I look to my Eskimo friend

I am sitting on my couch. Elissa is coming over for rice & beans in half an hour. I've started on the rice.

I am listening to Damien Rice -- Graham had his CD downstairs, which I listened to 24-7 in Ireland and then promptly lost when I stayed at Dan's before leaving London.

Earlier today, at P & P, I was skimming through Jamie Oliver's latest opus (I love to ick him) (ick ick ick!) and there was a picture of him buying some veggies at Borough Market, and I just teared up. Almost fucking lost it right there in P & P. The last time that happened was when I read Nikki Giovanni's elegy for Tupac.

Then I get home and I get an email from my friend Emily, who I met in Galway but is now back in the States with her English boyfriend, Mark. And she tells me they're getting married, which is great.

But oh God, I want an English fiancee to take me away from here. I want to go to Borough Market for ostrich burgers and massive eggplants and ice skate at Somerset House, and I want to make the pound, not the grotty dollar.

I've been back more than a year, and that scares the bejaysus out of me, and before I left I really didn't want to come back because I was scared of getting stuck, and I have totally succumbed, and I don't know how to stop.

Now I've got fifteen minutes to smoke a fag (sorry SA but give me this one anglicism, just once, please) and pull myself together before Elissa gets here. Maybe I can blame it all on cutting onions.