I do want to be in your London dungeon

microdosing pulling a geographic

It’s my last day of a two week stay in what is possibly my favorite city in the world, London, and before I pop over to have a Sunday roast with my friend I wanted to write this little love letter about the trip. I guess I’m microdosing living here because it’s something I’ve wanted, at varying degrees of consciousness, for a long time but ever since the fires in January and losing my house (tiniest smallest violin) I’ve felt less and less tethered (of course) but also connected to Los Angeles. I suppose so much has to do with a base, a tether. I am in another home now, a sort of temporary one but a home nonetheless. Still, I find that can’t bring myself to buy a rug or a lamp or anything that might imply nesting or permanence (most minuscule barely audible violin). It could be a wee bit of PTSD (you’ve literally never even imagined a violin this size, it is a speck on a flea) but I don’t think so. I just think I’m done with LA and it’s now, in the light of the loss of physical anchor (I can’t even talk about this violin anymore it is an illusion) and am (gently, gently) being shown the door, so to speak. I kind of think debating about the value propositions (or lack thereof) of various major cities is incredibly tiresome - where you live is like who you date. It just boils down to compatibility. Isn’t the fucking worst realization of all the horrible realizations that come with experience and maturity in this blessed and beautiful life this one? That love and passion alone are simply not enough for an enduring relationship - you need compatibility. (It’s also oddly freeing, if you let it be?)

Anyway I don’t suffer from terminal uniqueness (a host of other glaring flaws but not that one) so I am aware I am not alone in this desire to relocate away from America. I met no less than eight other Americans who had either recently moved, were in the process of moving, or plan to move to London. (I am in fact like other girls). There’s a post going around x dot com right now that I won’t bother trying to explain:

Once again people on the app are receiving this wisdom with good faith, nuance, holding several thoughts in their brain, ability to imagine lives outside of their own…JK! They are getting unreasonably angry about it (I saw person refer to AA as psychic thought slop or something - absolutely the worst possible take) because as usual no one likes to be confronted with the truth when the truth drags their ass to hell. If it doesn’t apply to you, it won’t bother you babe. This isn’t really related to my London travel post (it didn’t bother me though) I’m just not that good at round-up blog posts with links to buy stuff or whatever.

That being said here is a round up blog post with some links to buy stuff (I don’t know how to use affiliate links so whatever you click or don’t is your business):

TOUCHING GRASS

Look at this Secret Garden ass door

Probably one of the greatest aspects of London, in my limited experience, are all the parks. They take their parks seriously here; each one I visited had its own personality and magic. Yes sorry I love nature okay. I love to walk and look at TREES. (Sometimes when I’m really on my woo woo magic mushroom brain shit I do think there’s not many better uses of our time than walking and looking at trees). Perhaps the greatest of these many parks is Hampstead Heath. According to the internet, a heath is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterized by open, low-growing woody vegetation. It is NOT the same as a moor, you philistine. Anyway Hampstead Heath is an ancient heath and it is massive - 790 acres. Plus it sits up high so in certain parts of it you have this gorgeous view of the city below. The whole place is pretty special and in the summer it’s filled with friends hanging out laughing with beers and people on dates with cute little picnics. I did actually go on one of these ridiculously cute picnic dates here and due to my American brain and lack of experience with military time I did in fact show up one full hour early for it (very femme fatale of me no?). So I got one extra hour to walk around this gorgeous place listening to music, thank you addled American brain.

But the absolute hands down best and most are you kidding that can’t be real place in Hampstead Heath is the Kenwood Ladies Bathing Pond. This is a semi-secluded natural pond where women can swim in some sort of idyllic divine feminine fever dream of a situation. Like you swim next to ducks? The water is cold and clean and restores all the spirit that has been eked out of you due to the endless punishment of being alive. I don’t know how it works the rest of the year but during the summer you need a ticket. Tickets are £4.80 for the week are released via Evenbrite on Mondays at noon for the following week (Tuesday through Sunday) but from 7am to 11am and 6:30pm to 8:15pm you don’t need a ticket (though you might have to wait in line). You must bring your own towel. There are showers and also two meadows (MEADOWS) where you can go sunbathe and eat your snacks (I brought Walker’s prawn cocktail crisps). On the way home you can pick little raspberries off a bush and eat them (you’re like okay calm down Peter Rabbit). Anyway this was the best day of my life? I think if I could bathe in this pond every day I would be healed of all my ailments (at least the jaw clenching and the phone addiction and the shopping problem maybe even the achievement is self worth complex).

SHOPPING

I know everyone knows about Portobello Market on the weekends but usually I don’t end up buying much because it’s a little too Y2K heavy for me (I wore the low-waisted, side-frayed Diesel jeans the first time around, I do not have the hips or heart to do it again). However this trip I had some time to kill before meeting friends at The Cow (I love you pint of prawns) and I encountered a vintage seller called AMPM vintage who had a trove of vintage Ghost, a London brand founded in 1984 by Tanya Sarne that I look for every time I’m in the UK, and also every time I’m on my phone in front of the tv. The brand is still active but it’s really the 90s and 2000s dresses and skirts, made of viscose crêpe and satin and often (crucially!) cut on the bias so that the fit is just an ideal type of flattering. I bought like four pieces from her (including this perfect skirt above, sorry for the shit hotel room photo) and then got home and regretted not buying another dress so I (sane, normal) emailed her and asked her to ship it to me, which she did, swiftly (thank you Isabella).

Nordic Poetry is the Shoreditch vintage store frequented by Charli XCX and Gabriette amongst other Brat and non-Brat luminaries. I usually don’t go to Shoreditch because for me it’s a little bit “we have Williamsburg at home” (respectfully) but I’m willing to cross all sorts of boundaries for fashion. They have an insanely well-curated selection of designer items from the 90s and 2000s, grail pieces from Blumarine, Tom Ford Gucci, and, like the dress for which I spent a figure that is simply between my credit card and god, Jean Paul Gaultier. (A fun game I play with myself while in London is that £ is the same as $ la la la la la). The hat is Emily Dawn Long (not British) and I’ve worn it every single day since I left. I love everything she makes.

Low-key though this is my favorite thing I bought, at a stall in Camden market for £10. I thought it would be kind of early season SATC Carrie Bradshaw to wear in its locale but I was told in no uncertain terms by several London friends it would not be. I still will probably do it.

EATING

I didn’t really go foodie-mode on this trip. I don’t ever really; I feel suffocated by “best of lists” and the optimization of travel. This was at the cafe around the corner from the apartment I stayed at in Primrose Hill (going to have trouble beating the “she was inspired by Too Much allegations” but I was actually indoctrinated by Richard Curtis okay???). I had somehow never had a sausage roll and despite the fact that it looked extremely intimidating (don’t do that, clean mind babe) I felt brave and took a risk. It was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten? The girl said to eat it with ketchup but I am devoted to brown sauce (HP) so I oscillated between the two. It also can’t be overstated how humiliating it is to sit in public reading Tommy Lee’s autobiography (not very Richard Curtis!) but still she persisted. Related: a cute boy brought me a Melton Mowbray pork pie, which is named after Melton Mowbray, a town in Leicestershire. I guess to be called this they must be made there. According to Wikipedia, the association of the pork pie trade with Melton originated around 1831 as a sideline in a small baker and confectioners' shop in the town, and it is sometimes claimed that Melton pies became popular among fox hunters in the area in the late eighteenth century. It has uncured pork and there is a thin layer of jellied pork stock in between the meat and the hot-water crust, which is hand-formed (the sausage roll crust is puff pastry). It was also very delicious. And yes I spent way too long researching various meat pies and I did hold back on including all of my findings here.

I don’t have a photo of the incredible meal he cooked for us (milk cod, corn, zucchini, these delicious stuffed squash blossoms, plus an insanely good sesame covered loaf of bread homemade by our friend Issy) but my very talented friend Jago Rackham just announced that his first book, To Entertain, will be published in April 2026. He’s very smart and very funny and I can’t wait to read it (and also eat more of those squash blossoms).

There was no mention of music in this letter which is making me anxious (though it shouldn’t! Multitudes!) so I’ll close out by saying that I randomly listened to one song from 2012 (“Fineshrine” by Purity Ring) every day I was here, multiple times a day, while walking or biking around town, and today, on my last day, I walked into a little food shop in Kensal Rise and they were playing the song? I do love it when god communicates through music.

Also here’s a playlist I made for biking around London and here is a terrible photo of Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman on stage at The Roundhouse (incredible show):

Thanks to everyone who came to the Prince Charles Cinema (another place you should definitely go in London) for the screening of Grosse Pointe Blank, especially the guy who brought me those 90s magazines, you are a king. Til next time blighty xx