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Diaries Expat Wannabe London Mental Health Oxford Travel

A Few Things I Miss

posted on August 13, 2014

I’ll begin to put out normal content tomorrow, but today, you get this.

At some point I thought home and didn’t stop till I left and I haven’t felt that way since. Here in London I’ve had moments where I felt exhilarated, moments I felt incandescently happy, but it hasn’t been quite the happiness that Oxford instilled in me. I never wanted to leave. If it had been me today, this person who’s managed to survive this long in London — I would have made it work for me. But I was so far from me today back then.

A Few Things I Miss

By Lix Hewett, Age 24 And 3 Quarters

1. My cat. He’s in Spain and I’m living in London and his name is Oxford. His name explains a lot of things about me. It hints that I’ve romanticized England a little bit, in my head and my heart and my memory. It hints that even though it feels impossible right now, London may not be where I want to set down roots. But mostly it reminds me that I wanted to live here since I was in Oxford six years ago now, the first time I met my best friend in person, the strange summer weather, iced vanilla lattes and sitting in a coffee shop with a book, the time I found a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets without two bricks’ worth of notes weighing them down, walking in the Botanic Garden and forgetting the flies as they flew past me and still having some faith in the educational system, the loveliness of the big old buildings, the sunset over Jericho and the thought of fall.

2. My childhood. This is a tricky one. More than once in my life I’ve had the thought of going back in time and I never wanted to unlearn my lessons, the realities and priorities I carry with me that shape who I am and how I feel and why I do. The further away I steer from the starting point, the harder it is to believe that I was ever without them, that I could have walked down another path and been influenced by different people. But sometimes depression weighs me down, and I wish I could leave my life in my parents’ hands again, trust them to keep a roof over my head and answer the door to strangers and tell me I’m all right as I am but here’s how I could be better, no pressure, all your choice, step by step, which I never got from my parents but I did get, eventually, off people I met on the Internet.

That’s what I never want to lose. I worry if I went back in time I might not do what I did, not every single bit, and lose them. And even though it’s a nice thought

3. Not getting angry when the world doesn’t listen and

4. Not getting angry at every little bit of bullshit, I don’t want to not be someone who acknowledges her failings and the ways she has it easy and will actually put her massive ego aside to support those who don’t because I’m only as important as the next human being and I neither need nor want more of that and I’m only as good as the choices I make every day with my time and my little reach, the only things I’m secure enough in – have enough of – to give away.

5. Financial stability. The illusion of it would work.

6. Chocolate. It’s only been a few days, but the weather’s got cold and I don’t have any and I need.

7. Being an only child, because eighteen years ago may be just long enough ago on the timeline for the things I miss to be real, solid and not slipping away even in the nostalgia-walled fantasies I sometimes have before I go to sleep, where no stranger in the night – human or thing or thought – can ever get to me before first getting through my parents,

8. Believing that there’s someone in the world who can protect you from anything, infallibly;

9. Believing my heart is safe on my sleeve;

10. Wrapping my feelings in words and making poetry with it all, so here’s a silly — but heartfelt — tablet attempt at it.

London

Annotated London: Belsize Park As Told By Flowers

posted on August 1, 2014

Finally getting around to posting a few photos from my three (!) months here in London. To begin with, though, I’m sharing a few photos I took the second day I was here — April 29. My friend Annemari and I decided to walk the long way back to our hotel from Belsize Park station, and took our sweet time getting there. Beautiful, beautiful neighborhood — can you see why I want to stay in Hampstead?

Some of these are available as prints on my Etsy shop, and I’m happy to print anything that’s not listed, or create canvases, phone cases and cards with my products on request. Regardless, the rest of this batch will have to be listed later, as I’ve got a little last-minute shoot to shave my legs for. Enjoy.

continue to full story

Expat Wannabe London Photography Travel

That Post I Never Wrote

posted on June 26, 2014

“I’m Really Going to London In May”

(April.)

I forgot to hug Oxford goodbye. My mom and sister carried my luggage to the train station. I didn’t forget to say goodbye to them.

I waited for Annemari at baggage claim and she ran to me and hugged me.

At our hotel, I took a shower and changed, and we went off to meet Ashy. It was a long walk. We took ages to figure out where her flat was. But we found it.

(I’m still in London. And feeling sentimental.)

Expat Wannabe Fashion London Outfits

Outfit Post: New Look Maxi & Taking Selfies At Train Stations

posted on June 11, 2014

OVERFLOWING

Look, it’s an outfit post!

So, Saturday: I woke up relatively early for me, got up, and spent far longer than I care to admit trying to figure out the best and most inexpensive way to get from here to Bethnal Green, where I’d agreed to meet Sarah at 1 PM. That turned into 1:30 PM and once I actually got on the buses, 2 PM due to delays and traffic. Sarah was actually leaving when I finally found her!

But the story has a happy, if awfully warm, ending. We walked around East London, which she really loves and I don’t quite see the charm of, and got to know each other (it was our first time meeting!) as we walked through various crowded markets in the area. She got some lovely peonies and we took pictures of each other’s outfits — as planned — “just off Brick Lane,” she says, and I’ll have to believe her because I have no idea. Spitalfields Market was just on the other end of the street, though, if I recall correctly, and she walked with me to Liverpool Street Station before going on to a Jack the Ripper tour that I may have to take myself sometime, when I get a chance to reread The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson and maybe even start The Madness Underneath. It’s all about YA for me, y’all. Always.

Like I mentioned above, it was a very hot day, so I took the opportunity to wear one of two maxi dresses I received from New Look last week. I’ve never worn a maxi dress before, and I was worried I may fall over my feet at some point — I stepped on the hem on the staircase in the flat I’m living in when I first put it on, so not an unreasonable worry! — but it turned out to be very comfortable and breezy, and what actually hurt me was the sockless shoes.

I needed to do some food shopping before I got home, so I spent a bit of time going around Liverpool Street Station and, before changing trains, Kings Cross, where I found out that W.H. Smith has (some) food. I had twenty whole minutes to kill before my train to Harringay left, though, so I also took a number of selfies just outside the station, two of which you can see above.

My (current) (temporary) flatmate was on the same train I was, and I walked back home with her and her sister, and then she made roast chicken and I ate a lot and had to have a lie-down, and then I ate a whole bar of chocolate and felt a little sick after that, too. I need to work on my self-control. But it was pretty awesome and it was great to meet someone new-that-I-already-knew, if that makes any sense.

Expat Wannabe London Mental Health Things I'm Thinking

11 Things: So Many Flat Viewings, So Little Time

posted on May 21, 2014

Linking up with Erica Jacquline for Listed Tuesdays! But don’t let that exclamation point fool you: flat viewings suck. Here is a sampling of flat viewings I’ve done since I came to London*:

* Really all of them, shut up.

1. April 30: Tooting, £370 + £100 deposit, sublet for a month or two. Tiny room — and I mean tiny — in a neighborhood I wasn’t entirely sure about. The entire road going up to Tooting tube station smelled like food. Regional food. All mixed up. The house was nice — a bit rundown, but nice. I said I was interested though I had doubts afterwards, but I never heard back from them. The girl who was there to show me around — physiotherapy student, if I recall correctly — did say a friend of a flatmate’s was coming to see the room the next day and it was hers if she wanted it, so I assume that’s what happened. They didn’t seem to hate me or anything.

2. May 2: Shadwell, room in — I assume — family home. This was my first time on the DLR, and I did kind of like it. Shadwell itself looked better than Tooting at first, but as we (Annemari and I) got closer to our destination, it started feeling a bit… unsafe. Then the flat itself was in a big block and it was ridiculously hard to find. Once we did, the room — while nice — was showed to us by a dude who seriously gave me the creeps. I asked if I could email the girl who currently had the room and he was like, “How are you going to know it’s really her?” Pardon me?

3. May 2: Poplar. Fuck me if the place existed because we sure as hell couldn’t find it, and we walked the whole of Poplar High Street down one side and back. (It was a nice area, mostly.) I guess it does?

4. May 3: Wood Green, either a flatshare or rooms rented in a house — I really don’t know, because when I got there, the “person in charge” wasn’t there — even though I had an appointment and for once wasn’t late — and the girl who answered the doorbell insisted that I call that person, even though I told her I didn’t have a phone. It was the dumbest conversation I’ve had to date. She couldn’t show me the room or tell me when the person in charge might be home, and she didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t call because I didn’t have a phone. Brilliance in the making. I also don’t like that area anymore.

5. May 4: Finchley Road, flatshare managed by landlord. We got there and the place was a bit rundown, but it was nice enough, quaint. The landlord was about to fall asleep in the garden, basically, but he seemed like a nice man — like a young grandfather type. One of the tenants was in, really pretty girl — I loved her room. I saw the rest of the place and felt like I could handle it, especially because the landlord heard about my financial situation and was willing to budge. He also said he had other places around London that he sometimes moved people to when he liked them.

Then the words came out: “I love lunatics.” This was brought about by I have no idea what — the fact that I’d moved to London with barely any money? He told a whole story about how lunatics are very interesting people and there was once a woman he worked with who wrote all these things about him spying on her — not true, of course, she was just crazy.

Um. I know I can’t afford to be picky, but… um.

6. May 4: Ladbroke Grove, £160 per week, room rented out by live-in landlady. Took a while to find and I didn’t pay for the two buses I took because I left my Oyster card behind, and bus drivers took pity on my sad, searching-my-bag-for-my-card-and-maybe-cash self. It really was a sad sight. Anyway, I had a travelcard so they were technically covered. Ethically. Whatever. The room was super nice — big, nice windows, a desk, an awesome chair. The only issue was that it wasn’t available until May 10. So I went off to Leicester and moved in on 14. I would stay longer if I didn’t have a catsitting thing next week and the room weren’t all booked up till June 12. I may still come back then and stay till it’s booked up again on July 8.

Oh yeah, that’s the place I am now with the two cats and the pup. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty good for morale to finally find a place I didn’t hate and where I didn’t feel like I had to impress anyone. Okay, the second thing is good for morale in retrospect. I only started feeling self-conscious and shit last week. But here we are now.

[FLAT HUNTING PAUSED FOR ONE WEEK IN LEICESTERSHIRE] [POST PAUSED FOR ATTEMPT TO REMEMBER WHAT MY FIRST ALONE VIEWING WAS AND WHEN]

7. May 16: West Hampstead, £585 per month, flatshare. The area was not as nice as I expected, and the room was so small you couldn’t fit a desk in there if you tried. The couches — leather — had a ton of holes, and it seemed the people living there — at least the English girl; the guy from NZ was back home dealing with visa paperwork — weren’t very concerned with cleanliness or tidiness. The guy who showed me around was nice, at least, and I could have seen myself being able to live there — there was something lived-in about the messiness, not gross and not overwhelming but rather… lively? I felt the same way about the area, and the tube station, and the Thameslink actually. First time on that. Had to go to Streatham after. The landlord was planning on renovating the kitchen, and there would be a rent reduction then. The financial part worked out, but I work from home and I wasn’t sure about everything else. I felt like I was committing to too much as well, because the minimum term was a year even though the guy who was leaving had been there for “only” eight months. I just couldn’t make a decision.

(That one wasn’t a flat viewing, because I’d already agreed to catsit, but it went pretty well. The area wasn’t the nicest, but it was close to Streatham Common, and the house was small and nice, and Francesca and her boyfriend were super friendly. Also, the kitten! The kitten, you guys.)

8. May 18, Mile End/Victoria Park, sublet for five weeks, £580. I wanted this, and I was turned down, and I understand why. I really wouldn’t have fit in. There was the issue of smoking — they did only in the kitchen, but I know they weren’t happy when I said “please don’t” when they asked if they could smoke right in front of me — and they were overwhelmingly social. My anxiety was doing cartwheels when I got back. I was thinking about it in terms of the availability is perfect (it was) and how I could survive for five weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely liked the people I met — they were also unfairly attractive — but it’s probably for the best that they decided to look for another person.

I just wish I hadn’t been so sure I blew off two other viewings for it. Also, now I worry about whether people will deliberately say no to me because I’m a weirdo.

On the upside, I did feel very proud of myself for coming back a different way I went there, and kind of winging it too. Bank is very empty and very beautifully lit at night, if anyone’s wondering.

9. May 19, Uxbridge Road, flatshare. We got our wires crossed, and by wires I mean transport and emails: I didn’t see an email I’d been sent before I got on my very late bus until quite a bit after. The house was right above a shop and the doorbells may or may not have worked. Half of them were torn out. No one was there to show me around, but it seemed like it was mostly guys. I don’t know. I wasn’t feeling good about it anyway, because the ad had a name on it and the messages had another and the email was a third. I didn’t even know if I was sharing a place with people or if it was a two-bedroom apartment someone was renting out or what.

10. May 19, Willesden Junction, sublet in a flatshare from May 26 to July 3 (lease is up), £540 + bills. If this isn’t taken by the time I decide, I would go for it. Honestly, it was a nice house and I liked the neighborhood even at night and after getting vaguely lost (I’d planned my route from the place I’m staying in, by bus, and ended up going by tube). Everyone seemed friendly in a relaxed, quiet way, and the girl who showed me around was so pretty, and the room was very nice, too — no desk, but storage furniture that could easily be used as one. I liked it. I really did. If it had been for longer I’d have taken it immediately.

Lesson learned: the trains in the Circle line have really bouncy seats. So cool.

11. May 20, Acton, £500 a month, rooms rented out in a family home. I really liked this one. I met the landlady at the speed flatmating event and she agreed to show me the room after that ended. I was a bit of a wreck the whole way and I’m so embarrassed of how much I shared about my life and my mental health, mostly because I don’t know if it helped or hindered the possibility of actually living there. She’s showing the room to a couple of other people, and said she’d let me know on Thursday. She has a cat, and the house is gorgeous and so beautifully maintained, and the room was tiny — you couldn’t walk in without folding up the bed — but had a desk, and the bathroom was right across the hall from it. I was basically like, I’ll take it if you’ll have me. So we’ll see about that, I guess.

As for the speed flatmating event, it was at a pub in Hammersmith, and you could barely hear people. I’m not sure how I made it through in one piece without having a breakdown considering I didn’t have any lorazepam today, but here I am, still alive! Despite getting in cars with strangers. (Okay, with one stranger, who was bemused/amused by my paranoia when I said I’d rather go back by tube then get in a car with her and her husband, who was coming to pick her up. Look — look, I gave her my blog URL, so maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I was paranoid about going back with her at all. I’ve been paranoid about just about every flat viewing I’ve done on my own, and some I did with Annemari. I don’t think it’s that unfounded. There’s reasonable self-preservation to it, not just anxiety.)

Maybe my social anxiety has just flatlined. I don’t know. I wasn’t thriving on it, I didn’t enjoy it, certain people I talked to — or who talked to me — made me feel awkward — or extremely uneasy — but I got through it, and I’m okay, it seems.

Tomorrow, I’m taking some of my luggage to Streatham, and on Thursday I’m moving in. I have a lovely shipment coming to me as a review sample pack, and I’m very excited about showing you. I’ll be alone for a week, and I’m very excited about that, too.

I also have a flat viewing in Brixton, and maybe I’ll have something lined up by the end of the weekend. I want to focus on finding work — preferably full-time — and doing work, too. It needs to be priority #1, not #2.

And honestly, I just fucking hate flathunting, so the sooner — and the longer — I can stop worrying about it, the happier I’ll be.

Expat Wannabe London Mental Health Things I'm Thinking Travel

11 Days In England (And Counting) + Instagram Pics

posted on May 8, 2014

Day 1: April 28, Monday. No sleep since I got up late on Sunday. Packing. Shower both after waking up and later at night to be fresh for my train ride and flight. Around 5 AM I lie down with my cat and fall asleep a little. Get back up at 6. Mom and sister come with me to the train station. Train leaves at 6:45 AM. Arrive at Atocha at 7:40 AM. Straight to the tube, fighting my suitcases already. Get to the airport, have to drink my bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice before going to my gate. Good thing I couldn’t fit the water bottle in my bag, I guess. Make it through and use my allotted 15 minutes of wifi (so stingy), wait till flight starts boarding. Well in time. Sweating like a pig already. Spend flight doing nothing and then put my head between my knees and just stay there for a while. Buy a bottle of water for £3. Plane lands at 12 PM. I nearly slip off one of the steps and nearly fall on my ass. Pick up my luggage and try to find wifi, uselessly. Wait for Annemari at baggage claim anyway, and this proves successful. Yay! I am no longer alone. I also no longer have to carry both my suitcases. Thank god.

Stansted Express to Liverpool Street, walk to Moorgate, Northern line to Chalk Farm, walk to our hotel. Desperately shower and change. Walk to Chalk Farm and take the Northern Line to Tottenham Court Rd. Dying, so have a chicken royale at the Burger King just round the corner. Then Annemari and I head off to find Ashley’s flat in Marylebone, which proves either incredibly hard or that we’re both tired and sleep-deprived. Eventually find it though. Good stuff. I’m exhausted and mostly lie on her bed. Make Annemari take a picture of me when we leave. Then back to the hotel and can barely stay awake on my laptop. Sleep.

Barajas / Annemari and I on the tube / sleepy times

Day 2: April 29, Tuesday. We meet up with Ashley… somewhere. Primark on Tottenham Court Rd, I think. She’s got time between classes. Annemari buys a One Direction t-shirt, because duh. We somehow end up on Southwark Bridge. Many, many pictures are taken. Ashley eventually has to go into the Globe and leave us. Many pictures are taken of her hugging Annemari goodbye. Annemari and I head off to — frankly I’m not sure, but we do take a nice walk around the area. Make it to St Paul’s Cathedral and everything. Annemari takes pictures and I have feelings about Connie Willis’s books. The usual. Then we take a bus to Trafalgar Square because I remember a Costa Coffee inside a Waterstone’s there and I want to walk down Charing Cross Road to see how the bookshops are looking. We do that and then take the tube up to Belsize Park. Chalk Farm is closed and the walk from the hotel to Belsize Park Station is way nicer anyway. In fact, the walk back is basically a photo walk. Nice shit. Then I lose my glasses. Normal. At least I have backups – thanks, SpecsPost!

me working / Annemari making tea / new glasses

Day 3: April 30, Wednesday. Supposed to meet Ashley at 9 AM at St Paul’s for a tour of Fleet Street. Tube worker says St Paul’s station is working and it turns out it’s not so we get off at Bank. Keep missing her. Am starving and go into M&S and get a bagel. Baby’s first bagel! It was good. We find wifi near St Paul’s, continue to miss Ashley. Give up and Annemari leaves it up to me to pick where we go next. Me being me, I choose the Tate Britain. We head into a Waterstones for wifi and to plan our route. A joyous though grueling walk down the side of the river ensues, from Blackfriars Bridge to Vauxhall. It is brilliant. I feel exhilarated. Also, I look good. I’m also starving, but you know, whatever. The Lady of Shallott is there. Then we head down Vauxhall Bridge to the tube, and take that back to our hotel. We eat, I shower, and Annemari goes through her pics on my laptop.

At some point between Day 2 and Day 3, Annemari and I head to a flat viewing in Tooting. It doesn’t go too poorly for a first flat viewing, but I’m totally freaking afterwards.

Waterhouse / Waterstones / tube pic

Day 4: May 1, Thursday. Wake up earlyish, ready to work all morning. Ashley comes meet us for a stroll through Primrose Hill Park, and Annemari picks her up at the bus stop. I’m like, hm, maybe head out without me, and they do, and I totally fall asleep. For hours. Annemari has to get someone to open the room door for her because I don’t hear her knocking or the phone ringing. I am amazing, in short. After this frankly lovely nap, I feel less stressed. I do need to eat so we head to the Starbucks around the corner from our hotel and she gets a hot chocolate and I get a coffee frap and a baguette. I do more work on my laptop – push a table next to my armchair. So nice to have a desk, even just for an hour. Early night again. I have three pictures from this day and they’re all of Ashley and Annemari sitting by the hotel room window. Still probably one of my favorite days. So quiet and lovely.

Ashy and Annemari / empty hotel room / Starbucks table

Day 5: May 2, Friday. Annemari wakes up at like, 4 AM to go meet Nick Grimshaw. I meant to go with her but at this point I’m so exhausted that I think getting up at 4 AM will probably break me. She does fine on her own, though! I’m on my laptop for a bit and then I leave to meet them at Topshop so we can do the photo booth thing. We eat at the Costa in Trafalgar Square again after stopping by various unappealing Costas and Starbuckses and even going to Piccadilly and the Waterstones there, and then Annemari and I head to a couple of flat viewings. On the DLR even. It’s pretty terrible. The first one is hard to find and the dude there gives me the creeps, and the second one is plain old impossible to find. Cuddles are applied generously. We head back to the hotel or possibly to Ashley’s and then the hotel. It’s nighttime by the time we get there. Pictures of the moon!

Ashy at Costa / Topshop booth pics / Annemari at our hotel

Day 6: May 3, Saturday. Plans! With Ashley! That we are late for largely because of me and my terribleness, but we manage. We head to Ashley’s first thing to do my laundry and I do some stuff on my laptop of the flathunting variety before we set off for the British Library. Mostly just walk around, and Ashley goes to the comics exhibit. We head to King’s Cross to get a picture at Platform 9 3/4, and I stand in line for about two seconds before I’m like ‘fuck this’ and just wait beside the thing until it’s Ashley’s turn. Ashley takes like three seconds and the pictures we get of her aren’t super awesome, but whatever, it’s the love that counts. We eat at a Costa nearby and then head to a flat viewing in Wood Green. The person in charge is not there, and the woman who is there keeps telling me to call (I don’t have a phone) or wait (she won’t tell me when the person in charge will be back). I’m not totally disheartened, but it’s close! I make pouting faces for the camera. We head back to Ashley’s and have an impromptu iPhone photo shoot where Annemari picks us both up a bunch of times in different ways. It’s awesome. There are pics to prove it.

at the British Library / sad eyes / Ashy and Annemari on Ashy’s couch

Day 7: May 4, Sunday. Annemari’s last day, nooooooooo. We do a last-minute flat viewing near Finchley Road which is… interesting. I should make a post about all these flat viewings. Then we go to Ashley’s again and then Annemari and I go to an early flat viewing near Ladbroke Grove. I totally accidentally leave my Oyster card in my leather jacket at Ashley’s and have no cash on me and my card won’t work. Bus drivers are however incredibly understanding and I manage the viewing — and it’s finally a decent one! Friendly lady, friendly cats (and a dog!), an actual desk and good lighting, decent location. It’s a short-term let at £160 a week and becomes available on the 10th, and I’m 90% sure I’m going to head there at some point this month. Just trying to work out my finances first. Then we go back to Ashley’s for many, many, many cuddles, and then we walk around Regent’s Park until my Raynaud’s kicks in and I’m like, yeah, we have got to go.

Annemari leaves at like 3 AM to catch her flight but she spoons me while I fall asleep and wakes me up before she leaves. Sadness all around, though too sleepy for intense emotions.

Starbucks treat / Annemari and Ashy on Ashy’s floor / empty nest

Day 8: May 5, Monday. I oversleep but manage to check out of the hotel in time. I head over to Ashley’s with my luggage and spend a while on my laptop in her living room. I then take an unplanned multiple-hour nap on her couch. I find myself a hotel room at £40 for the night just down the road from Ashley’s and head there. Only head out when I realize I need to eat, and it is at this point that I also realize I took the wrong leather jacket. It’s a Michael Kors, and I later find out it’s one of Ashley’s roommates’s. Everything’s closed because it’s a bank holiday, so I give up and walk into a tesco and get a sandwich, which I eat while I talk to my mom on google hangouts for the first time all week. (We’ve been trying, and IM-ing, but the microphone didn’t work.) Go to sleep relatively early.

notebooks & planners / Marylebone from Ashy’s window / Ashy from her couch / minifridge at hotel / folding laundry / hotel room

Day 9: May 6, Tuesday. Wake up early enough to leave my luggage back at Ashley’s before she leaves for finals at 9, but there is so much traffic noise all night long. I hole up in Ashley’s room, repack, look at hotels and look at coach tickets to Leicester, where someone who reads this blog and generously offered me her spare room if I needed it lives. The site starts messing up, which is awesome. Eventually I give up and head to Victoria with all my luggage. It’s a pain in the ass and also in everything in me, and I don’t take any lorazepam as to avoid falling asleep and totally feel it while waiting for my bus. At least I get the ticket without any trouble despite the entire computer system being down. I break down in tears several times at Victoria Coach Station, I miss my cat, I miss Annemari, the pigeons remind me of my cat, there’s a bus to Wolverhampton leaving from the same gate as mine to Leicester and it reminds me of Liam Payne and I miss Annemari more, I’m scared as hell, I’m hungry (I cry into my Burger King fries — no, I don’t, but it’s close. I definitely cry while holding the still-too-hot cup of cappuccino afterwards) and I can’t get wifi. I contemplate the idea of going into the toilets, holing up in a cubicle and crying, but I can’t use them because there’s a flight of stairs in the one at the main building and the other one charges 30p for use — which would be fine but I’m still not carrying any cash with me. So I basically just cry in public. You’re welcome, Victoria coach station users.

The ride to Leicester is okay. I take some pics. I start playing Pet Rescue from the beginning. I still can’t get any damn wifi. But I make it to Leicester, and I don’t have to freak out for long before Ashton and her husband pick me up, and we drive to a massive Tesco to pick up food so I won’t starve, and then we head to their house in Coalville and I have my own room and I can shower and there are kitties. And I talk to my mom and it’s all right. I have things to catch up on — that’s what I’m doing now.

Day 10: May 7, Wednesday. I shower and put on the clothes I brought specifically for lounging at home, i.e. my Threadless long sleeve and the fleece jacket from F21 that’s covered in Oxford’s fur. Super overwhelmed with all I have to do. I talk to my mom and she figures out the camera and I can see my kitty. In terrible quality, but still. Kitty! I take a lorazepam and, predictably, fall asleep for like three hours. I keep trying to catch up. Go to sleep early again.

Day 11: Before I shower, Ruby (one of the cats) comes to my bed for a long weird petting session. Bless this fluffball. After I shower, I freak out about all the things I have to do again, and take half a lorazepam, and I’m still awake so I’m counting it as a win. I start writing this post and I talk to my mom and see Oxford and then I come back to this post.

so much to do / coffee / Kiki

And that brings us up to speed.

Diaries Expat Wannabe London Travel

Status Update: London Still Exists

posted on April 29, 2014

And I’m in it!

I’m still pretty amazed myself.

Photos by Annemari (and from her camera, forgive my beginner editing; I’ve never worked with an Olympus, or on pictures from one), who is the most amazing part of this post yet.

More to come when I’m better rested and not quite so sore. But I love it here. Everything’s gone beautifully. And I’m happy.

(I miss Oxford a lot, though. That little asshole scratched and growled his way into my heart.)

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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

posted on March 31, 2014

Or maybe you did! The original title for this post was “10 Things You May Have Missed About Me,” but that sounded unnecessarily snarky. Plus, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” is probably better for SEO. Yes, I think about those things. I also had a brief internal debate about using a video cap for this post rather than a proper quality picture from my Canon. This feels fitting, is more recent than the “good” pictures I had, and I asked Twitter and Twitter said “go with it,” so there we go. That’s thing zero.

1. I have been to London before (twice) and I loved it, but Oxford truly stole my heart. If I could pick a place to live for the rest of my life, to be based in, it would be Oxford. It’s gorgeous, it appeals to my love of culture, and it’s easy enough to get around in. It’s also just an inexpensive bus ride away from London.

I thought about this a lot last year when I was first seriously considering moving to the UK. I spent a lot of time on job ad websites looking for work all over the UK, and the truth is, Oxford didn’t have much at all going for it in that department, and it was nearly as expensive as London. I considered Glasgow for a long time as well, because I know someone there and my friend Annemari, who I want to move in with, liked it, but I’ve never been to Scotland, so London felt a lot less scary.

That said, writing this post is making me seriously consider expanding my flat search to Oxford. It’s just… heaven for me. It’s beautiful. I only wrote it off because I thought I’d be looking for a full-time job, and now what I really want to do is take my freelance work for a spin.

I hated the room I was put up in (another scholarship), the airline lost my luggage, I spent the first weekend there waiting for it, I was switched to a student house my last week, and at the end I missed my flight, my train and the bus back home from Madrid and I had to get a hostel room there. It was still a blissful trip.

2. [TW for creepiness] One day when I was in London the first time, in September of 2007, when I was seventeen, I was journaling on a bench in Green Park and some dude approached me and started talking to me. I kept trying to get rid of him; he kept going on about how age was just a number and I had kissable lips and other similarly disgusting things. He pretty much spoke in clichés, and he was Italian, and he was not even remotely attractive to me. I told him I wasn’t interested but he wouldn’t leave. So eventually I said I had to leave and I hid in the tube station until it was time to go to the showing of Wicked I had tickets for.

I went back home at 11 PM after that show. I was staying in North London and Wicked was (is?) on at the Apollo Victoria, so quite a tube ride away. I was wary of walking around London at night, especially the walk from the Bounds Green tube station to the residential neighborhood house my ESL school (a scholarship requirement) had put me up in, but Victoria was a busy area and the show was worth it.

3. Most of the modeling I’ve done since I started calling myself a model has been self-portraiture, or close to it; I model for my mom, but my mom is not a photographer — she simply follows my instructions. Oftentimes I set up the shot entirely, make sure the shutter speed is really high, and move around as she keeps the shooting button pressed. It’s incredibly fun. I don’t consider myself “model pretty,” whatever that is, and I don’t have amazing hair, and I’m not tall enough for the catwalk. I don’t have beauty instincts. But I love the hell out of it.

4. Despite #3, it is not true that I have never modeled for someone else who was comfortable with a camera. It was just for fun, but I got some gorgeous shots out of it (shots I call mine because a- I haven’t spoken to him in ages, b- modeling is an art, c- it was my camera, and d- I did all the post-processing, but they were very much collaborative work), and the realization that it was an absolute blast to play-act for the camera. This was a friend who eventually “broke up” with me friendship-wise because he thought I only used him for pictures. He… may have been right?

I’ve got makeup on in most of those many, many shots because I went out of the house and I used to always put on makeup when I went out of the house. I’ve even got a shoot inspired by a The Birds still I saw in Vanity Fair — shame about the setting (my building foyer at night, flash and no tripod), but I can sure work the horror vibe.

5. I asked to be seen by a psychologist once. He wrote in all caps, chalked up my social anxiety mess of a dorm experience to separation anxiety, wanted me to admire my abusive father, and brought my mom in with me. His tentative diagnosis was anxiety disorder, paranoia, psychosis, and Asperger’s syndrome. My psychosis is entirely passive, which wasn’t specified, but otherwise I think the diagnosis, unlike the methodology, session and his “day hospital” (going to and staying in the hospital for various therapy things, mostly group, every day from 8 to 5) prescription, was on the mark.

In other words, I’ve got paranoia coming out of my ears and I tend to avoid people. I don’t need to be warned; my brain is a scaredy cat all by itself.

6. I don’t have any formal creative education. For a long time I was a writer first and foremost, and I’ve got very strong opinions about writing that most creative writing courses would have clashed with hard. I did want to take a photography course for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how they worked and I was scared they’d be too technical; I wasn’t ready for technical photography learning back then. It may sound like an oxymoron, but I didn’t feel I knew enough to learn more! (I do now.)

For the most part, I just didn’t have money for classes (I would have hired a guitar teacher earlier if so, or gone for ballet, or for gymnastics as of 2012), and I couldn’t find any that appealed to me. Now I’ve got tons thanks to Skillshare and the like, but I still can’t afford them! And I’m not sure I can make the time for them right now, so I learn bit by bit with free tutorials, videos and experimenting.

7. Back to writing, though, I used to write mainly fanfic and poetry — fanfic on a regular basis, poetry whenever I was really depressed. I’ve got a self-published poetry e-book out (it’s available on Kobo and Smashwords, and translated to Spanish as well if you’re curious!), and I always meant to publish a second tome with my more recent work, which I’m prouder of than the stuff in the e-book, but then I opened that photography shop on Etsy and my Internet life (and career goals) did a 180.

8. I’ve done NaNoWriMo something like four times? I won the first year with 50,000 words of drivel barely 20% into my novel, and failed every year since. This project was my last. I wrote a little bit of it.

9. I got started on graphic design when I was fourteen and got Paint Shop Pro. I upgraded to Photoshop Elements a couple of years after, and got used to it quickly. I didn’t do much with it, though — mostly coloring screencaps for fandom and tumblr posts! Guess what, bloggers who aren’t in fandom: I know how to make gifs. It was a pain in the ass on my old laptop, though, and I haven’t had a reason to try on the new one yet. It’s not really satisfying creative work. More like frustrating and annoying, especially when you have to keep the filesize small enough for tumblr standards — which used to be even stricter than they are now.

10. Sometimes I post silly things on youtube for the benefit of my best friend. And before Instagram (and sometimes even now), I posted a lot of silly Photo Booth pics of me and my cat to Twitter as well. Have a browse and enjoy.

(I got that from Summer on The O.C..)

Expat Wannabe London

Campaign Update: Ask Me Anything!

posted on March 27, 2014

I’ll be doing a campaign/London update every Thursday from now on; hope you guys don’t mind!

New since last Thursday: I booked a hotel for my first week! April 28 to May 5, when I’ll be in London with my best friend. After that, I’m on my own. Scary!

Also new: I really want to do tons of videos for this campaign, because I think it’s the best way to let you get to know me and see how much I want this to work out. To start me off, I’m going to be doing Q&A videos over the next few weeks to answer any questions that might arise and let you in on my work and my process! You can submit questions via FB, Twitter, my blog, email, Instagram, or anywhere else you see me hang!

If I get enough of a response, the videos will be divided in:

Questions about photography
Questions about modeling
Questions about entrepreneurship
Questions about blogging
Questions about sewing
and Questions about moving!

plus a Misc Q&A if there are any questions that don’t fit any of the above categories — and various videos if any of the questions warrants a longer response (or if I want to wax poetic about something, too. That could happen).

So go ahead: what would you like to know?

Budgeting Expat Wannabe London Mental Health Things I'm Thinking Travel

10 Things: Ups and Downs Edition

posted on March 20, 2014

1. I booked my flight to London. I get in at Stansted on April 28, 12:05. My friend Annemari gets in at 12:45. I’ll be alone for roughly forty minutes, which suits me beautifully. I haven’t got a set return date yet, but the earliest I’ll get is May 6, even though Annemari’s going back home on May 5, because the flights from London to Madrid on May 6 are far more expensive than the days following it. I’m very excited and not at all scared, except for the accommodation we’ve yet to secure and the campaign I’m launching tomorrow. At least I picked a crowdfunding platform, finally — thank you, GoFundMe, for actually sticking to your 5-minute reply policy and giving real answers instead of linking to FAQ pages I’ve already read. Customer support doesn’t have to be a fucking mess like it is on Indiegogo. Even Trevolta answered my questions when I tweeted at one of their founders.

Yes, I will step on Indiegogo every chance I get. They can go fuck themselves. Kindly.

2. Today I slept in until 7 PM. Please note that somewhere deep inside, I’m incredibly excited about a whole lot of things, including but not limited to the work I owe people — sewing and design work, work I positively enjoy doing. And yet there I was this morning, thinking, I’m not even tired, I should get up, and crawling back under the sheets. My cat joined me. We slept a long-ass time, together, him curled into a ball between my butt and my thigh, and me curled into a pretzel under my sheets. Good sleep. Bad brain. Excellent kitty.

Proof that I have sewing work to do and that I’m working on it.

3. Said furball also took a detour today to sit on top of my sister’s homework and facilitate my recovery of the tablet from under her claws. (I gave it to her hours before. At first she came into my room with the intention of just taking it, so I hid it under my sleeping form and told her not to do that again. If she wants to use the tablet, she needs to ask for it at a reasonable distance from wherever the tablet is, and I will hand it over. She did it straight away, like a bull, and then later on, properly, which is when I handed it to her.)

(Mom interference aside, I think it’s working to get her to treat me like a human being, even if she doesn’t understand why I’m bothered by the things I am. Whatever. Just do what I say is good for my mental health. It’s a perfectly good life choice, doing what someone says is good for their mental health just because they say so. It’s called “human decency.” That may sound like a very laughable Captain America concept if your lifelong MO has been along the lines of “fuck everyone,” but trust me, it’s a good one. It’s worth internalizing. Nearly everything that sounds laughably Captain America is. I’ll give you a pass on physically fighting back against bullies, though. You use your own judgment on that. Self-care is very important.)

Proof of furballiness.

4. I’m working on writing out my campaign reward system and pricing each reward. I’ll be offering pictures, prints, and shoots, mainly. If you’ve got any rewards in mind that you or someone you know would contribute to my campaign to get, give me a shout and I’ll add them for you. This is a collaborative experience, starting with the whole bit where I was set on talking to customer support before I launched a campaign at all. I may host a giveaway as well to promote the campaign, something like a mini blogger portrait session? I’ll also be offering a couple of group sessions as rewards, packages several bloggers can pitch in to get. I really hope you guys can help out in some way, even if just by promoting it! I’m getting a little… wait, next bullet point.

5. Expenses build up so quickly and terribly. You start thinking it’s just the flight and stay and eating, and then you remember the trains (which have gone up since the last time I went to Madrid on an Avant shuttle, the cheap non-bus option, by about 10€), the metro to get to the airport, the airport “supplement,” the ridiculously high prices for the tube even if you get an oyster card and a travelcard, which is what I’m planning on doing; the cabin suitcase I’ll have to buy, the fees for the campaign platform, and so on. Traveling with only a carryon is something I’m pretty set on doing, but it means I can’t take my tripod with me and, if I prolong my stay longer than a week, I’m going to be in a pickle as far as clothes to wear.

I was actually wondering if any brands might be interested in letting me borrow clothes and then either taking them back or shipping them to me in Spain so I don’t have to carry them back. I suppose if it’s worth it and the campaign goes well, I could buy a bigger suitcase and have it checked on my return. But I’m not particularly into that idea. There are reasons I want to travel light and the main one is I’m a weakling who hates dragging bulky things around. What this does mean is that I want to hit the PR angle pretty hard on my campaign pitch. Also, ask to borrow a tripod.

6. Also, my sister’s ophthalmologist recommended she get contacts instead of glasses because her nearsightedness is so high. Affordable contacts, anyone? 75€ per eye for six months does not count as affordable.

7. I really need to get my mom out of the flat. My father’s reaching new lows (or new highs, depending on how you look at it; let’s just say my mom’s been a shell on the verge of tears for the past week and a half, since he got his unemployment benefits that he wouldn’t have been accepted for if my mom hadn’t had to put up with all sorts of crap in order to convince him to apply) and I’m starting to think that regardless of where, I have to move out. Soon. Very soon. After London, maybe — just rent a flat here, which is much more affordable than there, and take my mom and sister and cat with me.

The main problem is I think going to a women’s center would help us immensely in locating an inexpensive flat to rent, but my mom absolutely refused when I ran that idea by her. She can go to a food bank, she can sleep on the couch every night, but she can’t ask for help — she can’t go up to someone and say, “My husband is abusive.”

It’s so impossibly disheartening.

8. I found the most gorgeous silk for the proto/modified version of the prom dress I have to sew that I’m making for myself and for practice. It’s teal and it’s rough (I always thought silk would feel more satiny, more like rayon, which I hate, but it’s not like that at all) and it’s not silk expensive, and I had them save three meters of it for me to go get it when I transferred some money to my mom’s bank account. Which got in today, which is why I booked my flight. And tomorrow she’s on getting the silk duty, because I’ve already lost two days going out. It kind of throws my days, or maybe my brain throws my days. Who knows. It kills my routine, is the thing, and I need a routine.

Is it gorg or what?

9. I haven’t tackled that visualization exercise yet, though. The one I did tackle yesterday was coming up with an ideal blogging calendar for 3-4 weeks. The takeaway is: I should put aside a day each month to shoot three or four outfits so I can maintain a semblance of fashion blogging without actually having to wear stuff other than jeans and t-shirts and hoodies at home; I should outsource any activism articles I write for my own wellbeing (and on that note, does anyone know any publications or sites that might be interested in running an article about poverty catch-22s?); and, to keep everything balanced both in terms of workload and in terms of content and to come off as the PR-friendly, for-profit blog this whole enterprise is, I should alternate tutorials and wordier posts with wishlists and pictures and product reviews with more personal posts that I can write easily, like 10 Things and Weekly Wishes and Cat Latelys.

Anyone got thoughts?

10. It’s 2:30 AM. It may be time to get something done.