Red

Tonight I took a woman I'd never met to the theatre.

I'm never entirely sure how I get myself into these situations. In this case, I'd bought tickets last November for a show that was almost immediately a sell out. Two days ago, Jess found out she had to go to Israel for work, of course on the same day as the show. Jessica's mother, however, knew someone who desperately wanted to go, and only needed one ticket. So there you are.

The play was about Mark Rothko, and I was interested because Jess had taken me to an exhibition last year at the Tate Modern, and I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but it was really my first experience with modern art.

That seems like an odd thing to say, but art was never something that was very important in my life. I'd go to the odd museum, off course, but usually appreciated the classic works, the skill and style, the antiquity. Modern work either appealed or appalled, but I never questioned why. At home, I decorated with paintings from people I knew, including my sister, or art people had given me, which were generally landscapes and still lifes. (And they were all lovely!)

So the Rotho exhibit was really the first time I focused on the art, and how it made me feel. Surrounded by massive canvases painted shades of red, it was an interesting challenge to understand why some appealed to me and others did not. The play, which was brilliant, expanded on this, not so much answering any questions, but explaining why the questions were important. (Jess has since taken me to exhibits on Alexander Calder, Anish Kapoor, and Francis Bacon.)

Now don't worry, you won't find me sitting on the Left Bank in a beret and smoking skinny cigarettes any time soon. But you may occasionally find me contemplating art, no longer trying to find the artist, but trying to find a little bit of myself.

Leaving the theatre tonight, it's amazing I don't end up on the Left Bank.

In a melancholy mood

It's 3am, and the world is still except for a random shuffle of 40s jazz, 50s folk, and 60s rock issuing from my laptop. I've just completed a 'death march' project, working 80 hours/week for the past three weeks, and I should be in bed catching up on some much needed sleep. Instead, teabags pile up like cigarette butts in an ashtray, marking a long and contemplative evening.

I complained over three years ago that my life was in a holding pattern, and in many ways it still feels that way. I haven't settled down, and will likely move twice more this year before I can. There are things I want to do -- take a college course, do some volunteer work, buy a guitar -- that I can't do until I move/buy a car/renew my work permit/etc. It feels like there's always something else I have to do before I can do what I want.

Of course, compared to three years ago when I was sleeping on an inflatable bed, I've made great strides, and I'm moving closer every day. Perhaps it's because the goal is in sight that I'm suddenly so impatient for it to arrive.

Highly skilled?

I had quite the scare the other day--I have to renew my UK work permit in a few months, so I went online to find out what I would need, and the website said the highly skilled migrant programme was closed!

Fortunately, it turned out they had just renamed the program (to "highly skilled worker" -- bureaucracy is truly universal) and the requirements to renew my permit were exactly the same as two years ago. Interestingly, though, for new permits they no longer accept bachelor's degrees--masters or phD only--so had I waited another year for the economy to recover, I wouldn't have been allowed to come at all.

Once I renew, I have another two years "leave to remain" (an interesting phrase), for a total of four years, but I have to be in the UK for five years before they'll grant me "indefinite leave" (the UK equivalent of a green card). Fortunately, last I checked, if I apply for indefinite leave at the end of the fourth year, they'll let me stay while it is considered.

More pressing, however: A mortgage lender told me I couldn't get a home loan unless I had at least two years leave to remain, which kind of makes sense. However, that means once my permit is renewed, I have a very small window to buy a house, or I have to wait another 3 years!

I used to listen--with a lot of sympathy and a great deal of outrage--to my friends about US immigration, and that was actually part of the motivation to move out of the US, to experience first-hand that bureaucracy and discrimination that comes from simply being born on a different spot of soil. Well, I've experienced a very mild form of it, and let me just say--it sucks.

P.S. I'm burning a Yahrzeit candle tonight in memory of my father, who would have been 75 this month. I love you and miss you, Dad.

Visit California

This is hilarious: In 2008, at the height of the credit crunch and with 11% unemployment, California started running television ads in the UK to get people to relocate to California! I assume it was just something that had been in the pipeline for a while, and they were stopped after a few weeks, although for the life of me I can't understand why they let the commercials run at all.

Now, 18 months later, they are running the exact same ads, except they've changed the website to "VisitCalifornia.com"! I can't find the original online, but here is the "new" ad (with some outtakes) and you can still plainly tell they were recruiting people:

What I'm listening to at the moment

I've been listening to some fantastic artists lately, most of whom I'd never heard of a year ago.  Obviously not everyone's cup of tea, but I thought I'd share a few of them.  (These are hosted on last.fm; some are full songs and others are 30-second clips.)

Allison Moorer – Alabama Song
Antje Duvekot – Dandelion 
Bill Morrissey – Birches
Bonnie Raitt – Silver Lining
Cesária Évora - Petit Pays
Chris Barber's Jazz Band – Petite Fleur
Chris Smither – Never Needed It More 
Deadstring Brothers – Where Are All My Friends?
Equation – Jack and Suzanne
Garrison Starr – Unchangeable
Greg Brown – Samson
Ingrid Michaelson – The Way I Am
James Lee Stanley – Everyday
Jay Farrar – Hanging On To You
Jess Klein – Blood, Sweat, Tears
Jonatha Brooke – I'll Try
Kate Rusby - Underneath The Stars
Nina Simone – Feeling Good
Reg Meuross – And Jesus Wept
Regina Spektor – Samson
Robby Zar - Awake and Begin
Shannon McNally – Now That I Know
Seth Lakeman – Lady Of The Sea
The Jayhawks – All the Right Reasons
Tift Merritt – Keep You Happy
Vance Gilbert – If These Teardrops Had Wings
Whiskeytown – Inn Town

P.S. I think we have a winner in the worst road name contest.

The big freeze

Britain has finally thawed out and temperatures are positive again (although still single digits). I've noticed I no longer pay any attention to the weather reports, a far cry from when I first arrived in London, and I've stopped carrying an umbrella everywhere--it's just too much of a hassle, and the rain will probably stop in 10 minutes, anyway.

One particularly weather institution that I'm fascinated with, however, is the shipping forecast. This is just a radio broadcast of the weather around the British Isles, but it's read out in a very particular (and peculiar) way: An irregular grid marks 31 areas, each named something ridiculous like 'Viking,' 'Dogger,' or 'German Bight,' which are read out clockwise followed by wind direction, strength, precipitation, sea state, and visibility -- with no intervening descriptions!  For example: "Rockall. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate. Southeast Iceland. North 7 to severe gale 9. Heavy snow showers. Good, becoming poor in showers. Moderate icing."  The result is almost hypnotic, and since the last report is at 12:48am, many Brits use it as a sleep aid.

Since I mentioned Britain's poet laureate the other day, it seems only appropriate to reference another of her works, the last line of which made no sense when I first read it.

PRAYER by Carol Ann Duffy
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift 
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. 
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.
Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre

Britain last week

House hunting

When I first got here, I complained about how hard letting (renting) is in the UK, because each flat (apartment) is registered with a single agent, and each agent is a slimy scumbag.

If you know exactly where you want to live, it's fairly straightforward--you call all the agents in the area, and bug them regularly because they will never, ever call you back. But if your needs are a little more esoteric (ie "two bed near London with a water view") it's pretty impossible, unless you're willing to ring every agent in London and the surrounding home counties on a weekly basis.

And even that's not feasible, because agents will show you every hovel on their books, apparently in the hope that you'll forget your requirements and fall in love with the one-bed over a garage.

The only tool I have on my side is a web site called globrix.com, which consolidates listings from various agents and displays them on a map. (Who would have thought!) The only problem is that I still can't judge driving distance, and what I thought was going to be a leisurely Saturday turned into a frantic 7-hour race to see 5 properties.

• We started at 9:30am in Maidenhead, at a beautiful modern flat right on the river - but on the ground floor, with a large hedge that blocked any view. Funny how the agent didn't mention that...
• At 10am we were in Marlow, looking at the outside of a flat because the agent never showed. It did have a nice view...from the 4' x 4' living room that we could see.
• At 11am, we were in Weybridge, waiting for an agent who was 20 minutes late and brought the wrong keys. She went back to the office and then called us to let us know she couldn't find the keys, and we'd have to come back another time.
• At noon, we were in Staines, looking for parking on what had to be the busiest road outside of London. We got to the flat 10 minutes late, but the agent was 10 minutes later. The "luxury penthouse corner flat" did have a gorgeous view of the river, completely obscured by long, skinny windows and a horrible layout--I would basically be working in the kitchen in order to see anything.
• The same agent took us across the river to look at another flat that had a much nicer view, was £300 month cheaper, and would have been fine...if it hadn't been in Staines.
• The same agent had one other property that he didn't want to show us, but since it happened to be right next to another place we were going to look at, we insisted. It turned out to be a charming little house with a lovely garden and a brook running by. Jess and I agreed that it was the only place worth considering.
• We went down the street to see the final place, and it reminded me of "The Money Pit" -- outside it was absolutely fantastic, a solid brick house with a turret and leaded glass windows, a large yard, on a quiet street between the brook and a reservoir. On the inside, however, it was a complete nightmare, with mouldy bathroom tiles, DIY partitions, and several areas the landlord has locked off for his own storage! I told the agent I'd consider buying it, but not renting it, and she agreed with me!

On a brighter note, I finally met an agent who did not use the phrase 'to be honest with you' every 2 minutes. (I had one agent say that when discussing the weather!) I would have rented from the man for that reason alone--except that was the flat with the hedge. I wish he had been honest with me.

This isn't too much to ask for, is it?

Words, wide night

I can't decide if the world is too big or too small.

Just looking at a map of British Airways routes is humbling: Cairo, Nairobi, Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Delhi, Bangkok, Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Athens, Rome, Madrid, Bucharest, Istanbul -- a who's-who of history and romance, all less than 12 hours away! The world has literally become an oyster, and with four weeks off per year (and no B&B to deal with), I have more free time than ever.

Yet, making holiday plans today proved just opposite: Even if all I did this year was take a few weekend trips (3-4 days, plus travel time) to see my family in California and Georgia, that would take 15 days; add in a few days to see friends in Los Angeles, and my holiday time is gone! Jessica is already planning trips to Israel and Australia without me, because she has 44 holidays this year (some of it carried over from last year).

I moved to England so I could see the world, but now I just want to see my family.

I don't have any answers, but I will leave you with the words of Carol Ann Duffy, Britain's poet laureate:

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us. I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this
is what it is like or what it is like in words.

Seasons

All my life, I'd heard about seasons, but being from Los Angeles, I hadn't actually experienced one.  I've visited snow, of course, but that's not the same as experiencing it, and frankly I didn't see the point.  Naturally I assumed having great weather year-round was ideal, and anyone who said "I miss the seasons" was delusional.

Three years ago, I got my first taste of fall foliage in Pennsylvania, and I suddenly understood what everyone was talking about.  It felt like I was experiencing the landscape fresh every single day, and I was hooked.  That was when I realized I could never return to Los Angeles.

Today I was reminded of that driving down the motorway with a heavy snow falling under a bright sky, flocking the bare trees.  I should have been terrified of the icy road, but instead I felt like a child, sticking my tongue out to catch the flakes.  (No, it doesn't work inside a car.)  The fields looked like water, flat and still under the snow.  It was stunning, but even more remarkable was knowing that in six months it will be a different world, familiar in shape and place, but fields ablaze with rapeseed, lush trees full of birds, the silence a deafening chorus of animals, the melted snow just an overflowing stream.  I now understand what everyone meant, and how addictive it can be.

Now, I'm not about to move to Norway so I can experience this regularly.  In fact, part of the charm of England is that while it gets all of the seasons, it doesn't do any of them particularly well.  But for me, it's absolutely perfect, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The view from my flat the next day

Snowdonia

The train started with a jerk, then a slow chugging motion, before quickening the pace and smoothing out the ride.  Out the panoramic windows, snow-capped mountains competed with green fields, sheep grazed placidly beside the tracks, and choppy water reflected a million suns.  We were served tea in wing-back chairs as we kicked off our shoes and jumpers and relaxed for the four-hour round trip.  We pressed our heads against the cold glass to see streams disappearing beneath us, the engine snaking along ahead, or the long trail of steam overhead.  We held hands and spoke of other places and times, and waved back at the hikers on the trail.  On the return, we watched the snow fall, snoozed a little, and took funny photos of ourselves.  The next morning, we checked out of the lovely B&B and drove through the sea front of Llandudno, the walled town of Conwy, the waterfalls of Betws-y-Coed, and along a scenic road to Abergele, pelted by hail, before heading home to London.  It was, in short, an amazing start to the new year.

 Postcards from Wales