LDN 3

It's very cold here. I don't have a good pen to write with and it's pissing me off. I also don't have a map which means I can't make sense of all the places I've been. Complaints to be handled at some point, I guess. Right now I'm just trying to stay warm, stay awake because I'm supposed to go to some party thing. I really really don't want to. Don't want to leave the house again tonight, at least until I can nap.

LDN 2

Yesterday (Saturday):
- Broadway Market in Hackney
- dinner at home
- drinks at the pub
- chips in a pita on the walk home

Today (Sunday):
- Tate Britain -- Millais!
- Covent Garden for expensive lunch and browsing Forbidden Planet
- home in the freezing fog

LDN: End of first day

Planes, trains, and automobiles. I definitely lost a day, with all the travel I did. Exhausting. Cary picked me up from Gatwick with coffee at the ready, and we rode for hours to get to his flat. then on to Finsbury Park, where we ate lunch at an awesome little deli called Good For Food (parsnip soup with cumin and ginger, and bread). Then we walked around, killed time. Cary signed a lease and moved into his new house, 3 blocks from St. Andrew's Mansions, where he was.

House is very, very cute. Exactly what you'd picture. I'm in the closet-sized guest room at the end of the hall. Cold, but it is freezing here. It gets dark at 4pm, and then it gets foggy. Exactly what you'd picture, again. I'm thinking it's mostly like that here. I miss Jenny an insane amount. Wish she was here. Still. I love England and I'm daydreaming about America. Re-reading American Gods. Planning my great cross-country roadtrip. I'd plan what to do here in London, but damn am I lost and confused. So many streets. I need a good map. And a day to wander around in like, each area.

Things I love about London thus far:
- the bus
- the corner shop
- the old, solid buildings
- the brisk air when I'm bundled up and walking fast

Signed, Mata Hari

Even if I wasn't completely fascinated by her story, I would want to read this book for its gorgeous cover art:

Synchronicity always happens

This morning I read on Bookslut that Elizabeth Hardwick had died.

Then I opened up Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, to the middle of an essay I was reading, and Joan Acocella mentioned her in the very next paragraph.