"Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us."

(Title is a closing quote from Gaiman's excellent faerie yarn Stardust)

I've found my neighborhood pub, and it goes by the handle Simon the Tanner. Cozy little free house that apparently also does pub trivia on Tuesdays, live piano on Wednesdays. And the beers are crafty and cheap, which made me feel so much better after the awful £££ city pubs by work, only frequented by bankers in bespoken suits. I did end up party fouling by toppling my pint at the bartender, but she took it in good stride. "Come back here and clean it up. I'm way too pregnant for that." I haven't been on my hands and knees in the back of a bar before, so *check that list?



I pretend I'm a literate kitty flopped on my windowsill with a paperback, watching the orange storm clouds eat the city, discount (£1.50!) shrimp & rocket sandwich from Sainsbury in hand. I just managed to beat the drizzle coming in after a day of wandering the Tate Modern. For a country that gets inundated so often, it's strange how crappy the umbrellas are. I tried out a few at Argos: two popped off upon opening and one bit my finger. Ow, and I guess I'll have to bring back some Yankee parasols in June.

Not actually the Mondrian I saw, but I'm also not a plastic figurine person.

Is it strange that Piet Mondrian now makes me want colorful cake? I spent a few minutes just staring at a half-room in the Tate full of his pieces and gnawing on a pear.

Froze my tuckus off outside St. Paul's trying to find a way in, cajoling and ninja-ing to no avail. I ended up sheltering inside the cafe to warm up a bit, chatted up a nice Dutch couple with cutest twin girls ever.

You're not allowed to take pictures here, so I'm not sure how this happened.

Chilly outside St. Paul's

I lazed around in the big sunbeam that toasts my room in the morning until around 1 pm before hopping on a double decker towards the National Gallery. Westminster really is gorgeous, and every shaggy head on the bus kinda shifts to the left a significant number of degrees when you cruise past the English minaret.My lovely flatmate threw me a housewarming where the centerpiece was a big pot of feijoada, farofa, chouriço de sangue, with plenty of hot sauce and orange wedges. Also, brigadeiro and a hillock of tiramisu for dessert. With one actual Brit at the party and the rest of us from all over the place, we verged on the edge of it being a Racism Rally, but the heavy lawyer count did mean people who like to bicker for sport. And smoke. Our kitchen was a tobacco rally, and gusts of it made me think of lung cancer from the living room.

I got off early since I was so excited, and realized that I was just in time for evensong, which is apparently an hour-long mass that's all choral all the time. More importantly, it gets you free access inside this cavern of wonders (not even kidding), though you do sit through an Anglican sermon on Zionism. Otherwise, visits inside Westminster Abbey will run you about $30 USD, and there ain't even Disneyland rides inside. Tombs upon ornate tombs, and the buttresses just keep going and going. The National Gallery paled in comparison, sorry Van Gough and Seurrat.

Chinatown was disappointing, though I suspect its location just off Leicester Square accounts for all the "Oriental Food!" signage and how every restaurant serves gooey battered protein. I did find a noodle house filled with fellow Chinese folk for some 刀削麵 (handmade knife-cut noodles) with a big pot of chili oil to spice up the beef stew. Toddled my way back to Bermondsey while catching another glimpse of Westminster during Golden Hour.

This city is growing on me.

I now see the appeal of fish & chips and consequently want to stop by every chippie I walk by. Why in the world do American places serve Styrofoam sticks in place of half a codfish? Drown me in malt vinegar, and yes, god yes, to mushy peas with mint. My first hit of this fish crack managed to take the edge of the worst human rights circle jerk I've ever had to bear witness to, so there's that. I hate audience questions that are monologues with a lilt. Doesn't quite masquerade the shit poor analysis as an interrogative.

Glad I made it to the Gay Geeks meet-up after a day of reading all about alien conspiracies in Australia, such that I no longer want to believe. Mulder, I don't know how you keep up your little green men quest-energy. No visible sign outside Retro Bar, so I let a small Scottish beardo chat me up for a while until I saw people slinking upstairs with a purpose. I keep getting told how friendly Americans are, and it's rather lovely realizing how far I've come from uni times when I basically couldn't hold up a conversation if my life depended on it. Now I'm more than willing to hold you down and talk your ears off. Also strange to get splashed as the American rather than as Chinese, though that does sound right.

Worked from home on Friday upon waking up with a pulsing head cold, and I must say, blanket forts and some tea and PB&J crumpets work wonders. Banged out a few writing projects for work, and by nightfall, I was bushy-tailed again for weekend shenanigans. 

Glad I was rested since I circled London on foot from about 10 am to 9 pm like touristy sojourns are my other job. The Hunterian museum is ridiculous, and inside the Royal College of Surgeons, every nasty thing that can happen to our squishy fleshbodies is on display, and I don't think I can move on from the shelf of mangled testicles and placentas. Sir John Soane's house was a good next stop, and there is so much I would steal from that place (hello, MI5), namely that 3D-printed pitcher involving a bee, shells, and a tortoise (that they actually scanned as it pattered around alive). Friendliest guidese on each floor, and I wanted to use all the Roman geegaws as climbing holds from the basement with the sarcophagus to the Shakespeare niche. The mustard-colored sitting room will be mine one day, along with the Italian otter who wore a piss-colored jumper to match. He and I became hopelessly lost in the house, but we bungled our way out without the £5 map. Relief fist bump farewell, and then I was off to Lincoln's Inn Fields for some mellow sunshine and translucently pale menfolk. Dolores Park this is not, but I did spot some gay beach-level leering sightlines (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes indeed?).

A redhead barista handed me a giant slice of orange polenta cake as I was sleepwalking out of the park, so hello free food is always a bargain. There are definitely little tranches of London that disorient me into thinking I'm in the Mission, and this little cafe off the park definitely has the chalkboard menu and beardy tatted look down pat. Lunch was at Bone Daddies, where I got dropkicked into a wall of pork bone broth so rich that it was like piggy custard hiding noodles. The nitamago egg halves, mm, I don't think I'll ever get sick of them. Currently thinking about whether you could make an egg salad sandwich with 'em. Be nice to add that to my shortlist of things to schlep to dinner parties.

And why would you pay £17 to see trains at the transit museum? 

Sleepy garden time, but once the daytime heat steamed off, I dashed into Gosh! for some Tom Gauld-loving. Berwick street is lovely, and I don't even own a record player, but these stores have such musical presence that I couldn't not walk in. Snagged a poster or two from the usual discard bin, so my tiny Bermondsey nest is looking more and more bower-birded for mates & mates. Ended the evening at the Barbican for a surrealist Italian play (Le voci di dentro) with Ade. Surtitles and not speaking Italian kinda suck for appreciating dark comedy, but post-war Italy and the human condition yada yada. Were eight curtain calls really necessary? Jugging Hare for some fruity beers, and then Vauxhall for the night. So jealous of massive chamber-rooms filled with gin, though I'm still liking how close I am to work and groceries. 

Hungover and walloped by time springing forward an hour, I basically just put my face into some fried eggs & rye toast with raspberry jam before even thinking about going out for a run. Really missing rockclambering, but I want my middle digit to be totally healed before I mangle it in crimps again at the Arch. In the meanwhile, I'm pushupping and crunching like I'm getting ready for a knockdown prison fight, or it's that I want to gain about five muscle-y pounds again.

Currently planning on a five-day Netherlands trip in April to meet Talia (and mayhaps Tristan) in Amsterdam, what is this life?!