There's nothing for you here
Where the guests like souvenirs
They play with you till you're all worn out.

We drove down to Brighton today. Pranced around town like hysterical reindeer and dodged shoppers and double decker buses. Then we drove to the sea and all alongside the misted coast, green grass crunched down to grey, the ivory cliffs, the wind-twisted trees. We stopped so Kip and Paul could fly their kites. Now, I'm not talking about any Mary-Poppins-kite-flying here. These are no paper bags on the end of a string. These are more like hang gliders that lift you off the ground when a gust grabs them, drag you across the grass, wrench your wrists. Of course this was all a spectator's view and mostly from the car as it was bloody freezing! Let me say, these two are hard core kite flyers. Don't laugh.

I won't be writing from Iceland, for which I depart on the morrow. I am anticipating that it will be too bloody expensive and that I will be consumed with the beauty of the viking city. So the next time you hear from me I will be at home. Or rather, New England, as it feels there is no home for me. I have a collection of familiar spaces and faces to return to, but not a home. We'll have to work on that.

It's been indescribable this past year. Thanks to everyone who made it better than it could have been whether from thousands of miles away or only inches. Let's catch up.

we both deserve to be happy, he said turning the cigarette in his fingers

gwill, the heavenly boy that he is, was there to meet me at heathrow airport. through a herculean effort we managed to haul my massive collection of things to his flat in nw london, where he generously let me have his comfy bed all to myself. what a change from my windowless, worn room in bangkok.

i spent almost a week in london, around the museums, landmarks and streets undergoing a hostile takeover by father christmas. i also saw eight movies in the span of three days. it was raining a lot. i did manage to get down to st. katherine's dock, where my dad lived for awhile and where we visited him on one of our trips. ah nostalgia. then i was stopped for directions by a frenchman at the tower, who tried to take me for coffee. when i tried to back out of it, using the useless excuse "i don't drink coffee" he chimed in with "then i'll take you to dinner". it took the better part of an hour to escape.

i left gwill yesterday and headed south. paul and kip picked me up at gatwick. last night we saw lord of the rings (the first one) and waited through the entire end credits hoping for a return of the king trailer. but there wasn't one! harsh.

i have a raging cold/flu-like illness, which needs to leave my body promptly.