Oh, where do I begin.
A few words on my visit with Liz. Boy oh boy, do I love that woman. I have recovered from the sadness of her departure with few day's time, enough to reflect with so much happiness and appreciation for the fun we shared and time we spent. Those of you who know Liz find it obvious that being in Oxford with her would widen my eyes to undiscovered beauty in the place and in its food, bookstores, and strangers. Inevitably I found myself aware of how others are drawn to her, and how she makes everywhere she goes a story.
One night we had is particularly illustrative of this, and I'll remember it here. After an elegant and civilized High Table (a formal dinner which honored our guest lecturer for the evening, Christopher Ricks), several of us were feeling emboldened by the free-flowing wine that had accompanied our dinner and went on to enjoy the area’s local pubs. Contrary to what you might think, last call for pubs in Oxford is early: 11 pm for most, and the King’s Arms is the only show in town ‘til midnight. Eager to extend the evening beyond its curfew, Adam had the bright idea to check out ‘Escape’, an after-hours dance club many of us had passed by before and unwillingly noticed for its pulsating, neon pink façade and the Chumbawumba remixes blasting from the interior.
We arrived late-night, blurry, and straightaway saw that we out-aged the general populus by about a decade. There's debate over who ‘out-hipped’ who; many of our guys were still wearing jackets and ties from High Table, whereas many of the girls at Escape didn’t appear to be wearing pants at all. What they lacked in bottoms, however, they made up for in lilac eyeshadow. Most notably, a go-go pole was stationed in a dark corner of the dance floor. A real, live go-go pole with strobe lights on a platform. I saw Liz’s eyes widen and I knew it was all over. She made a beeline and proceeded to treat the pole less like an instrument for seduction and more like, say, a jungle gym, or an intense aerobic workout. Nevertheless, as she entertained herself (and me and my friends), I saw a big, bulky English 20-something chump wearing Abercrombie and Fitch fixate on her and what he clearly considered to be the opportunity of a lifetime. He made his way forward, awkwardly gyrating closer and closer, his hands about to grab Liz’s waist. In my euphoric state, I immediately shoved the bloke with both hands, straight across the dance floor. With force. When he regained his footing, he turned to give me an incredulous look. In response (and I'm telling it now as it has been joyfully recounted to me by my friend, onlooker Dave), I glared the Bumper and Grinder down menacingly and wagged my finger in his face, in a way that ominously warned "Don’t do it." He skulked off to a corner. Liz, completely on her own planet, what with the stripper pole beckoning her as if she were a monkey and as if it was some sort of tree with fruit at the top, never noticed the predator in the first place. However, my save left her free to happily climb the pole with much vigor- which she did- until 3 am, while the rest of us enthusiastically hung out in a circle doing the Running Man and Shopping Cart to the techno-beat version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”
For the rest of the week, Liz and I had good, clean fun, which included a picnic in a meadow, a lecture from Christopher Ricks, high tea with scones, preserves and clotted cream, one great, lazy afternoon reading in Blackwell's (Liz's new favorite bookstore, and it is pretty bad-ass), exploring the neighborhood of Jericho in the drizzle, and wandering around the Covered Market, marveling at flowers and warm peanut butter cookies and fresh strawberries and avocado and blood pudding and steak and kidney pies (showcased in butchers' windows). Acquainting my favorite person with this special program while strolling among both pre-14th century gargoyles and strobe lights at the same time feels too surreally awesome to be true, but I guess it really happened. See the pictures for the proof-- that's what I've been doing to remind myself of one of the most fun weeks I've had in a long time.
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