"It's always better when we're together..."

Jack Johnson's song "It's always better when we're together" was playing in the hipster cafe near Sloane Square in London, where I met my friend Becky to study today. I love that song, and it was the wedding theme song for my friends Zarah and Robert. It also became the theme of today...

I'm cat- and flat-sitting in my friend's posh flat near Greenwich this week, to prevent the cat being lonely. But that means that yours truly is at risk of being lonely... I have like three friends in London (and one is obviously away since I'm staying in her flat). So I've been hanging out with Becky in her fav study spaces around London. Great fun!

But Becky was busy every evening, and after one night of watching BBC TV and one night of skyping and working, I had run out of evening entertainment. So I went to the movies - by myself, to see a silly and not-cultural movie. I was pretty embarrassed about the whole thing, and all the more so when the theme of the movie turned out to be how important it is to do things TOGETHER, with other people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZBe7_lE9lE

Yikes. After the movie (which I really enjoyed, despite its badly-timed moral!), I trekked across Greenwich's labyrinth of 18th-century, badly lit streets and then across Blackheath, a giant open field of scariness, to the flat, clutching my "London A to Z" map. It was dark and lonely, and I was hungry and tired. So obviously my mind wandered to muggers and rapists and - worse - the legendary ghost of a horseman who roams Blackheath at night. So it seemed only to be expected when the hedge next to me started to rustle. I ignored the crashing for a bit and then tried to nonchalantly run across the street to avoid the mugger/rapist/ghost in the hedge, but a BEAUTIFUL BUSHY-TAILED LONG-NOSED FOX beat me to it. Ahh! Awesome!! The most English of all possible nighttime wanderers, besides maybe a hedgehog...

I would have liked a companion tonight, if only to witness the gorgeous fox as well as make the walk less scary, and, although I complain about sharing a house with three other people (who are all very nice), I would like another human in this flat (although the cat is very friendly). It's great to have the quiet and to find things in the same places you put them and to have only your dishes piled in the sink... but it's just not very fun. Maybe my days of student house-sharing are not as numbered as I thought... and maybe I'll be a little more appreciative of my housemates.