helen-louise's journal

I've done a bit more work on migrating my lj friends list to a new dreamwidth access list. It is, however, really depressing how many of the accounts on my new list say "never updated" next to them.

It seems that my dreamwidth reading list consists of about 10 people who regularly post. I really miss the chronic health community that I had on lj, but haven't had the spoons either to post on lj to ask where people have moved to, or to try to find a new version here. Must find some spoons. Currently accepting donations.

I still have a couple of hundred links from my mobile browser which I "need" to post on my journal. I expect most of the news-related links are now hideously outdated due to new events. A lot of the queer or disability-related links are still interesting, though.

In exciting personal news, I now have a Freedom Pass! I've qualified for one for years, I just didn't have sufficient energy/motivation to submit the paperwork. And buses in London are free if you're a wheelchair user anyway. However, due to various things (such as the fire at Camden Lock Market), I now need to take the Tube on a regular basis. £8.10 for a Travelcard with a Disabled Railcard is just horrendous (that's like THREE chocolate brownies!), and that was finally enough motivation for me to apply for the pass.

So now I can travel all around London for free, and also on buses elsewhere in England. However, my travel is currently restricted owing to the fact that platforms 7 & 8 at Vauxhall will have no lift until April. Also for the next couple of weeks, trains from Kingston are only every half hour (instead of every 15 minutes), and will be taking 48+ minutes to get to Waterloo instead of 30ish.

I must remember to buy tickets for this vegan food fair. Perhaps after Richard has recovered from the shock of paying for my last-minute train tickets to Leeds - which were already heavily reduced due to aforementioned Freedom Pass and Disabled Railcard...

Today I am feeling depressed and panicky. The problem with sleeping in hotel rooms is the damned air conditioning. Firstly, it's impossible to control the temperature of the room the way we'd do it at home by throwing open a window, since the windows are sealed. The hotel room defaults to 22 deg C, which is too hot for comfortable sleeping - especially with the two duvets they've given us! I prefer the room somewhere around 17-18 deg C while I'm trying to fall asleep.

Secondly, a single heavy duvet (we removed the second one because it was ridiculous) is improper temperature control for me. At home, I sleep with a thin duvet and a selection of thin blankets, which I throw onto or off the bed depending on my body temperature. It is entirely normal for me to go to sleep in pyjamas and socks under four layers of bedding, and wake up half-naked under two. Here, with one big duvet, I only have the choice of "clothes on" or "clothes off", which is not enough gradation.

Thirdly, the air is too dry. So I have trouble getting to sleep in the first place because my mouth is too dry (three or four of my medications all have 'dry mouth' as a side-effect), leading to a cycle of drinking water and needing to pee which goes on for a while before sleep occurs. Then while I'm asleep my nose swells up inside, and I end up breathing through my mouth, which leads to bizarre, usually horrible dreams. I have a lot of nightmares anyway, but there's nothing quite like waking up having a full-blown anxiety attack simply because of not breaking properly. Blargh.

Saline spray is wonderful, but it only works to rehydrate my nose when I'm awake enough to do the spraying. In cheap hotels, you can lay wet towels across the air conditioner, and that helps to keep the air moist, but this is a fancy-ass hotel and the air conditioning is a vent high on the wall. I remember the time I shared a room at an alt.polycon - can't remember which one - with Cally Soukup, who brought a portable humidifier to combat the air conditioning, and it was the Best Thing Ever. I wonder how she's doing? She was one of my few alt.poly friends who didn't make it over to livejournal. Say hi to her from me if you see her at a convention.

Whine whine whine.

Apart from hotel air conditioning, Montréal continues to be amazing. If papersky ever invites you to the Jean-Talon Market, and you have any interest whatsoever in food, then go. Apparently it is only a quarter of its summer size right now, since the weather means that only the indoor parts were open, but we found vegan-friendly Turkish delight, and sorbet that tasted just like the fruit it was made from, and a tea shop with some very interesting blends. I could have bought many things there, since they had at least six varieties of white tea, which is my favourite, but settled for the Peach Blossom blend which smelled the best.

I had a buckwheat crêpe which was vegan, but rather boring since the stall owner only had butter as a possible fat to fry it in, so it was extremely dry. I should have opted for an apple crêpe with maple syrup, or cinnamon, sugar and lemon, rather than getting excited by the one labelled as "végétalienne". Well, you live and learn.

There was also an entire shop of sheep butter, cheese, lanolin, yarn etc (which nitoda would love); a chocolate shop whose dark chocolate was dairy-free; a spice shop which had more dried chillis than I've ever seen together in one place, as well as an insanely large collection of different types of peppercorn; an organic hippy nonsense shop with vegan chocolate chip cookies (and vegan onion crackers?!); a great deal of charcuterie and seafood; and fruit and vegetables sold by the actual farmers who produce it. That's something which is entirely missing from my most local market in Kingston-upon-Thames: traceability. Anonymous stalls sell barely-fresh fruit and vegetables which could be from anywhere in the world. At least when I go to the supermarket, everything British-produced has a label on to tell me the name and location of the farm it came from.

I have been jealous of mongoose_bite's tales of his local farmers' market for some months now, but having experienced a market like that in person, I now really need to find something like it in or near London. There must be one.

Might go out shopping for clothes or books later if I can face moving. A lot of shops here are oddly open until 9pm Monday to Friday, but only until 5 or 6pm on Saturdays (and Sundays). I understand closing early on Sundays, but it seems odd to be open until 9pm on slow nights like Monday and Tuesday, and then closing so early on a Saturday. It's not how central London works, anyway. I was wondering if it was because a lot of Catholics go to church on Saturday night ("to get it out the way") instead of Sunday morning, but I'm not sure how religious the city still is, despite all the churches around the place.

I've seen a couple of shops which claim to be for "sizes 14+", Addition-Elle and another one I've forgotten the name of which looked like mostly office wear. I wonder if either of them have jeans I can wear? Torrid in the US is great for finding me jeans, but they don't have branches here.

I was going to eat this frozen macaroni "cheese" thing for lunch. It's one of the only vegan ready meals that exists which is also close enough to food for me to be able to consider it. But I opened the packet and it had a 1.5 cm thick layer of ice crystals on top. This wasn't promising. Hacked that off, and found the pasta and sauce underneath was all freezer-burned. Tried to cook it anyway but it's completely dried out and inedible.

Obviously, my mum can take it back to the shop and complain, but SOMEONE has fucked up the storage of the frozen food somewhere along the line. I'm suspecting it's the shop where she bought it because I've had dubiously slushy, obviously melted and refrozen ice cream from there before. Bloody "health" food shops that can't manage to keep their freezers at the right temperature :/

So now I'm eating a bag of crisps and an apple and pretending this is lunch. My back and left leg hurt too much for any kind of cooking which involves more than sitting on a BEKVÄM stool while stuff heats in the microwave. Can't even manage pasta or rice today since I can't bend down to get a clean pan out of the cupboard or reach up to get a bag of carbohydrate product out of the other cupboard... Life would be so much easier if I didn't have all these food intolerances - but the Chronic Fatigue Clinic specialist (an immunologist) reckons they're due to the chronic fatigue anyway. Urgh.

Have to go to UCL for a conference tomorrow & Wednesday. Not looking forward to an early morning. Well, I'll get there as soon as my leg lets me.

I didn't actually get round to posting that I had arrived in Boston safely, but I figured that you'd know I was here from the lack of news about planes crashing horribly into the Atlantic. Here's my excuse: by the time I went to bed on Thursday night, I'd been up for 39 hours straight and I was losing the ability to do coherent English.

The journey was totally uneventful. Plane was only about 1/3 full, making me feel slightly guilty. I lay down across three seats and attempted to sleep, but couldn't. Even though I'm a short-arse, I still couldn't fit full-length across the seats, so I don't know how anyone ever manages it. Listened to music for the trip.

Arrived in Boston almost on-time, got myself across to the hotel on public transport, had an "amusing" time figuring out how I was supposed to get on the Red Line train at South Station - apparently you ask the driver for assistance. This is so totally unlike any UK train, where the driver hides in his or her cab for the whole trip and you never see them. The weather when I arrived was shockingly warmer than the weather at home and I thought this was Very Wrong, but then it started snowing. Yay.

bitty and bubblebabble came to pick me up and we went to Somerville to collect our wedding rings and see other jewellery and sculptures by the same artist. Feel free to guess which of the geeky rings on that site we went for, but I'm not actually going to tell anyone who doesn't already know until after the wedding :)

Then we went for dinner at Veggie Galaxy. It was good.

Yesterday I met lilairen, for the first time since January 2005 - she is now accompanied by 2.5 year old offspring, who is very clearly a Geek Child :) We went to Pandemonium, a Local Independent Bookstore. I bought many books not available in the UK, including some by papersky. Then we went for Chinese.

Later I met up with treacle_well, and eventually acquired my roommates HoopyCat and veryfineredwine, whose flights had been cancelled and rearranged several times in the space of 2 hours. (The flight they eventually got, leaving at 8 pm last night, was way superior to the original offering of a flight leaving today at 6.15 am and routing via Washington DC!). bitty and Arthur delivered them from the airport, and we had pizza from Peace o'Pie. I booted up the webcam and we talked to Richard over Skype, so it was like he was here with us.

Today I am supposed to be meeting up with Freezepop, but Sean is rehearsing with his other band Lifestyle, so arrangements are somewhat dependent on him. If I don't hear anything soon, I'll give them a call.

Eh. So, I sat down to work on some stuff for my cognitive behavioural therapy this evening, and instead spent something like 4 hours dealing with some epic wank online. Given how great my health and energy levels are, you can bet it wasn't the kind of wank that I had spare spoons to deal with - but I had to, because it was making me angry to the point of physically shaking.

I also found out what the weird thing that happens to me when I'm trying to get to sleep sometimes is called. A hypnic jerk or hypnagogic jerk, apparently. I was always worried that was some sort of seizure-type thing, but apparently it's completely benign and normal. However, it's more common in people with irregular sleep schedules.

My sleep schedule the past week has been completely fubar. I've been trying to get it sorted, but it's actually got worse. Joy and bliss! This may be due to the fact that I've run out of the high dose vitamin D capsules. I'm under the impression that I'm supposed to give it a few weeks and then have another blood test (so they can see what my vitamin D levels are when I'm not taking it as a supplement), but the pain in my legs is so freaking bad that I may have to start it up again to avoid screaming.

I've found another place that does vegan afternoon tea - this time with cream - and for only £9. Are you interested, nitoda? The scones still look a bit flat, but the cakes are impressive.

Right... back to my worksheets on "Overcoming Avoidance". (Yes, really).

I have bought a Magical Bag of Panda Squee! Not from this website, but it's the same product. A PandaRama bag, size Medium, by Morn Creations. It is the cutest thing ever.

The company is really going for the veg*n market, because they refuse to use animal products as part of their advocacy towards endangered species.

I LOVE NEW YORK!! In the 10 or so hours since arriving, I have eaten: one delicious soy burger, "smashed" potatoes, a fizzy grape drink made with real grape juice and sugar, a fresh vegan chocolate chip cookie, lemonade made with actual lemons, falafel with hummous and unlimited salad, and a chocolate cupcake top. The falafel was particularly exciting because it was from a branch of Maoz that I did not previously know existed, hence meaning that I have now been to a Maoz in five different major cities (Amsterdam, London, Paris, Madrid and New York). This is probably only exciting if you're me. Then we went to Babycakes and bought 2 x spelt chocolate cupcakes, 2 x spelt lemon cupcakes and 2 x gluten-free brownies with vanilla frosting and chocolate chips. Mmmm. They are all safely in the fridge, although I am thinking of going to make friends with one of them now.

In negotiating the puzzling New York subway system we accidentally went to Brooklyn ("Are we supposed to be crossing the river?" said Richard), but eventually made it to the Whole Foods at Union Square (not the closest one to where we're staying but the one I know the location of). There I went beserk with delight but still only acquired a small fraction of the vegan cakes, cookies and sweets they sell. I stocked up on the amazing Sweet & Sara vegan marshmallows that you can get here (they claim to have a best before date, but actually I've kept them in the fridge for over a year - rationing myself one at a time in cases of dire emergency!), including Smores made with vegan marshmallow - for Brits, think Wagon Wheels only with a thick digestive biscuit base and proper thick dark chocolate. You can probably heat it for the authentic campfire feel), some more brownies with peanut butter this time, Very Vanilla Silk soy milk and the Mori-Nu Tofu Mates stuff that makes unbelievable vanilla cream when whipped with tofu. I also discovered that a hand cream that I pay UK £12.99 for at home is US $8.99 here!!! I have nowhere near finished shopping, but we can't carry half of Whole Foods from New York to Boston and then back home. It's not practical. Though... I wonder about shipping non-perishables by post? Hmmm.

We have also done the obligatory tourist gawping. Richard has some awesome skyscraper shots that will go online sometime (he has a "proper" camera with tons of lens and actually knows how to use it). Despite having seen the Rockefeller Center's vile golden gilt statue in my photos, he still almost died seeing it for real. We went to the Nintendo World store (as disappointing as ever) and found a Sanrio store of great dangerousness. I managed not to buy anything there but it was difficult because I kept seeing "ideal presents" for various friends! Also it is on our way from the hostel to the subway, so I think some purchases may sneak their way in.

Now Richard is passed out on the bed next to me, sleeping with his mouth open. I'm stupidly tired, of course, due to less than an hour's sleep last night, only fitful sleep on the plane and tons and tons of walking today, but I'm not quite able to sleep yet. Going to drink some vanilla milk and take the rest of my tablets. Good night :)

Yet again we couldn't be bothered to cook, so Richard went to Wagamama to get us dinner. When he got home we proceeded to have a fight because Wagamama gave me the right meal on the wrong noodles - they gave me the standard wheat noodles with egg instead of the vegan rice noodles I'd asked for, and I was annoyed that he hadn't checked that they'd got it right. (I'm used to people messing up my special requests). But then he opened his chicken tama rice and found it had NO CHICKEN - it's just onions and courgette. And we discovered this at 22:55 when Wagamama close their kitchen at 22:50. So we have to go back tomorrow and get our money back.

Whoever made this order should BE SHOT. The guy on the till did it all correctly - mine is down as a saien soba on rice noodle, no onion, and that's what's stapled to the lid of the box. It's just not what's IN the box. Oddly, I was much less angry with Richard once we discovered that his meal was messed up too. HOW can you forget the chicken in a chicken tama rice?

And he went round to Domino's and got us pizza, which is not really what I wanted but at least means I am not a starving, ravenous wolfy. So we are all friendly again :)

This is a very abbreviated list of eateries limited by:
a) proximity to where we're staying
b) proximity to somewhere we'll be going during the day
c) menu.
My mum doesn't like meat, so vegan restaurants with 101 seitan steaks and no dishes for people who like eating vegetables don't really appeal. Also, she can't eat mushrooms and doesn't much care for peppers or courgettes (zucchini), which is what many of the vegetable dishes seem to consist of (because they're New World vegetables?). And, much as I like good healthy veggie dishes, I have a strong fondness for "I can't believe it's vegan!"-style 'junk' food.

Restaurants & Cafes I really want to go to:( Read more... )

I hope to hear from redbird & rosefox (and anyone else who lives in NY that I missed) about meeting up.

Also, do I know anybody who actually likes Zest Vegan Pesto? It is "pesto" in which the only correct ingredient is basil. Apart from that, it has walnuts & cashew nuts (no pine nuts?), white wine vinegar (why?), apple juice (?!) and sunflower oil instead of olive oil. I detest sunflower oil because to me, it smells rancid even when fresh. I have this problem with the oil itself and with sunflower margarines - I much, much prefer rapeseed (canola), which smells buttery when fresh and like rancid butter when rancid.

Richard bought some "by accident" today. Well, we've run out of the stock of the lovely vegan pesto from Whole Foods, and he's never been to Whole Foods to know a) where the shop is or b) where in the shop the pestos are. It's kinda big, and it has a LOT of different types of pesto, and I had visions of him being sent to High Street Kensington and never seen again. So he went to the Fresh & Wild in Piccadilly-somewhere near work, and bought the only pesto that was obviously vegan - and it's this vile one which I told him never to buy again. Admittedly, the last time we bought it was was going on 5 years ago, and they've changed the shape of the jar since then.

We can't return it, because I opened the lid to check whether it was still as vile as I remembered - and almost threw up with the smell. And Richard put a clean teaspoon in and stirred it, then tasted a bit (but didn't put the spoon back in the jar). Neither of us wish to eat this alleged foodstuff. But there may be people out there who actually... *shudder*.... enjoy it, and if so I would love to put the jar in the post to them so it will no longer be in our house.

I make this offer sound so appealing, don't I? :D