all the class and decorum of a Southend-on-Sea day

It was a fantastic day of adventure with Punk Rock Emily, who whisked me away to Southend-on-Sea in the east. It wasn’t the best weather for a beach day but at least it wasn’t cold, so we met at Stratford station in east London with our beach bags and caught a train to Chalkwell Beach. As usual Emily was a whirlwind of energy and amusement, struggling to manage her pink Hello Kitty backpack and Hello Kitty-stickered skateboard. She also insisted that she knew the area well but then couldn’t find the way to the shore. In her classic absurdist way, she asked a woman passing by, “I'm sorry if this is incredibly stupid but which way is it to the beach?” Fortunately she knew.

Emily, who had prepared for us to stretch out on a sandy beach, was shocked that the tide was high and that there basically was no beach. I found this hilarious, because I’ve been surprised by tides so much during my time living here. I told her this and then she was borderline outraged, asking if we don’t have tides in America. I explained that in my area the tides just aren’t usually very dramatic, certainly not enough to often make entire beaches disappear like they do here. She was deeply puzzled by this and kept remarking on my ignorance of tides, despite the fact that she never thought to check them for our beach day. It is hard to explain how charming this is without sounding like I’m criticizing, it simply must be understood that this is all as endearing as humanly possible.

She pointed out an obelisk out in the water called the Crowstone, which she said used to mark the boundary of where the Thames officially begins or something like that. She insisted that an island way out in the distance is usually reachable by land, which I normally wouldn’t believe, but having seen the tidal differences in places like Saint Malo I had to take her at her word. So we hung out on the ledge by the sea for a bit, doing a few cartwheels, skateboarding a little, and admiring the sparkling water when the clouds cleared, which she claimed looked “vajazzled.” Poetic. She also had us pose in creepy ways in front of a hotel near where the town hosts an annual horror film festival that she regularly attends.

We ended up walking towards the busier part of Southend-on-Sea where a big amusement park called Adventure Island sits along the beachfront. It was closed so we weren’t able to go on any rides, but we did find a spot of beach along a small lagoon that Emily was eager to swim in. This perplexed me in light of the weather but she insisted that it was warmer than the Ladies Pond at Hampstead Heath which she is still shocked that I jumped into. Her concern about whether I was in some kind of shock, or what was wrong with me that enabled me to tolerate it, has endured. I keep reminding her that my decision to jump in really committed me. Anyway, Emily played around in the water for a bit, did some handstands, and then we got hungry.

We looked for the cafe I had spotted on the map called Rebecca’s, but sadly it was closed so we went across the street to Beaches Cafe where we sat overlooking “the world’s longest pleasure pier.” It is indeed insanely long at 1.3 miles. I got a hot dog with chips, and Emily took the leftovers with her in a little brown box that she stuffed into her exploding backpack. Then we went to the arcade across the street, Monte Carlo, and eventually to the one next to it, New York. We did a motorcycle racing game, visited Zoltar for fortunes, played Hungry Hungry Hippos, and did whatever European version of what I call Dance Dance Revolution.

Spending time with Emily over such a long stretch of time was relaxing and comfortable in a way that’s rare for me. I have lots of friends who I have deep analytical conversations with, and Emily is incredibly smart and insightful too, but just has this lightness that results in the conversation constantly shifting in new directions and spinning around in fun ways. She has such comedic delivery, at one point she was mentioning something in passing about an event she went to where she met someone who prefers Oasis to Blur and she was “very angry” and “kept challenging her to arm wrestling.” She explained that she doesn’t hang out with them anymore, “because of the Blur incident.”

She also had a phenomenal story about a pet I didn’t even know she has, a Brazilian short-tailed opossum, which she was just mentioning in passing when I demanded further context. I managed to get from her that it lives in a “bespoke three-level home” in her flat, its name is Mrs. Pockets, and it was cast in a horror film made in Basildon, which is now screening in Chicago. There’s no time to slow down and marvel at new revelations like this, so we just have to plow ahead and I’m left with these snippets that feel magical.

I also really try to be up on my British slang with her, and managed to use “proper shit” and “grim” in ways that felt appropriate, which I’m sure they were because she didn’t remark on any misuse like my past failure with “bollocks.” Although I did have a momentary panic on my tube ride home that “proper shit” had been incorrect, so I went to ChatGPT to ask and it reassured me, but then I wasn’t sure I could trust it so tried to come up with something off the top of my head that isn’t slang to see if it would say so, and used “proper bird.” But then ChatGPT said that “proper bird” is indeed slang, so I went weirder with “proper refrigerate” which it did call out. Long story short, I think I’m ok.

Other amusing Emily-isms: she loves a show called Come Dine With Me where British strangers cook dinner parties for each other and then rate them. Her favorite episode is when the man who lost was so upset that he said, “you've got all the class and decorum of a reversing dump truck.” I’m going to try to use that phrase regularly. Oh and Emily’s phone is cracked and broken in such a way that she can only take photos with her front camera, so when she wants to take photos of things she has to turn the phone screen towards it and peek at it from the side, and the resulting photo is inevitably blurry from all the cracks. This isn’t a concern for her because she doesn’t use her phone much.

We made our way up to the train station and caught one heading back towards Central London, and we both got off at West Ham to part ways in different directions on the Jubilee line. It was honestly a perfect day and we already have another date planned in two weeks, and likely also a bicycle tour for my whole family with her because she leads those as a side gig. I made it home to the boys just in time for pho dinner and we caught up on our days before settling in for a little Arrested Development and then bed for the dudes.