A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

13 September 1998 - Notes to Myself

Note to self: do not go off for a week with only new shoes. Blisters are a surefire way to have a negative reaction to almost any place.

Note to self: Before concluding that a place is irritating, I should look at the calendar. Rather odd not to have realized this before, but I suppose that general grouchiness is not a dramatic enough PMS symptom to have made the connection obvious. A couple of days later I can easily turn around and say, "oh, that's why I found Oxford so annoying." I am generally sympathetic to biological views of mental illness, but it was still interesting to notice this (even if I'm not sure I would call it mental illness at any real level).

Note to self: Why is David Livingstone following me around and will he stop once I am back in the U.S.? It seems like I haven't gone more than 72 hours in the U.K. without running into a statue of him, a place he once lived, etc. I feel vaguely guilty that I know relatively little about someone who seems to have become such a constant companion.

Not quite a note to myself, but I have noticed that if there are 200 people on a given street and someone needs directions, they will ask me. Rather ironic since I am lost so much of the time. Robert claims that I just don't notice people asking other people for directions, but I am not convinced.