Me, me, me.

If you haven’t had enough of me, then peruse some old bits about me. Me!

Florence for a few.

May 20, 2013

Our train arrived in Florence and I decided that having little idea of our destination was no obstacle to finding it. Surely, the apartment would be somewhere in the vicinity of… you know… Florence. We dragged our bags over the cobblestones, weaving in and out of crowds around the totally magnificent Duomo and photobombing families in the make-me-cry Piazza della Signoria. Just a moment for a question. Is it wrong to admit that I lost all patience for tourists? Yes, I toured. Yes, I also took pictures. But no, I didn’t freeze a la Pieta in the middle of...

Venice-Land! Where are my goddamn Cavalli ears?

May 16, 2013

We left Vernazza with appropriately heavy hearts and a bag inappropriately fat thanks to the handmade wool shawl I bought from a smoking woman in Corniglia. I couldn’t help it. I live in a land tethered too close to Antarctica and this woman had hands like birds that flitted around me in a grey haze of smoke and yarn. If I’d stood still a while longer, I would have been knit into her exhalations and scarves. Our train trip from Vernazza to Venice took way too long on paper but the experience was just right. From one side of...

A break in the chronology for 10 hours by sleeper car.

May 9, 2013

Overnight train! Sleeper car! Like all romantic notions, this one suffered the annoying toxicity of a reality bite. For starters, overnight meant nine and a half hours. Sleeper car meant I spent 20 minutes sleeping. Still. Overnight train! Sleeper car! To its credit, our first class cabin had a sink, a ladder, some coat hangers and two mirrors. We spent the first 20 minutes like kids at an Ikea floor display. Everything opens and inside: a surprise! For us! Slippers! Toothpaste! Jute string-wrapped towels! I used it all. Also, because the cabin was private we wouldn’t have to relive...

Another 36 hours…

May 7, 2013

In Genoa! Genoa. Sheesh. It’s actually called Genova. Did some early Englishman decide that it would be too hard to distinguish the place from Geneva? It’s in an entirely different country, you know. While I’m on this, I’m sure I’m not the first to notice that English has corrupted every Italian city name but one. We don’t call Bologna baloney. We could. And we didn’t. I’m sort of impressed by our restraint. It’s so unlike us. I was bleary on arrival. The ten-hour overnighter from Paris didn’t do me any favors. If anything, it favored my cold. Before that...

Paris, please.

May 4, 2013

I have to think a little more before I come to terms with Paris. I have to let something settle in me– like a particularly good meal or a haircut. The first thing I thought when I climbed up from the Metro was that the Seine looked like wet obsidian as it wrapped around the Notre Dame and then I wondered who all those people thrumming along the cobblestones could be. It was just beyond dawn and they looked so eager. Turns out they were tourists like me and they probably mirrored me and the Seine only lightened slightly...

Hello Venice Beach! I still miss you.

April 22, 2013

It’s been almost a month but I still smell the pot smoke on the ocean breeze. I can’t remember liking a place more. Seriously. Is this place in Los Angeles County? It should consider seceding and starting its own republic. Visas required of all dickheads who don’t get just how perfectly idiosyncratic it is. While riding a cruiser down Main Street, I stopped for a red light. I noticed a car behind me wanting to turn right on the red. I inched up into the crosswalk to give room. The driver rolled down his window to thank me. Then...

Endless summer

March 26, 2013

In the old days, I used to think the perpetual shine of San Diego’s sun made everyone dumb. I was that kid. The one huddled in the shade, under a hat, with gloves on. Maybe a veil. Reading some Russian author and dreaming of the tundra. Shut up about it, okay? I never threw myself onto train tracks. Besides, it may not have made me popular, but my skin is sort of healthy and I got Dostoevsky out of the way. Since then, I’ve lived in lots of places where the sun shines only infrequently and weakly, from low...

Gossip Girl is dead. Long live Gossip Girl.

February 18, 2013

At some point toward the end of last year, I discovered Gossip Girl. I will neither confirm nor deny whether it was abject melancholy that led me to it or simple existential ennui. It’s enough that those little nymphs of New York privilege were there to flit and flounce for me. Thanks to them– which means, their twinkly eyes, blown-out hair, and inexhaustible wardrobes– these sartorial conundrums have been confirmed for me: 1) those short-skirted girls on the street are just following their leader; 2) boys, also, have a reason beyond Glee to rock a bow tie; and 3)...

Attention Wellington Dog Owners! And other flat characters.

January 29, 2013

Hi and welcome to my summer. I’m sorry you couldn’t be here to enjoy breakfast with me. If you’d scheduled your year for leisure like I have, you could have waved frantically with me at a populous pod of dolphins who came into the Bay to play. Or eat. Or both. Everything dolphins do makes me wish I could invite them to a swim party. They would totally smoke everyone in Marco Polo. Wellington is midway through a 10-day summer binge, sponsored by the sun. For three years, I’ve believed this fair little city existed in a shady corner...

Yoobee sucks. I be annoyed.

January 24, 2013

Er, sorry. That’s a bad, bad title. I’ll try again? Dear Apple. Dear Apple, I hope you’re well. Congratulations on slobbering all over my tech experience in the best of ways. For years, I’ve chosen your products. I’ve purchased your stock. I’ve even crossed my fingers that the people who manufactured my products are not so horribly treated as is sometimes reported. Crossed my fingers, of course, because what else could I do? Not buy an Apple product? They’re so much prettier and so much smarter and so much easier to accept as my second, third, supplementary brain. In...

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