February 13, 2008
Fake Tales
Two thousand miles we roamed. The only bookish event was a sighting of Danielle Steele’s house. Tomorrow morning we’re picking up our car and hitting the road for two days. We’ve both come to look for America.
February 12, 2008
Monday Monday
Another wonderful day, and our faces are sun-kissed. Sea food, sea cruise, sea lions, sea air. City Lights was exceptional. We got Hobart (with a story by Stephany Aulenback), Twilight of the Superheroes, San Francisco Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Stuart got The Maltese Falcon for a bit more local flavour.
February 11, 2008
California Notables
Fruit, the view from our friend’s living room, and the world’s strangest manga. California is beautiful, warm, and everyone who told us it would be rainy and cold was totally lying. Which means we have to go shopping. Today was Haight and Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, Japanese Tea Garden, Divisidero Street!, Alamo Square, Mission, 826 Valencia, world’s steepest hill to Castro. All on foot. Tomorrow is Alcatraz etc. Vacation– all I ever wanted.
January 6, 2008
Reasons to be happy
Reasons to be happy– even if one’s holiday is rapidly drawing to a close– include cotton tights, sleep-filled nights, baths with bubbles, legs sans stubbles, magazines, movie screens, new bedclothes, h-nut cheerios, to-do lists done, friends and fun, books in the post, and he whom I like the very most. Plus California in thirty-four days. And….
…having just partaken in that “hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea”, of which, under ALL circumstances, “there are few hours in life more agreeable than .”
November 2, 2007
Remarkable Things
So many remarkable things have come to pass in the last day. That I was shat on via avis for the second time in my life, and as the luck that arrived after the first time was epic, I’ve got high hopes for the hours ahead. (Though perhaps my luck was that I was hit on my hand, which was wearing a mitten, which I was able to remove then, and continue on my way.) That I joined Facebook and then unjoined six hours later, without even adding a friend, for it was altogether clear that Facebook would have destroyed my life. That today I purchased The Journey Prize Stories 19— a real book, from a real bookstore, which contains a story by my ridiculously exceptional friend Rebecca Rosenblum. And lastest, but certainly not lamest, that we are going to California!! Yes indeed, tickets bought. I’ve always wanted to go to California, for I love Joan Didion and the Beach Boys, who are worlds apart, but have been telling me its stories for years now. For me, California is the most mythical place in the whole universe, but the fact of it is about to prove me otherwise, I suppose, when I set foot there. In San Francisco, to be specific, come February, and I am terribly excited, for that is the way one tends to be when lifelong dreams come true.
September 10, 2007
En vacance!
Oh what a joy it is, not only to arrive in a brilliant city for the very first time, but to have friends there (as friends in interesting places are a most precious commodity). And how happy we were for ours, as Rebecca showed us all the best spots, as well as her new apartment with its death-defying staircases. Stuart and I got in a rather broad exploration of the city, ate all the required foodstuffs (and loved them), walked off the calories, spent a rather lazy Sunday relatively speaking, I spoke French and was understood, the train was a sweet dream as we played Tetris and read our books, our hotel was fantastic, brunch was amazing, we have bagels. Also I have the day off tomorrow, to return to my novel after four months away, have lunch with a friend I’ve not seen in years, and to buy clothes so I can work this Fall without looking like a ragamuffin.
September 7, 2007
Mini-Break
We’re on vaca for the weekend, off to Montreal. Thanks to Chapati Kid for her suggestions of what to do there, and to my other friends who offered advice. I am taking Atonement and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian for the train, and is it strange that I am as excited about the train as I am about everything else?
