Hello, my friends.

And so is sent the first note from across the sea. Huzzah!

I loved seeing "updates" from my friends whenever they went abroad, and I thought now that I'm here I could get it on the fun.

Here's the catch, you see... at least the few times that I've read these updates from others they've at least used, generally, proper grammar and the occasional punctuation mark. If you're looking for a less self-indulgent write up you've come to the wrong place.

For yea, this is as far as they get to that side, I worry to say. However I found it much more interesting to write than if it was "and then we saw Buckingham Palace, and then we went to some old church with windows, and then we..." I figure you'll find it significantly more fun to read than a log of my daily sightseeing activities, even if it is just to have a laugh at my expense.

"Wow, that guy is a tool!" you might say to yourself. And perhaps you're right... but strong men also cry. Strong men also cry...

Look I'd love to hear from everyone. I am having much fun, I'm really loving it over here. The coin system is a mess, but that's a small price to pay.

I hope to hear from you all soon. Forsooth.

And now, onto the first "update" of my trip, complete with a shout-out to the Vikings, a journey into my psyche during insomnia, and a short summary of my first ever tea party.

***

The visual image I get is straight out of Fight Club, it’s straight out of Drop Zone. The wing is torn off with a terrible wrenching sound, the plane falls quickly to the right, crashing hard, torrential wind, a freefall into the cliffside.

Or maybe a tiny hole begins to open in my window, larger and larger, about to burst. The window shatters, a maelstrom of noise, oh the cacophony! the wall is torn away amidst the shrieks and screams of the women and children. My chair is sucked out, and somehow against all odds I don’t hit the side of the plane. I don’t pass out from fear, or shock, or lack of oxygen. I am completely contented and falling 37,000 feet through the clouds that appear so solid, through the bottom layer that your mind tricks itself into believing is a separate level between you and the ground. You could walk on these clouds, if you really had to,, you know it.

I try to work out how long that would take, a fall of that length. And even though the math seems simple the solution is ever elusive, and

Holy shit I just need to go to sleep.

***
You see, I can’t sleep on airplanes. To combat this problem, I stayed up for all but a few hours of the night before I left.

This of course backfires. I still can’t sleep at all.

I have been up for too long, two straight days now. Push on, push on.

***
It comes back to Fight Club again, as I talk to this Single Serving Friend next to me. She was on holiday, to Las Vegas and Santa Monica. She loved the long desert drive along the 15 that she and her friend took to get from one to the other.

“Area 51!” she exclaims, and asks what I think about that. She is honestly excited.

“I think it’s safe to assume that there are military bases that we don’t know about. I also think it’s safe to assume that they don’t contain extraterrestrials.”

She continues on, excited by the possibility, cannot wait to get home and read all about it.

“What about the moon landings?” she says, hoping for a better answer.

I gesture out the window. “I find it hard to be skeptical of anything involving the mastery of flight when I’m seven miles above the surface of the earth.”

Again she hums and haws about this and that, and I discreetly return to my book. I am done with her.

I long for sleep, I crave it.

***
“Greenland” is, as far as I can tell, the longest running practical joke in history. Notable false things have been passed down as wisdom through the ages, but these were mostly passed on in ignorance. The name “Greenland” or whatever the hell it is in ancient Norse was intended from the very beginning as malicious. It’s an amazing tribute to the savvy of the Vikings that the name has persisted for almost one thousand years. I mean the fucking landmass appears to be made of solid ice, with a little snow added to spice of the monotony.

Yup, there it is. “Greenland.”

I bring this up because I am pissed that we are flying over it. “Direct” from LAX to LHR does not mean, obviously, shortest route. It means instead “without stopping anywhere else.” Why the hell are we flying over Greenland?

It is hours later before I realize that the Earth (no it’s true!) is a sphere. It is not the flat map I see on the four inch screen in front of me. Surely the curve of the Earth makes this a more reasonable route than I imagined. I close my eyes to help visualize the curvature of the Earth against the map in front of me, and little light patterns flash inside my eyelids and undulate, and I cannot sleep I’m so tired did I mention, so tired so tired so

Below me in the water around Greenland, there are tiny specks. I think they might be boats, in which case I am jealous. Trolling the northern seas! Avast!

Then, it really could be ice bits. But I’m miles up, so ice chunks, masses, bits of glacier. I hear it might get a little chilly ‘round these parts. You know. The Arctic.

That looks like a piece of fucking driftwood…

Probably ice. Well, fuck it then, I guess.

***
Smoothest landing ever.

Boring, boring, boring, boring… look I’m at my dorm!

Umm... flat?

***
Go through the door to the trashroom. That’s where I live. I live next to the fucking trashroom. My room is off the trashroom alcove. Bliggity bliggity blah.

Time to pass out but there’s an orientation, no a mixer, a tea party in the park. If I can only make it that long I can make it can talk to people and meet people gotta start off on the right foot gotta do it right can’t just hide in the room. Remember what Elisheba said, “have some fucking confidence, McGee.” She screamed it at me “Have some fucking confidence!” I told her I’d try, I’ll try, I dress better now. I got some new clothes, I don’t always dress like shit anymore. I threw all that away. I just need to unpack a little, and shower a little just need to clean up and it’s almost time. Feel like I’ve been wearing these clothes forever. Shower and new clothes. I feel better, just want to pass out, to lie down. Time to leave now. The tea party.

The tea party is great. I make fast friends with a group of people that sort of haphazardly sat down next to one another. I knew her, and she knew me, and the other two of us talked on the way over here, and he recognizes you from class even though you never talked to each other at least you were entertaining…

The tea is fucking good.

We agree to meet up later and go to the pub but who I am I fucking kidding? I pass out and sleep hard, hard into the next morning.

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

***
The narrative returns to a more rested state. Soon it will scatter back into chaos again because that’s what happens later.

***
This is the part where I go grocery shopping and stuff.

We now return to our previously mentioned chaotic narrative.

***
You see, we are at the bar later and our group is over there, but here we are together. Alone and isolated with her sitting here on top of this thing, whatever it is, and me standing here by her. Close, and closer, she is beautiful, truly beautiful. She laughs when she speaks sometimes, and I have only known her for these past two days, and here we are.

She is so beautiful, and she smells so good, and I didn’t have that much to drink did I? Why am I suddenly so intoxicated.

It is half the drink and it is half her, her smelling so good and looking so beautiful right here in front of me and talking like this about things like this and I start to pull away, always conscious, always planning.

Surely there must be another way! Surely somewhere is someone who is not constantly aware, constantly judging motion against motion, and what does that clue mean, and what does the move mean, and should I put my arm here or be too forward and why am I aware of this all the time, just want to relax, want to let go, I see people letting go they just live they don’t have to constantly be aware of their life but do I want that and do I she’s so beautiful here she’s right here and we’re this close and we’re even closer and I’m sure you can, you can do it, oh fuck Elisheba is gonna be so mad at you, you fucking cowardly son of a bitch can’t you just not think about it this once you can do this just do this just

dammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammit

I pull away, and I stand back, and we say goodnight later and I walk back down to my floor to a restless night of nothing dreams.

***
I just finished reading Eggers, and my mental flow is imitating his. Because I am a hack.

I did this same with Barry, all those years ago. And when I read Foster Wallace, and then with Sedaris. The writing so good that it makes me change the way I think about things, the way I process my thoughts. A writer so good he affects my patterns of thought, damn that’s good.

And then I think about it. And it’s David Eggers. And Dave Barry. And David Foster Wallace, and fucking David Sedaris. These writers that change me and help me and affect me so much.

Are there any not named David? Am I searching for my identity among these men that share my name?

It seems unlikely. But it’s a pretty big coincidence at any rate.

Am I among them? Do I share this love for them because I am one of them?

For surely I too am a great writer! I too can be beautiful! Maybe not as wildly odd as that early Barry that I love, and certainly not that utter brilliant like Wallace or as articulate as Sedaris or as pitch perfect as Eggers. But I too can be great I think, I hope, I feel I know.

I mean, we’re all named David right?

Is this some kind of fucking joke?

***
And I read this, and find that it hasn’t happened in London at all. It’s happened in me.

I just needed to get here to start learning this.

Is all.