the duke and the duchess

I am on my butt and on the tips of my toes. Stealthy Kristina starts revving up. Who knows if there even exists a Stealthy Kristina? This week was too good to be true, of course. A 15 minute walk to Oxford Street, a 20 minute walk to Leicester Square, a 5 minute walk to Regent's Park, a 30 minute walk to work.. no of course it couldn't last. It's getting colder again and my luck is running out - the short bit of it that I had.

I may be bumming around England for the next week, which will basically get me ready for bumming around in California when I get home. I can't legally stay in Ben's dorm and "they" caught me doing just that. So I'll either have to be super stealthy or go sleep at my boss' or a friend of my boss', or worse, my teacher's, or worse still, a British person's house who I don't really like, or worst, find a hostel.

Backpedaling.... the freedom of London without school is amazing. I already know it, yet there is so much more to know. I don't feel guilty for sitting in the park for hours because the parks are the lungs of London. The Underground lines are London's veins. Its heart? I don't know yet. Is it me? Is it anybody who can still stop in the street, look up at the buildings, and feel their heart swell with love?

I still have so much to do and the thought of being away from London for a good five days in various other places frightens me, although I know a trip to Oxford and Cardiff would be beautiful and new. I just don't know when I'll be back again. . .

Maybe in my next life. The one where I own black slacks, I can make my hair not look like a bird's nest, I don't put my hands in my pockets and come up with handfuls full of kleenexes I left in the pockets during the wash...the one where I can mingle at a gallery opening and hold my wine glass lightly with clean fingernails, where I can keep my make-up on my face for more than an hour, where I can not walk into a store and feel like an 8 yearold in a porno shop.

I saw the Queen on Saturday.