what do i do with these hands - lift, throw them?

i think perhaps there is some kind of writerly need developing in me after all, a pressure to say the things i am thinking of, especially when i plan to do so. i'm not sure who exactly i feel i'm neglecting when i don't manage to write in here, but i certainly do feel negligent.

my visit to norwich was really lovely if for no other reason than that john's company is therapy in inarticulable ways, for parts of me i didn't even know were wanting. it is good, in spite of our lives completely different from the ones in which we normally encounter one another as long-distance friends, in surroundings and often in substance, to have something grounding, normal, steadfast, whole.
the trip was provocative especially for the travelling experience itself. i am thinking more and more about trains (naturally) these days. someone i know who is very interested in his travelling self and the narrative of its actual process keeps an elaborate map drawing the lines between the places he's left from and the places he goes to. this map is not the mere usual thumbtack-ridden document to boast of the noteworthy places seen and arrived at; it is interested in this act of transporting, of moving oneself throughout earth's space and being able to do that and track it. when i am on the train, i feel like i am actually drawing those travel lines quite automatically, as if i could look in the train's wake and see a thick black line drawn on the map relating me to the earth. it's sort of like a hard, determined worm, tunneling its way through what lies ahead of it. maybe soon this will all become more commonplace to me, but at the moment it is a very active experience.

the train cars themselves prove to also be very active spaces. at this time of year the cars are almost completely full, and there is much less peace to easily expect in your surroundings. another fortunate place for an ipod-owner, incidentally. i thought some at the time about the train cars as conversation spaces devaluing to substance and individual meaning, as providing dead exchanges, but i am not so much interested in that thought now. i will tell you instead about this couple and their baby who were the focal point of probably everyone's train trip that day. a young asian couple who spoke very little english travelling the majority of the way with me from edinburgh down to england, and had with them their young baby (not walking yet, at least). as i would imagine, this experience was not a terribly comfortable or delightful one for the baby, and it spent almost the majority of the several hours in fits of wailing. every single time it cried, its parents would try to feed it, no questions asked. clearly it wasn't hungry and this was really agonizing to watch. they didn't know what to do with it, and amidst the cries and the failures of their strange goo-goo baby-amusement noises it was clear that every person on that train wanted to say something to them, to help, to admonish, to express frustration, to try to make it better. of course no one could, because they couldn't speak english. but anyway, the big question, why in the world do people travel with really young children? it always baffles me, and i'd really love for someone to explain this urge to me. clearly the trip ends up being devoted to the precariousness of the child's happiness, to the the point that the surroundings are hardly the focus, that enjoying oneself is not considered or planned for. if you out there have kids and have taken them on trips when very young, please, please enlighten me as to your desires. i am genuinely confused.

outside of newcastle there is a big hilly cemetary to which there appears to be no rhyme or reason, just scattered tombstones of wildly varying shapes and sizes, and mostly browned from the wind and the rain, as all stone tends to be here. when i noticed it i was reminded of an utterly strange cemetary i walked through in my visit to key west, where the land was flat and palm trees grew amidst the headstones, which were mostly bright or white or sparkly, as unweathered stone tends to be. strange how these places became so easily representative of their surroundings, and yet still never became comfortable for anyone but their stones. cemetaries to me feel very full of something, not empty at all, but like they are occupied by different air, air that barely moves in or out. once my sister katie and i were aimlessly driving in outer catonsville and stumbled upon a military cemetary that we hadn't known was there, and i felt morbid at the time for the amount of intrigue this place aroused in me, but really it was quite breathtaking, the expanse of ordered white stones over many rolling hills. today i walked for the first time in the old calton cemetary, which houses some of the biggest scottish figureheads or citizens of edinburgh - of note today were david hume and robert burns. i will soon update my photo website with some pictures i took there.

everyone i encountered in norwich said "oh, you're from edinburgh? i bet it's cold there!" when actually it was freezing in norwich compared to here - today and yesterday it was gorgeously sunny and in the 50's - i think the breeze was even warm a few times. i am really pleased to be living in a proper city with such cultural offerings of museums and castles and natural wonders instead of a town with a college and some shops in it. norwich seems like a nice place to live undoubtedly, and same with cambridge, and they both do the latter thing with charm and style all their own, but there is a whole other dimension to edinburgh. nevertheless, i am missing on out something, or at least have a different lifestyle for myself, by choosing not to find a program of americans to travel with. there is a great comfort in always meeting up with your friends for dinner, or walking around your flat building and seeing enough of the people you know to feel like you know what's going on in their lives. this small-town cozy feeling i noticed in norwich was perhaps enhanced by my seeing in john's flat building a girl named rachel gordon-roberts that he and i went to elementary school with, and who i haven't seen since. my catonsville life has generated some strange continuities as time passed - i didn't even feel the need to reintroduce myself to this person, just said "hey, how are you?" - and it is strange that i will no longer have a home base there, as my grandma moves away to westminster.

yet, with all of these continuities, i have moved enough times not to feel defined by a particular location in the u.s., and i think it contributes to why i am in less in touch with my americanness than john, who has such strong attachments to the baltimore area. i guess my nomadism continues, and it will be interesting to see what mood in the end pervades my scotland living.

i have finished my anthropology class, with the exam yesterday morning, and now have to write 20 pages and should probably be more stressed out about that than i am. but tonight is the employee christmas party for my work, and it should be exciting! i think it will be quite fancy, at a place called the roxburghe hotel, and drinks and dinner are on the company tab. no complaints from me. then, back to life and stress. i am hoping just to spend my days entirely in the law library, just plodding along. it will be a good test for me, this serious and sort of boring writing, because it's what academics are like for most people i suppose, and the trick is to find a way to make it interesting for yourself. alright, time to try to find something fancy to wear. wish me luck.