London, August 3

Dear Children.

Hello. Yes, Mama Laura is alive – at least for now. As I type, there is a young woman trying to delicately crawl into the bunkbed above me. Yes – I made it safely to London.

It’s 1:36am local time, making it Thursday, August 3rd – we’ve been here about 12 hours. So far, so good.

The flight was uneventful, with plenty of food. Today’s been good fodder for future holla posts … Jon and I met Arien in Kensington Gardens, and we did an amazing 24, 528 steps around the city, checking out the must-sees like Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and so forth. We haven’t had a chance to meet locals or really do much in the way of holla work, but I still feel like I’m getting good material for the future.

Mom, we’re all sticking together, so don’t worry. We’ve developed a good rhythm – if one of us wants to pause for a bit to take pictures or notes, the others kinda mill in the general vicinity until the person’s done. Arien had a bit of a setback with his camera – it slipped in the rain and the lens cracked. It’s horrible; we’re hoping he can get it fixed.

I just got kicked out of the hostel room by someone with a strange accent who was annoyed that I was typing in bed. I guess maybe that’s not cool … dunno, I’ve never stayed in a hostel before, and I just figured something as minor as typing wouldn’t be an irritant, especially since I’ve heard tales of Australians having sex on one’s bed and so forth. I thought the rules would be more like college, where anything short of a kegger during finals is pretty much a-ok.

At any rate, I’m in the hall. It’s orange and red and a crazy mismash of busted architectural styles. I very much feel like I’m staying in some sort of art-school dorm, where strange people from all over the world come together to find solace in each other’s, well, otherness. I feel a little too old for this – but hey, it’s my first day.

(p.s. there are totally people screaming in the hall. How am I more irritating?)

At any rate, there is no update on the outcome of the colposcopy yet – I promise ya’ll will be the first to know. I want to blog the story … indeed, every word is etched on my brain – but I’ve yet to find the space apart from the boys to really sit down and focus on my cervix.

I’m not thrilled that they took a biopsy … you know, it would have been better if they found no reason at all to snip pieces out of body. And Monday – well, Monday was a rough rough day. (Thanks especially to pals Liz and Katie for helping me through it.)

One of the things that struck me, during that black day, was that I would be such a giant, selfish asshole if I were to develop cancer right after quitting my job – read, no income, no health insurance. What a burden that would be to the parents. (Who, I know, would do everything they could to help me, as always.)

That thought stuck with me – and in that thought, I knew that I would never have taken this trip if I had had my scare earlier. So in some senses, it happened at the perfect time.

More dispatches from the trip to follow.

Posted August 3, 14:21 LST