On San Telmo and culture and stuff

"You can be sincere and still be stupid." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

OMGYOUGUYS. I have had internet for, like, an entire 24 hours so far. I don't want to get too excited - last time it revived, it was for a short half-day - but IT IS REALLY HARD. I AM SO EXCITED. I am way behind on my huffpoeing buzzfeeding redditing jezebelling. WHAT HAS HAPPENED THIS MONTH?! Point me to the memes!

Speaking of being behind: THIS BLOG. My (internal, unspoken) goal of two posts a week was hopelessly derailed. Blogblogblogblogblogblogblog.

I've had coffee today for the first time this week and I feel high as a kite.

BUENOS AIRES! I swear this is my last post about that magnificent city before dragging youguys into guacho country.

Want to hear a fun fact about BA? THERE ARE BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE. Really. EVERYWHERE. Like, entire STREETS of them. ANOTHER fun fact: Amazon dot com isn’t in Argentina.

I’ll leave you to interpret that as you will.

This particular good news became very relevant when my Kindle broke on Day 4. My treasured, ancient, six-year-old-full-keyboarded Kindle just decided to give up the ghost. At the beginning of a three week holiday in a foreign country. I thought we were better friends than that, but there we are. As a result, I found myself spending an entire morning scurrying into various bookstores, frantically looking for anything – anything! – written in the English language. I finally found luck at a small bookstore/café/bar in Palermo called Crack Up. Here is a map for you:

You're welcome.

Also, they had FOOD. And COFFEE. And TORRONTES. If you're into that. (Not me, Grampa!) How sweet is this place? Someone! Open one in London-town. Except with English books. It will be a hit.

Now for THE LUNCH. After our blinding success getting books at Crack Up, we made our way to Freud y Fahler NC for lunch, where apparently the menu was designed by Kyle. I appreciated the illustrations of each dish, because how else would we know what we were ordering?

This totally clears it up.

Uncanny likeness, right? Well-drawn, friends! Also, you can tell we were eating nerdy-early, US/UK-style, since we were the first people there. This happened every night at dinner-time, too, when we showed up at 9 p.m. (when the restaurants opened) and ate in the emptiness until people started arriving around 10:30. Who ARE these people, and when do they sleep?! Even the kids! Families! 10:30 p.m. dinner time! MIND.BLOWN. Love and admiration here. I mean, I thought I was old-hand at these sort of cultural differences, having done the Europe-late-long-dinner-thing, but this was a whole new ballgame.

THE TANGO. Okay, so everyone says You Have to See the Tango when you're in Buenos Aires. Now, as far as I can tell, there are two ways to do this: go to the San Telmo square and watch the couples spin around for the tourists, or go to a tango club. We opted for the latter, BUT (see above note being about nerdy-early) things don't kick off until midnight or later. We got to Cathedral of Tango at ten (feeling VERY wild, I don't mind saying), and it was rocking out like this:

Out of control! 

We had a great table right up front (because practically first ones there), but knowing we'd have to wait at least three hours for the club to turn into Super Tango was just a recipe for napping under the table. It probably didn't help that this was also a Tuesday night, and who on earth tangos on a Tuesday night? Go there on a Thursday or Friday, youguys. Or head to San Telmo if going out at midnight isn't your jam. I will say this, though: we got to see some terrific dancers and an exciting part of Argentina culture in a venue that was cutting-edge. Also - and most importantly - eat more fugazzetta pizza.

Wednesday!

THE RIVER. Can I tell you what I love about cities with rivers in them? Pedestrian-only, modern-design bridges, and old-as boats. London's got this, too. It's just too much. Does Chicago have this? I should know since I've been there a kazillion three times. But I spent most of my time with the bean, because #goodtouring.

Sidebar: bottom left is the pink governor's casa where Eva Peron did her Eva Peron thing. Cropped out: loads of scaffolding and construction works, which are apparently as permanent a fixture as the building itself. SEXY! Bottom right: if you want to know what this building is, why don't YOU be the tourist. (And then tell me what it is.)

THE PROTEST. Youguys. Apparently outside the governor's casa there is always a protest happening. Isn't that awesome? MAKE NOISE, HUMANS! This one is about Someone lying to Someone if that banner is any indication:

I felt like a photo-journalist capturing Change in a war-torn country. Except safe. And not endangered. And ignorant of the issues. I can see why people do this. What a high!

LUNCH! Okay, so originally we tried to go to Hierbabuena or La Casera for lunch, but the power was out on the entire street. Because That's Just What Happens Sometimes and Maybe It's Planned But We're Not Sure Quit Asking Questions Go Away.

That said: they could still sell bread and produce from their side market! WIN!

So rustic and millennial and organic and perfect I wanted to punch myself in the face. Also, buy everything and put a cross-process filter on it.

Having given up on the perfect lunch, we decided to take our chances at Any Random Place in San Telmo, because obviously it has a square lined with cafes boasting identical menus in three translations so clearly it'd be impossible to go wrong*. We crossed the street, prepared to walk the five blocks over to the square in the stifling mid-day heat, and BOOM. We spot this place. Bacan! Youguys. I know I'm easily woo'd by open shelving, chalkboard, and black-and-white tiling, but this place was good stuff. If you ever find yourself shut out of Hierbabuena or Casera, go here: 

 I'm pretty sure this is also where the mob hangs out.

SAN TELMO. We wandered around there after lunch. Because old and historical and stuff.

Old. 

Historical.

Um. Culture. Colonial. Jazz. 

Doppelganger. Awesome bar. Totally for everyone. Culture. Unpretentiously Hip. Jazz.

Dinner at Aramburu. Two of about twelve courses. Designer food. Eating art. Jazz.

And we've done it! Buenos Aires is a WRAP.

SIDEBAR: just now the doorbell rang and it was an Amazon** delivery guy and I totally didn't remember ordering anything on Amazon so right away I'm excited and then I opened it and it was a book I had ordered centuries ago that was out of stock and apparently it came back in stock because there I was holding it and anyway, it has made my day because it feels like a gift, like when you find money in the pocket of something you haven't worn in forever. DAY WON!

We're off to France tomorrow to start knocking down walls and seeing what's under them! We're also hoping to get some wifi hooked up, but that could be a drama for another day. P.S. Anybody who speaks French fluently is invited down with us anytime. ANY.TIME.***

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esss

*Uh.
**Don't judge me! I shopped at a bookstore in Argentina!
***No, seriously. PLEASE COME WITH US. 

On hot sauce, yet more veg, and what are you reading?

Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett

OMGYOUGUYS. I just made hot sauce with all those chilis I had to pluck from my dead chili plants. Well, I *think* I made hot sauce. I whacked them all into a pot with some vinegar and garlic and salt and in about half an hour I'm going to whizz it up and hope for the best. I didn't even bother deseeding them because who has got that kind of TIME and also what's the worst that can happen? It sets my stomach on fire? LET'S DO THIS CHILI THROW-DOWN.

Speaking of food, look at this gargantuan beetroot I got in this week's veg box. Isn't this ABSURD? I can barely palm it, which is a far cry from the ping-pongs I usually get:

Don't even get me started on the carrot. I almost photographed that instead, but I felt mildly uncomfortable just HOLDing it. 

And how is this for authentic? I actually washed off most of the dirt before taking this photo. I swear they put dirt IN the box, just to make me dig for my vegetables. Like an added bonus, a Look! You're a Farmer! experience, as you root around with your trowel, hands growing rough, hoping for a bountiful harvest.

My beets and carrots were pretty bountiful, alright. 

And now we've got the brussels sprouts. SOMEONE. TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THESE BRUSSELS SPROUTS. I was going to make this flatbread pizza to get away from my usual method of FRYWITHBACONBACONBACON but if anybody has any better ideas, let me know. There are enough here to last me a MONTH.

Stop looking so innocent and baby-like. I know what you're about.

In other good news, NPR's Book Concierge for 2014 is out! I can't even handle it. There are so many books in there I want to eat. I love stuff like this, because my usual method of looking for books is either finding out what Cassandra's reading, or going to the library and hoping they've got ANYthing published after 1978. Speaking of, I was there yesterday getting some travel guides to Argentina, and since  'ANG' follows 'ARG' and my library has an impeccable cataloguing system, this book was right there. I couldn't resist it, immediately dropping all the Time Out Buenos Aires Guides that I knew I wouldn't read anyway. Any book involving prostitution and drugs in San Francisco is a day's win!

Some things just make you nostalgic.

Now if you'll excuse me, I clearly have a busy day ahead. Plus tonight is the Annual Dinner for the British Guild of Beer Writers* and it's supposed to be QUITE the fancy pants affair. I have even heard mention of SPARKLES, and that from the MEN. I've got to get to work - these sweatpants aren't going to bedazzle themselves!

Big hugs and lots of love,

Esss

*Of COURSE I'm in the guild! Look at all this beer I blog about! I'm also a Young Furniture Maker in the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, because OBVIOUSLY.

On weddings, boathouses, and yet more graveyards

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. - Kurt Vonnegut

HOLYCOWYOUGUYS. Can we talk about yesterday's wedding for a minute? Only a minute. I can't imagine this would be interesting to anybody who wasn't there.*

First, the bride:

RIGHT! Meet Anne: famous for ball-busting, straight-talking, and having legs a mile long. Ugh.

Second, the weather. Scotland in the autumn is riDICulous:

It's honestly enough to turn your stomach.

Third, Glasgow Cathedral:

For the best Gothic ceremony a marriage can buy. Goats optional.

This morning we took a walk to the Loch Lomond boathouse because the air was crisp and clear and also we gained twenty pounds after eating for five hours straight last night and also they had a little restaurant serving coffee and also, how could you resist this?:

Motto: Making People Punch Themselves in the Face Since 1968.

It turns out half the London crew had the same idea. It's like we're all friends for a reason. Behold, the Ladies of Sporting Hackney**:

 This isn't all of them, of course. The others were no doubt in more sensible places, like bed. This is Maria the Intellect, Marie the Edge, and Louise the Style. Just wait until you meet the Comedy, the Party, and the Class***.

It's how we roll.

After we got back to Barrhead, we took a walk to visit Alan's aunt and uncle and had to pass a graveyard to get there and I kid you not:

THIS ROLLED RIGHT IN. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. It's like they know I know. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find a cross made of garlic. Our trip back to London isn't going to protect itself. 

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

*I say this only because I would totally tune out anybody who wanted to tell me a wedding story. Please. Start with the traffic you encountered on the way there. I've got all day.

**Sporting Hackney: the London football team that binds our group like so much spilled whisky on a parquet dance floor.  

***This is you, Rachael. Once you're in, you can never get out.

If Water is the Essence of Moisture, then Will is the Essence of Time

I mean, time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please, and that’s how I know it doesn’t exist. - Willow Smith

Willow has totally got a point, youguys. Like right now, I'm going to post photos from an adventure that happened TWO WEEKS AGO, but I'm going to act like it was THIS week for the sake of relevancy, and that's how I know time doesn't exist. 

So, recently* a girlfriend and I were trying to make plans to catch up because we hadn't seen each other since her birthday many moons ago and a reunion was long overdue. We were debating the merits of visiting a haunted pub when she had the idea for bingo. BINGOYOUGUYS. BINGO. Obviously, I was immediately on board. Then she sent me the following information. JUST WHEN I THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET BETTER:

"[It's] at the oh so multi-cultural and slightly edgy Elephant & Castle shopping centre. It will be full of African women sucking their teeth, Polish people eating cabbage and Colombians tapping their feet to salsa tunes. I went for a recce the other day and it is a fantastically parallel universe of London. Do you like the sound of it?"

'YES' WORDS FAIL ME HERE.

This is outside the shopping centre:

World's Most Literal Design Interpretation of Elephant & Castle. The artist they commissioned just nailed it.

This is where we ate the promised Polish food:

I know, right! You totally thought it was going to be full of plastic tables and florescent lighting. Instead it's full of HIPSTERS. It has been discovered. In the grimmest shopping centre that London has to offer, after-hours when everything is shuttered down and you think surely if you stick around, they'll find your body in one of those urns in the morning, there's this place, a beacon of light and hope and good smells. It was so so tasty. Sidebar: Polish food has got to be the most unphotogenic food ever. I tried taking a photo of the pancakes covered with gravy and I don't even want to talk about how it looked. Also, all the food is the colour of nothing, the colour of soviet-tenement-beige. And it doesn't even MATTER because HOLY PIEROGIES, BATMAN. GET IN ME. 

This is us before we went in to play, holding our new member forms so they would let us in. We are now** official members of the Palace Games Club! 

Don't be jealous of our coolness. I know it's intimidating.

Now to get down to the meat of things: THE BINGO. First off, can I tell you how difficult it was to take any pictures? They do NOT want that, people. Anytime I'd even REMOTELY hold my phone up, I'd instantly get tackled by a host of staff members: 'what was that?' 'what'd you do?' 'did you take a photo?' 'let me see the photo you took,' 'delete the photo you took,' 'oh, you didn't take a photo? okay.' Absolute denial (even while clearly holding a camera) generally satisfied them, at which point they'd smooth down each other's ruffled feathers and get back to wandering listlessly around. 

This was so worth the battle.

EVERYwhere you'd see these little slips crammed into the machines. TO SAVE THEM. 

I pulled one out (right before getting tackled again) and IT'S A REAL SAVE SLIP. It's not a bunch of old ladies cramming wads of tissue in there. 

Needless to say, I got no photos of the actual bingo room (the vultures!) but I DID manage to sneak a recording of the guy doing the number call. Can you believe that VOICE? So hypnotic. So very, very unbelievably hypnotic.***

I want to go to bed every night listening to this guy read numbers.

Needless to say, we'll totally be returning. Especially now that we're *cough* members. It's only a matter of time until we win big now that we've got all these slips.

I leave you with this original Bingo Haiku, created with real British Bingo Lingo:

Lucky musty hive
And Grandma's getting fisty
Oh Dirty Gertie

The first person to tell me in the comments the numbers I've just called is totally getting a prize.****

Big hugs and lots of love,

Essss

*A month ago, three weeks ago, yesterday - who can say? So is the nature of time.

**Or not now. Again, time. Also, the guy who took our cards said his 'machine was down' - I'm sure he meant computer and wasn't making this up at all - therefore he couldn't process our membership forms at that moment, but he would TOTALLY get to it. I'm sure my card will arrive in the mail any day now.

***This is the sound of time disappearing.

****I'm not saying it's a good prize. 

And we're going back for seconds!

I have always been of the opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. - Oscar Wilde

If we take Oscar Wilde's quote to heart, then OMGYOUGUYS those jazz musicians last night must be the most imaginative people on the PLANET. The opening duo played what I like to call 'Cacophony Jazz.' Cacophony Jazz is best defined by its tones of 'Screaming Cat' and 'Dying Chicken,' accompanied by 'Wailing Kangaroo.' By the end of their half hour of screeching, our group was green around the gills. I struggled with my own fight-or-flight-response to curl up under the table and fall asleep.*

Before I go any farther, I should describe our foursome in attendance: we had Alan, who - when he thinks he is going to hear jazz - makes this sound that I WOULD call scatting, except it's nothing but high hat. Then there's Peter - who I met when I worked for Abi - a guy who terrifically wears his scarf as though it is the last scarf on earth and decorates with wild abandon, and his partner, the Brazilian Roberto, who would seem to be the most-equipped for this scene if it weren't for the fact that he's so gentle he makes lambs look like violent predators. We've all become friends because they also have a place in France, relatively near ours, and the four of us can get together and fling our scarves around and throw our noses into the air while discussing the apPALling state of the French antiques market**. They are also the ones who introduced us to our Kiwi builder and his French wife***. So we love them. But, needless to say, we are not the audience for this concert. We are Philistines.

We've only just recovered from the opening set when the main act takes the stage. The venue is now full, standing-room only. Here comes my drummer. I'm feeling good. IT'S HIM IT'S HIM. We're digging in. *rubbing hands together, shifting weight in hard wooden chair, leaning forward* Then a homeless guy comes out and sits at the piano. Followed by a janitor who grabs the cello. The three of them are fantastically indifferent to their own performance - in fact, they may not have even noticed there was an audience: the homeless guy clearly rolled out of bed and shrugged, 'smells clean enough' before rubbing his beard into disarray and stumbling out into the harsh light of day, the janitor looked for all the world like someone you'd spill your guts to over a pint of cask ale in the city, and Our Drummer is wearing a stripey shirt with all sorts of white and blue and red like the world's sweetest patriot. They are totally unlike the Cacophony Duo, who were both dressed head-to-toe in black and played in the dark.

Now youguys, I'm not gonna lie: I wouldn't buy this recording. I wouldn't even seek it out on Spotify. It was madcap chaos - part Cacophony Jazz, part WHOAOAOAOAOAO Jazz. But I will say this: these guys were INSANE PLAYERS. The homeless guy - we found out later out he's Italian, which made all the sense in the world - was so into his piano that he literally CLIMBED INTO his piano. He played the strings as much as the keys. The cellist - middle-aged, wearing a rooster tee shirt - looked like he was trying to kill his instrument. He played the top, the bottom, the underside of the strings; he made it scream with his bow before hammering it with his fists. I have never seen hands move as fast as his did, and I've been pickpocketed in Madrid. And then of course Tatsu (I feel we're close enough I can call him that) played the drums, in the sense that he took a whole bunch of stuff and threw it, rubbed it, and scraped it across them, producing sounds that were wonderfully, wildly unnatural.

It was awesome. To watch. It will take days for my brain to quit bleeding.

In other news: we've got another show tonight! This one is the Mike Fletcher Trio at the Barbican. I hope - at least for Alan's sake - there's some high hat action.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

*My body likes to deal with extreme stress by passing out, which makes me wicked vicious in a fight.

**We know nothing about the state of the French antiques market.

***Natalie and I can only communicate in pantomimes and charades, but she has got a face so expressive that she could tell the story of the Odyssey and not leave a detail out. We have no problems conversing.

On White Walkers and the Survival of the Fittest

'Sometimes I think the world has gone completely mad. And then I think, "Aw, who cares?" And then I think, "Hey, what's for supper?"' - Jack Handey

I've started getting veg boxes in my local grocery delivery. I did it in part because it was good value but more because I like the element of surprise and the idea of cooking with food I wouldn't normally. I remember a girlfriend of mine back in San Francisco talking about her farmer's market veg box: 'It makes me cook new things because I don't want to waste anything. The other day I got loads of kale. Kale! I've never cooked with kale before. I sauteed it with cannellini beans. And I made kale chips! Kale chips with rosemary! When would I have ever made kale chips with rosemary before someone delivered a box to my door with kale in it that I had to use?'

I've always remembered this Adventures with Kale story and I fancied that someday I too would get a veg box delivered to my door and I would cook lovely new things, like chips made from crispy greens that I would then dip into freshly-mashed avocados in my volcanic-rock mortar bowl while my homemade ricotta is curdling away in the background.

So recently when my local delivery offered a veg box option, I jumped on it, fantasies of fresh, exciting produce dancing before me. And then I opened my first box. Potatoes. Onions. More potatoes. Broccoli. Carrots. A couple more potatoes. Leeks! There must be something wrong. Where's my kale? My savoy cabbage? My Jerusalem artichokes? WHERE ARE MY SEXY NEW VEGETABLES FOR ME TO MAKE SEXY NEW FOOD WITH??

And then I remembered where I live, and how delicious root veg is, and got on with it. So now I'm killing soups and risottos and I'd like ANYbody to question the Deep South way I cook anything leftover (namely, covered in brown sugar and roasted to oblivion, next to a slab of steak or fried chicken). Because dangit, Winter is Coming (and by that I mean, 'already here') and the Others are on their way.

Beyond the Wall.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a Kitchen Sink risotto to stir and dragonglass to sharpen. I'll see you soon.

Big hugs and lots of love,
Essss

On liking, loving, and assumptions of obsession

A bookshop in Dublin, quote by Flann O'Brien

So I took down my last post because I may or may not be doing an internship with a literary publicist soon and the last thing I wanted was for them to google me and find me posting about experimental sushi hot dogs (I KNOW!) but now I'm in a position of having to write about something that makes me sound smart.

...   

Maybe the absence of something embarrassing will suffice in the place of something meritorious; I'm drawing from an empty well here.

True story: once I told someone that I liked children's literature. Later, and unrelatively, I mentioned that I went to a sci-fi exhibit at the British Library. Ever since then, this person will preface any discussion we have of books with 'Well, I know this isn't a kid book or sci-fi, but...' 

I love that.

It's like when you're ten and you draw a picture of Mickey Mouse because it's easy and makes you look talented and your family thinks because of this that you must love Mickey Mouse and so for the next five years everyone is giving you Mickey Mouse tee shirts and watches and pillows and radios for Christmas and birthdays and there is nothing you can say to stop it because the idea has taken root. (Not that this happened to me, but it totally did.) Once a person has a notion in their head about you, it is nearly impossible to change. I think the best you can do is hope to redirect. Perhaps with the person above who thinks I'm obsessed with sci-fi this means talking about a fascination with Jewish literature, or light pollution, or the wonders of peppers. That could sufficiently throw me across another train track. When I was young, I should've taken to drawing pictures of gold bricks and LP's. Who can say where I'd be now if I had derailed the Mickey train and replaced it with wealth and music taste?

Either way, I've got to build myself a new box soon, and hopefully one with more than two sides.

(Dublin again; it's a city that understands me)

Before I forget! I must apologize to subscribers of my feed. There's some sort of glitch that causes random posts from the past to come flying out of nowhere and back into your inbox. I think it's triggered by me taking down posts, but I don't really understand why that would be, so I don't want to conjecture too much. Suffice it to say, I'm so sorry for spamming you, please do delete these extra posts when they arrive.

I have to go now, but here's one last photo from Dublin; I'm off to Galway on Friday for a wedding and I hope it's as beautiful as this. 

Big hugs and lots of love,
Esssss

On Roosters, Summer Vacation, and a Milestone Birthday

"When the rooster crows on the dung heap the weather stays the same, or it changes." - German proverb

I'm home! I'm home! My travels are done, school is officially out, and the days stretch open before me. The first thing I have to do is process the past two months worth of photos from Paris, Luxembourg, Brussels, Florence, and Athens, and then...it's Resume Time! I've got to dust that old thing off and start sending it around town. I'll admit I'm thrilled about entering the work force again. I'm sure that will wear off the first time I'm called into my boss's office about 'my overwhelming enthusiasm and volume,' but for now, I feel like the world is my oyster! What shall I do?? Where shall I apply?? Someone, quick, tell me.

In other news, D-Day approaches! On June 6, I turn the Big 3-0. I have to admit I'm not being very graceful, very 'Life Just Gets Better with Age' about it. I really thought--back when I was too young to think 30 was actually going to happen--that I would bound into this decade, breaking that winner's tape, flushed with the victory of wisdom and experience and ready to take on new challenges. But no, it turns out I'm not that mature. Immaturity is something I can still admit to in my 20's and receive some level of grace. As a 20-something, one is still considered somewhat naive, and decisions that don't look too far ahead are tolerated. But now! I will be in my 30's. No longer will women flap their hands dismissively at me, saying, 'Of course you say that! You have all the time in the world, you're so young!' And no longer will men laugh, 'Ahhhhh, I remember that energy. Now go refill my coffee, only one sugar this time, and then fax this report.'  Nor will I automatically get the ignorance-of-youth free ride anymore. From now on when I'm ignorant, I'm just ignorant (though maybe I've always been just ignorant and will just now be facing the music). At 30, one is expected to be a mature, responsible human being, with a real career and a ticking clock and a purse that has a moisturizer with sunblock in it. There can be no more 'When I Grow Up' procrastination. Nobody likes to see a 35 year old still talking about some dream he'll fulfill when he gets big. 

On the bright side, it will be nice to start lording all my lofty experience over all those 20-somethings, gifting them with the same dooms-day predictions I was privy to: 'You won't be able to eat like that forever!'  and 'One day you'll break your leg doing that!' and 'Just wait until you get your first chin hair!' 20-somethings love that. It totally sinks in and makes a difference. I'll also say annoying things like, 'I just can't drink that much caffeine anymore,' and 'I need shoes with more support' and 'I can't sleep a wink with that fly in the room!' So that's exciting. I've also been practicing my 'Why are movies so LOUD these days??' moan for next time I'm in a movie theater, digging out my earplugs. 

I guess there IS a lot to look forward to, now that I think about it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I should go lie in the sun. I only have four  more days to flippantly damage my skin. I'm just so young; I don't know any better. Premature aging and skin cancer are but strange threats on a distant horizon. You have to forgive me.

Big hugs and so much love,
Essss

p.s. Let me know if you need my address for my birthday present.

If I were aging in Paris, I'd just become more dapper. And discover an uncanny ability to complete a crossword.

Life's a jolly holiday with Mary

Have you ever mixed up the date your taxes were due with the date of the Oklahoma City bombing and thought you had until the 19th to get them done? Yeah. Me, neither. Except maybe something similar to that just happened, so I didn't do my taxes last week because I thought I could do them this weekend. And then when I realized what happened, I shot out of bed in a blind panic (realizations like this can only happen at six a.m. on a Saturday), my heart racing, the old familiar self-reprimand of 'Sha-roooooo-NA!' going through my head. But when I went online to see if I could file an extension, I found out that due to some obscure Abe Lincoln holiday in Washington D.C. last Friday, I now have until Monday to turn it all in!! That's right. MONDAY! How lucky am I?? My hide has been saved by emancipation. As usual.

Today I'm going to put a pretty picture in my blog before any other picture because facebook only shows the first picture when my blog is posted, and when that picture is a mangy cat or a really tiny picture of San Francisco, it ends up looking a bit rough. So here's one to make my blog look warm and welcoming:

Doesn't this remind you of Bert's painting in Mary Poppins where they go skipping around on carousel horses? That Bert! These trees are all the rage in Engrand-town in the spring. They make me happy.

This weekend is a manic birthday weekend--but not mine, which is lame. Other people's. There's a birthday party tonight at a place that I keep calling The Golden Egg, but that's not really the name, it's just what I call it because I can't remember the real name. But calling it The Golden Egg makes me crave wontons and there probably won't be wontons there. I should just skip the party and go out for Chinese food. 

And then there's another one tomorrow. Again, not mine, and again, not involving Chinese food. Ridiculous, isn't it? People are so selfish.

But let's bring this back to my birthday, which I think we can all agree is what we really care about. My big 3-0 is coming up in June. D-Day, to be specific. I don't know what I'm going to do for it yet. I thought--five years ago, when I was living in SF--that I'd be doing this huge huge thing and it would be Super Magic Wonderful Good Times but now that I'm here in London, I'm at a bit of a loss. I should make this London thing work for me, and I don't know, maybe check on Wimbledon or horse racing dates or something. Then I can dress up and wear a big hat. That would be wonderful.

On a plus side, my friend Cassandra's 30th is in May and as a joint-celebration, she's flying out here! She'll already be gone by my birthday, but we'll have so many mini parties while she's here I'll have a nice stockpile to draw from.

And today, as a pre-birthday present to myself, I'm going to visit one of my favorite local shops and fondle all the silk flowers. You can never start celebrating too soon.

Big hugs and happy Saturday,
Esss

I can travel to other countries, but I can't take a bus across town.

One should always be a little improbable. - Oscar Wilde 

I was recently recommended a book called 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,' only I misunderstood the person and thought they said, 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wilde.'

It made sense at the time.

I need to go to the V&A today, but must admit to not wanting to make the lengthy journey there and back again. I just know I'll fall asleep on the underground and wake up feeling foggy and disoriented. I was encouraged to take pictures while I'm there to blog about it (this is how people motivate me now, and usually it works), but then that only serves to remind me that I'm behind on blogging my Stockholm pics and anyway, I've already done the V&A.

So...back to Stockholm! This will probably be my last post with anything Sweden-related, so quick-quick in list let me mention the highlights of my time there:

-the furniture fair and festivities around town for design week
-snow snow snow and wet nose toes and ice-crunchy mittens

-gastronomic delights: salmon and dill and red onions and gerkins and goat's cheese and sunflower seeds and anchovies and mustard and roe and herring and meatballs and lingonberries and hot dogs and oh I miss you already...

I should post the food photos--notably those of The Greatest Food Hall Ever--but a lot of that will depend on whether or not I photo any dead birds today and my blog path re-routes.

A-hem.

Without much further ado...Stockholm!

I don't think there are words enough for how much it snowed beautiful it was. Even with the storm that started on Thursday morning, when I took the bottom-right photo of the still-dry streets. I was touring with the school-friends below and we were about to embark on a 'scenic walk along the Soder cliffs' when it started to fall. 'Oh how charming!' we thought as the first flakes began to dust our pretty scarves. 'This will make the view from the cliffs so lovely!' And so we started walking. And it kept snowing, heavier and denser and oh so thick. By the time we got to 'the scenic views,' there was zero visibility ('Can you see Ostermalm?' 'I think it's that fuzzy mass across the water?'), Caio's Italian leather loafers were committing suicide, and we were windmilling across the icy footpaths.

It was fantastic. 

'Okay, Aya, now let's play that Amarylis is Mommy and Caio is Daddy and you're Baby!' 

I would like to point out that both Amarylis (Belgium-Luxembourgian) and Caio (Brazilian) come from modelling families. That's why they're so tall and gorgeous. Aya comes from a Japanese family, which is why she's so tiny and gorgeous.

The rest of the day was spent blissing in and out of warm design shops and boutiques, having a cosy, hearty lunch at a sweet little cafe, and taking one more view-laden walk. (small cough)

If you squint real hard, you may see the tower in the mist. This might've been a castle, or a museum, or a house of lords, or the most striking architecture in all of Stockholm. Either way, this is all we could see during our blizzard hike. That is, when we were able to blink the snowflakes out of our eyes. It was awesome. To me. Maybe not to the others, who were cold, wet, and bedraggled, coerced out by my promises of 'the best views of Gamla Stan!' My attempts at cheer were futile: 'Hey, forget that silly castle! I'm sure it's nothing! Look at all that ice in the water! Guys! Ice! In the water! Isn't that wild??'

I don't think they were impressed.

This photo was taken before the hike, when we were all still friends.

I should really be getting to the museum now. If I stall much longer, it will be closed before I arrive. Unless, of course, I just go on Wednesday...

Hmmm.

Big hugs and love,
Esss

On poetry, art, and why my blog is wack-tastic right now.

So I tried (am trying?) to get a custom domain to update my blogger address to just 'TodayIWroteNothing dot com' and now, four days later, the domain is still marked as 'not found,' and now my blog is all screwy. Apologies to those who have told me they've had trouble leaving comments--I'm sorry! (Notably because I need comments to survive.)  (No, really.)

Now I'm going to compose a little poem about how this whole ordeal has made me feel:

Ode to My Custom Domain

I tried to get a custom domain
Only ten dollars, they said!
But now it turns out to be super lame
I should have just stayed in bed.

See if I try to upgrade again
It's been nothing but a big mess
I'm going back to the good old days
When whether to bathe was my only stress.

Thank you.

And now for something that makes me happy happy: the drawings I received to use for my homework! I know what you're thinking as you scroll through the below: 'Sharona, that it way better than anything you could ever produce.'

Katymylove drew this log(superfluous hyphen)cabin. I had NO idea that all this time she was hiding such mad skunk-drawing skills. And Katy, if you ever decide to retire as an opera singer, you should DEFINITELY consider architecture.

OMG WILD CARD!! This is from Maria, my new favorite Kansas-City-ian. It is 'a human, a book, and a treasure box.' All of my favorite things! Maria, * you * * complete * * me *

And last, but not least...it's Lealea's picture! Well, okay, not * really * Lealea as much as her friend Anna, who can wield crayolas like nothing I've ever seen. I don't know WHY my art teacher didn't put those on our supply list as a rightful medium.

Ladies, your prizes are on their way! My drawing teacher is going to be so proud...