I’ve uploaded the pics from my New Year’s adventure. M., if you check this out and you want any printed or need higher quality jpegs, let me know.
Everyone else, at least I haven’t held you captive in my den with a slide show.
Here’s the first draft of my letter to American Airlines:
To Whom It May Concern:
Your airline blows. NO, really, I meant it. It sucks beyond compare. Blows, blows, blows. I hate you.
Sincerely,
D
I think it needs some editing.
Here’s the deal. There was a slight delay in my flight to San Francisco, but it was mostly smooth sailing. While there, M. and I lived a charmed existence. Parking spaces in front of busy cafes, no more than 10 minutes average wait time to be seated for food, friendly service, parking on New Year’s Eve directly next to throngs of people waiting for fireworks. Even the one moment of urban suspicion and bad karma on the BART, where I felt like a little country rube victimized by fast talking confidence men, it turned out that my ticket was crumbled at the bottom of my pocket by my own misguided doings, not taken from me at all.
And, now, I’m back in town, and it has been one fucking ordeal after another to get here. A cancelled flight, delays and more fucking delays on the flights I did get, inexplicable delays in doors even opening upon arrival, a whole plane’s luggage missing in the disorganization of Logan Airport, a long cab queue. At the end of this bleak rainbow, my bathroom hot water is mysteriously off, so no shower for me. And, truly the capper, not only has the emergency plumbing folks not called me back, but there was just a horn honking outside my door. I peak, in vain hope of plumbing salvation, but like a true angel of darkness, a veritable beacon shining on the absolute shit my day has been, it is my former neighbor, Jimmy. A townie of epic proportion who makes the alledged Cambridge toughs Damon and Affleck of “Good Willing Hunting” reputation look every step the Nancy boys they really are.
He doesn’t so much as stalk me, as he does appear and fade away at irregular intervals. I would be nervous, as I am with his ex-con little brother who truly did stalk me for a while, if it were not for the fact that a “Fuck you, Jimmy, don’t ever come by at 1 a.m. honking again,” seems to be a sufficient deterrent. Over years, perhaps even a decade, a “No, get out of here. No, I’m not going to smoke crack with you, drink tequila with you, have a beer in the middle of the night, or otherwise do whatever it is ‘you people’ do,” seems a protective charm.
So, that’s the fucking writing on the wall. Good times, easy laughter and citrus fruit (with M.) versus delays, snow, no hot water and stalkers (alone). D’ya think the energies that run the universe are communicating here?
Yeah, I love my life.
Today’s the last real day of my jetsetting journey west, I fly out very early tomorrow morning.
I have to think about this place and decide if it fits.
Once we find coffee, we’re heading into the city for fun, adventure and anin-n-outburger, I am told. I can’t not think of “No time for the old in-out, love. I’ve just come to read the meter.” when it’s mentioned.
Today saw the valley and the redwood forest and lots of ribbon of highway. Yeah, baby, still hanging out Left Coast style.
Besides see the ancestral home of the laptop I type on at this exact moment (Cupertino), I saw M.’s new place on the border of San Jose and Cupertino, his new office and had lunch with the boss, the mountains, the gates of Paul Masson (responsible for my earliest awareness of the family importance of a cheap, jug wine), Stanford my friends’ house in San Leandro (K. and M. have been working hard on their house and it looks fabu) and had great sushi in Hayward.
In and among the adventures, I touched and smelled giant, centuries’ old redwoods, picked oranges from the orange tree in the front yard of M.’s new digs, ran my fingers through three kinds of sage and smelled the spice in the indigenous garden around chez K. and M. and put a lemon in my pocket from their tree.
Meanwhile, M. and I have been together round the clock, and despite my best intentions we still seem to be laughing and chatting together without friction. (OK, there was that moment in which M., surrounded by mountains and redwoods, stopped to admire not the scenery, but his own visage in the mirror. But, his new glasses do look good on him. I was aghast at his vanity. For me, “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” became M. versus redwood. I mean he’s cute and all, but would Woody Guthrie have written about him?)
Because I cannot accept relative happiness at face value, I let M. know that I now feel likely that one of us will have a terminal illness (how else to end what seems like some pretty cool, endless compatibility? Answer: someone must die tragically).
M.’s response: “I hope it’s not me.”
Happy Mother Fucking NEW YEAR
whoever you might be reading this shit.
This might be the third year in a row I’ve been sober at midnight. But, I got a call from drunken friends, so I’m still very much in touch with the drinking world. (And a special Happy New Year to the drunks who were still awake on the east coast, but not drunk enough to not know my number…)
Would Meg hang out by Haight/Ashbury and take pictures of the Gap? I think not.
Still have to decide one of these days if my bitter, cold New England heart would thrive or shrivel if I moved to the ancestral home of the Summer of Love.