The road I won't be taking

France is opening the tallest road bridge in the world. Reaching a height of 343 metres (1,125 ft) it carries cars over the river Tarn at 270 metres (835 ft). It was built to bypass a bottleneck at the town of Millau on the road from Paris to the Mediterranean. It sits just above the clouds on most days.



And I hope to never take it. I wonder if sometimes we overreach.



The roads I will be taking get me from London to San Francisco via San Diego and Palm Springs for the holidays.

Time goes by ...

How can it possibly be only 19 days to Christmas and 10 days before I leave for the US? I once heard there is a chemical in the brain that speeds the perception of time as one gets older, so that time 'goes by faster the older one gets'. Can anyone verify?



Went to see Akram Khan with Tim last week. I loved it. Dancing, Sufi singing and percussion, interesting little stories. The rest of the group seemed blase, but I enjoyed it. Except that I really had to pee and the amplified drumming was like a vice on my bladder ...



Watched both Kill Bill volumes 1 + 2 this weekend. I hadn't expected to like it, but I enjoyed the first one so much I went back to the video store to get the second volume. Also watched King Arthur which I thought much better than the reviews it got.



Reading Melvyn Bragg's The adventure of English. Part of me wishes I was listening to him read it out aloud in his famous BBC voice.



Kirsten and Andrew have put their house up for sale and will move to Perth, Australia if it sells. I'm not happy.

Eternity

It's been ages since I've written - busy with work and all that. Apologies if for some insane reason you drop in on my occasional ranting. Hope you've enjoyed the peace and quiet.



Went to see Jan Garbarek at the Royal Festival Hall.



I know nothing about jazz. Very little. Some Ella, some Miles Davis. I know enough to dislike Jamie Cullum, but not enough to occasionally not find Diana Krall charming. So it's no surprise that I had no idea who Jan Garbarek is.He's a quite internationally famous Norwegian jazz saxophonist (if not THE most famous Norwegian jazz saxophonist. I don't kow). He's touring in a quartet that includes a rather manic (and frightfully dressed) female percussionist who filled practically every minute with the tinkering of little bells or enormous drums.



Tim, who introduces me to new and better things, found it slightly tedious -especially the extended solo slots. He's allowed. He knows better - I don't. I grinned stupidly as I do when listening to live music and wondering how they play 'all of those notes' and enjoyed myself. The wine may have helped. And getting to spend time with one of my favourite people (Tim, not Jan).



In a couples of weeks, Akram Khan and the Raphael exhibition at the National Gallery.



See, I can do high brow too.



Otherwise:



Reading: The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (the 2004 Man Booker prize winner)

Watching: Spooks (Rupert Penry-Jones. Sigh)

Listening: Rufus Wainwright, Want Two

Bless ...

I don't normally countenance this sort of thing, but as godfather I feel compelled to point you to pictures of Sophie, clearly a charmer.

Why I love Paris, no.1

The walk to the no.7 line in the Montparnasse metro station is a long tunnel with a moving walkway. It normally travels 2.5 km/h. Today, I took the new superfast moving walkway. It's 9 km/h. It flies through the tunnel. So much so that one feels compelled to giggle like a child on a snowsled. I did worry about how one gets off the speedy walkway. Would I go flying? No, because at the other end, little steel rollers gently ease one off the 9 km and back to walking speed.



It's one reason why I love Paris.

It's my brithday and I'll pleurer if I want to

Off to Paris for a quiet birthday celebration so happy birthday to me.

Voice

Today Alison Moyet releases Voice, an album of 'classic songs' (not covers, mind.) It's stunningly beautiful, simple, tasteful. Arranged and produced by Anne Dudley, Academy Award winning composer, it's an eclectic affair - Purcell, Brel, Elvis Costello, and Michel Legrand. The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies-O!, which every schoolkid in England apparently knows and Elvis Costello's Almost Blue are both sublime. And she sings in French - Je crois encore entendre and Brel's La chanson des vieux amants.



She says in interviews that it's not a 'covers' album as she learned all of the songs from the original sheet music and her singing is sweet and unadorned. I hope she tours with it.

Drool

The new Apple iMac.

Uh oh

So I recently agreed to temporarily be creative director on the BT account and now I'm 'acting' head of creative for the office as the last one recently resigned. I'm a bit terrified of the workload, but excited to be back managing a department and worrying about utilisation and contractors and, oh yeah, creativity.

Happy Mondays

Or some such thing. The weekend sped by and I've done almost nothing. Some laundry. Some cooking. The Japanese and Chinese galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Summer appears to be over. It's cold and rainy in London but then, that's not surprising -- even in August. I don't mind, not being a sunworshipper, but do mind I've still no plans for a holiday and holiday season is nearly over.



Listening to Bjork's soon to be released Medulla -- an album made primarily of vocals (with some digital beats). It's a curious affair that takes a good few listens. One never expects the usual from Bjork, but this is an especially acquired taste.

See your Sushi and eat it too

A German specs company has made eyeglass frames with built in chopsticks.



Cool.

Dinner last night with Kiran at the top floor restaurant at Smith's of Smithfield. Rooftop terrace where we could watch last night's storm. It's miserably humid today ...

Toy?

Bought the Sony Ericsson P900 off of eBay so that I can consolidate the two mobiles phones, Filofax, digital camera into one device.



Unfortunately, I failed to notice, duh, that the synchronisation tools are Windows only and am busy looking for Mac bluetooth workarounds. I've got the address book synched, but not the calendar. Feel free to submit any suggestions.

Up to date ...

Dinner last night with Helen and Jana and Craig at Smithfield Tandoori. Delicious and a lovely setting, but I was burping onion all night long.



Working on a branding strategy for one of our clients and enjoying being the 'creative' guy as opposed to the 'strategy' guy in the equation again.



Meeting with our MD next week to discuss 'my role.' Hope to still be employed :) I'm fairly sure I will ... Unless I win the sodding lottery.

Stung

I was stung by a bee in Covent Garden yesterday. I don't know if this post is related to the last.

What's that smell?

Egoiste, worn almost everyday (but sometimes alternated with Allure Homme).



Top notes: Sicilian mandarin, Coriander from the Caucasus

Middle notes: Damask rose

Base: sandalwood, Vanilla from the Réunion, Ambrette seed from the Seychelles

Woody, oriental



Now you know.

Crap

Apple have announced new longer lasting, thinner iPod which I will no doubt buy, even though it's not yet going to be available in orange.

Shit

Conscious self	Overall self

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File that under, 'what the hell was I thinking ...'

I was eager to take some time off before the rush of people's summer holidays left me stranded and overworked at the office. I did some fast research and came off with a plan to visit Cologne, Germany for three days. In my mind the city had a Gothic old town and a charming river bank and was a mix of old Germanic charm and Northern European design (think Scandia.) In reality, it's almost entirely charmless ... the only thing to survive the war was the cathedral and the train station. Everything was re-built in the 60s and 70s, and the cathedral's not even genuinely gothic - it was started in the 13th century, but mostly constructed in the 1860s. It's also soot black with pollution and butted up against charmless concrete buildings that house museums and train stations.



I booked into the Radisson. Suprisingly cheap. Meant to be in the city centre. It wasn't. It was dead centre between a motorway onramp, a construction site and an abandoned trainyard. There was no one in the hotel. It quite often felt that I was the only guesst there. But it's beautifully designed and the room, with walls of frosted glass and pleated soft paper was stunning. Apparently, it sells out when there are conventions at the Koelnmesse down the road, but it was surprisingly empty.



A 15-minute walk through the abandoned trainyard, across the railway bridge, and into the city centre gave me blisters on my very first day there. I almost immediately left, but it was too costly to go anywhere else from Cologne, so I braved it out. It was not all bad; there are some lovely shops, the weather was perfect, there was one charming waiter at the brewery on the banks of the Rhine, and a rather comprehensive exhibit of Die Blaue Riter at the Museum Ludwig.



It's not surprising, therefore, that there aren't many pictures. I wasn't really inspired by anything. Sorry, John, they're all pictures of buildings ...



My dreams of going to find a German boyfriend were also dashed to pieces. I went one night to 'do the gay bars' I went to three. The first was in the Rudolfplatz and apparently catered to anorexic 17 year olds. I felt positively old. The second was the 'bear' bar in Heumarkt. I went at 8.30. I was the only customer. For an hour and a half. No one even looked in. The bored bartender and I struck up a conversation (as we were the only two there.) He claims things don't really get busy until 11pm. But I have a hard time believing that. No one even looked in! It was depressing. I felt guilty for leaving him alone, but by 10 I was tired of the farce and wanted to be back in the hotel.



The good news is that someone flirted with me in the hotel bar as I was drinking a Pernod before bed. Unfortunately, she was the hotel prostitute (from what I could tell). So I gulped my Pernod and went to bed. Alone.

The world's most difficult words to translate

are .. ilunga, schlimazl, and naa. Apparently.

Still amazing ...

I hadn't listened to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in years, and even though most of it has been bastardised for that crap airline's crap commercials, the swell of the orchestral bits are still thrilling. Once upon a time I could play the complicated piano rhythms of the third movement, but I'm sure that's long past.

Noam Chomsky on ...

the war in Iraq.

On a glorious Sunday ...

Paul, John and I walked the sunny, deserted streets of the City to see Norman Foster's stunning new Swiss RE Building. A conical building of steel and glass it's already an infamous classic, known in London as the 'gherkin'. You can see my pictures here.

About time too...

Apple appears to be set to make the UK iTunes Store available on 15th June. I've been using it for months in the US, but that requires the hassle of transferring money.



Is this a good thing? Yes. I find I'm not buying CDs anymore, not really spending more than I was before, but sampling a greater variety of music (everything from Mariza to Scissor Sisters.)

It's hot in here

Today's predicted to be the hottest day of the year so far. Anywhere from 29-32 degrees celsius (that's 83-89 fahrenheit) depending on the source.



That may seem mild to you folks in warmer climes, but it's at least 10 degrees warmer on the Tube and very sticky.

Breeders

Added to the list of cool people who have procreated: Kirsten (and Andrew) had a baby boy, Samuel, last Thursday. Hayden and Nessa had a baby boy, Barnaby, on Friday. Babies everywhere ...

Today I am annoyed that my name doesn't have any obvious ligatures. If only I've been named Gorky Laffitte.

Things I wish I cared about, but don't ...

The American elections: don't live there, don't want to know.



Big Brother: everyone will talk about it, but I haven't watched it since I got over the sexual fantasies about Craig, the builder.



Classical music: I feel like I should have some sort of appreciation for it, but don't.



Organic foods: I'm all about convenience lately. When they package the food in microwaveable containers I might care.



Getting to know the rest of Britain: I've not much desire to see much of it.



Social networks and online communities: everyone I read online is talking about it, but I don't seem to be interested in it.



The direction my life is going in: I lack a goal, a direction, but right now care more about what's happening on EastEnders



Having a cause: I seem to remember having fire and indignation about many things.



Architecture: Shouldn't I know more than I do?

Yesterday I wrote to Kelly that no one seemd very fussed about the fire that destroyed part of Charles Saatchi's collection. I'm not the only one who thought so.

Apparently, Kerry's response to hearing that Bush took a fall from his bicycle was, 'Did the training wheels fall off?' Amusing, if not placed in the larger context of Washington's attitude to the Iraqi self-governing hand-off.

Semiotics in the news. No, really.

Brilliant things

Oyster card. The new swipe-able tube card is a treat. But I recently lost it after buying a month pass. The customer service journey was a bit of a circle (register online to send an email that links to an FAQ online that gives a phone number to call). Their solution is brilliant: they mail a replacement card, move the expiration date forward, and give you a refund for any travel costs incurred while it's being sent.



Sainsbury's coin counting machine.

The curse of living in England is that one tends to have a lot of coins at any given time. It had been piling up at home in a plastic bag. Sunday, I carried it all to Sainsbury's where there's an automated coin counting machine that gives either a voucher for groceries or a charitable donation. I knew I had a lot of coin, but even I was stunned to have had £67.09 in 10s, 5s, and penny coins.

Work in progress

Yes, I know it's not perfect, but I felt like the blog needed a change. I'll keep working, so please be patient.

On having magical powers ...

The other day I willed a book into existence. Moaning about not having anything interesting to read and wishing there was a new A.S. Byatt book. 24 hours and a tirp to Selfridge's later I find The little black book of stories.



Now I wish Jason Merrells would keep me as his sex toy.

The anxiety and elongation

Saw the El Greco exhibition at the National Gallery last night. It was another evening of walking around thinking, 'I should remember more of this than I do.' For some reason, I could remember unprompted that his name was Domenikos Theotocopolous. Ask me to name the centuries he lived or name a painting and I would have been at a loss, but I remembered his name.



It was a lot of religion. Predictably. But at one point I got the message from one of his crucifixion scenes: Jesus waxed his private bits.



The catalogue, which I thumbed, but didn't read, (is it sad that I wondered if 'thumbed' has a sexual connotation?) said that one art historian thinks he may have had a stigmatism that accounted for the elongated figures. I think he was a drunk who rushed through yet another religious commission. Whole areas of the paintings seemed rushed or unfinished. In some of the Temple paintings, for example, a cage of birds and the architectural detail was very fine, but the faces of the figures, including those being flagellated by Jesus, were big blurry blobs of paint. Wildly uneven. That said, there were some charming portraits.



The exhibition seemed fairly inclusive: St. Martin and the Beggar, St. Louis, View of Toledo, but I found it all very unsatisfying. As I so intelligently summed up to Tim, 'I'm not a fan.' I'm an ass. UCDavis should revoke my degree. Six years of higher education and art history classes and my insightful critique was, 'I'm not a fan.'



I spent yesterday feeling wildly anxious about something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It wasn't money worries, or work, or anything I could name. Tim says it was the full moon --having a tidal pull on my emotions. I was worried I had forgotten something, like, oh my god I forgot to pick up the kids at school, or oh my god I left that gas burner on, or oh my god, I'm 35 and forgot to get a man and a career (which is the one true anxiety of the lot, I guess)



Anyway, afterwards I went home and had an anxiety attack. It was the Mt. Everest of anxiety attacks. I used to have them a while ago, through school and whatnot, and once around Organic closing time, but not since really. So today, I'm left exhausted and feeling a bit winded and wondering what that was about.



I need a preoccupation, a hobby. Clearly it's not going to be art history.

Sturm and sturm

It's a very English thing to be constantly talking about the weather, but the weather this weekend was extreme. Sunday, Kirsten, Andrew and I sat in the open window of a French bistro enjoying the sun and warmth and a day later we've got frost, hail, and torrential rain. Wonder what the Summer holds.



Spent the morning judging the website design category of the Student D&AD awards. There weren't many entrants -- I think the brief may have been too specialist, if not generally too difficult (and I authored the brief) but there was a fairly high level of conceptualisation even if the finished products were sometimes rough. Still, it's good for getting one's name out and all that.

Shocking.

At the end of the holiday So, four days off and it's back to the grind and routine of working.



John and Jason are here, crashing on my floor. I'm not sure if they're having a good time -- it's all very casual and unplanned and, perhaps, anti-climatic(?). It was a relatively quiet weekend. I cooked a leg of lamb on Sunday in honour of Easter which was wolfed down in front of the television. Other than that, some shopping, a museum, a disastrous dinner at l'Abbaye. I fear I'm becoming a boring host.



But tonight we're off to see Duran Duran at Wembley Arena. I'm partly horrified. I was never more than interested in Duran Duran. I've not been to a concert in a stadium since I was 24. I'm more worried about how we're getting back than I am about having a good time. Some days I feel my age. But John and Jason are looking forward to it, and it's always fun to hang out with Tim, so who knows.

Sound the trumpets My little goddaughter, Sophie, was born on Saturday at 9pm with a head of dark hair and brown/grey eyes. Kelly says that childbirth wasn't as bad as she had heard, but we both think that was probably the drugs.



kelly seems to be doing well. Little Sophie, however, is still in the hospital with some mild breathing problems, probably due to acid reflux.



I haven't seen pictures yet, but I'm thrilled beyond words for Kelly and Michael and hope they get Sophie home soon.

Time to talk trash I'm loathed to admit it, but after watching the so-so last Matrix movie, I switched channels and became engrossed in the season finale of ITV's paean to naked, trashy satire, Footballers' Wives



Besides the obvious allure of half-naked athletic bodies, the show is quite good fun. Camp acting, ludicrous storylines, and laugh-out-loud dramatic moments (the hemaphrodite baby!). Now that Jason's gone, I don't really think there are any fanciable men, but Zoe Lucker deserves an award for being so over-the-top trashy. Classic moment last night, Tanya discovering her dead sugar-daddy had been sabotaging their condoms. Fantastic.



Now, as penance, I'm going to have to read the entire oeuvre of French existentialism to redress an aesthetic balance, but it was worth it.

The Da Vinci Code Reading Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code. It's an interesting book. Not brilliant literature. A reliance on unnecessary adjectives. A lot of predictable sentences in italics. I don't know if there's a lot of fact behind it, but it's an intriguing idea that there are forces in the Catholic Church that seek to erase substantial parts of the early days of the church. I won't give more than that away. It brings back memories of worries about Opus Dei's shadowy operations -- they have spies who report on anything unconventional. At uni, I went to a very progressive student church that was in constant fear of espionage by these conversative hypocrites. It's very satisfying, therefore, to see them so maligned.

I'm surrounded, but can't surrender Friday night, expecting to be overwhelmed by the competitiveness of our quarterly games of mah jongg (well, overwhelmed by the wine we drink as well as the task of remembering how mah jongg is played). I, instead, sat whilst K. & A. and L. & A. filled the conversation with pregnancies and babies and house repairs. Even when they attempted to about something else under the guise of not leave me out it sprinted back to those topics. We didn't even play mah jongg.



I've became that rarest of animal. A gay man in a sea of breeding homeowners.



I'm not being judgmental. I don't begrudge them anything. I don't find it tiresome. I don't pout and push the conversation back to me.



I'm envious. Louise and Andrew have a new stunning home. Acres of bedrooms. A bathroom the size of my entire flat with a sunken tub. Kirsten and Andrew took that first leap onto the property ladder and fill their weekends at B&Q and bloody Mothercare and await a little Rose.



Me, I bought a rug. A 3x5 foot Kashmiri tribal rug. It's now the most significant thing I own, besides the television. Yes, a tv and a rug are my most worthy domestic purchases.



Pathetic.

To miss someone

For the last year and some months T.'s shouldered the burden of daily pesterings about things great and small. The weather, television, work frustrations, my fears and insecurities. Well, he's been on holiday for two weeks and the emails have been unwritten, unsent, unexpressed. They fester and grow like a grit of sand in an oyster inside my chest and now I'm looking at this thing, this object as imaginary as hope and as real as despair and wondering what the hell I do with it.



But beyond that, I begin to think what I've not been doing or needing or searching out or expressing or dealing with because, for whatever purpose or willingness or aptitude, T.'s become my outlet of intimacy. Is it a rope tying me to a phantom pier or is it a tether keeping me from being adrift? Is it too heavy a burden for something that's essentially an email friendship -- another example of my ability to mis-aim with precision and intensity?



And why the drama? Why not enjoy what it is, ignore what it doesn't mean, stop seeking the shadows and dark corners? Feed the hunger, not the ache. Get some sleep. Stop dreaming of hibernation and smile at Spring.

Welcome back, days of British Summer Time. Clocks changed on Saturday and suddenly the day was rife with light. Maybe not sunlight, but light nonetheless. Ah, the long days and the chance to work a day and still enjoy the light on your face in the garden of some pub.



Reading the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown which despite an annoying tendency to attach an adjective to everything is engrossing.



Listening to Franz Ferdinand.



Enjoying Moulton & Brown templetree bath gel.



Getting ready for John and Jason's visit.



Starting to think about summer holidays.

I was enjoying our office view of the Thames until I read that it's a potential weakness for terrorist strikes. Great. Glad I sit on the Strand side of the building. It's unlikely that they would hit around here what with the Parliament downstream and Canary Wharf upstream.



I wondered if either Bush or Blair are nervous about the surprise win in Spain by the Socialist party which is spending it's first days in office withdrawing troops from Iraq. Spain was one of Britain's closest allies in the lead up to the war and there aren't many now in the EU who would believe countries that seem to have gotten their intelligence so badly formed.



Spent last night in the elegant bar at the Cinnamon Club drinking to a colleague's bon voyage. But my heart wasn't in it. I was, instead, thinking about a conversation Kirsten and I were having. She's tackling life head on - marriage, pregnancy, new house. I feel positively stuck in the mud and seeing very few ways out of it, or rather many ways of indeterminate effect. Vaguely unhappy in life, but realising it's quite possible I'd remain so for years -- going through the motions, doing what has to be done, missing romance, and reminding myself to be satisfied with little things.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.



I'm trying not to be one of those people who never keep their blogs up-to-date but it happens, you know?



Robert's in town keeping me liquored up. Over-indulged in the weekend and dragged my arse to the gym to make up for it.



Watched two fantastic films: Belleville Rendez-vous and Goodbye Lenin. Goodbye Lenin made me yearn for the late 80s. And strangely interested in Berlin post-reunification. Belleville has stunning characterisation and a theme song that stays glued to your brain.

The downside to flu is the little blood vessels around my eyes burst when I vomit.



The upside is having two days to watch all the DVDs I've put off watching. Several French films, including Monsieur N., and Fanfan la tulipe starring the beautiful Vincent Perez. The DVDs are in French, with French subtitles so that I can practice listening. I miss the subtleties to everything, and am lost with anything colloquial, but it's entertaining, and takes my mind off the flu.



So I'm better today, but work is dragging, my back is sore, and I'm dying to take a nap.

Deep thought for the day

I don't know why I think Phil Spencer is the sexiest man on television, I just do.

Opusizing Yesterday a new USB keyboard controller and Garageband CD arrived so I have a small home recording kit and can start making music. I'm no great musician so I'm not hoping for much, except a possible passion to explore. Don't hold your breath, it will be ages before anything of value comes from it.

Pictures from Barcelona. I don't know why my digital camera overexposed everything (but then it was bright and foggy that day.)

Barcelona. I have many reasons for not having been to Spain -- everything from disdain of the heat to promised visits from friends in the US -- but the chance arose to third-wheel Craig and Helen to a 5-star hotel on the cheap so I jumped.



We ate tapas. We drank. First a flat cava, then several bottles of spicy rioja and even a flan-flavoured liqueur. We were bossed around by over made-up waitresses and waiters with booming master-of-the-universe voices. We walked. We cabbed. We climb the escalator-free hill to the Park Guell to see the fantastic spaces Gaudi created and then went to the Segada Familia to see the church he left unfinished -- over 100 years ago.



We did the marina, and the old part of town, and hunted down Mont Blanc with visions of cheap, affordable pens. Then that night, rather than clubbing, we sat in the bar celebrating our adventures.



Barcelona is much more sprawling and urban than I imagined it. It's also an intriguing combination of old and modern. But the men aren't anywhere near as stunning as promised.



I'd go back. Definitely.

I know the site's buggered, but I'm off to Barcelona so not much I can do about it.



Promise it will be fixed soon.

04.02.03 -- Swimming upstream to Spain

Last night, in the South Ken tube station, I saw a man dressed head to toe in salmon. No, not dressed as a salmon -- which could be explained by the science museums nearby -- but in salmon colours. Not just one single shade, like a pantsuit, but in various pieces of clothing different shades of salmon. He wasn't eccentric looking. He looked quite normal. Young. Handsome. Affluent. Not unlike any man you'd expect to see running about in a Barbour jacket or bulking knit sweater in South Kensington. Except that it was head to toe salmon. It might have been a uniform of some sort. He may have been rushing off to a job in a beauty salon. It's just that they appeared to be normal, well-made clothes. In salmon.



I don't know why it's stuck in my brain. And I think it may have been the reason I craved a bagel with smoked salmon this morning.



Off to Barcelona this weekend with Helen and Craig. I've never been. Not even to Spain. I meant to go years ago, but was always waiting for Greg or someone to come along, but the opportunity arose to stay in a 5-star hotel for cheap and I jumped on it. I'm looking forward to a weekend of tapas, and Gaudi, and room service.

22.01.04 -- Ah, bless

Kelly sent through a scan of my goddaughter, Sophie, at 27 weeks. The sepia-toned scan looks like a Michelangelo cartoon and she looks, of course, like an angel. I can't wait. I'm sure Kelly can't either!



So, I'm not the only one positively frightened by the Dean rally cry. I think it's time to start investigating Kerry. At least he has Presidential hair.



Off to Soho House tonight for a clients drink party and celebrity gazing.

14.01.03 - Someone finally had some sense

And made wearing white socks against the rules.

Chinatown in San Francisco. Mah jongg sets can be bought at the Bazaar on the right.

06.01.04 - Foreign familiarity

Happy new year! I spent my New Year's Eve in a hotel bed (alone) eating, watching movies, ignoring the feeling that being alone in a hotel bed on NYE was a bad omen. There were a few bad omens during my stay in California -- an earthquake, a blackout that left half of San Francisco in a creepy darkness, a particularly shattering dream, a country on high terror alert. But in the end nothing bad happened, save a slightly swollen and sprained right hand and a slightly fuzzy and unfocused jetlagged brain.



I didn't have sense to be concerned flying there -- I was unaware of the cancelled flights brought on by apparent unintelligible intelligence. I was exhausted from parties and booze and running around trying to find presents and clothes and stuff. I spent the first four days in a fog (both literal and figurative) dinners (and the ensuing wines, champagnes, vodkas, bourbon?) with Andy, Anthony, Paul, Robert and the rest of the gay mafioso-so-so. Had a lunch with Jenn who recently remigrated and was back in SF getting used to American life (and the overwhelmingly sized ceasar salads) and her new found VP-ness. Saw Kate and Anne's overwhelmingly sized bead shop, Beadissimo which, despite its costly Mission location, is the size of a small village and tried to resist all of the shiny little beads. Did Christmas with my mum and brother at my cousin's renovated neo-classical suburban tract home and was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of ten Americans talking excitedly over each other. Then spent four days laying about my mother's flat -- eating, cooking, drinking, shopping. So, even though it was a good amount of time, it was a bit of a blur. Ok, that may have been the alcohol, but may also have been the sheer whirlwind of people.



It's nice to have been, and nice to be back.