Monday through Thursday our class learned how to sew. On Friday, we made an arm out of fabric. Friday night I went over to Miki’s so we could go out to meet her friend Andrew and some of his friends. The tube was broken at Camberwell Green so we had to take a bus to another tube station that was broken. Mostly, everybody was plastered by 10:30, including a lot of older men whose tolerances should be way higher. In London, you can walk around with open booze, and people do. My favorite people on the bus going there were two ladies with tight black clothing on. Where you guys going? In unison, “Breckington Ridge” or something similar. Me: is that a club or something. No, it’s a bus station. Then they ran off with gusto.

The bar was off the tube station. You don’t even have to go out of the station to get to it. It’s like a small hole in the wall that you kind of have to know where it is underground. You walk along a couple of long hallways that are lit dramatically. At one point, it was really dark and Miki was pretending to say “hello darling” and somebody passed by and thought she was talking to them and said hello. It smelled like old attic in there and the busy part was ½ crowded, but nice. It was likea cave and a subway station mixed. We had a weird beer on ice that was alright. Andrew and his friends were nice. I mostly talked to Rachel except she is from Liverpool and I could barely understand her because of her thick accent so I had to ask her to repeat everything a zillion times. Towards the end, she was mega-hammered and started telling me to change majors. She is coming to my concert on December 9th, as is the rest of London. We stayed there till 2:30 and then caught a bus back to Miki’s place. There was a man on the bus who was talking to himself and laughing. He made me happy until he started laughing harder, which ultimately revealed he was missing a good chunk of his teeth. He later stood up and waited for the bus door to open. A Chinese man in hospital scrubs was pretending to be asleep while still being aware that a man 3 inches from his face was about to almost kill him / laugh with no teeth. Toothless laughed and then held out his hand to give seated Chinese man / stranger to toothless a handshake. Miraculously, the sleeping Chinaman shook his hand even though he was “sleeping”. When Miki and I got off, I tried to shake his hand but he just smiled in a sleepy daze. This could be because he thought I was making fun of toothless and thought I was being funny or it could be because Chinaman was also delirious. We got food on the way back but then realized our favorite kabob place was still open and should have eaten there instead.

We woke up and went to British Library. It is ridiculously awesome there. We figured it was a regular library, but we were wrong. You walk in and it is huge, spotless, and modern in a not annoying way. We asked where we could get our library cards and were pointed to this oversized waiting room where there were people on computers applying and tons of desks with cameras all set up. A lot of confusion came up when we asked dhow to check out books, as they don’t lend out books, it’s all reference!! She sort started speaking loudly at us and telling us that we need to be researching something and then we said we were and then she said that “BUT YOU SAID YOU JUST WANTED TO CHECK OUT BOOKS AND LOOK AROUND”. So we convinced her of our seriousness, and she showed us some computers where we had to fill out forms online. Then we got “interviewed”, they took our pictures, and gave us cards. It was like getting into a morgue or a FBI zone. I got a Key facts print out and Miki got other information. ; You can't take in coats bags, pens, ect. so we had to check all that shit in a special coatcheck area over by the cafe. To get into the reading rooms, you have to show your cards and order the books on special computers. They are then brought up to you and delivered to your table that you read at. It is like that wine bar in Las Vegas where the lady dangles on a rope and gets wine bottles off a 100-foot tall case at Mandalay Bay. Miki was sort of disappointed and confused about the lack of books there then I explained that they go get books from the basement. She was then happy. We looked at maps in the maps room. Everything was authentic, ancient, and required dry hands. I love it there.

We went to look for another library in the area but it was child’s play. I searched force fields, which returned no results. I also searched kittens and that returned no results even though I could see a bookrack in the back of the room that read “pets”. How they had a pet section with no books on cats is beyond me. We parted ways. She went to a Japanese part of the city and I went to get a chicken sandwich from Burger King. They were out of regular bread, so they had to put it on a hot dog bun. I did my laundry for the second time and then went back over to Miki’s place for Authentic Chinese food prepared by her roommates. There were about 8 people there. The food was amazing, even if it wasn’t served on a hot dog bun. Miki told me a story about how she found an old diary or notepad that we wrote in during a sample sale in LA. In it was the phrase “wedlock dreadlock.” She said it had something to do with Whoppi Goldberg having a baby with Ted Danson. I forgot, but it’s important, so I’ll figure out what she meant.