my my my valentine

There have been plenty of bad days here in London. The bad to good days ratio is probably equivalent to those back in Minnesota. It's nothing surprising, it's nothing new. It really shouldn't be anything noteworthy to exclaim that I have had days where I never want to get out of bed in this beautiful city, and it shouldn't be anything noteworthy to say that I get lonely, and I sometimes get to the point where I just want it to be like the good old days back at Macalester. But I did expect it to be noteworthy. I figured that once I got here my soul would fly and I would be so inspired by the city around me that I would be full of intellectualism and creativity. I would be halfway done with my novel by now and I would have created several works of art. I would be wiser, better groomed, and more sure of myself. Because of London.

Although environment does have the possibility to influence happiness and well-being, it does not turn you on your head and knock every creative vein into motion. If you're in a place too long, you get stagnant, your mind, your body. But if you're in a place too short a time, you never really sink in. So there must be some great equation to balance out how long you should be in a place. But I don't know it yet.

Though I've learned too that location, geographically, doesn't account for everything. Place in terms of- place in your life, place in relation to others, and place geography and city, are all part of the equation. So here I've got geography and city, and I'm in the perfect place in my life to be in London. But it's a lack of relation to others that gets me down. It's the slightly on edge conversations I have with everyone. It's the slight run through in my mind before every conversation. The easiness and laziness of good friend conversation is missing. And to be fair, I didn't find it until about a year ago, so for me to be unable to find it here, within 2 months, would be a big feat, and already I feel I've gotten closer than I ever had before last year. But now that I've had a taste of the sipping-lemonade-on-the-terrace type of conversation that is possible between 2, 3, 4 people, it's sad when it's gone missing.

This interpersonal easiness leads to comfort, and the comfort adds points to your general happiness, and happiness lends itself to allowing you to go out on your own on a limb and make and create with this feeling. And when you're down, you're down, because it's new and you're usually so happy go lucky, and it's dramatic and invigorating. Whereas down here? It's lazy and suffocating.

I'm fine, really, good, actually- sometimes I just get tired of Sharon Stone telling me that I can look better now than I did at 20 whenever I look out the window.

Furthermore, I've discovered that Diet Coke is a pathetic diluted brown when held up to the sunlight, not the rich creamy darkness that I came to know it as. A bit, but not nearly all, of the magic is gone. Kristina's Count of Diet Coke's consumed in the last two weeks: too many to count, falling out of plastic bag attempting to hold them in.