emphasis and I could imagine his mother nagging him in Kashmiri, though I had no idea what the language sounded like. 
“My parents don’t nag me at all anymore,” I said, “And I don’t think they treat me like a child…” 
I revisited a long impromptu phone conversation I had with my father the week before. While browsing through West Elm I remembered to call him back regarding our Thanksgiving arrangements at Orange Hill Restaurant. I ended up wandering the two-story Broadway store for an hour and a half while we talked at length about school, writing, and POI. 
We discussed in detail the particulars of a possible thesis which I’d gone over with my professor the day before – a collection of essays with a spine, as she put it: a theme and tying them together, a story arc. Many essay collections lacked this, my professor warned, especially from new writers. I tended, she observed, to write largely about two things: family and relationships. I preferred to keep the two separate, but she didn’t see why I should.
“Your family is obviously a huge part of how you developed your view of relationships. They are very much at the back of your head when you write about relationships. I don’t think they ought to be kept separate at all,” she’d said. 
My professor and I discussed too, the market for someone with my particular “angle,” meaning, a twenty-seven year old woman with no prior history of having been in a serious relationship. 
“You’re far from the only one,” my professor said, “You might feel sometimes like a fish out of water but trust me, I’ve been listening to my friends, students, friends of friends… it’s a strange but increasingly common thing.” She thought for a moment, “Maybe not that strange.” 
“Market,” my father repeated, “Angle.” These were words he could wrap his head around. Publishing is after all a business and my father is a businessman. As I wandered through the recently discounted holiday bakeware and organic sheets, explaining the practical aspects of publishing: finding an agent, working with an editor, and marketing a book, I could feel him opening up, trying to view my mysterious world through his clear, practical lens. It made sense to him, he said, that the professor was telling us to keep our audience in mind and he set out to give me pointers. 
“Maybe you could organize your book by theme, or contrast the relationships people had back then, like your grandparents, your mother and I, versus the ones you’re seeing or aren’t seeing now among the people in your generation.”
I nodded, wondering if my father was watching TV at the same time, though it didn’t appear so. 
“If you think about it,” he continued, “You see so many types of relationships around you. Look at your mother’s parents versus my parents. Look at your different sets of aunts and uncles. Look at your brother and his wife, and now you and, what’s his name?” 
I reminded him, surprised that he brought POI up at all. My father is not one to talk about things like relationships and for the most part never refers to POI or when I do, says, “Who?” or calls him “That guy in London.” 
“Right,” my father said, “That guy.” 
We discussed my thesis for another half hour and I felt both in and outside the conversation, wondering at when the change, if there was indeed a change, occurred. I was never once frustrated and like creative partners discussing a new business venture, we batted around ideas. My father is a reader too. 
At some point I reminded my father that I was going back to London a week after Thanksgiving. 
“What are you doing that for?” 
“I told you,” I said, “To visit -“
“-that guy in London. Right, right.” 
“You’re okay with it?” 
“Am I okay with it?” my father snorted, “You’re going to go anyway. When did I ever – no, have I ever stopped you from going anywhere to see anyone?” 
“No, I guess not.” 
I squeezed past a young couple who were studying a stainless steel wall clock. I wondered if they were just dating, engaged, or married. They both still had their gloves on. 
“I do want to say though, Dad,” I lowered my voice even though I was speaking in Chinese, “I appreciate that you trust my judgment. And I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t trust him.” 
“Good,” my father said, “This is very important. You must be careful.” 
I nodded, murmuring assent and watched as the couple left the clock and split up, the woman heading towards a rather busy looking ornament display and the man towards bedding. Perhaps they’d meet at the register with items of vastly different purpose. One functional, one purely ornamental. One on sale, the other full price. One perennial, incapable of being broken, the other seasonal and fragile, needing to be wrapped in tissue paper and put away after the New Year.  
“What do you like about this guy in London?” 
Good question, Dad, I wanted to say, this is something I often ask myself. Not because I didn’t know but because more and more I was surprised by the answers. 
“We have good conversation,” I said. 
“You have good conversation with a lot of people.” 
True. I have good conversation with strangers on planes, trains and in hospital waiting rooms. This did not mean they were good relationship material. I remembered too a recent video chat I had with POI in which he fell asleep for five minutes while I left the screen for a few minutes to take banana bread out of the oven.  
“I guess it’s a bunch of things. Mostly,” I said, “He makes me laugh, makes me feel safe.” 
“Humor is important because you are a humorous girl,” my father said ‘humor’ in English, “Because your father is humorous.” 
“Actually,” I said, “In some ways he reminds me of you too.” 
“How so?”
“He says what’s on his mind, for one thing… doesn’t seem to care too much if he offends people.” 
“Ah yes,” my father said, “Beating around the bush is a waste of time.” 
“Yeah,” I said, “He’s not shy about making fun of me and can handle it too, when I make fun of him.” 
“Oh that’s important, especially for your kind of humor.” Again, ‘humor’ in English, “It’s no fun to be with someone too sensitive. If they can’t take a joke, it’s no fun.” 
“Yup.” 
 “But really,” my father said, “How can anyone compare to me? They don’t make them like me anymore.” 
I laughed, arriving at the very adult stage where your father’s cheesy jokes no longer aggravate and only endear. 
“So you think you are an adult now,” the driver said, as though reading my thoughts, “You think you are an adult going to visit your parents, but I know (he wagged his finger in the rearview mirror), I tell you now, you will feel just like a baby again when you’re home.”
I watched as the city rolled away and thought ahead to the drive from John Wayne Airport to The Park. I could see the streets: MacArthur followed by the curve of the 405 and the normally congested connection to the 55. I could anticipate the smell of my father’s car and the jerky way he braked and accelerated. If my mother went to the airport with him, I would sit tin the back and feel briefly, like a kid again. If my mother didn’t come and I sat in the passenger seat, I’d still feel like a kid. 
“This is the natural way,” the driver said, chuckling to himself and thinking perhaps of all the plates he’s cleaned in his mother’s presence, “Perhaps until your parents not there, this is the way it will always be.”

A Saturday Afternoon in Oxford (With an Australian)

BettyLeave a comment
I’ve definitely seen uglier houses. Atalia’s room is the top right window. (Atalia, hopefully I did not just invite random cyber stalkers to your window. If I do, I hope they sing you sonnets).  

A month before I arrived, POI suggested we take a weekend trip from London.

“Somewhere not too far from the city,” he said, “We can go by train or car.” 
I nodded enthusiastically into the phone – we had recently just “upgraded” from texting – and a few moments later thought it wise to say aloud, “Yes, yes, I’d love that.”

We batted around a few ideas – Southampton, the Lake District, until POI solicited ideas from actual British people – namely, a talkative teller at the HSBC near his office.  
Bath, the teller said with an air of national authority. It was a wonderful town (though the website insists it is the city of Bath): charming, quaint, historic and filled with cozy romantic restaurants. During the day, there were wonderful cobble-stoned streets and quiet parks to stroll through. And of course the actual Roman baths, which one did not use anymore, thanks to a flesh-eating brain virus an unfortunate bather contracted in the seventies, but could safely explore while fully dressed alongside hundreds of school children on field trips.
POI wondered if I’d be interested in watching a Rugby double-header. 
“Oh I’m quite certain the young lady you’re seeing would certainly not like that,” the teller advised. POI did not describe her to me but his impression of her seemed spot on. And she was spot on. One rugby match, perhaps. A double-header? I’d rather not. 
POI began to plan our weekend getaway and I consulted a map. I had a good friend from community college who was just starting her Master’s in English Literature at Oxford. We had taken one required English class together and became fast friends, mostly because we saw each other as we saw ourselves: not idiots. Also, she was Australian and I am in general, attracted to that sort of thing (foreignness). 
The map indicated that Oxford was somewhat on the way and it seemed almost rude not to drop by. I mentioned it to POI. He was game. He had never seen Oxford. 
“We’ll drive,” he said, “It’ll give us more flexibility.  
On Saturday morning, we fetched the rental car – a black mini-mini van made by a brand neither of us had ever heard of- at Paddington Station and drove west from London towards Oxford. POI soon learned that I was terrible at giving directions. My navigating vocabulary consisted mostly of, “How far are we? Well…(squinting at Google maps), it’s kind of far, but like not really that far, so like…medium far?” but POI, thankfully, is a patient man and spent much of the drive laughing. And navigating himself. 
Eventually we arrived in Oxford right on time for a late lunch with Atalia, a strong, direct writer who had earlier via email, provided excellent directions of her own:  
We ended up arriving closer to 1:30PM-ish because I did not understand roundabouts. 
Oxford: Where religion and bicycles peacefully coexist, until your bicycle is stolen and not even God can help you recover it, no matter how vehemently you say his name in vain.   
Two community college success stories (until I am unemployed again) standing before Hertford Bridge, more commonly known as the Bridge of Sighs, though according to Wikipedia that is a misnomer. 

We strolled thirty minutes from Atalia’s residence onto campus, stomachs growling. POI had made breakfast that morning: two slices of toast, one smeared with butter and marmalade, the other with butter and marmite, which is his lifeblood and which, to give you an idea of the class of food it’s in, is marketed as a “food spread” with the motto “Love it or hate it.” To borrow a phrase from POI, I did not care for it. Breakfast was a sweet gesture, but paled in caloric comparison to how much I normally ate.

“Lunch, Atalia,” we reminded her, fearful of having to walk much more, “Lunch.” 
We arrived thankfully at the Kings Arms of Oxford only to snigger at the menu:

“See anything good?” “Traditional as opposed to…” “With mushy peas. Wonderful.” Eventually a young, naive-looking waitress explained in absolutely earnestness that they were meatballs. “What’s so funny?” she wanted to know. 
None of us, though all quite liberal, were in the mood for faggots. 
Bellies full with meat and potatoes, the tour recommenced.

POI and I wondering/marveling/ talking about Harry Potter within the Bodleian Library Quadrangle. I was certainly the only person wearing cheetah print jeans on campus. Thank you, cousin Michelle.  
The Radcliffe Camera, probably Oxford’s most recognizable building, was built from 1737-1749 in the English Palladian Style. FYI “camera” is the Latin word for “room.” And that’s about as Highbrow as this post will get. 
More bicycles and cobblestones en route to The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. 
Obviously this shot came first. I don’t backtrack. 
And this shot before last, of Atalia, our wonderful tour guide. There’s something tremendously refreshing about being guided around one England’s most English institutions by an Australian educated in America. 
The courtyard of the Queen’s College, where Atalia is studying. 
From another angle. POI had really wanted to take a photo standing in the middle but the girls on the path would not move. 
Mail for the students arrive not at their dormitories but at their colleges. That day, Atalia received a postcard from Mickey Mouse. 
Lunch in Oxford had turned into a leisurely four hour stroll. The sky began to darken and POI and I had to be on our way. Given my navigation skills and our diminishing phone batteries, driving on dark, unfamiliar roads seemed to be a bad idea. 
“One more spot!” Atalia said, “They filmed parts of Harry Potter there!” 
POI and I looked at each other. Time could always be made for Harry Potter. But unfortunately, because I had wanted to eat an ice cream on the way there, Christ’s Church college was closed by the time we arrived. I felt badly. 
 POI and I replay scenes from the movie in our heads, wondering how much trouble we’d get in if we broke in. 
But not too badly. 
Basically my expression for the entire trip. 
We walked back towards Atalia’s dormitory. Sometimes, I fell back to take a photograph. Sometimes, I watched them talk – POI and my Australian friend whom I’d met in the states some five years ago – on a sidewalk in Oxford. It was a strange and strangely familiar scene. 
Oxford work-study.
We’d barely pulled out of her driveway when Atalia texted me: 
“POI IS BRILLIANT!” 
I laughed, showing POI the message. 
He chuckled, shifting gears, “And she wasn’t so bad herself.”
Ding. Atalia texted again: “DON’T FUCK IT UP.” 
I snorted because I didn’t intend to. Though I was in danger of getting us wildly lost. Bath was still an hour and a half away and the light was fading fast. POI needed directions. It helped though, that we were heading where the sky glowed gold, gilding all that faced west. 

True story. 

London Travelogue: Photos of Borough Market

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One of many entrances to Borough Market.

POI did not make it to lunch. He was held up at work and I, being of the understanding-and-generally-capable-of-entertaining-myself-especially-when-in-a-foreign-country-sort, made my way around Borough Market, tasting more cheese samples than I had appetite for.

She was very generous with the samples.
Foreshadowing.
I couldn’t tell if these mushrooms were very expensive or not.
Wheat grass being turned into green water.
As opposed to old season game.
I truly regret not eating one – actually, all three – of these.
He was also very generous with the samples.
As opposed to the Not Posh At All Banger Boys on the other side of the street.
In case you forgot why you were at the market.
Gorgeous Friday afternoon light.
I took this photo to show how long the line was for Applebee’s takeaway. Applebee’s in London is quite different from Applebee’s in the US, which is essentially an institution for obesity.

When I was in danger of becoming ill on cheese and jam samples, I walked behind the market down Stoney Street and towards the river.

POI things it is incredibly creepy that I like to photograph children in school uniforms. Perhaps. But as you can see, I keep a safe distance.
Apparently this is where I was.
For those of you who follow me on Instagram: the original caption is probably still best: “British guy behind me: ‘Rihanna wrote a song about these.'”
Fashionable people getting ready for Friday after work/class drinks.
“Are they real?”

POI eventually arrived at 3:30PM. He had apologized profusely throughout the day, pushing lunch back until it was clear he would not make any hour deemed appropriate for lunch. I was not angry – it seemed reasonable that POI do well at his job. Logistically, it was the reason I was able to visit. Back in New York POI had been the most punctual of men while I, normally a punctual woman, was late to every single date.

“The trains,” I would say, breathless from having jogged from the subway station, “I just…don’t understand them” (when in fact I suddenly turn into a sloth whenever it’s time to leave the apartment).

“That’s alright,” POI would say, “You’ll figure them out soon enough.”

He arrived, grinning. Work was over and done with; the weekend could now begin.

He clapped his hands together. He had not had time for lunch and was hungry.

“Let’s go find me a grilled cheese sandwich.”

A blurry photo, but suffice it to say it was the mother of all grilled cheese sandwiches. Seeing it, I conveniently forgot all the cheese samples I’d already had and took a huge bite.

And a beer. We went round the corner to The Rake, one of POI’s favorite pubs in the area, though he seems to like most pubs. There was a small outdoor area populated with colorful metal chairs and voluble, easy-going men who were anything but rakish. It was Friday afternoon and they had left any work-related worries behind at the office. Now it was time to have a pint.

We sat outside on a bench next to two men in suits. They sat opposite each other with their legs crossed and I could see their patterned socks. I could not decide if they were careful dressers or if men in London simply wore patterned socks. POI, in a fleece zip up and checkered shirt had other thoughts. He disappeared inside. The men in patterned socks talked shop, then went on to discuss their female colleagues, who had not been invited to the pub. I looked around – there were no women in the patio and only one girl inside the bar, but she seemed to be a student or someone on holiday. Women, it seemed, stayed later at the office. Even on a Friday.

POI returned holding a large pint for him and a half-pint for me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Apple beer.”

“Like a cider?”

“I asked for cider,” he said, “but the bartender gave me a look and said they only served beers.”

I took a sip, “Tastes like cider.”

POI laughed, “Well, here, it’s an apple beer.” 

I produced the Lamington. He had sent me on a mission to find one while he was at work. POI is not so into sweets but he very much likes Lamingtons, an Australian dessert. At Borough Market, they are quite hard to find and I spent nearly twenty-minutes going from pastry tent to pastry tent, soliciting confused stares.

“A what?”

“A Lamington? It’s a….sweet thing?”

“A banana tart?”

And many such conversations. Finally, a Turkish man put down a tray of turkish delights and raised his arm slowly to point somewhere behind me. He nodded gravely like a prophet and in thickly accented English said, “There, that red tent. There you’ll find the Lamington.”

Big pint, half pint and Lamington (the unicorn of desserts in Borough Market).
We shared the Lamington, him taking much smaller bites than I. Our Friday afternoon began to unfold.
Soon, there would be drinks on the sidewalk with his coworkers – an international set from South Africa, Canada and New Zealand and a single, notable Brit named, incredibly, James Joyce. We would move indoors to another pub, where the Canadian, after getting the phone number of a young British woman, would return to our table and casually mention that he had a girlfriend.
“How long have you been dating?” I would ask.
“Three years,” the Canadian would say with a shrug.
The Brit named James Joyce would gasp and wonder if he ought to defend the honor of British women, because the Canadian had made it seem so easy. 
There would be a late dinner at POI’s favorite Indian Restaurant, just steps away from London Bridge, followed by a silent but satisfied bus ride back to Curtain Road. I would watch the city fly by from the second level windows of London’s famed double deckers and look forward to the days ahead. But mostly I would enjoy the ride back to Curtain Road, sitting side by side with this person of interest.