August 19, 2009 – 5:04 am
Travelling to Montenegro. Offline until September. Back with proper material after that.
Today we embark on the final leg of the Road Trip (Washington DC to Chicago, via West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana) so proper posting will resume when I’m reunited with the loving arms of London internet on Sunday.
I would apologise for writing about Chicago before writing about Segment 1 of the road trip (Northern Illinois and Iowa) or my 29th birthday which I celebrated on the Mississipi with a boatful of Texan octagenerians, except that my rudementary set-up of phone and keyboard doesn’t let me post any pictures and also I’m thinking of pitching ‘lovable chaos’ as my brand.
Between the pouring lakefront sunlight and my blossoming anxiety, I’ve been up since 6am of Backward American Time despite Sheraton’s attempts to chain me to their incredibly comfortable beds. If the warm-up party last night was anything to go by, then having Z along may be the sanest decision I ever made since he was my one-man stylist/tech advisor/PR officer/Cheerleading band. Essentially Z is what I cling to in the absence of actual drugs/security blankets and when confronted with a roomful of people whom you’ve never met but who seem to know each other, with only a lone drink standing between you and hyperventilating in the bathroom, then having a Z on your side is like finding a mine of solid gold.
Such is the extent of my affection and gratitude that I’ve sworn the next time he drags me all over a foreign city in the Grail-Questlike pursuit of an acceptable resting place or restaurant, I shall follow him gaily and without complaint.
I am in America! It is great fun.
Proper words and pictures coming soon.
London life at its finest, there.
I love colours on walls, and painting the white wallpaper in our tiny spare room was the agreed testing ground for bolder projects. I first sketched out the design of the tree and raven in pencil, and then painted the sky (a combination of deep blue and purple tempera) and then the ground (ochre). Completely easy-peasy painless process , aside from the cramp in the biceps of my paint-applying arm. Originally I was going to add more detail to this – paint the tree and the raven – but now I quite like it the way it is (although I will jazz up the ground at some point).
Next project- painting skeleton leaves on a white duvet cover with fabric paints.
My preferred method of packing is to leave it all until the last minute and then rush around in a faff while the ticking vein in Z’s forehead becomes more pronounced.
However, due to the fact that I’ll be working all day the day before we leave – I’ve started packing and planning in advance.
Normally my travel wardrobe is not particularly inspiring, since I pack with the doomed certainty of a woman who knows her husband will drag her all over the known Universe as soon as his foot touches the soil of their destination and it consists of things I can walk miles in without crying, but BlogHer has been a wonderful excuse to dust off and bring out the pretty stuff (worn on its own, or with leggings and trousers in case it gets freezing).
N: What can I say about Belize?
Z: It’s wet and green. And it doesn’t have roads.
Most of Belize is jungle, which in some areas looks primordial and huge – all tangled canopies and gigantic ferns and tree roots the size of my leg – while in other places it looks more like a dense European forest (if European forests were in the habit of housing jaguars). Because I’m ignorant I thought the forest was really old, but most of it sits on top of the Mayan cities of old – it appears that pretty much wherever you dig your pickaxe you’re guaranteed to stumble on an ancient settlement, provided you had substantial time and money and energy for this pickaxing- which isn’t excavated due to insufficient funds.
In a way I found it a comforting idea – that nature persists even if a civilisation perishes- and have ever since had postapocalyptic visions of my living room with giant roots and glossy ferns growing from the floorboards, their droplet-covered fronds refracting light.
