Um.
I am having the time of my life. New York City is great!
But...America is perplexing. I am grateful to be the bearer of a US passport (easy travel and all that) but I've spent most of my life outside this country, and what little time I have spent here has been spent in a bit of a bubble on the socially elite, wasp-y, picturesque campuses of educational institutions.
Things I have noticed and been perplexed by:
- Frequent ads for prescription drugs on TV, especially Flomax. Reminds me of: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/22SamOBrien.html
- The astonishingly stupid debate over Obama's speech to school children
- The number of fat people in Manhattan - how can you be so fat in a city full of walk-ups? Ok, ok, people are fat in England too... but... there aren't as many stairs :P
- The existence for an invention for every single thing you could imagine: half- cucumber storer? egg slicer (slice your own damn egg!) ? watermelon seed picker-outer? va-poo-rize? ok ok vapoorize isn't real but you get my drift...
- The fact that food doesn't go bad.... even after weeks.... what the hell is in it?!
- The massive size of portions everywhere - I've only been able to eat a starter (except at the shmancy places where the entrees are smaller than the starters)
- The unfortunate rise of national-security, pro-life, pro-death penalty obssesed neocons who think Obama is a socialist. America doesn't even have a true left. Obama isn't a socialist. If you want to see what socialism looks like, go to Europe. I'm not sure "Land of the Free" is the best way to describe a place where your personal choices are always under attack.
I'm a bit homesick. I miss snarky TV (Come Dine with Me!), British sarcasm, free healthcare, the atheist bus campaign, and the fact that no one in England would care if I got an abortion.
