Sushi Club, Indianapolis.

This is a bit of a summer throwback post.  When everything was still warm and America.

My friend Amanda alerted me to Sushi Club and insisted we go together while we were both home for the summer.  Also she went on and on about their all-you-can-eat nights which went for $20 per person.  With her and our friend Nolen, we finally made this happen, and man was it a bit of a weird experience.  First of all it's in the middle-of-nowhere area Indianapolis--in the wasteland just north of the airport.  Compounded on top of that, the restaurant space is a former Pizza Hut.  And if you're American and you've been to a Pizza Hut in the last ten years, you know that those spaces are duplicates of each other.  So it was kind of bizarre being inside a "redecorated" one.  All of this I found not negative, but rather hilarious.

So while the atmosphere was less than swank, the food was phenomenal.  I had vegetarian rolls, sweet potato rolls (so hard to find these usually), and multiple house and avocado salads.  Seeing as this took place months ago, I can't remember any of the non-vegetarian items Amanda and Nolen ordered so that giant plate of glory is a mystery.

I'm not sure if I ate $20 worth of sushi, but I would definitely return and recommend it.  I really want sushi now... But I'm in London.  In my room.  Very, very far away from sushi.  Another wasa cracker with hummus it is.

Thoughts on love.

I'm watching a lot of films lately.  Which is probably good since I'm doing a film studies course at university.  But yes.  So watching a lot of movies and a lot of old movies at that.  And cinema is often about love.  People in love.  Falling out of love.  And having watched a lot of noir films at home and then seeing The Best Years of Our Lives today I just find myself thinking a lot about what love means and how people express love and the degrees of love and how all words, all concepts are constantly evolving.

I suppose what keeps rubbing me the wrong way in some of these films is how quickly people jump to say they love each other.  Maybe I've just been so over saturated with material I'm just waiting on the profession so it all constantly seems too rushed.  But I dunno.  Even with the compression of time that happens within film, I still feel like a lot of the time I have a different working definition of what love is from these people.  How soon you say it.  How soon you say it and actually mean it.  Or perhaps today's definition of love is very different from what it was in the 40s and 50s.

I think what I'm trying to say is I feel like people were more open to saying "I love you" then than they are today.  And maybe this is just my rosy retrospective assumptions for a time I didn't even live through, but I feel like people meant it more back then too.  I have to keep in mind that all of this is being presented to me in films.  And that these stories aren't real--they are written constructs.  But at the same time, I believe that cinema is a reflection of life.  A window that let's you look onto life.  It's not verbatim.  But cinema is not only influenced by the world it is made within but influences that same world right back.  

I was bringing up some of my issues about love and what it means with Sanne today, and she raised a very good point that today we mostly use the word "love" in only the opposite extremes.  We throw it around meaninglessly.  We love this actor.  This television program.  This random stranger we met half an hour ago.  You use it in a kidding sense.  I'm guilty of this.

What's at the other side?  It's the love that people are afraid to use.  Actual love.  Or restrained love.  Or obsessive love.  Love that we feel embarrassed of.  We don't want to admit it because we think it makes us look weak, or overly sentimental, or we feel it will run off the person it's directed toward.  I think the kind of love that gets wrapped up in this is love for your family members and very close friends.  You can care about someone very much yet I know for many it's difficult to just plainly say "I love you" to some of these people.

And where do crushes fall into all this?  This is where films start to weave their way into my confusion over what love is.  Are you in love with someone you intensely like?  Is love any less valid if it's not long term or unreturned?  Are you only in love with someone if you're able to directly express it to them?  Or if you're finding you wish you could express it to them.  And what about varying degrees of love?  There are varying degrees of intensity when it comes to liking someone.  At what point does a certain intensity equate to love and when is it appropriate [if ever] to express this to someone?  What's even more troubling is love and the internet.  How many times have you seen people sighing about being in love with people they've never spoken to, people they've never even met?

These are just some things that have been on my mind.  I suppose I find it sad that there are certain people I'd like to tell that I love them.  But I won't.  Is it because I question my own sincerity?  Or is it that I question other's sincerity and feel the word "love" has become too loaded?  Is it too charged a word?  As with every lecture and seminar I've been attending lately, I'm left with more questions than answers.

Charity shop homewares.

These pictures are from my first week in the new flat (forever a backlog on marionhoney).  Essentially, Rosi hadn't moved all of her stuff in yet from her childhood home so we pretty much had no dishes to speak of.  So one afternoon Rosi and I ventured out together and scoured our local charity shops and I brought home these items.  In total, I don't think I paid more than £5 which was astonishing seeing as I feel like even at the cheapest retail shop that's how much one of these items would cost.  I am a charity shop convert.

Since I've also had another charity shop day with Kayley.  We went to Richmond where they have what felt like a lot more options.  There I got a mirror, candle, and silver tray--all of which have been much loved.

Post-birthday somethings.

Today is just one of those days in which I am simply all over the board.  My accomplishments since arriving home from uni today have consisted of heating up some tomato soup from a carton and devouring that with crackers.  Then cooking some pasta in the same pot, grating some Gruyere over it and devouring.  And I've now progressed to a mug of hot chocolate.

Things are starting to settle in with uni which is another way of saying that my reading is beginning to pile up.  I'm sure if I wrote out all I have to do it wouldn't look so bad.  It's more the unknown that is suffocating.  I can't decide if I'm grumpy or tired or scared or wanting attention or wanting to be left the eff alone.

I woke up this morning feeling a little homesick.  I hate admitting that I could actually miss the US.  But I did this morning.  Maybe it wasn't so much the US as it was the ease that comes with living in your mother's house.  Not having to think about the hot water running out or how much to budget for groceries.  Or not wanting to do laundry because you don't have a drier.  Because driers aren't a standard thing in the UK apparently.  It was just little annoyances like that.

And then this morning, once I was outside and off my bus and my headphones were in and I was doing the extended walk I often elect to take to get to school, I felt so much better.  I occasionally experience these strange, floating moments where I realize I'm living in the UK and that I've made this my home, and I'm incredibly proud of myself and incredibly thrilled to be where I am.  And I just sort of start smiling at everything.  That's the up-and-down / all-over-the-board bit I've been mentioning.

I'm now sitting in the dark in my room.  Cool.  My overhead bulb went out a couple days ago--hopefully I can get a replacement for that tonight when I go stock up on food tonight with Sanne.  *nurses Twix bar*

Lunch yesterday.

Wednesday is my day off from uni and I had an Argos order scheduled to be delivered to the flat so I stayed home all day with Sanne.  Which meant an excuse to remain in our jammie pants the entire day.  Pretty much every delivery guy has now seen me lookin' an absolute mess.  Great times.

Sadly our internet was down for most of the day.  I can't even remember what we did to kill the time.  I remember Sanne was editing some things, but what the hell did I get up to...  Anyway, once brunch time rolled around, we decided make something to eat together.  There was some approaching-stale walnut bread we had picked up from Tesco, and Sanne fried that up into some sort of savory French toast concoction.  Basically I think she dipped the slices in some egg and then put some cheese between them.  I was in charge of slicing tomatoes and washing rocket so I missed most to the steps that required effort.  The end result was super yummy regardless.

And I finally got a duvet!  No more shivering at night!  It's so fluffy and lovely.  The lamp was another Argos purchase.  And if you're wondering, my duvet cover / bedspread is from Tesco Direct.  I also recently got some storage items from Tiger--the best shop ever--hence the cotton bud cup shot.  And the mirror that's there I got at a charity shop with Kayley last month!

S'all from me for now!