Oxford, sans Montague Withnail

Oh, Oxford! What a city.

So I get off the train (after chatting to a fascinating Australian expat named Jocasta, who felt feral from lack of showering and was on her way back from the Big Chill festival, which was why the train suddenly filled up with unwashed, exhausted electronicos at the normally-tranquil Great Malvern Station) and lo and behold, Cat is waiting for me at the station. How lovely. We head back to hers, she feeds me curry, we catch up for a coupla hours and then she gives me her bed - "I know how it is when you're travelling," she says. How lovely. She has a tapestry on her wall. I recognize some shapes - a pair of lions cuddling, a unicorn dipping its horn into a stream...
...a unicorn...
Suddenly I realize I've seen these images before. Cat has, in fact, found the tapestry from which the opening scenes of The Last Unicorn were taken, and here it is on her wall.
Feel the magic, feel the wonder.
The next day (today) was a day of errands. First she exchanged a bra for something ridiculous like £25 (her bras are pricey because they're hard to find - being a well-endowed woman can be expensive! Thank jizm there aren't dick-bras); then we found a post-office where I could mail a postcard to R. Scott Moxley (though I feel bad distracting him from the business of un-fucking Orange County); sat in the Lamb & Flag, where C.S. Lewis and Tolkein used to shoot the shit, where Cat told me enough about her boss that I'm convinced she could/should sue the SHIT out of him (anyone know a good lawyer in England? The man makes her walk up stairs despite her asthma, then offers to carry her up. Prick); found some dude's phone, in which Cat located a number for his mother, who told us he worked at the Science & Technology section of Blackwell's Bookshop, where we left the phone. He was still on his lunch break - probably looking for the phone!
We sat outside the Bodleian Library while I had the smoothest smoothie of my life, procured in the covered market, and she had a salad. I believe the exact location of where we sat is Radcliffe Camera. I know this because I bought a postcard of it, which I think I'll send to Cat once I return to SF. Nothing like getting a postcard from your own town from far afield. Why do I so enjoy doing strange things?

On the train from Oxford to London I had to stand in between cars. Got to talking to a twenty-year-old from York, who was spending a week visiting friends in London on her work holiday. We spoke for half an hour or so, me doing most of the talking (of course - I do so enjoy the sound of my own voice), and at the end she told me, "You have such an interesting life!" I felt a bit awkward, worrying that maybe she felt her life was less interesting by comparison. "Everything's relative," I told her. As we exited the train, I said to her, "Thank you for being a small part of my interesting life."
If only she knew how interesting I found her...
Incorrigible = me