Super spotted: sunny Southeast England weekend*

Independent Label Market

Soho

Saturday 21 May 2011

I heard about it on Radio 6... and then I ran into it. Lots of cool kids buying, selling, and trading records. Just like the old days.

Site of a soon-to-be Forever 21 

Oxford Street

Saturday 21 May 2011

Another piece of America invading Britain this summer...

Paul Rothe & Son Delicatessen and Tea Room

Marylebone Lane

Saturday 21 May 2011

But never fear, some quintessential British establishments will never die.

Southover Grange
Lewes
East Sussex
Sunday 22 May 2011

Life lessons from Her Majesty

Lewes

East Sussex

Sunday 22 May 2011

*Apologies for the delay in posting, but Blogger has decided not to work with Google Chrome. I'm seriously considering the switch to WordPress. Anyone have any advice?!

Blognic!

The lovely Tea for Joy is hosting a blognic!

Bloggers and bloggerfans, sign up and see you there – hopefully with as much sun as there is today! It's glorious outside, isn't it?

The big save

Photo courtesy of Georgivar

I don't know this guy, but these pictures make me laugh because they remind me of how I probably look when I start thinking about money. My mother always said I don't have a poker face.

I think everyone who knows me would agree that I'm not great with money. I'm not ashamed to admit that my budgeting/money management skills aren't exactly keen. Which is hilarious since a large amount of my job is about managing budgets - those of my clients; for some reason, since it's someone else's money, I can handle that but my own is like water running through my hands.

When I lived in New York I was pretty good about saving, though; I dutifully put the max into a Roth IRA every year, and enough into my 401(k) to get the employer match. When my grandmother passed away, I invested the money she left me in the market (of course, 18 months before the crash) in a mix of growth and retirement funds. So for longterm money, I'm your woman; it's just the day-to-day and monthly cash expenditures that I cannot - or refuse to - deal with.

When I got to the UK, my salary and budget were way out of line with each other and it took me nearly a year to settle on my feet in terms of monthly expenses versus spending money and making ends meet. Now, living with The Irishman and having a new job with a new salary, I am ready and able to return to saving more than just £50 per month. In fact, I'm going to be putting a lot more than that away every month from now on, because The Irishman and I are going START SAVING FOR A HOUSE.

Grandma, calm down. We're not sure whether this house is going to be in London, in England, in the USA, or even in the UAE. We're also not sure whether it will be a flat, a townhouse, a house or a farm. But we both want more than one room to share, and we'd like to be able to grow vegetables, and we want to have the space to potter. It's not going to happen without us buckling down and putting the money away, which is going to be a tough exercise for me. No more shoes, sales, or treats on a whim; last weekend, we wrote out a budget for us to both based on combined income and it was SCARY. And hard! It starts in June after we both get paid next, and it will be a big test whether we can continue our lifestyle as we now enjoy it within the confines of our new allowance.

Not only is it scary to think of curtailed spending, but it's pretty scary to think of joint saving. If this isn't commitment, I'm not sure what is. Lately it's been slightly freaking me out a bit, and The Irishman has been shaking his head at my footstamping about wanting to go out and do CRAZY THINGS to prove we're still young and hip rather than the truth: old souls who wish for a bigger living room of their own to curl up in on Saturday nights. But that doesn't mean I won't make him go out and shake his booty this weekend – I hear there is a 2-for-1 special down at the local pub. Cheap date!

I hate my hair.

No, really. I know everyone says this, at some point or another. But I think I have a real argument for at least exasperation if not full-on anger. Let me explain.

When I was young, I had pin-straight hair.

I know. I was pretty cute too. See those cheeks? I still have them. Meh.

Anyway, my hair was so straight that my mom let me get a perm every so often. I won't post those photos, cuz they are pretty tragic. But that meant my hair flipped from straight to 'fro throughout my pre-teen years. Post-puberty, my hair got really thick and puffy, and I developed a really annoying jeri-curl in my bangs that I could not blow-dry out to save my life. This should have been my first clue. 

So my solution to a lot of these issues was to chop my hair off. I spent quite a lot of my high-school self with a pixie cut. Hey, it was the 90s. I loved it. It was so cool! I don't have any pix of it, but I would share if I could.

When I got to college, I grew my hair out and straightened it religiously every day. I can't even imagine how much damage I did with that flat iron. But I had a mane of straight and lovely hair and I loved it.

Please disregard the horrible glow off of my shawl-thing, but focus on how straight my hair is. Le sigh. 

But then I moved to New York. And I found Paul, the most fabulous hair dresser in the world. He cut my hair and discovered that the frizz I battled for so long was actually natural curl! And lots of it! So I ran around New York for many years with bouncy waves.

I thought I had a better picture of my lovely curls, but this will have to do. Also enjoy my 27th birthday crown, courtesy of my lovely friend Rietje.

Soon after this picture was taken, though, I moved to the UK. And there started the downward spiral of my hair – pun SO NOT INTENDED. I lost my hairdresser, my styling routine, and access to cheap hair products. Even though I went to see Paul every time I went home, I soon ran out of products that I was used to using and couldn't quite find the right replacements. Over the years, I've used so many – Redken Ringlet 07, Deva-Curl AnGel, Schwarzkopf Osis+ Twin Curl 2, MOP C-Curl cream – but none seem to do the trick of shaping and defining my waves while cutting down on the frizz. Then, last summer, I got an unfortunate shag cut that, while cute, was actually heavily thinned.

As it grew out, it looked increasingly limp and straggly and was losing a lot of its curl. In search of a solution, I bounced from hairdresser to hairdresser, seeking a good cut as well as someone with whom I could build a hair styling relationship, as I balanced waited for my hair to grow out. Meanwhile I was using up all of the remaining product I had in my cupboard, trying to economically get to a place where I could start over, as it were, with fresh product and a fresh outlook on my hair. Not only was I dealing with the poor haircut, though, I was also battling some dry scalp, the general feeling of thinness to my hair, and a lot of hair breakage.

Cut to now. I've just had a haircut where the guy did something weird, something I've never seen before: he twisted my hair into sections and cut perpendicularly into it. Curious, I started doing some research into the best way to care for and style curly hair and discovered a whole lifestyle devoted to caring for natural curls. Reading sites like Naturally Curly and British Curly Girls is just exhausting me with the amount of time and energy to required to "do" my hair. When I think back to deciding to wear my hair curly, the number one reason was definitely so that I wouldn't have to dry and straighten my hair for hours anymore!

So. Where to next? I've switched to low sulfate shampoo and conditioner in the hopes of really cleaning my scalp and preventing breakages, and I'm trying Trevor Sorbie Curl Cream (a cheap Boots product) because I've had a travel size bottle of it for a couple years now and my hair ALWAYS looks good on holiday. So far, mixed results as washing my hair has made it feel even limper (yet softer)! and the Curl Cream is disappointingly a different formula. I've also discovered that hard water is to blame for my dry scalp and thin-feeling hair (great) but I can't quite solve that in a rented flat. I think that over the summer I will treat myself to a cut at a salon that specializes in curly hair, and in the meantime commit myself to the scrunch. 

Any curly-girls out there have any hard-earned advice? Melizza over at Sifting Through just wrote a post about liberating her curls, and she's reinspired me to keep up the quest to keep my curls happy – c'mon girls! We can do it!

Spotted: Sleeping on the job

Cross Street, N1

Saturday, May 14, 2011.

Year 3

Last week was my three-year anniversary of life in the UK.

And you know what?

I forgot.

Between getting swept up in the giddy excitement of the Royal Wedding, suffering another Irish invasion in my apartment, keeping an eye on the situation in Syria while getting out and about to enjoy the glorious weather, I've simply been too caught up in my life here in London to remember when I actually arrived. I contemplated not posting about the anniversary, and just blithely sweeping past it into year 4. But ignoring a milestone means not taking the time to remember just what has been achieved. And I've achieved a lot since moving here; sometimes it doesn't seem like it, as small victories like successfully shopping for groceries and finding one's way on a bus are everyday habits back home.

But it's also a good thing that I forgot the anniversary. It means I'm fully acclimated to life in the UK, really a resident rather than a transitory guest overstaying her welcome. My daily life is normal, rather than exciting; the currency in my wallet has lost its charm (as well as its buying power) and I whinge just as much a native Brit. The only thing left for me to do is vote - which I won't get to do for a while yet.

As I move from enchanted tourist to weary nearly-citizen here in world's biggest small island, the implications for this blog are also weighing on my mind. I started BloodyBrill as a journal of my time away, my travels, the quirky Britishness I encounter, and record of my experiences. As I settle in and settle down, I'm finding it harder and harder to think of what to write. It's not that I don't love the readers and commenters who frequent BloodyBrill, but I'm thinking that you probably don't want to read about my composting, my struggle to keep my flat clean, or my constant war with TFL about overcharging on my Oystercard. As I am not traveling too much for work anymore, there isn't much for me to report as the farthest I'm going is in cabs to Embankment – a far cry from monthly meetings in Amsterdam.

So friends, three years on... what do you want to see, read, hear about on BloodyBrill? I'll be using the summer to think about a new focus for BloodyBrill, so please let me know what you think. There are so many other expat blogs out there doing a much better job than I, so hopefully you can help me develop a more personal (and sustainable) angle here.

Royal Wedding Recap

So it's over... the entire nation (and possibly the world) has a massive hangover from the pomp, circumstance, and Pimms of yesterday. I originally poo-pooed all of the hype but this past week I've been sucked in. I think it was the genuine excitement of English people, rather than the manufactured hoo-ha of the press, as they hung bunting, flags, planned street parties, and reminisced about royal weddings past. People genuinely were worried for the couple that it might rain on their day and I'm sure were pleased that the forecasted thunder and lightning stayed at bay. I think Will and Kate really resonated with everyone because they are modern young people in love, rather than stoic and wooden royals so far out of reach. Their personal openness encouraged people to join in their day as revellers, rather than subjects. It's not just semantics.

But that didn't mean I wanted to be thick in the festivities on processional route. Instead, we jumped on an early train to Salisbury to have a Royal Wedding House Party with friends in Salisbury. By 10am I had champagne in hand infront of BBC1 lapping up both the fizz and the coverage - and I loved every minute. I LOVED THE DRESS - perfect for the occasion, perfect for the location, and absolutely fabulous with the Victorian bustle detail at the back. And both Princes cut fine figures, though I couldn't help coming up with cheeky comments every time Harry leaned in to tell Wills something; if I'm not mistaken, he was TOTALLY chatting up Kate's sister Pippa coming out of the church. Mwah!

Once the initial coverage ended, after the two kisses (so cute) and after about 5 hours of drinking and TV watching, we headed out to a pub and then the backyard for celebrating in the sunshine. We ended our day with fireworks and sparkers, and trouped back to London on a 9:30 train. It was as we left it - empty, but with a frisson of excitement in the air as the nation and its guests sleepily smiled at the sweetness of it all.

Back to the Future

I'm a bad little blogger; I've been back from the US since Monday and haven't really made the time to write a post saying HI and how great my trip home was. I blamed this on the fact that The Irishman hid my camera cable so I can't upload pix from our trip to post, but really that's just me making excuses.

Jetlag this time has been an odd one. We took the overnight flight from Newark Sunday evening after a delicious Easter dinner and though it felt like I didn't sleep much, I think I did because I was FINE on Monday. Like, did laundry, went to the park and read in the sun, and wasn't cranky fine. Meanwhile The Irishman spent all day on the sofa and couldn't put two words together properly. But now, man, I get home from work at 6:30 and I am BEAT. And I get up at 8am and I can't open my eyes because at 4am I've been waking up bright eyed and bushytailed. I have no idea what's going on, but I am really hoping this goes away stat.

Anyway, about my trip home. In Philly, I made sure my bestie got married in one piece - she won't mind if I say that she got horribly sick the week before her wedding and us 'maids had the job of telling her how beautiful she was (AND SHE WAS GORGEOUS) through the pain. It was hard for me, though, because I felt guilty that I only flew in to shower her with presents and Grazias, rather than being there for her throughout the wedding planning process. Yet another one of the travesties of expat life: not being there for your bestie until the last minute.

Also in Philly, The Irishman and I ate a lot of his firsts: first cheesesteak, first pork sandwich, first soft pretzel, first Amish deli, first whoopie pie... He was in heaven. I was just trying to pace myself so my 'maids dress fit. Then The Irishman celebrated his first Seder with my family. He wore his first yarmulke and chose a fetching teal one; I was so proud of him for jumping in and fully embracing the holiday.

In New York, I crammed about 10 meals into two days so I could see my peoples. Every trip home it gets harder to spend quality time with people; meetups are shorter and less deep and I consciously feel the distance growing between myself and my friends. I know they care, I know I care, but the truth is I'm less involved with their current lives and vice versa. I'm learning to accept that, and to be okay with it. It's no one's fault, we're still friends, and it's enough to be able to see each other and pick up with wherever we left off - even if it is only in hour-long chunks.

And then we had Easter, where The Irishman was the star of the show. Again. Honestly, they love him more than me.

But the oddest part of the whole trip was that I was excited to go home because it was vacation, not because it was home. I forgot a lot of driving directions, like the backroads around my parents home that lead to I-95. It didn't feel like my place anymore; I am increasingly offended by American TV and anachronistic customs. Yet when I left, I didn't feel like I was going "home"either. Landing at Heathrow didn't feel like relief - it was just where I was going. So at this point, I just feel nationless. It's actually quite a freeing place to be, not being held down by some invisible cultural rope to a set of customs and expectations arbitrarily assigned by birth; I feel liberated but bewildered, like a kid who is home alone for the first time and knows she can do whatever she wants but isn't quite sure what that might be.

My bestie told me something funny after her wedding; apparently her family were quite disappointed that I wasn't actually British. She had told them that her friend from the UK was attending, and when they met me, heard my accent, and learned I was from New Jersey it was all a bit boring. I loved that. Expat life continues to amuse me in all of the oddest ways. So here I am, back in England, back living my odd stateless life, back to living my future.

Well then. I'm off to the pub.

Spotted: Royal Wedding Bunting

My office

King's Cross

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Role reversal

I'm officially 1 month into my new job. So many people have asked me how it's going and what it's like, and I'm sure all of you virtual people are wondering too. Obviously then a post is in order; while I do generally keep work out of Bloody Brilliant, it is the reason I moved to the UK and a large part of my life, so I am okay with blogging from a personal point of view about how work is contributing to my life (ie, me and my experience with/at work) without it straying too far into overshare territory.

Anyway, my new job. First impression: scary. Not that the company is scary; far from it, it is warm and welcoming, a great bunch of people with great personalities who have been really inclusive and kind from day 1. But it is scary because I don't really think that I realized just what a change I was making when I left my former position. There, I had a personal reputation in the company that extended beyond the US and UK; I could call up someone in our Asian offices and they knew my name. I had firsthand knowledge of work we had done in South America. I could find resources in Russia if necessary. This reputation was in some ways good and bad: people knew who I was and my skillset, and I was often pointed to as an excellent example of the company's commitment to international collaboration across offices. But that reputation also pigeonholed me at a level I couldn't break free of, and as I yearned for bigger, more exciting challenges, I realized they wouldn't be happening there: the downside of someone knowing what you can do is that, well, that's all they think you can do.

So I left. And now I'm in a new place with new expectations and NO history. Sheesh people. There is nothing more humbling than having someone rewrite something you've been writing for years, because "that's just not how we do it here." S/he didn't do it rudely; it's just a learning curve that I ran smack bang into and I'm only now starting to adjust my approach to the incline. It's just a really weird situation to be in, going from being at the top of one's game, to relearning how to do everything that was seemingly automatic.

There are silver linings of course. I've imported a lot of ways of working that have been really well-received, and I think I'm contributing well to a situation here that is also in transition: fresh thoughts, new processes, etc. But I still have a ways to go to establish myself, craft my reputation, and make sure I'm controlling my own situation. My former boss recommended I read The First 90 Days; 30 days in I've only really gotten through the introduction. I figure if I don't count my vacation next week, I have 60 days to implement what I learn. I'm gonna read it on the plane next week.

Despite the upheaval, I really believe that every transition affords a learning opportunity. Look at how much I've grown since moving to the UK! As much as I look back on it with rose-tinted glasses, I know deep down it was such a hard thing to do. And it's the same thing with my new job. You don't change roles after 5 years and not feel any displacement; it's learning how to find your feet again that makes the challenge worthwhile. I'm on a boat, people, and I'm adjusting to the motion of the waves.