On A First Full Day in London

Yesterday was a pretty wonderful day. It being my first full day with Julia, I was planning on spending most of it in bed. For various reasons (not the least of which being my overall excitement) we decided that we should venture out into the world instead. We agreed that it was ok to splurge and go out for breakfast on our first day together. I had a coffee and Julia ordered cranberry (spelled "cramburry" on the menu). Julia said the coffee made my breath smell like I was a "grownup." She kissed me.

My "Full English Breakfast" arrived on a fairly plain large white plate. It was quite full indeed. From right to left the items were as follows: baked beans, a sausage, two halves of heavily buttered (and lightly toasted) bread on top of a piece of undercooked bacon, a handful of mushrooms, two triangular hash browns, half of a tomato that was pan fried on its flat side, and a fried egg. It was delicious.

After breakfast we walked back down Gipsy Hill (Julia's street, and the title of my next song) to the train station. We headed to Oxford street to find a case for her cellphone, a three prong adapter, and a new pair of boots for me. The only thing we ended up buying was the power adapter.

We checked out the side streets and a shop called John (something-or-other) shoes. I can't remember the full name. A gentleman with a white pencil thin mustache greeted us. The shop was full of some amazing footwear. I had a wonderful conversation with the man. He was John, as it turns out. Our discussion began after I had said that the Americans have no culture with a wink to Julia. He disagreed. He seemed to ignore the playful nature of my comment. I have to be careful with that out here. He defended the Americans as if I weren't a part of the culture. The conversation played on tangents from there. He explained to me how to keep my boots for a long time by using cedar inserts and alternating days. He explained to me how Steve McQueen was the epitome of cool. He told me about the two weeks a year that he spends in Florida with his buddy. And then we discussed circadian rhythms and how Melatonin is illegal in England. After introducing myself and Julia we headed on our way. Julia was awestruck and seemed a bit nervous. She couldn't believe I had just held this conversation with a stranger. It made us smile.

We had a couple of cocktails at the Slug and Lettuce. For some reason my Bloody Mary was made with cucumbers and, what tasted like, a whole lime. It was pretty awful. Julia crinkled her nose, furrowed her brow and covered her mouth when she tried it. I switched to Sauvignon Blanc after that. With a nice little buzz, we headed to Hamley's toy shop.

This particular shop had been around for 250 years. It was huge. It felt like Willy Wonka's factory was on crack. The employees of the shop were all wild eyed with an infected and chaotic sense of capitalism. The two guys selling remote control helicopters were singing a silly song at each other. The guy with the three glowing balls on a string was doing laps around the third floor speaking like he was selling an age defying tonic from the back of a horse drawn cart hundreds of years ago. The girls dressed as pirates at the front door were giving away stickers and, I think, were selling foam rubber swords. Julia was surprised to find that I knew of Paddington Bear and his marmalade sandwiches. The whole scene must have seemed magical to all the children. Its easy to hide all the strings amid so much mayhem. But, I guess, Disney's done it for years, right?

We had some nachos and a bottle of wine at a pub in Kingly Court a few blocks away. Julia started to feel ill. It got to the point where we had to leave. We rushed home as fast as we could. I was glad to have the opportunity to take care of my girl. I feel as if it validates me. I ventured out on my own to pick up some Chinese takeaway for our dinner. She had given me her credit card to use for the food. At the closest Chinese takeaway place, the Indian delivery guy sitting in the corner complimented me on my mustache. I was glad to see Julia when she answered the door to her flat. She looked lovely and comfortable in her pajamas and was starting to feel a bit better. We watched an episode of Friends leaving over half of the food for later and went to bed. It was a good day.

An E-mail to my Mom

Hey Ma,

Made it in to Heathrow and Julia's place just fine. Flights were OK, long and cramped. But I'm a pretty good traveller, so it was almost without incident. Julia is wonderful. I was pretty tired after almost 2 days with little to no sleep. So we got in, made a cocktail, then went to bed. It was lovely. She cried out of happiness.

Her flat is great. A little kitchen with a mini fridge (I guess that's pretty standard for over here) and a washer/dryer under the opposite counter. A living room that gets sun in the evenings and the bedroom gets sun through the trees in the morning. All of the houses are older than anything we've got in America. There's vines growing outside of her bedroom window, which overlooks the backyard, which she calls a garden. Apparently, there's a mangy London fox that resides there. She's seen it twice in two days.

We're just getting up and going now. I am excited and jet lagged, so I'm just doing everything in my power to not be annoying. Julia's in the shower now. I'm in next and then its off to my first day in London. The world is at our fingertips and now all we have to do is reach a little further and take hold of what we want, right?

Love you,

Corey

On the 7:30 Train to London

My train ride may as well have been directed by Tim Burton. The ghosts of trees slid by me on the dusty plexi windows before I got into the city. Their silhouettes strobed the setting sun into the car. It feels like I'm in the backseat of my parents car again. Coming back from a day at the amusement park, I would follow the waves of telephone wires and feeling the sun sporatically strike my face just the same. The future of my voyage looks as if the whole of the San Francisco was swallowed up by a tidal wave, now reeling in adolescent defiance of the iron horses that guard the shores of Oakland. The walls of the mouth of the tunnel arrive and I am plunged into the darkness, save the lights that infect everything with their jaundice hue. I am on my way to the airport.

The Bart, moaning like a heartbroken banshee, comes out of the tunnels that run under the streets of San Francisco into a dense fog. The eerie glow of streetlamps and station lights color everything yellow on this gray backdrop. At least the London weather won't be a shock to my system.

On Following Worms

I took a sensation and perception class in college and one of my assignments was to conduct a study of my choosing. It could be anything. The purpose of the assignment was to get us budding young college students to know the form and practice of observational science implicitly. Mine had to do with heat "preference" of earthworms, night crawlers specifically. I chose this study because I was in South Carolina where bait shops are abundant, earthworms have a very basic sensory system, and I hadn't been able to find this study in any of my searchings to date.

I set up a "course" with low grit sandpaper as the floor. Cardboard walls ran the length of the corridor. Before I introduced hot or cold to either of the ends of the track I had the worms crawl around to leave their scent in a non-biased pattern. This would limit the influence of the worms on each other. I set up a warming fan on one end of the course and a fan blowing over ice on the other. My hypothesis was that the worms would choose the warmth over the cold based on the evolutionary need to keep body temperature higher in order to maintain homeostasis. It was just a guess more than anything. Everything is a guess more than anything.

The worms moved decidedly in neither direction. The study was not statistically relevant. The interesting part was that worms are not communal animals by any means, even still they tended to travel in groups of 4 or more in any given direction. They could "smell" each other on the track and assumed that the path most taken was the easiest or best way to go.

I have too often let myself be told what to enjoy. This is a pattern that has continued to plague my musical ear among various other facets of my overall enjoyment of the world. Being true to myself often means ignoring the infectious opinions of others. This is no easy feat. The strong personalities with which I tend to associate are difficult to ingest with that precious, and necessary, grain of salt.

An ego can turn any doubt of its authority into a slap in its pasteboard face. Every question becomes the murder of trust. Opinions should be largely unapologetic. I tend to lean towards optimism in almost every situation. In my experience people often take a ceaselessly positive attitude in a couple of different ways. Some tend to find it a refreshing break from this pessimistic world. This group tends to take pleasure in the simple beauties of the everyday. These are, also, the people who tend to enjoy my company for the long run. The rest generally consider the "silver liners" as simple of mind. They believe that in order to be enlightened, one must be cynical of the world around them.

Questioning one's existence is human. It promotes an enlightened self preservation. The pretentious questioning of benign actions is a different thing entirely. Self fulfillment comes from an true understanding of the world around you. An open eye sees better than one that is closed. The same theory applies to the minds eye. Not to sound all hippy-dippy, but if you are open to the new experiences that the worlds of others may offer, you will find yourself more fulfilled.

All minds are simple. "All digital circuits are made from analog parts" (from a fortune cookie). The intricate web of the synapses in the brain is all point to point hard wiring. The sequences involving emotional response and general cognition are what makes it complex. Overcomplicating things is an unavoidable waste.

If I were to conduct another study in the same vein as the earthworm study, I would pursue the source of a worm's natural inclination to take the "road most travelled." With this new experiment, my new hypothesis would be that even the simple circuitry of an earthworms sensory compulsion would have the propensity of following the path most taken. Is simple better? Is following the destiny for everyone. How does one break the cycle? More importantly, how does one convince others to break this cycle at the same time? I'd like to think that we are more civilized than worms, wouldn't you?

On Right Now and What Will Be

I'm sipping my cup of coffee after a long day on my feet in my boots. My lower back aches from the hard book that I tuck into the back of my pants during my shift. This holds all the necessary receipts and cash that I will use on my shift. It also serves to force my posture to maintain and keep my attention and alertness. My father is on his way to pick me up. He's hesitant to come into the city for reasons unknown. I guess he's nervous because he has yet to pack for his trip with my younger brother to Maui.

My brother's flight gets in an hour from now. The reason I was able to talk my father into seeing me for the first time in two months was so that he could get his amp back out of my rehearsal space. This accomplishes two things. One, he can have his amp back without worrying about it while I'm on my trip to London, which begins in three days. And two, I get to see my younger brother for a grand total of twenty minutes from the time we meet him with his bag at the terminal to when my father drops me off a train ride away from where I'm staying tonight.

My reflection on the events reveal I'm really just glad to see my younger brother before I head off on this great adventure. There's a whole lot going on. Some things are going down. I'm going to find out what's up. A reason for all of it is just around the corner. I can feel the importance of now in every breath drawn into my lungs.

On Quitting

I'm losing my smoking habit and finding my skin feels like warm chainmail. I'm quitting for myself, but, of course a lovely young woman has her hand in my attempt to shed this self inflicted curse. Addiction snuck up on me years ago. Even still, I marvel at its subtle hold over me.

I have never thought of myself as a smoker. I haven't made a point to quit before largely due to this fact. Whenever I would reach for a cigarette, the part of my brain that should protect me against the undeniable threat of cancer is shut down by a hardwired chemical dependence. Smoking seemed romantic to me. Logic wasn't ever present enough to kill the desire. So it goes.

I'm working on ignoring the inhalant urge until I train my body not to feel the need based on environmental cues. Let's say an existential question has been directed my way. How am I supposed to express deep thought and honest consideration during the dramatic pause in conversation without a pull from our pure as poison antihero, the cigarette? I suppose I'll just have to take to furrowing my brow while twisting my mustache with my thumb and pointer finger.

Quitting has been the ultimate test of self control. Like training for a marathon it takes constant focus and attention. In this case, the marathon is represented by the rest of your life and the prize is just a longer race with less uphill battles and no guarantee of less pain. The finish line is certain death regardless of the path.

Along side the constant attention required to tend this lush garden of want lay the physiological effects of withdrawal. I am on edge and tired without the chemically induced normal. My body recognizes this feeling as a general hunger. When I don't eat as much as I should I experience similar pangs of misdirected angst. My voracious appetite is effectively a jackhammer of greed amplified exponentially with the now vacant castle of stimulus where prince nicotine used to reside.

Which one of my "last" smokes is it going to be that dooms me? If I knew, I'm sure I'd avoid that one. The fact is, it takes quite a lot to do damage to our fragile, but evolutionarily resilient, bodies. Sadly, one more smoke is never just that, until it is. As a rule, the only time I'll quit anything is if it is absolutely necessary and the gain will outweigh both the loss and peripheral damages. By all accounts this one should be worth it. It better be.

On True's Bracelet

I was recently able to visit the last of my Grandparents for the first time in 3 or more years. Since I last left my Grandmother on my Mother's side she has fallen deeper into a state of Alzheimer's induced insanity. She has been bedridden after falling and breaking her hip a month ago. She is recovering nicely, so she says. She is no longer in pain but is a captive of the horizontal. She remains either in her bed or cart when they need to move her.

Three of her four children were there to see her through the initial surgery and following couple of days after her fall. If any good came out of it, it reconnected a part of the family that has been a bit neglectful of each other for a while now, as it goes sometimes. It turns out that families need each other after all.

I finally mustered the courage to go and visit her at the Alzheimer's facility on my own. I was hesitant for a few reasons. One, I hadn't seen her in a while and was scared that her degradation would be frightening. Two, I didn't know the full protocol as far as visiting someone in her facility. And Three, I wasn't sure if I'd be recognized as my father or at all, for that matter. I hold a tremendous resemblance to him and I don't know what kind of terms my father and her were on when last they had the pleasure of each others company.

I walked through the front door of this sunny boardinghouse for the mentally aged, stuffed the car keys in my back pocket and signed myself in as there to see Truly Patton, my grandmother. I stood in the "reception area" waiting for anyone to be around who knew what I was doing there. Robin, one of the owners, came around the corner. She was on the phone with her mother, the other owner. Rolling her eyes in frustration she got off the phone and exclaimed, "I don't even know why I call her, a simple question turns into a 10 minute conversation." My response is a smile and then the question of whether or not its alright to see "Gram." "Gram" is how I've always known my mother's mother. She will always be "Gram" to me.

Robin shows me to her room and announces my presence. Gram has been napping all morning in her bed with the metal safety bars preventing her rolling off in the night. She is wearing the t-shirt that my uncle had given her with her with the picture of his family printed large on the front. Its nice that she knows her family loves her.

She told me that "Pop," my grandfather who hasn't been of this earth for over 5 years, has been giving her problems, but looks good. Its good to hear. Apparently, in the twists and turns of her mind, he has fallen a couple of times, hurt his eye once, and always ends up being ok according to the doctors from which he reports back. She sees many of the members of the family that have long been deceased. She tangles the past with the events of today but is very present and coherent in our conversation.

I clean her glasses for her with the tail of my shirt. I tell her that I was worried that she wouldn't recognize me. She laughs at me. Its kinda cute, really. I show her the heirloom bracelet that I wear on my right wrist. In a wave of recognition that seems to pass over her eyes like dawn's morning light she immediately says, "Oh, that was mom's. Daddy made it for her. It's so wonderful for you to have that."

From somewhere in the muddled synapses of her deteriorating brain she was able to pull the memory of the bracelet. My heart is warmed from around my wrist.

As the story goes, my Great-Grandfather, Bob, was diagnosed with tuberculosis at a fairly young age. Back then it was common practice to send the afflicted to a sanatorium, a place where the fresh air and isolation was to mend particular diseases. His was in the mountains of North Carolina. He had been married to my great grandmother for some time and had to leave her and their two children behind in the hopes that he could get better. His wife's name was Truman, but everyone called her True.

Bob participated in the metal working that was offered as one of many activities used to keep patients occupied. He beautifully inscribed "True" into the silver on the bracelet that I now wear. He forged it in 1928 for True and she wore it until the day she died. My Mother found it amongst my Grandmothers things while moving her up from North Carolina to Maryland to be within cares' reach. My Mother gave it to me. It fits perfectly and I take it off as rarely as possible. I hope to pass it on to my child one day.