Tripod: Messages from the Staff

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value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">-& Sports <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">Completely <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">-FREE Offers </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> </center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%">   <p> <p><p> <img src="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/letter.top.gif" alt="from tripod..with love.." width="401" height="124" border="0"> <br> <p><blockquote> <p> <b>From Emma Taylor, Editor:</b> <p> Sometimes I feel like a fraud (and not because of my lingerie of choice). London's the hip city of the moment, and I'm cashing in on the idea that it's suddenly trendy to be English. Outside of England, it's always been pretty cool to be English, but now it's even trendy to be English in England. <p>The trouble is, I feel more English in America than I do in England. I haven't lived in England for seven years, and to an Englishman, I sound about as English as Hank Williams. <p>England is, by one definition, my home. It is where I was born and where I lived until I was 16 (except for 3rd grade in New Jersey), and it is where my entire family now lives. I like being English, and I have no intention of becoming an American citizen (although a Green Card would be nice, God Bless America). <p>Wherever my family settles is always where I will call home. They live in Oxford now, and even though I've never spent more than a summer there, I tell people I'm "from" Oxford. (It's a town all Americans have heard of, which makes them feel good. Most Americans who have been to England have been to Oxford, so they each get to tell me stories of their day trip to Oxford.) <p>I spent a summer waitressing in Oxford, where I was known as "the American waitress." I got to serve every table of Americans and explain to them why they couldn't get ranch dressing and why nothing was fat-free. No other waitress would go near the Americans. (I kept it a secret that Americans tip by percentage and not, like most Europeans, from the change in their pocket.) It's strange. Everyone loved "Dallas" when I was growing up, and even "Roseanne" has made it onto British TV. The English know Americans aren't bad people, and it's not like they wear black on Thanksgiving. <p>It's in the details, I have discovered. I hate to name-drop (it's so American), but when I interviewed Paul Theroux a few months back, he mocked Americans who try so hard to "go native" in England. You know, the type who spend a fortune on a tweed suit and are then asked how they like England. England is certainly not the land of beautiful people, but something about the look is hard to fake. <p>It's the details I am losing. I sound American to my family. I say "like" at the end of a sentence and not in the middle. (US slang: "He came into my house and was like, what's up?" Oxford slang: "He come into my house, like, and went, alright?") <p>My sister Hannah says I dress American, too. Last summer, I met her and her friends for lunch in Oxford, dressed in cut-off denim shorts, white socks and sneakers. I may as well have worn cowboy boots and Mickey Mouse ears. After I left, Hannah politely explained to her friends, "That was my American sister." <p>The reason I feel like a fraud is that most Americans still think I'm charmingly English. I get hit on via e-mail, purely on the basis that our staff page says I'm English. Everyone thinks it's cute that I say "loo," and after a year at Tripod, making fun of Emma's accent is still worth a few laughs. They think I'm patient because I never get pissed off. I'm just trying not to blow my cover. <p>I'm English according to my passport. I'm English (alien, to be precise) according to the U.S. government. I'm English according to the guy at the Burger King drive-thru who always makes me drive around to the window because he can't understand my order. I'm English according to most Americans. <p>But I was in America when Oasis happened. I was in America when Major got elected. I was in America when rave was born. I was in America the day of the Dunblane tragedy. These things define a country, and I wasn't there. <p>I was in America when Clinton was elected. And again. I was in America when O.J. was arrested. I was in America to see the Dream Team win (who really should have picked on kids their own size). These things, too, define a country, and like it or not, I'm part of it. Did I say "God Bless America" yet? <p>I'm not quite sure why I think about this so much. I stay in a Best Western for a night and start calling it home. Maybe that has to do with some obscure attachment to my toothbrush. Wherever I lay my toothbrush, that's my home? I have my own toothbrush in Oxford, too. My dad turned my bedroom into his office the day I left England, but I still get a slot for my toothbrush. And as everybody knows, teeth define a nation. The English have bad teeth. They're crooked and crammed and they don't sparkle. The only reason I have good teeth is that I spent third grade in America and was fitted for a head brace. I have a chip on my front tooth that I forbade my American dentist from filing down. So I figure that as long as there's a place for my toothbrush in Oxford, I'm still allowed to call it home. <p> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/editorial-html/anchor_emma.html">Emma</a> <p> <hr width="330"> <p> <center>Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>.</center> <p> <hr width="330"> </blockquote> <br> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>