London, Baby!

So, I have to admit that today in London I was nearly as bad as Joey shamelessly stepping "into" the map to orient himself when they all (except for poor pregnany Phoebe, and lovesick Rachel, who goes belatedly to make the consummate faux-pas) go to London for Ross and Emily's (clearly foolhardy) wedding. I toured London for the very first time today, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face any more than could an eighteen-year-old after Prom Night with the Homecoming Queen.

Yeah, you've already sat through a speech about how amazing New York was, so I won't go through all that once again. Take it as read. Today I saw more sights than I could conceivably recount: Piccadilly Circus (the English version of Times Square), Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column (NB: How can you avoid inappropriate sniggering at a moniker such as that one?), Wellington's Arch (see NB above), Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge (perhaps my favorite sight, actually - it's amazing), the Tower of London, which houses not only an infamous retinue of former prisoners but also the Crown Jewels of England, London Bridge, the Globe Theatre, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (nod to National Lampoon's European Vacation), the London Eye ( a giant Ferris Wheel sort of affair with glass boxes from which an intrepid observer can view the city), of course the Thames, in all of this, likewise Westminster Abbey. Don't judge me if I tell you that Westminster Abbey almost made me cry. I know that's silly. It amounts to some lovely architecture that we've all seen about a thousand times in textbooks and a great many tombs. Architecture is all well and good, and I know that at some point a tomb is little more than a (hopefully) pretty rock over a dead guy, but I have to confess to you who love me that these dead white guys - yes, they're all white guys, with the exception of a couple of incredible female monarchs, and no women at all in Poets' Corner - resonated with me in a basso measure I'm almost ashamed to admit. I've been studying these people for as long as I remember. Today, on a typically-grey-and-drizzly-English afternoon, I stood in the very same spot wherein William the Norman became William I, King of England. In 1066, nearly a thousand years ago. I saw the chair he sat in. Man. Talk about transubstantiation. I literally felt dizzy and displaced.

You guys, I saw the tomb of Elizabeth I. "Bloody" Mary I (who's buried with her sister) and Mary, Queen of Scots. Their grandfather, Henry VII, who *didn't* get divorced. Edward II. Richard II. The shrine to friggin Edward the Confessor. The tomb of *Chaucer*, kids. And *Dickens*. Poets' Corner houses not only the monument to Shakespeare but also floor-tile plaques to all the dead white guys I love best, from Dylan Thomas to W.H. Auden. I was just so shaken to be there.

Poet In New York

The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape. - Federico Garcia Lorca

You know, they've recently pardoned Lorca. How kind, right?

So, I'm quite sure that I did nothing whatever to keep my postings updated while I was in San Francisco; my only excuse can be that this is a city that is my adopted home, and there's nothing to keep you few who are reading this interested while I am, essentially, at home. Besides, you all, with the exception of a few of you, live at home. Go visit San Francisco. It's amazing. And if you do, ask me for advice, and I'll provide the best itineradry imaginable for either my queer friends, my straight friends, people who are related to me, people who have never travelled to California before, and ... well, I think that actually about covers it. I don't think any of my readers run any further down the gamut.

So, on to the East Coast.

You guys, I know this sounds ridiculous. I feel like I'm about to write something along the lines of "I just found God, and boy, is He great." And many of you know how mercilessly and relentlessly I have mocked those forsaken people who "move to New York." Let me explain this philosophy, before any of you dare to me. (Those who live in glass trailer parks ... be warned ...) See, I think that there is this certain group of young people, people who don't seem to recognize that absolutely *everyone* who is our age lacks definition and therefore feels like s/he is marooned on Isla del Ennui, or else lost in the Straits of I-Have-A-Degree-Or-Maybe-Two-But-I-Still-Don't-Feel-Like-Working. One solution that more people than is necessarily prudent opt for is the Rampantly Balls To The Wall Move To New York. Okay, fine. But my issue with this is that it's a blatant blind eye to the genuine character of the city. New York is not a place to give you definition if you don't have it already, unless your idea of definition is I-Haven't-Eaten-In-Three-Weeks (unless you count the free coffee at the YWCA, the cigarettes you bummed off the one "friend you have in New York," and everyone has that person, bless them, like the St. Christopher of ex grad students, or the crackers you stole from a salad bar in Jersey) And-The-Rats-In-My-Grotty-Apartment-Weigh-More-Than-I-Do. Don't move to the mountain, Mohammed. Let it move to you.

But oh, god. I absolutely love New York. Fortunately for me ... well, there are two things that are fortunate for me. 1) There's still acres of time in which I and those who love me can talk me out of Moving To Manhattan. 2) I DO actually have several things that would bring me there and sustain me if I did decide it was the right thing to do. Plus, the third and hidden reason is that I'm too chinchy, too proud, and (hopefully) have too much common sense to do something that might end in any sortof tail-between-the-legs situation. There's only a couple of things I'll tolerate between my legs, and trust me, they don't (generally) involve a tail.

I had an insanely fantastic time, though. Those of you who know me well know this already, and those of you who know me slightly ought to know this, too: I appreciate the Beatles, but I love John Lennon more than I love any man except my father. And in New York, as absurdly corny as it sounds, I felt like I walked around with John Lennon holding my hand. I walked through Central Park, past the Dakota and through Strawberry Fields to the Imagine mosaic, and when I stood in front of it I felt like I could feel John righ there with me, glad that I had finally made it to a place where I could feel like home.

There are so many moments on this trip, guys, where I feel at once so totally at home and so completely like ... I wonder where I'll ever find my place. Not because I feel lost; not that at all. But because I feel like I belong in every city that I visit.

I was in Philly a few days ago, and I absolutely felt like I belonged. I did all the touristy stuff, like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and Betsey Ross's house, Ben Franklin's grave. I went to the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, but I couldn't go in because they're closed on Monday and Tuesday. I took a photograph of a mural of the man himself, which was posted on the side of a building in what can be called nothing at all except the projects. An incredible juxtaposition. I can't explain it; perhaps there's something in brick and wrought iron that satisfies a bleak and Northeastern portion of my soul. But I loved it. And then I went to New York City, and knew that I'd met the love of my life. But you see, just like any of my Boulder undergrads, I seem to feel that way each time I meet a new one. A new love of my life.

I dunno, though - I sort of feel like Manhattan was different. Something shook my heart in Central Park, and this r(R)omantic writer will never be the same again. I love the soot on buildings that ought to be white. I love the lights. I love the buildings and the people and the smell of bodies on the subway. I love the impatient angry waiting for everything. I love the energy.

And really - how many of you have I called at 4 AM? Where better for this wide-awake girl to live than in the city that never sleeps?

San Francisco 3: Pretending to Speak Spanish

I neglected to mention in my last post that, as part of my ongoing project to convince people that I speak Spanish (which I do not, but wish I did, and desire is nearly as good as practice, right?), I accosted the woman sitting beside me on the bus to the park. She sat down and opened her book, and I, in my newfound role as nosy American traveler, noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was reading a cookbook. Be still, my heart, right? Now, she loses points because the recipe she was reading was for pancakes with something that sounded suspiciously like fruit cocktail poured over the top of them, but she gained them back because the book was in Spanish. No, not only is there no need for me to show off, but I really have nothing *to* show off. Still, I haven't changed, and I do enjoy taking credit where it's not due occassionally, so I screwed my moxie to the sticking place, tapped her book with the tip of my index finger, and said "Sabe bien?" (Haven't figured out how to do the other upside-down question mark in this text box thing. Imagine it's there. And while you're at it, imagine I really speak Spanish.) And she said, oh, yes, yes, and something that was way too fast that I couldn't really follow as a consequence but that seemed to be about how her kid likes pancakes and fruit. Or maybe her kid is a fruit. I wasn't really sure, but I nodded and smiled and said "Si" a lot. And when she got off the bus she said "Adios" and waved, and I did the same, and I'm sure she totally knew I was a faker but I still hugged myself a little smugly. See, this is what being in a strange city with no one to hold one accountable does.

It gets worse, though. I'm now harassing the roofers working on top of the house across the street. Whatever - they've been wolf-whistling every time I walked out of the house for two weeks now, so I figure I can return the malarkey with impunity. So I sort of know this Spanish pun, which is hilarious more for the fact that it's about the longest exchange I can manage in Spanish with any degree of accuracy than for the humor of the joke itself. It's about a whale. I won't write it down because whatever kernels of amusement might be dredged out of it would be totally lost in print, but if you're genuinely interested, call me and I'll tell it to you. But anyway, amidst the catcalls and general merriment brought on my my emergence onto the street the other day, I decided enough was enough and that I ought to go and make friends. So I crossed the street and yelled up onto the roof. "Oye!" They yelled back down at me, and I told them the joke. At first they were confused, and I'm still not certain if they were laughing at the joke or at the crazy gringa. But at least now they yell full sentences at me, instead of just whistling.

I told all of you I'd save the world one day. Maybe I'll be, like, the multi-lingual Ellen. Who's with me?

San Francisco 2: This time, an Albatross

At length did cross an Albatross, / Through the fog it came.

Okay, so this wasn't an albatross, either. Just your garden variety San Francisco seagull, but it did come through the fog, and we still had a close encounter off the end of a pier. (No, I can't remember which number.) There weren't any sea lions, but there was an Asian couple in matching Hawaiian shirts pointing at the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island. A man dressed like Colonel Blake from MASH who had about eight fishing poles strung at various strategic locations off the end of the pier - perhaps he'd only just arrived, because I certainly didn't see any evidence of fish. And a couple of boys in white t-shirts and dark blue jeans licking ice cream cones like kids from the fifties.

I got up last Thursday intending to walk down to the bus stop, about three blocks from my mom's house, and ended up walking all the way up Mission St. from 30th to the Embarcadero. I took a brief detour at Yerba Buena Gardens, right across the street from SF MOMA, and rested while I listened to an Afro-Cuban band wail in French, Spanish and English. They had this way of clipping off the end of words - they'd count out beats in the music "Un', do', tre' ... " One of San Francisco's ubiquitous itinerant population came and sat across from where I was perched on the edge of a huge cement planter at the back of the gardens, a skinny, worn fellow in boots, trousers, turtleneck, jacket, and cap, all in different shades of black, and in a balmy 80 degrees. He proceeded to share (with only faint nods and a tapering series of "Mhmns" as encouragement) the history of his addiction to speed. How it cures everything. How he'll never touch it again. How the woman he loves doesn't like him sober. But how the Lord doesn't like him all strung out.

I walked along the Embarcadero until I got trapped in the gaggles of tourists down at Fisherman's Wharf. There's nothing like the smell of fried fish and freshly-minted I Heart SF sweatshirts early in the afternoon. So I headed away from the Bay and marched up the hills, past Ghirardelli Square (out of the fish-frying pan and into the chocolate pot, but the tourists are exactly the same) and into the groomed and cultivated facades of Pacific Heights. Giant houses and tidy gardens, but the only people outside are Latino landscapers. I walked onto Russian Hill and meandered down Fillmore Street, peeking into "secondhand" shops whose gathered leavings are pricier than anything I've ever considered buying, with the possible exception of my Forester. And little French bistros, and boutiques with embroidered blouses and scarves that look like the ones at Global Goods but that are clearly hand-woven by blind Belgian nuns instead of by Guatemalan village women, because they cost about forty times more.

I ended up down at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, where I saw a Monet exhibit of about fifty paintings from various parts of the artist's time in Normandy. There was some Water Lilies stuff, but mostly there were a lot of paintings of the sea in different lights and moods. The beach, the sky. Haystacks, of course. Churches and little cottages. Hardly any people. For whatever deep-seated emotional dysfunction, I take exception to the act of standing in front of art and being deeply moved by it. I'm glad to see it, but I often have very little to say about it that I'd consider worth repeating. I think that looking at art is for me more an act of quiet meditation, of simply being in the presence of the work of someone else's hands. Observing whatever it happens to be that another person believed was important enough to make note of, whether that be a church, a stormy sea, or a collection of particolored circles. Or drips. But it was much ... clearer, to use a word that's far too inadequate, when seen in person, the ways in which Monet was indeed able to capture not only the physical aspect of a place or object but also its mood and emotional shape.

Enough of that, eh?

San Francisco 1: Exit Boulder, Pursued by a Bear

Okay, so it wasn't a bear. But I've been having close encounters with a raccoon outside my building for several weeks now, and although I can't say for certain if it's the same raccoon (well, they do all wear the same outfit), it evidences an alarming affinity for my companionship. On my last night in Boulder, when I'm taking the trash out for the umpteenth "final" time, this little rotter appears, as usual, peering beadily from behind a railroad tie. I back away, as usual, in my best nonconfrontational manner. Nature's all well and good in its place, but really, it belongs in Percy Shelley poems and not in my lap. But he (she?) must've sensed that this was the last-ditch moment to make friends, because s/he crawled out and started following me into my building, for all the world as though we were going to have a lovely chat over a cup of tea with Snow White and Mr. Toad.

So, after six months of planning, I've finally set out on the first leg of this grand adventure. I left Boulder on Monday, 31 July for San Francisco, where I'm spending a couple of weeks with my family. My last night at my apartment in Boulder was appropriately dislocating; having already deposited absolutely everything that wouldn't fit into my backpack with friends, I hung out on the floor in a borrowed sleeping bag, listening to the air conditioner struggle and waiting for dawn. I did consciously endeavor not to be sentimental about the whole thing; one's life need be neither The Grapes of Wrath nor The Way We Were. But I did allow myself a moment of looking around my empty and silent home and owning the fact that it was no longer mine. Not pathetic, but rather purifying.

Here's the collection of possessions that will sustain me for the next half-year. Boulder Creek and the Flatirons at dawn. The walk up the hill to school that I won't be taking until it's icy instead of verdant.