Zappi’s Bike Shop

I leave Oxford in less than a week, and there is so much that I haven’t written about. Some of the experiences have been purposefully occluded. I know I won’t forget them, but I won’t share with the multitudes (i.e. the six people who read this who are thinking ‘what can she possibly be unwilling to share after debasing herself in her set of articles about why she shouldn’t ask people out?’ Well, there are some things I keep private-ish, I assure you. Although I’m generally bad at keeping my own secrets. Very good at keeping others’ – my own weigh me down.)

Mostly, though, my time writing has been spent on essays and fiction. I wish I’d utilized this place more. But regret is a pointless endeavour.

Instead, let me try to celebrate one of the places I’ve come to love best in the past few weeks. One of the friends I made here at Oxford – though I met him a long time ago, through strange other circumstances – introduced me to this place, Zappi’s Bike Shop.

The name is on the tin. It’s a bike shop, first and foremost, but the top floor is a fantastic cafe. The three women and three men who work behind the counter are all incredibly nice, each in their own ways. I’ve become a bit of a staple, a regular, and I know I’m not the only one. There are many faces here that I recognize, almost as well as I recognize the biking posters – vintage ones, framed, or newer ones taped up – and the framed t-shirts.

Once in a while, usually on the weekends, a big team of cyclists will come in, smelling of swear and rubber and wet hair. They’ll chatter loudly and clog up the space and wait patiently at the counter as, one by one, they’ll order food and drinks to replenish their energy. They’re all incredibly wiry, many of them in their forties and fifties, and all look incredibly refreshed from what has either been a race or a very intense practice. I never know.

The other kind of clientèle that fills the wooden tables, benches, chairs and stools (usually packed and shared by strangers because of the limited space) is the hipster variety. For some reason, although there can be no doubt of this cafe’s success, it is the kind of place people want to think of as a bit obscure, a bit hidden away, a bit private. Maybe the intimacy, stuck up on the second floor away from the general touristy public, helps keep it to the locals. Whatever it is, it’s not surprising to find men and women dressed androgynously here, black jeans and beanies, or stylish suits with patterned shirts and socks showing, or dresses from vintage stores that used to belong to our grandmother’s dowdy sisters. It’s a great place to people-watch.

Now that Oxford’s final term of the year is over, the place is much emptier. It’s often full of students doing their work, and some tutors, grading their students’ essays. The buzz rises and falls as the general rate of concentration changes.

One of the big pluses was that they never had wifi here. It was a good boost to concentration, since it meant less distractions. Until today. Today the wifi works. And thus, a procrastination post was born.

Why I Shouldn’t Ask People Out (Pt. 3)

The next time I asked someone out was right here, at Oxford. Yes, you heard me. Between ninth grade, when I was fifteen years old, and my third year of university, at the age of twenty two, I never asked someone out. Nor, by the way, was I technically asked out during all that time. Dating and me just don’t go together.

But let me make one thing clear. It’s not that I don’t make the first move. It’s not that I wait around. I sometimes wish I was more patient, so that I could do that. I sometimes feel bitter, in fact, about how often I’ve actually made the first move. The people I’ve made those moves on have invariably told me that if I hadn’t made that move, they wouldn’t have made it, being too scared or nervous to do anything. At the time, it makes me feel glad, proud of myself. Later on, after things go sour, I don’t regret it (because I don’t particularly feel regret about things anymore; experience is experience, no matter what) but I feel… complicated about it. I twist my brain around with the logic of the clinically depressed, and promise that next time, if there is one, I won’t make the first move.

But then I get impatient.

This year, I was participating in an activity for a while that took up a lot of my time for an intense week or two. I got to meet someone who I’d seen around and had been introduced to a couple of times, though he didn’t remember me. This should have been my first warning. In fact, it was. Let’s call him Michael, because the name makes me giggle for a whole host of reasons that have to do with other things that are really unimportant.

My second warning should have been that Michael was very, very similar – in body type, in face shape, but most of all in attitude and ego – to a person I knew at Sarah Lawrence College. Another person who I was extremely attracted to, in a stupid, illogical way, because the SLC person was also not particularly nice to me, made me feel very small when I was around him, and was far too confidant and aware of my attraction to him, while also making no move. Basically, the SLC-M and the Oxford-M were very different in context and content but very similar in the way they acted towards me.

They made me feel like they were stepping on me. And though I’m usually not actually so dumb about people who treat me badly, I was dumb here. I thought, because of the context and content of the Oxford Michael, that he was actually a nice guy. He was also younger than me, which I thought might give me an edge.

So one night, as he untied his bike from a lamppost, I boldly asked “Want to go out sometime?” and he said, confused, “what, clubbing?” I quickly remedied this mistake (shaking, as I always do, even when I don’t care about a person, when confronted with doing something that is potentially embarrassing and said “No, for coffee, or a drink or something.” He said “Yeah, okay.” And kind of smiled. And I thought that was that, I would get to conquer my irrational fear of SLC-M through this other person and deal with my fear of a certain kind of ego.

Next night, he asked me to clarify. He asked me “When you asked if I wanted to go out… what, did you mean like a ‘date?'” I said yes, because he was being giggly, and I thought he might be flattered, and I never thought that what was about to happen would happen – really, I didn’t, because I didn’t realize anyone could be quite so unaware of another person’s existence.

He burst out laughing. Really, really laughing. He said he was Eastern, that they didn’t do that, and that it was so American of me. I tried to laugh too, saying that, well, it’s not really how I usually do it either, but it seemed like the only way I would see him after our activity was over. I asked if that meant a no. He said that no, it didn’t. But then, for the rest of the day, he wouldn’t give me a straight answer.

That night, I stopped before he left, and told him “You can really say no, it’s fine. It’s not that big a deal, I barely know you.” And he asked if, it wasn’t a big deal, why I needed such a clear yes or no answer. Something broke inside me and all the confidence I’d gained died.

The next time he saw me was at a dance, where I misinterpreted something he said in a very, very awkward way. The next time after that I was dressed in an American flag. And now? Now he invited me to a leaving party. I have no idea why. Weird.

But the lesson is clear. I should. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ask. People. Out.

It just doesn’t end well.

It just doesn’t.

The Ups and Downs of the Isle of Wight

Bus ride to the ferry to the Isle took us through Portsmouth. Made me think of Dickens and Copperfield. Not the magician. Though he’s cool too.
Ferry to Isle. Sunlight and wind and cigarettes and friends.
Isle of Wight. Bus takes the road to where the little Roman helmet points but turns back because can’t fit between two parked cars. Drove all the way around the island. Back to the same exact road. Manages to fit between same exact two parked cars. Horrah! Lunch and Roman ruins for all!
Low point. Roman ruins would be could be should be fascinating. But leg muscles are mutinying and patience is capsizing. Medusa isn’t straight in her mosaic on the floor and I still haven’t gotten a straight answer over who made the joke about it being just like all of us.
More sun. More bus. Hotel by the beach is beautiful. Room small but comfortable. Feels like vacation. Walk to the beach, walk along the beach alone. Feet are tired of standing still and meandering so brisk hard walk in the sand is a relief. Trying to walk over rocks to join in becomes a torture and I turn back. Feet are still bruised. Bloody rocks.
Back to hotel. Seven minutes in hot water heaven. Wrote outside. Read. Moved inside. Cold. Trivial Pursuit – which was to be pursued for hours yet – getting warmed up in the background of Jeanette Winterson’s “Sexing the Cherry” which blurred before my eyes.
Low point. Dinner. Embarrassing, as usual. Making a fool of myself. Food. Food food food. Why can’t you eat like a normal human being? Do you eat salmon? Salad? Vegetables? Potatoes? Sausages? No? No?! REALLY?! Well what DO you eat?
Walk on the beach. Confusion. Friend jealousy, feeling out of place, but also out of comfort zone and bravely proud. Good. Odd. Good.
Back. Bottle of wine split down the middle without breaking one shard of glass. Tension? Cher from Clueless thinks wine makes you feel sexy. Made me feel spinny and inarticulate. Not proud of my honesty, because honesty changes every time I dig deeper into my thoughts to uncover something else I hadn’t thought of before. Apologizing sincerely for honesty erases it and makes it dishonest – not the apology, but the honesty.
Sleepywinetime.
Morning breakfast bus bus Osborne losing people getting lost finding people lunch. Bus bus bus bus ferry bus.

Back in Oxford. Last term. Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Ducks in a Row; 0th Week Begins

My to-do list at the beginning of this week included editing and sending out two stories, writing another story from scratch and writing an article for which I’d conducted an interview. It also included seeing friends, spending time with my mother, figuring out how tumblr works and reading some books that don’t feel like school.

Then my cat got sick. TMI warning – it’s about to get graphic. He was peeing blood. It was pretty gruesome. It was like having a fat boy cat having a period and horrible cramps because damn, the poor little kitty was in pain. He’s doing better now, but he’s still too fat to wash himself properly and he still has some sad dry bloody patches around his nether regions.

I did, however, manage to get everything done, even while worrying that my cat was about to bite the dust at any moment (we weren’t sure at first whether he was going to be alright or not and my mom and I both tend to worry more than we probably need to. Pessimists have more fun and all). I have rather a history of getting shit done when people are close to biting the dust. WOO, LIFE EXPERIENCE, WOO.

Tomorrow I’m going to be leaving a country and arriving in another country yet again, and there’s nothing more I can say about it really, because the process becomes extraordinarily boring. Airport, security, flight, passport, airport, bus, Oxford. That will be that, hopefully, and tomorrow I’ll get to see some people I haven’t seen in forever.

Trinity term is going to be interesting. Finalists at Oxford are, from what I understand, almost 100% unavailable until after their exams are finished, and the colleges and their environs become quiet and studious places where the slightest peep after nightfall is an offense punishable by forceful glares. Fair enough, of course, but I wonder whether this will put me in the delightful position of feeling at home amongst an introverted and gloriously studious crowd or else will entirely alienate me as an outsider without the same exam-stress-vibe as the finalists are experiencing.

Towards the end of last term I’d already found a variety of different types of studiousness going around – there were the coffee-coffee-coffee types, the going-to-bed-at-sensible-hours-waking-up-at-sensible-hours-got-my-shit-together-smug types, the party-till-the-last-possible-second types and the clumping-together-for-comfort-and-warmth-in-the-library types. There were the I-cannot-have-friends-anymore types, the I-will-not-see-you-for-months-now-deal-with-it-kthxbi types, the I-actually-do-live-in-the-Bod-thanks-very-much types and the pfft-this-is-easy types. There were various combinations of these as well, because very often, I noticed, people switched between types throughout the last couple weeks of term.

It’s going to be interesting coming back and seeing how everyone’s holding up, whether everyone is surviving okay, and how many will need massages, chocolates, hugs or cheerleader dances of encouragement. I’m advertising myself now as a giver of all of these, so shout out if you’re in need.

 

PHOTO / moonpie dig it

Juiced-up Jitterbug Jet-lag

People say that coming over one direction or the other is worse. Everyone’s an expert. I don’t know, man, I just know that I got it bad right now. Three flights over oceans or seas or what-have-you in a matter of less than two weeks, coming off the stress of an Oxonian term, plus a bus ride as long as a flight in the middle of that and no time to get over the first jet-lag because there was just too much to do in New York, and let me tell you – I’m seeing the world through zombie’s eyes.

My brother called me a jet-setter, and boy, did that stick in my craw. I tried to argue him out of thinking that, but once you get started arguing with my brother, you may as well count on being in for the long haul. I love that about him, though. He makes it seem like he knows everything about everything, and me, with my little sis hero-worship eyes, I sometimes forget that it isn’t so. I sometimes get so deep into some nonsense argument about the fashion industry – something neither of us, by the by, knows much of anything about – that I need to pause, breathe, and then remind myself and him that we’re both spouting bullshit. I’ve even encountered the rare occasion, lately, in which I was able to tell him flat out that he was just being contrary for the fun of it, to which he admitted readily, with that little grin that I can transpose onto his face at any age.

I’m not a jet-setter, let’s be clear about that. I may fly a lot, but it’s due to my peculiar circumstances. I’m lucky, yes, that both my mother and I have incredibly simple needs and desires outside of our traveling. Or maybe it’s not luck at all, maybe I’m reared the way I am because I always knew that purse strings need to be pretty tight in order to be able to fund all this necessary international travel.

I’ve never been further into the real South than Arlington, Virginia, which is technically below the Mason-Dixon line, so it kind of counts, but my jet-lagged fingers are typing out this mildly Southern accent in my head and probably doing it all wrong. A fourth flight is coming up soon, and everything starts a-winding down then. A scary thought, that is. A real terror, truly. The next year and more are laid out in front of me and let me tell you, that rose path of a red carpet is nettled with thorns. I’m barefoot, you know. But I’ve got calluses this thick from all the walking I do. It’ll all be alright, honey. Yes it will.

Lock, stock and barrel

A long absence makes the heart grow fonder? Maybe? No, probably not. But here’s the thing, this term has been properly crazy. Having two jobs to do at the OxStu, an amateur choir to sing in, a social life to try to keep up with. a major depressive episode to stave off, an immune system to support while everyone around my was getting ill, friends on two other continents to stay in touch with (more or less successfully), and, on top of all that, the usual two tutorials’ workload to juggle… Well, having all that on my plate made for some very rude eating habits that led to some remarks about biting off more than I can chew. But hey, I’ve licked my plate clean, and despite the fact that my use of all these food metaphors points to an unhealthy frame of mind, I’m still relatively stable. Three cheers for Oxford wonders and miracles!

Speaking of wonders, what’s the deal with Oxford and Alice in Wonderland? A very dear friend of mine is visiting from Israel, and she pointed out that there is lots of merchandise sold around here that is AiW-themed. Walking from Waterstones to Wadham today, I also realised for the first time that yes, duh, that sign advertising the ‘Mad Hatter’ tours has always been there. I know that Lewis Carol was a linguist, but was he an Oxford linguist? I could, of course, google this, but to be honest, I don’t care all that much. I love the Alice books, but they are wondrous on their own and I don’t need them to be connected to a real place in order to enjoy them.

Anywho, the weight of the work hasn’t yet left my shoulders. It doesn’t seem to have registered, quite yet, that I’m done with work. I still have some articles to upload, an application for a scholarship to send off, some obligations to fulfil. To be honest, though, I think it’s more than that – I think that the mindset of constant-work-mixed-with-intense-play is one that is very difficult to get rid of, especially once term becomes such a routine of muchness.

Because it’a rainy and gloomy, it seems fitting to end on some kind of moral or lesson. My kind, of course. So, if there are three things that I will take away with me from this term, Hilary Term 2013, they are these:
1. Gray weather makes me grumpy.
2. The Wadham Men’s Room has a lock. Use it.
3. Park End isn’t as bad as people told me it was going to be. Clubbing is awesome, kind of no matter what, because dancing is awesome.

Mid-Week 1

 

My new favorite place is the Oxford Union Bar. It’s also a cafe. Their coffee is cheap, the chairs and couches are squishy and comfortable, and the strangest types of people walk in and out. The bartender is a blonde woman with a tattoo of something on the back of her arm. I’ve yet to tell what it is, because it’s always just peaking out of her blouse. She and the other bartender seem to have a comfortable working relationship. They chat behind the bar a lot, although the echoes caused by the strange acoustics of the high ceilings prevent me from properly hearing what it is that they’re saying. I have a feeling they’re not students, that they’re Oxford locals. It must be extremely odd, to live in a university town and to work in its offices and facilities and yet to have either no interest in attending it or else no financial or educational opportunities leading you to attend it. I suppose most Oxford locals who want to attend university tend to try to get as far away from the city where they grew up as possible anyway.

I’ve also found out that some of the stereotypical old English men, who talk in posh accents and have eccentric and bizarre conversations, still exist. When I was at the Union bar with a friend last week, I saw a man in red pants, suspenders and flyaway white hair tufting off the sides of his head. He was with another old man who was taller and rounder. They were joined eventually by yet another old man with a long Dumbledore beard and a brown coat. The last addition to their group was a surprisingly youngish man who was neatly and very typically dressed. They ordered the fancy food on the menu and sat at a table together for their lunch. I had to go before I could eavesdrop on their conversation for long, but I could tell that the older men all had ridiculously posh accents, reminiscent of the royal family.

The cold weather is wonderful. I’m incredibly happy to be back in zero degree weather. New York has acclimatized me to it, and I don’t think I can bear to live anymore in a place that doesn’t have seasons, or at least a significant change of degree between summer, autumn, winter and spring.

It’s mid-January already. 2013. Happy new year and all that.

Airport Awkward

Today I am flying back to Oxford. Israel’s airport is up to par these days, in comparison to what it used to be. There are, ostensibly, three terminals, though you’ll only ever see one of them, but since it’s called Terminal 3, it gives the illusion of the place being bigger than it is.

Once inside, there is a cavernous space, meant to remind you how powerful, important and very international Israel is. The ceiling of the departures hall disappears above in a glassy peak that reminds me of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, except that there aren’t any beautiful supports. It’s a big shout of “Look, Ma, no hands!” Which pretty much sums up how a lot of things go down here. There’s a big culture of what we call “partach” – I can only describe it as an old television set being repaired with lots of brown tape by a smiling man who charges you for fixing it and tells you it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.

ANYWAY – that is where I will be later. At the airport. Clutching my copy of Catch-22 everywhere I go so that I don’t have to look around too much. Because there’s going to be someone there, someone who is a friend of a friend and who will be on the same flight as me. Someone who I have met only a handful of times and whom I don’t feel like needing to make small talk with.

Is there anything worse than making awkward small talk when you’re traveling and feel like just zoning out into your book? I am not sure there is.

A New Year, Friends, Social Media – Woo

In five days time, I will be returning to Oxford, having stocked up on sunshine, medications, motherly hugs and friendship-time. It’s a shame that the only one of those that I can carry with me back to England is the meds.

If I could put some sea and sun in a jar in order to peak into it on particularly blurry, damp, dreary days, I would. I would scamper around the Tel Aviv beach, no matter how silly I looked, and catch sunbeams and whiffs of sea until I had a tidy little row of glass jars to pack in my suitcase.

With modern technology, it’s arguable that I can stock up on friendship-time and the voiced equivalent of motherly-hugs over Skype or email or whatever, but the truth is there isn’t anything quite like putting your arms around someone, just as emails can never convey the exact sentiment r gush of love that you wish they would.

Ironic, is it, that I’m writing this on a social media platform of a kind that I could never take advantage of in days of yore? Not at all. I am extremely grateful for the advent of social media. Moreover, I am not one of those to moan and groan that the old days were better and that the future holds horrors beyond measure. While the future terrifies me sometimes, it is only because of irrational ideas like the loss of books, which, thankfully, I don’t think will actually happen in my lifetime (so I can selfishly try to not care about that particular fear),

The fact is that with my (only partially freely chosen) lifestyle, involving several countries as it now does, I simply wouldn’t have been able to keep in touch with the friends I have if the internet didn’t exist. But it does, and so I am able to keep my flesh and blood friends through the 0s and 1s of networks I only partially understand the concepts of.

The important thing, though, is balance. As long as I can hug someone for every Tweet I get and have a conversation for every blog post I read or write, I’ll continue to be happy. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is a choice that is in my power to make.

Joy Harjo – Winter Hols – Day 4

One of the things that I sometimes forget is how much culture I miss out on by apathetically forgetting to seek it out. Sarah Lawrence makes this easy because no one goes to the special events that the college hosts, and so it’s easy to feel like one of the many who are too busy/lazy to attend things. Oxford is the opposite, with debates at the Oxford Union filling up to beyond capacity and talks with editors of famous journals happening around cozy tables in rooms lined with books, so that whenever and wherever something is happening, it feels as if the event is full-up with interested and eager participants.

Luckily, here in Israel, my mother and my friends are helpful in preventing my easily distracted-by-indoor-activities self, and they alert me when there are interesting things going on. Which is how I found myself attending a poetry reading at Tel Aviv University’s Gilman Building today, at 4pm.

Joy Harjo is an American Indian with a long list of awards and prizes to her name. She has a low voice and true-black hair, the kind of black that you try to squint at in order to see something in, the kind of black that gives no reflection. Her right hand was covered in intricate tattoos. She opened with a prayer in the Muskogee tribe’s language, a prayer that asked Eagle to give her strength, and she played a flute that hooted mesmerizing notes.

Her poems mix spiritual, animal images with modern, everyday language. She herself is clearly a mix of old tradition, true belief, and practicality – for you don’t travel halfway around the world and you don’t tell stories of getting good grades in university without a certain degree of ability to get along in the “real” blandness of everyday life.

She sang and played the saxophone too, and read some bits from her memoir. What I found most moving about her were those poems that she clearly knew by heart, because when she spoke them, they weren’t emerging from her mouth so much as from her gut. Her eyes screwed shut and one hand clawed the air while the other was clenched at her side or at her belly. She felt the words and saw them, and spoke them with clarity and skill. She isn’t a spoken-word poet, but she is a poet with the capacity to speak her words well.