Category: London

My American Dream…

… has nothing to do with $$$, and never has, although travel always requires work, which requires money in exchange for goods and services. … spent 3 years in London, and very much likes the Idea of British. … is sometimes melancholy, and loves thick lyrics that make me want to sing along. … eats…

American Things I Love: Stacy and Bryan

Or, The Continuing Saga of the Toast Rack In a new series I am offering, English Things I Miss, I recently I opined about the great mystery of the toast rack. A mainstay of the British Bed and Breakfast, I found this piece of kitchenware a great and strange object. It is one of the…

Danny Wallace’s Cup of Tea

Dear Danny, I just wanted to send you a note to tell you that I was thinking about you. I’ve got the kettle on and it happens that way. Whenever I go to make my second cup of tea (especially on a cloudy day), I think of your “another cup of tea and biscuits” moments…

The Simple Life

Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness. — Seneca Colin and I went to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin this weekend for our friend, Andy’s, ordination. Andy is married to Aimee, my best friend. Aimee and I were maid/matrons of honor at each other’s weddings. After years in London and our life now on the hectic East…

London Blue Sky

Occasionally, when I am just drifting off to sleep, or while I am in savansa at yoga class, I have a sudden flash from my memory. It’s a sensory flash, like a living photograph. Lately those flashes have been of London, of my home around Maida Vale, and of the color of the sky and…

Ma Vie en Vert

With the window open, from my bed, the view is only grass. It doesn’t matter if it is raining or sunny– from here I have my square of green framed in white. My life in grass. In London, from the window of my office at Delaware Road — the first flat — my view was…

Reading “Out of a Clear Sky”

I am happy to report that I received my copy of Sally Hinchcliffe’s Out of a Clear Sky in the post yesterday. It is currently out of stock on Amazon proper, but you can buy it in the U.S. through Amazon booksellers. It took about a week to arrive. Sally’s bio in the book is…

Where My Thoughts Escaping

I am running back today, to London, for a quick breath. I am looking for my feet and for my friends. For the tiny space of quiet in the corners, and the for the push of the people against my shoulders. I am ready for the dampness and ready for the attention I need to…

A Cold Day

It doesn’t make sense, when the day starts with sunshine and ends, wet and unsettled, grey and cold. It doesn’t make sense, when a friend comes. Rings the bell. Shines the light. Then disappears, shuts the door behind them, to seal in the silence. It doesn’t make sense, at all, the emptiness of a womb,…

Iowa in 2008: The Future is Already Here

All my friends at The Warrington in England who didn’t know what or where Iowa is (“sounds familiar though”) are getting their quat-annual reminder today as my fair home state makes front page news internationally, including three front pages in the Guardian, The Independent and below the fold featuring McCain in the Tory Times. As…

The Mark of the Bewildered Wild

Now that I live with a mini forest in my backyard, I am seeing an odd sort of wildlife bewilderment reveal itself that I always felt nearby. In London, it was the foxes. Whilst the debate raged in the countryside and in Parliament about the cruelty of hunting foxes with dogs, the foxes themselves (clever…

Memory, Paralysis and Love

or, How I Go On Loving London After you leave, you can’t go back. It’s good that London is old. It holds memory well. It bears up its edges, the mortar and the crust to take the dusty grime of memory and let it cling. After something is smashed, it’s broken. There is glue, or…

What the pub did for me

At a pub, I learned the English are hard to get to know. But once you know them, it’s hard to let them go. And they don’t let go easy. They are like old dogs. Completely faithful. But they probably won’t leap up when you come in. In a pub I learned how beautiful cigarette…