December 24, 2001

Still in a weird state

Still in a weird state of psychological transition from shiny metropolis (London) to rustic hamlet (Colney, near Norwich.) While I was standing in line at Liverpool Street station, my "chosen" (as she was described later by one of the Norfolk neighbors) trotted off to get a magazine for the train ride. I asked her to get one for me as well, "some kind of English news magazine." She returned with a Cosmopolitan (for her) and the New Statesman (for me.) The poor girl then had to endure two hours of boyfriendly harrumphing. It's slightly less than decent to hit a guy with a John Pilger whammy just like that with no warning. "By any measure," he writes, stripping away the lies to reveal our true evil intentions, "this is a war of the rich against the poor..." "In America," Andrew Stephen observes, in a helpful effort to smack down "America's monumental self-righteousness and hubris," "even the clergy want to kill."

But even a typical bloodthirsty American like me couldn't stay disgruntled for long on that train. Norfolk has been famously derided for being so "flat," but to me it's a beautiful kind of flatness, especially when covered with snow on a clear crisp day. As the landscape rushed by, the train window framed the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen: an enormous sky of layers of scalloped red gold, veined with blue, obstructed only by an occasional skeletal tree.

"It's like a picture of God," remarked my "chosen." It was.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 24, 2001 02:24 AM | TrackBack