One Week

Well, it's been a week since I arrived here, almost to the hour. In some ways I'm already acclimated to the place; in others, not so much. For example, I still can't seem to look the right way to spot oncoming traffic when crossing the street, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it a week or two before my departure.

More heavy reading this weekend. I'm enjoying Our Mutual Friend more now. It's been a while since I've read Dickens, and I sorely wish my re-introduction to him wasn't also his longest work, but it's all good. It takes some getting used to, that's all, although I still think some of these characters, like Riderhood, deserve to be slapped around a bit. I don't know how the other characters are able to restrain themselves. Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret is not only significantly shorter, but in a larger typeface as well, so take it all around its 350 pages probably equal only 200 of the Dickens. Also, I don't feel like slapping anyone in it, which is a plus. It's a faster read, too, and one of the first "sensational novels" of the Victorian era. All of this formal Victorian writing is having a definite effect on my own writing, I've noticed, so be prepared for three more weeks of that.

I meant to go down to the pier today for "Paddle Round the Pier," some annual festival thing or other that no one here had mentioned for some reason, but it's twenty to four and I'm still on campus, so that's probably not going to happen. I did go yesterday, though, to read there. It was a scorcher yesterday: 81 degrees! That's a scorcher around here, and it meant that everything was that much more crowded. Of some interest is the fact that while this isn't France, nor is this advertised as a topless beach, that apparently doesn't stop that sort of thing from happening. Not a lot, but I was surprised as I looked down from the pier to see... well, how does one put it? A lack of tan lines here and there.

It's not just the women, either. As far as body image is concerned, nearly anything goes. I've never seen so many guys walking around shirtless. I'm not talking on the beach, because that's not unusual at all, but on the pier itself, or on the street. And not guys who probably should be walking around shirtless, either. I'm secure enough in my masculinity to say that there are some guys who can pull that off, and some who can't, and those who can't certainly shouldn't be walking around in nothing but a Speedo, either.

I didn't get a picture of that, for obvious reasons.

Ever since that seagull stole half my sandwich last week I've held a sort of grudge against the species. On campus, I see them menace anyone who dares eat outside, and the locals put up with it in a sort of "This-is-the-way-we-live-now" way. On the pier, two (hairy shirtless) guys were eating chips by the railing near a sign reading "Please Don't Feed the Birds" and doing just the opposite. At the height of the feeding frenzy, a dozen or more of the things flocked around them, snatching chips from their fingers or catching them when thrown. These guys... these idiot guys weren't really mindful of just where they were throwing them, either, and sometimes five or six seagulls would go frantically chasing a single chip right into the throng of passers-by on the pier, prompting a brief and localized panic. But the seagulls didn't care. When they weren't getting chips, they'd either hover over the two in anticipation or perch on the railing and screech for attention. Even when the two guys had grown weary of this activity and left, quite a few seagulls stuck around to harrass likely victims, because for them, humans = chips.

I had my own cod and chips which I guarded like the One Ring. They really weren't that good (well, the cod wasn't), but there was no way one of those jerk birds was getting any of my food.

England "are" out of the World Cup as of yesterday, as I'm sure you know by now (the World Cup being so huge in the U.S.!), largely because one of their players, Rooney, was ejected from the game after he stomped a downed Portugese player in the crotch. Come on, England! I'm no football fan, but I was hoping England would stay in it longer, just because it would've been cool to have had this World Cup energy continue for another week. The East Slope Bar on campus is the local hub of World Cup energy, as it has one of the only TV sets I've seen in the past week. When there's a match on, I can hear the roar of the crowd from my open window. Every pub in town, too, has had its own supply of TVs and jerseyed World Cup fans (even a toy store at Churchill Square had a TV set up and three employees slack-jawed around it), but I suspect that will largely come to an end now that England's World Cup hopes have died.

Ah well. At least we still have the World Stare-Out Championships to look forward to.