(11:06 pm GMT)  am now marvelously drunk off of four different types of wine with mark and his lovely friends.  we sat in green park, letting it grow dark as we ate cherries and strawberries and talked about music and artists and other things.  i am so glad to be spending time with actual londoners (however much they may deny being so); it was good to get away from the program for awhile.  mark is really nice and funny and sweet.

today i made an imaginary tube map with a coen brothers films theme.  when i get home, i’ll scan it for you.  i am really proud of it.

(8:56 pm GMT)  i have no feelings about wales whatsoever.  in abergavenny, we climbed the only mountain that wasn’t infected.  we went to cardiff (caerdydd), where we toured the castle (castell) and drank brains and looked at the millennium stadium (stadiwm y mileniwm), and i felt nothing.  i wandered around inside my own head, alone and dirty and empty.  from far away, birds look like gnats.  sheep sound like men.  things seem like difficult.

on the train today, someone’s cell phone rang the tune to “the muppet show,” and i thought of you.

(12:07 pm GMT)  they seemed nice at first.  when we emerged from the criterion theatre, we walked down to the red lion for a beer.  the four of us stood outside, talking about broken wineglasses and being foreigners.  two young american guys in business suits appeared, and asked where we were from.  we told them we were students, they told us they were executives, we talked for a minute, and they asked us to go get a drink.  but it’s ten-forty-five, we said.  the bars close at eleven, we said.  it’s all right, they said.  we know some clubs that are open, and we’ll buy you a few drinks.

we started walking with them.  no names were exchanged, but they asked too many questions about where we were from, where we were staying, which tube stop, which line, how long we were here.  the shorter guy walked with diane and me, the taller, wasted-looking one with matt and angela.  the conversation was small and perfunctory, and i was wary.  they had told diane that they had a membership to a club through their office, and when they stopped to ask for directions, i knew something was wrong.  if they had a membership, why didn’t they know where it was?  i caught up with matt and asked him if he was feeling as wierd about the situation as i was.  matt said, “i’m ready.”  he seemed curious as to what was going to happen, which i was as well, a little.

we walked on, amid groups of punks in leathers reflecting twists of neon.  we walked towards leicester square, and turned back towards piccadilly circus.  the wasted guy caught up with the short one, they talked for a minute, and the wasted guy turned to me and asked if we had a curfew.  anxious to get out of the situation, i told him that we didn’t have a curfew, but we wanted to head back before the underground closed at twelve.  we would hate to go to a club with them, pay a cover charge to get in, and not be able to stay very long, i said.  the wasted turned to the short and said, “we’d better let these guys get back home.”  thanks anyway, we said, and walked off.  they had been walking in the direction of the piccadilly circus tube stop, but when we parted ways, they turned around and walked back the other way.

so, i don’t know what they were planning to do with us, but there were definitely plans, whatever they were.  it was really sort of interesting, and if i hadn’t felt that we would have been in danger, i would have wanted to stay and see what was going to happen.

my hair is no longer orange, and i feel ill from the inside.  also, what kind of search request is “bluishorange alison headley monkeys with shovels”?  also, what kind of shit is this?