Vacancy.
I flew home via Reno last Sunday and had a bit of a layover. Landing midday, I was shocked how deathly quiet the airport was; SeaTac had been bustling in the morning and I would have thought weekenders would have been coming and going from Reno as well. As I no longer suffer PTSD from The Biggest Little City, I headed downtown to walk around a bit. If I had thought the airport quiet I was certainly unprepared for the eerie emptiness and silence I found downtown.
A letter, #4
You will never believe the strange coincidence that brought you to my mind the other day. I am actually glad I can tell you in writing so I don’t have to hear you tell me how there are no coincidences and everything happens for some greater more significant purpose.
Anyhow, what happened was this: I was leaving my night class and one of the people in the class asked me if I lived in the City. I told her that I did and then she asked if I was taking the train home. Again, I answered in the affirmative, and before I knew it, it appeared that surly me had made a new friend. We walked to the train together and chatted the whole way home, she lives just one stop beyond me. In talking she told me that she had heard me talking about Hong Kong to someone and that her husband had lived in Hong Kong. Really? I asked, When? She said he had been there for about five years in the 90s, pre-handover it sounds like. He was a teacher. Wow, what a coincidence, I said. She asked me about living there and I told her that my Hong Kong experience was unique in many ways, mostly because I lived in a really unusual place. She asked where and I told her Lamma. She laughed and said that was where her husband had lived too. I am sure that we must know so many of the same people… you probably know him! She asked if all the expat teachers live on Lamma and I had to tell her only a certain type of expat lived on Lamma… I did not go into a lot of detail.
And it got me thinking of you in your Lamma heyday.
It has been some time since I heard from you. This makes me wonder – are you still alive? Have you actually turned the corner you are always just about to round? It is so hard to tell with you. And frankly, our last conversation was really tediously redundant, which I imagine you know, hence the more recent silence. Still, there are so many things that make me think of you, would it make you feel bad to know that I especially think of you when I consider my finances? In contrast, I also thought of you a lot last week when I had a really sick kitty on my hands. Remember when Matilda got sick that time and we couldn’t tell what was wrong with her, but she was so sad and lethargic and just seemed so defeated? God, that was awful and I was so glad that you were able to take her to the vet, even if I ended up having to pay you for it (how odd in hindsight!) And then when Normie had that weird episode and you called me at work… I was so freaked out. Looking back on it and knowing what was up in my house and who was there with you, I am quite sure you all just got him stoned, which, while totally stupid, is not that harmful. In spite of all that I am still glad you finally got to see what it was like to have pets while we were together.
I am going to Thailand in the spring too and so of course that brings you to mind, we certainly had some raucous times. It is amazing to think how much time we spent there, and I always laugh when I remember sitting in Vientiane having dinner on the Mekong and you were just so desperate to get back to the other side, you kept going, “That is Thailand right there! Why am I not there?” You do love the land of smiles.
I try really hard not to focus on the things I feel like you took from me, because I know in reality you can only take what someone allows you to… And I really, really try not to think about the promises – all of them in their most abstract or concrete manifestations. I try to remember the man I knew you were inside and the way that, regardless of anything else that was going on, you would stand up for me. It was your most manly attribute, like, you really knew how to be a boyfriend, even if you were not doing it all the time. I try to remember the way your mind worked when you stepped out of the rabbit hole and let go of the fractured, slivers of philosophy you wanted to craft into some sort of wild justification for the life you were living. I try to remember how lovely you were.
These days you are still in London, I imagine, pining for Southeast Asia as you always will, never quite able to shake the idealized glamour of the expat life. It was a good life for a while, though, wasn’t it?
Be well, you.
a x
“Wait… did we miss it?” Avoiding Fomo in Chicago.
Norah: Are you sad that we missed it?
Nick: We didn’t miss it. This *is* it.
Live music has a very special appeal to me. Always has. As such it is very hard for me to pass up opportunities to see it – even when I know there will be a lot of work involved or I would be better served to focus elsewhere or I should save the money or I am too tired or, or, or… But as of yet I have not been able to kick the habit. I have moved metaphorical mountains to attend shows: driven all night to and from shows, gone to work in states of mind suited only to deep sleep or asylums following shows, attended shows after shows that lasted all day, flown to shows, hiked to shows, biked to shows. I simply love going to shows.
My love of shows is not just about the music but the whole experience. The rock stars, the idea of being right there with them, the energy, the smells (totally show specific of course, and not all lovely as I will get to presently), the hope to hear a song, the hope that the whole show won’t be all about promoting a new album you’ve never heard, meeting people who love what you love – or hate what you hate… the rock stars. Always those rock stars. Singers = Swoon. It is funny though, I thought about all this the other night at The Vaccines/Arctic Monkeys show at The Independent and realized that when I was the appropriate age to snog rock stars I was watching bands that were too old for me, and now I keep finding myself watching bands full of kids who could have been in my Geography class. Weird.
But in spite of it all, I keep going to shows… because you never know… you might miss the next best thing.
The whole reason the Chicago trip was planned in the first place was around Lollapalooza. It was the 20th Anniversary year and since Lolla no longer functions as a travelling circus like it used to, it provided and awesome opportunity to see Chicago – a city I had only enjoyed via the airports. Plus D would be working her magic and we would get super special treatment. While at Coachella, D had said that the perks at Lolla were way impressive. It sounded amazing, and without being to a total spoiler, it was actually even better than it had sounded.
And so we went.
Dinner.
I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés—Nicholas Kurti
The word alinea is a synonym for pilcrow. In more common usage the pilcrow is the ‘paragraph’ mark. [Though as fewer and fewer people actually write with complete words, let alone sentences or paragraphs this may not be quite as common knowledge as it may have once been.] We rarely use the word anyhow, relying predominantly on the symbol: ¶. The Latin translation (a linea) is ‘off the line’. It is this definition that best suits the subsequent use of alinea in this post.
Off the line.
Atypical.
So far from the norm an entire new vocabulary is required for deriving meaning.
This is what the restaurant Alinea in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood was for me.
When A told me she wanted to have dinner at Alinea while we were in Chicago I was amenable to this. I am amenable to dining in general. When she told me that it would be expensive, I was curious what kind of expense might merit forewarning, but I carried on. When she told me that we had to get reservations months ahead, I was definitely curious (it turns out you can only book one month out and when A called within an hour of the allowable time we got a table for 9:00 p.m. on a Wednesday.)
“Molecular gastronomy seeks to investigate and explain the chemical reasons behind the transformation of ingredients, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in general.”
I think I am a somewhat sophisticated human being. I think I have seen lots of crazy shit and done an equal amount of it. I tend to be characterized by curiosity rather than shock. But I was totally unprepared for what would serve as my introduction to ‘molecular gastronomy.’ Not in a bad way, but this was an experience so completely beyond my ken that it simply defied explanation – as I imagine the chefs behind molecular gastronomy would hope for, it is an experience that you are never really going to comprehend without full participation.
Molecular gastronomy is the joining of (I will not say marriage, as I think there may occasionally be grounds for divorce) molecular science, both chemical and physical, with cooking, but actually the founders would not say cooking, they would say gastronomy. Hervé This (excellent article by This here), who along with Nicholas Kurti, is considered the originator of molecular gastronomy distinguishes cooking and gastronomy this way: “the first is the preparation of food, whereas the latter is the knowledge of whatever concerns man’s nourishment. In essence, this does not concern food fashions or how to prepare luxury food—such as tournedos Rossini, canard à l’orange or lobster orientale—but rather an understanding of food.” This was the first recipient of a PhD in molecular gastronomy, awarded at the University of Paris in 1996 (Now many universities are offering courses in ‘culinology’ – does that even seem like it should be a word? Here is a publication from Southwest Minnesota State University as an example and a nice layman’s overview of this entire movement.) As part of his dissertation, This identified what he believed the five goals of his discipline to be:
- to collect and investigate old wives’ tales about cooking
- to model and scrutinize existing recipes
- to introduce new tools, products and methods to cooking
- to invent new dishes using knowledge from the previous three aims
- to use the appeal of food to promote science
There are a handful of restaurants in the world that have made this new methodology of considering and conceptualizing food and taken it to the highest level – at least according to Michelin. There is a very small group of chefs who come up again and again in this field, Ferran Adrià of El Bulli outside of Barcelona (now closed), Adrià’s protegé, José Andrés (credited, according to some, for bringing the small plates concept to the United States), Thomas Keller from our local French Laundry, and Grant Achatz, the man of Alinea (and a Keller protegé).
Alinea has received a slew of awards, including the highest Michelin rating (three stars, described as “exceptional cuisine and worth the journey”.) It is currently ranked the #6 restaurant in the world.
Pretty good for a restaurant where all the food is basically based on a dare, scientifically speaking.
More from the [very nice and super clean] streets of Chi-Town
When I visit places I always like to try to imagine what it would be like to live in them. I have lived in lots of places, and so it is less of a question of whether I could live there than what it would feel like. I guess it is the geographer in me always trying to get that sense of place.
While I walked around Chicago a week or so ago, I was struck by a lot of things about the place but the prevailing sentiment was of a vague familiarity in a place that was simultaneously completely unusual. There were elements that felt cinematic, some that felt positively subtropical, some that were incredibly sophisticated and many that were [mostly] endearingly provincial, it felt definitively historical (most things do to us West Coasters) but also very modern. Some things about Chicago became really obvious to me once they were pointed out: “It is so clean!” A kept saying. And that was factual information. The city is freakishly clean (bearing in mind I never made it to the South Side and I did notice a particularly rank odor along certain stretches of the train tracks and there was definitely something unpleasant coming up from the deeps under Grant Park…) I heard plenty of people tell me they could not believe I was heading to Chicago in August – didn’t I know about the weather? Uh… yeah. I teach Geography, I am familiar with the humid continental climatic conditions, and I lived in Hong Kong for five years: I can take the heat. For real.
But in terms of the aesthetic the city offered an eyeful. (more…)
And then I went to Chicago [Hot Child in the City Version]
It turns out I really like cities. I’ve sort of always known this, I mean, I was the kid who liked Athens when everyone was like, “No way! Go to Corfu!” Hmm… the birthplace of Western Civ… or getting plates smashed on my head while consuming copious amounts of ouzo. Let’s see. Athens FTW. But this was not a new phenomenon. San Francisco always fascinated my little Sonoma County self. I loved the sprawling craziness of Mexican municipalities. Then there was New York… Vancouver… London… Beijing… Sydney, and of course the amazing 852. Cities. And my love of what is urban brought me back to San Francisco when given the choice of where to alight from my trans-Pacific relocation.
Scholars have long claimed that the primary characteristics of a “civilized” people – of civilization as it were – include advanced cities, specialized workers, complex institutions, record keeping and advanced technology. Declaring what is and is not civilized is a bit touchy. I find focusing on the etymology safer, even though the five characteristics have expanded a bit, it is still dicey territory. Regardless, cities are always listed as the first sign of a settled people with potential. And it is true – what do we always look back upon with awe and wonder: Cities. Atlantis, the Cretan cities of the Minoans, ancient Sumer, Alexandria, Athens, Pompeii (yes, and Rome…)
The word ‘city’ comes from the Latin civitatem (nominative is civitas) meaning citizenship or community of citizens.” We use cities as our primary judgement of people, places, and entire nations; a default marker for better or worse. Is something cleaner than Stockholm, safer than Saigon, dirtier than Delhi, more diverse than New York, bigger than Beijing, more misleading than Mandalay… on and on. Cities are collections of patterns that would make M.C. Escher envious. I could wax on forever about the unique ways cities have developed and the crystalline-like patterns of growth and the controversial genius of all the models used to explain the phenomenon of cities: Christaller, Burgess, Hoyt, Harris and Ullman… But I might lose all but three of my faithful readers, so I will not. [Though I will comment that Old Walter's model, by design, could work only on a featureless landscape - and no offense to the Midwest, but you all lack some major features out there. I never realized how much I depend on the ocean and mountains for my orientation...]
And I have to admit, a lot of my knowledge of Chicago outside of sports teams and stockyards really comes from the OPI Chicago collection. It is how I learned about Mrs. O’Leary and her oops-”barbeque”, Lincoln Park (“After Dark” – and now “After Midnight”), the Magnificent Mile (being “Marooned” or otherwise), how I always remember which of the Great Lakes Chi Town sits on (“Skinny dippin’ in Lake Michigan”), and all that “Razz”y jazz, the “El” (of a color) and “Blues” (for red). So, it is with this all of this urban fascination and personal national naiveté that I headed to Chicago last week to meet up with the leader of the A-Team and D for Lollapalooza and some quality city time. Being a tourist in your own country is great fun and something I’ve not done for ages. And there was the added bonus of being totally generously hosted by The Shazams for the first half of the trip. Win, win, win.
And so Chicago. Gimme what you got one time.
I Love L.A., Part Five: “We love it we love it we love it!”
Century Boulevard – We love it!
Victory Boulevard – We love it!
Santa Monica Boulevard – We love it!
Sixth Street – We love it, we love it, we love it!!
We love L.A!
I get up early now. I do not know how or when this change occurred, and I don’t mind that much, except for the part about how I still stay up really late. Anyhow, up early on this occasion was okay. I was getting a ride back to Hollywood in time for brunch. My aunt was totally cool to make the drive, especially since Carmageddon had been such a bunch of baloney, and Malibu takes a few hours to be beach ready anyhow. The Malibu surprise had been epic on many levels, and my work there was done. And I was going to be eating some brunch with a side of magic, apparently.
When A first told me they were staying at The Magic Castle, I was nonplussed (and I mean this in the vein of the actual meaning of the word, not that I was unfazed, which apparently many people believe that word means.) Why not The Roosevelt? A explained that with the entire A-Team in tow, The Roosevelt wouldn’t be ideal. Fair enough. And, why I am at all surprised that anything A plans is not entirely thought out just shows my forgetful nature (this is the girl who shows up at music festivals with coded spreadsheets of the bands. For real.) The hotel was great. And by great I mean, generous, friendly, and insanely tolerant. I give them an excellent rating for customer service, location, and chillness. On Saturday morning, I was greeted by Dr. I (aka Mr. A) bearing a Bloody Mary. Nice start. Showers and outfits done and we were ready to get things going.
Come on, you know you want to go.
I Love L.A., Part Four: “Look at these women!”
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He’s down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain’t nothin’ like em nowhere
I met my aunt at the Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. Let me just tell you, if you are in the greater LA area and you need a cake – of any kind – go here. Epic. The staff, the cakes and the whole vibe is just perfect. I sat and had a coffee while getting (slightly illegal) text updates from my aunt about how there was absolutely no traffic on the 405. #Winning. When she got there our excitement levels started to rise because my aunt generally increases the excitement level whenever and where ever she might be, and the bakery peeps were getting excited too, (I had told them what we were up to. That earned me a free cupcake. #Winning) The cake weighed a ton, but we managed to heft a couple of bottles of champagne along with it…
Where were we headed you ask? Well, let me tell you.
I Love L.A., Part Three: “Let’s leave Chicago to the Eskimos”
Hate New York City
It’s cold and it’s damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let’s leave Chicago to the Eskimos
That town’s a little bit too rugged
For you and me, babe
The third installment of the LA-Carmageddon Tour de Force is actually more like the third, fourth, sixth and seventh. But that is how things are with A and her family. Full on, and trust me, Carmageddon wouldn’t have anything on these guys.
One time Dr. I (aka Mr. A) told me that he always has the most fun anywhere, no matter who is there and what is going on: He always has the most fun (though he takes the most joy in proclaiming it). I would have to agree. Further, I’d suggest that this is somewhat of a family motto. I am glad to be an honorary member of this family. But, as with all things of mad velocity, force and intensity, there are always a few miscues and timing is always… flexible, especially when they stipulate that it is not. On this sluggishly sunny day, this flexibility simply contributed to the amazing synchronicity of timing that had graced the previous day.
I woke up in Santa Monica in the company of one more of the growing army of amazing women that I am amassing. This person is someone I have known in that strangely familiar way that is engendered by the internet. We met as members of an online writing cohort that I have tried repeatedly to recall how I fell into. I have no idea how I got involved but it certainly was a watershed moment in my life, peripatetic even. Anyhow, meeting Ruth was like walking into my own Technicolor idea of exactly how it should be. It would be hard to explain this kind of connection to people who haven’t had something similar occur… so I won’t. We spent the morning catching up, which is hilarious to do the first time you ever meet someone. And it was lovely.
I had some time to kill enjoy before meeting up with the A-Team, so I parked myself in the sunshine in Century City and had a mojito. Or two.
And then it was off to Hollywood. To The Magic Castle to be precise. To say I was intrigued would be an understatement. I haven’t spent a lot of time in Hollywood since I was a little kid. I used to go down there and see movies at Grauman’s Chinese and shows at the Pantages… Then there was the later phase of discovering clubs and such… but this was something pretty different.
Ok, maybe not that different. Maybe pretty much exactly what you’d expect in this part of Hollywood. When the most junior member of the A-Team and I were walking back to the room from a recon mission to the restaurant above, she looked across Franklin Avenue and said:
“Hey, there’s Superman! And he has cupcakes!”
Well, if that just isn’t exactly what I would assign Superman in the Superhero world of domesticity.
I Love L.A., Part 2: “Looks like another perfect day”
From the West Side to the East Side
Everybody’s very happy
‘Cause the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another perfect day…
I remember the first time I saw the ESPY Awards. It was this ridiculous combination of a bunch of shit that I love: pretty people, spectacle, the thrill of victory, sports rivalries, touching stories of perseverance, high-profile hosts, higher profile attendees. It looked like a seriously good time. I also remember telling #4 that I was going to go to that show some day.
I say lots of things like that.
But you know, there is something to be said for manifestation. Or maybe, I just know the right people. Enter D. I’ve known D since we had the pleasure of Ocean View and the Third (now Marshall) College Dormtastic life at UCSD way back in 198X. And, D has one of these sort of amazing jobs that actually has perks. [I suppose sitting here on summer vacation it appears that I have a few professional perks too, but D's perks? They are in another league altogether. Like, another galaxy really.] And the thing about D is that she has a very wide circle of friends who like all sorts of different things. Guess who likes sports?
Yeah. Me.
My 4.5-day Los Angeles-Carmaggedon Tour de Force coincided perfectly with this year’s ESPY Awards at the LA Live Nokia Center. D was unsure if she was going to go… she has lots of events like this on her calendar. But I was totally thrilled for the chance to go and so the decision was made: fun times for me and some good schmooze time for D. Following our perfectly timed meeting in the lot across from the LA Live facility, I got to introduce D to TCH, move my luggage from one car to another, make way to the first red carpet event of my life. I realize these things do not interest a lot of people.
I am not one of those people.
I also understand that this kind of thing could get incredibly tedious and blah, blah, blah.
Also, not one of those people.
We headed into the ESPN Zone where the pre-party was. It was a completely hosted bar and had amazing food. Things were looking good.
I Love L.A., Part 1: “We was born to ride”
Rollin’ down Imperial Highway
With a big nasty redhead at my side
Santa Ana winds blowin’ hot from the north
And we was born to ride…
I was considering going to LA a few weeks back. Then some shit happened. Like the job I thought I was going to have, I did not have. And so, I thought, perhaps a trip to LA was not the most prudent thing I could be doing. I figured maybe I would pass. But, the ticket was going to be pretty cheap. And when I had mentioned it to D she said, “Oh! That is the week of the ESPYs!” And when I told my aunt N, she said, “Oh! That is the week of Char’s 21st!” And when I told A, she said, “Oh! That is the weekend we are going to be there!”
I was a bit conflicted. Then I got a job and bought an airline ticket and ceased the conflict.
The thing with this trip was, I was going to try to a tremendous amount in a very short time, without getting a rental car, and under the impending doom of carmageddon. It meant that I was going to have to ask some people for some favors. Also, I was going to have to be very sneaky about one part of it as I was trying to surprise my cousin at her 21st birthday bash. In a nutshell, I would land at LAX at which point I would have to get transformed on the fly into evening attire and be downtown by 4 p.m., find a way to get to Santa Monica where I would be staying that night, make my way to Hollywood where I would be meeting people the next day, back to Santa Monica to rendezvous with my super-sneaky Malibu connection for the next day, be back to Hollywood for brunch the next day, and then get back to LAX to catch a morning flight on Sunday, kind of early. Kind of like this:
Oh, and I was going to have luggage.
Be careful, your Coachealousy is showing…
This past week was the 12th Annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio California. It was hot and loud and colorful and a lot of fun. From April 15th through the 17th (or 14th – if you did the smart thing and came in a night early for camping – through the 18th – if you stayed to see all of Kanye’s 90 minute Sunday night closing set… or did something more fun in the wee hours of Sunday) the Empire Polo Fields in Indio played host to some 90,000 people (including security and staff) a day for a noon to midnight daily musical melange.
The festival sold out in 124 hours (I guess that sounds more impressive than saying ‘just over 5 days’), which was a record in the twelve-year history of the event. Daily temperatures were in the high nineties. [Most of the attendees seemed to be in the low twenties.] There were 178 acts on six stages. (Organizers like to point out that this translates to your ticket price being 1.50 per act. While I can appreciate the logic, I have to say that is a bogus statistic even for a person like me who loves statistics because the idea that you could actually *see* all the acts is laughable.) Speaking of statistics, the attendance demographics were also interesting. 50.5% of all the tickets were sold in California. I am not sure if that means TO Californians, but the event certainly has a California feel. (85.5% of the total tickets sold were in the US and a single ticket was sold in Kuwait, Peru, Poland and Venezuela, which I find cool for whatever reason.)
Our trip to Coachella began with a rather unfortunate turn of events. Or maybe it wasn’t, I am not really sure, but I am sure it was a Mulligan. Driving from San Diego, A & I had planned on heading out at 2 so we were on the road by 3:30. (We had to get our nails done and stuff – I mean, this is a SoCal event.) The drive is around three hours (exclusive of traffic) and hits about four freeways. Cruising along the second freeway, about an hour and a half in, I took out my ticket. I wanted to look at these bracelets that we had been sent with their computer chip and re-read all these crazy security warnings: No one would be let in without a bracelet. You would be scanned in and out every time you entered and left the venue. Car campers (us) had to be sure the sticker was on the car and all people in the car had bracelets. It was going to be intensely controlled. I was looking at the way the bracelet fastened when A looked over at me.
-Oh my god. I forgot my ticket. -
It was one year ago, more or less.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
~ Rev. Margaret Shepherd
One year ago March 1, I quit my job. As far as I can recall this is only the second time in my life I have quit a job. [The other time being on the eve of my departure in 2005 when I was denied a sabbatical from my former school district.] This decision was a really big deal to me. It solidified the reality that I would be taking that proverbial leap of faith, in quite a literal fashion.
I had been deliberating the move for a while, but under the radar enough that some people were surprised. I would be walking away from a very lucrative (although overly demanding) job, leaving the home I had made for myself – the first home I had made for myself on my own – ever, relocating my cats, and returning to an America that seemed rather uninviting in the more pragmatic arenas. What would I come “home” to? And would it be “home”? These questions loomed, but for reasons almost beyond my ken, I took the chance. I knew that at the very least, I would be received, supported, taken in, by my family and friends and that somehow, something would arise. I felt ready to take the leap.
This was new.
I had to work for two more months, and they were truly intense months; they did not let me go gently into that goodnight. My boss said he had been sort of waiting for this decision, but hoped he could sway me, that was nice. The only thing I knew, aside from the fact that April 30 would be my last day at work, was that I would spend May in an ashram in Karnataka, India and that I would depart Hong Kong on June 29.
I guess I was ready at a more visceral level than I could have known.
Happy New Year!
It seems impossible to believe that 2010 has come to an end. I remember Gust Proutsos, back in my first year at Procter Hug High School in Reno, told me that I was going to be absolutely blown away at how fast the years would speed by. I was unsure if this was a comment on age, perception, or working in a profession that is so totally locked into a temporal relativity. Regardless, Mr. Proutsos knew what was up. I cannot believe that I started this year in Bali, still a Hong Kong resident, then meandered through Burma and India, then found myself Stateside again in the exact circumstances I had abstractly described as a goal in September of 2009.
It is nothing short of fascinating.
Everywhere I look I am hearing people talk about how they cannot wait for this year to end. They are so over 2010. 2010 was so bad/hard/unfair/miserable… I guess, again, I am an anomaly. Sitting at the Latin American Club last week enjoying a cold beer on a rainy night with a very cute and inappropriate compadre, I was considering things, my life and the like. He looked at me and said, “You are such a positive person. I mean, you love your job, your house, your family. You really love your life.” He kind of chuckled and I smiled.
Yes. Yes, I do.
Vegas on the fly. In spite of myself.
I have not been to Las Vegas since 2005. That is a fairly hefty chunk of time considering the fact that I used to go there at least two or three times a year while I was doing hard time in the Northern Nevada Dream Killing Zone. I also spent a good deal of time in Vegas while I was doing research for my graduate thesis on Area 51. My BFF had an epiphany on one of our forays to Sin City, that it was Artificial Land. Everything was fake, and that somehow made it real. It was like our own Land of Oz. I don’t know, at the time it made perfect sense. My relationship with Vegas is kind of funny. I love it. But I really can’t stand it. I can’t not call it back even when I know doing so is going to yield a really questionable outcome. I can’t ever really cut the cord, but every time I leave I wonder why I went. And a few hours later I wonder when I will be back. Vegas is just one more of my unsuitable boyfriends.
But it is sparklier and has better shoes.
I went to Vegas after work on Friday to see D and J because J is heading to London in a matter of days for an indefinite sojourn and I was also going to be able to see M. And I had a free ticket, so hey! Vegas for 36 hours? Why not. I thought I had it all together when I left for work on Friday morning as I was going to try to get on an earlyish flight because most of the Friday flights to Vegas tend to be pretty full. Everything was going totally swimmingly. To SFO on time, through security (no pat down – no naked scan!) and a pretty good shot at the 5:10 flight. Cocktail in hand, I settled down to wait for my name to be called, which it was in no time. I walked up to the pick up my boarding pass and as the ticket agent asked me for my flight coupon I felt that horrible sinking feeling when you face the realization that your pleased-as-punch-self has done something totally avoidable and stupid: the flight coupon was sitting on my kitchen table. There was nothing I could say. I know the drill and I know exactly what I did (or did not do.) So, the moment of truth. Do I go home and call it a night? Do I go back and get the coupon and try to get on another flight? I made three quick and dirty phone calls: Should I do it? If I was not going to arrive until nearly midnight? It was unanimous:
Midnight? Vegas? The party is just getting started!
As M said, “Wait, what were you going to do? Not come? See you when you get here.”
I love my friends.
So, back out of SFO – Airtrain – Bart – 24th and Mission – walk home – pick up ticket – do not talk to the cat she is laying on the guilt *heavy* style – grab any other things one might have wanted to bring long – out the door – down the street – Bart – Airtrain – Security – ticket counter.
-Oh, you came back… I am so sorry you missed the flight.
-Yeah, well, can I get on another one?
-They are all delayed and over booked, but you will be on the 9:15, which departs at 10:40 for sure.
-Well, okay then. 10:40 it is.
Two and a half hours to kill at the airport… I have certainly spent more substantial periods of time entertaining myself in airports before. Got my book out and headed back to the bar. Tanqueray and Tonic number… ah, well, who is really counting? The bar was full and jovial as weather had caused delays in just about every airport and people seem to have a better attitude about delays when it is Friday night, they are not missing a deadline and they’ve got a cocktail in hand. I met two guys heading back to Denver, a ton of people trying to get to San Diego and did not have to buy a single drink.
Could have been worse.
10:30 we board. 10:40 we take off. 11:50 we are at McCarran Field. 12:30 I am having cocktails with my girls at Planet Hollywood.
Ha – ha – ha, Ho – ho – ho – And a couple of tra – la – las…
That’s how we laugh the day away, In the Merry Old Land of Oz!
I love that as you arrive in Vegas you remember, you haven’t missed a thing because the entire city is like a perpetual time loop; where else in the world does it never get dark in Paris and the sun rises and sets more than 24 times a day in Rome. And so there we were. And by the way, I cannot recommend the Cucumber Essence at Caramel in the Bellagio enough. Yum. Also, the lighting there is apparently very favorable as a 24-year-old was convinced I was the most beautiful person he had every seen. No complaints on the compliment and he smelled nice so it was all good. [Except no Shakira for D. That was not so good.]
Back to the room by 4ish and it was time to call it a night room service. Then off to dreamland.
We get up at twelve and start to work at one.
Take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done.
Jolly good fun!
Ha – ha – ha, Ho – ho – ho – And a couple of tra – la – las…
That’s how we laugh the day away, In the Merry Old Land of Oz!
Meeting the day that lay aggressively behind the black out curtains we headed out to do some shopping and recovering. It all went well. I got a dress for New Year’s Eve (two even) and we were fed and ready to nap by 3pm.
Showers, and etcetera prepped us for the upcoming evening. The best thing about Nevada, except for M, is how good my hair is there; love that aridity. And with my good hair, I would soon be seeing M perform with the LV Philharmonic and D and J would be seeing Dave Matthews. We’d meet up after. We had good drinks, met cute people, had some cute drinks and met some good people, dropped some coin, picked up some, err… never mind. Spent a good part of the evening dodging cowboys because the Rodeo was in town and there ain’t nothing like a Vegas Rodeo. Man, those Wranglers must chafe.
Another fun high desert evening culminated with my only truly unwise choice (pho at 4 am – still regretting that decision) and as I packed up my stuff at 5:30 am to head to the airport I considered: I must really have solidified my return now, I got my ass back to Vegas.
M drove me to the airport and remarked that he had watched the sun set on his way to get me the night before and was seeing it rise as he dropped me off. He is a good man. The airport, as everyone had predicted was freaking insane, even at this point in the morning. Hockey teams, cowboys, hefty tourists, shredded party girls… they were all there. I wondered which category I might fit into. [Did you know that cowboys have special plastic boxes for their hats? They do.] A lovely gentleman from San Diego let me go in front of him to ensure I would get listed for my flight and then waited for me at the security checkpoint to make sure everything had gone alright and offered me a Bloody Mary. Tempting. But sometimes you really have to get out of Vegas and this was one of them. 7:20 we board. 7:30 we take off. 7:35 I meet the nice couple next to me who have to fly to SFO to then fly to St. Louis; brutal. 7:40 I am asleep. 8:45 we land. Airtrain. Bart. Walk home. In bed by 10:00 am.
And my hair still looked great.
Pat, pat here, Pat, pat there, and a couple of brand new straws.
That’s how we keep you young and fair In the Merry Old Land of Oz!
Rub, rub here, Rub, rub there, Whether you’re tin or brass
That’s how we keep you in repair In the Merry Old Land of Oz!
We can make a dimple smile out of a frown.
Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Uh-huh!
Jolly Old town!
A funny thing happened on my way to Fox Island…
I fly a lot. Like, really… A.LOT. I have it down: I am cordial to the airline employees (especially the ones stateside because they are way nicer than the ones in HK - Cathay ladies at in-town check-in I am talking to you); I make sure to smile (and often get upgrades – Business class I heart you); and I am *never* the person that holds up the security line (you know the one, and you know you want to kill them too). To that end I have been a little out of the loop with regard to airport security since living in Hong Kong for five plus years. Airport security in Asia seems very effective and efficient. They don’t get all pedantic and silly with you and they do not make you take off your shoes, which I appreciate, being rather a shoe-phile who believes that shoes make the outfit AND belong on the feet. There do not seem to be huge breaches of security in Asia, yet we are allowed to drink water and have lotion – as long as we are not flying to the US.
On the other hand, in the US you must arrive to the airport freakishly early in spite of all other things being equal because the security lines are so long and arduous. Interestingly, the US still seems to endure the greatest number of security breaches. Hm.
Still, I pay this no mind. I do the drill. And entertain myself in myriad ways as I wait in line. The first snafu I had with airport security occurred in 2004 when I was flying to Reno from LAX and I got a little somp’in somp’in extra from the screener who was totally perplexed that my bra was setting off the metal detector (sometimes I like a strong foundation – and you know, underwire can work wonders.) After pulling me aside and using the Wand of Detection on me profusely, I suddenly found this woman’s hands on my breasts and working their way under said foundation. That woman got to second base with me and I never even knew her name. Mildly flustered and a little confused (I was flying home from a long weekend…) I carried on.
The second security op that shocked me went down at SFO. After disembarking from the long Hong Kong haul, I was headed to the domestic terminal to head up to the Pacific Northwest. Or maybe San Diego. I am unsure – likely because the subsequent events permanently wonked my memory. I was pulled aside for “additional screening”. I thought little of it and followed the directions to step to the left of the line in front of another screening device. After looking at my ticket and inquiring as to where I had been (it *said* Hong Kong) and for how long (weird question) and where else I had been (seriously? How much time have we got?) and why I was traveling (erm… fun?) I was asked to step into what appeared to be a glass phone booth looking thing. As per my usual protocol, I acquiesced with little comment.
And then I almost had a heart attack.
They certainly could have told me I was going to be bum-rush blasted with what felt like a full body glaucoma test. Nice. Totally nonplussed and airblasted I moved on cleared of my explosive potential to my next gate.
My latest security event happened yesterday at the Oakland International Airport, where I arrived far too early (thanks Bart) for my flight to Seattle to perpetrate one of the most epic surprise birthday parties ever. As those of you who know me will attest, I am far from my best before sunrise (unless I have not been to sleep – that is a different story all together) and so as I snaked through the security check point line on at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday morning I didn’t even realize what was happening when I was directed to an alternative screening device than the guy in front of me. I stepped over and was told to make a triangle with my fingers. Um, what? And then to put my hands above my head. Seriously?
I was sure that Candid Camera or Aston Kutcher had to be around somewhere as these people could not really be having me impersonate a Teletubby for no reason.
-No, wait. You are serious? [No laughing ensued.]
-Ma’am. Please place your hands above your head and turn 180 degrees so you are facing the wall in front of you.
-What the- – ?
And so I stood there for about thirty seconds, with my hands over my head as if I were attempting to contact Mork from Ork or something and wondered WTF was going on.
Then the nice young men who had directed me to the device said I could go and I was on my way wondering what the hell had just happened.
Coffee eventually in hand, a surprise rendezvous at the airport, a smooth landing at SeaTac, a sweet rental car pick-up and I was on my was to carry out the covert operation of the day on Fox Island. I casually mentioned what had happened at Oakland security.
-Oh yeah, you haven’t heard about that?
-Uh, no.
-Yeah, it is a really big deal.
-Why?
-They see you naked.
What.
The.
Fuck?!
Sort of a big deal? I should say so. That is a little bit of a violation of my privacy, no? I decided to take it up with one of my on-call pilots (Yeah, I have two. Don’t be jealous.) He was surprised I was unaware of this new-ish development and laughed when I asked what got people singled out, like why me? I didn’t know if I should be flattered or pissed off, so I went with the former as I was on a mini-vacation after all. The thing is, I don’t mind the exposure of my nakedness (okay, yeah, that is a little weird) but more the attitude that has ushered this stuff in. I read that people were totally anti the body scan (um… duh!) until this dipshit lit his ass on fire (there is a man with his priorities really far askew) made them think it was okay. It reminded me of when Ben Franklin said (or enough people credited him with saying so we accept it as truth now) that “those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.” The thing is, this seems a little over the top in a Orwellian way. It pissed one pilot off enough that he is likely going to be fired because he refused the scan. Looking at the picture that the security guys see, one can see why people might not like it. Especially since the US Marshalls are storing the images (hello unfair competition for porn mags.) Really? Storing them? Now the cops have the best drugs *and* the best smut. Jokes aside, I am sure this is in violation of numerous rights and liberties, to say nothing of the simple fact that some people should simply not be seen naked. Ever.
But let’s get back to me and my early morning peep show. In my own investigation, which commenced and closed this weekend, I have to say I am amused at the fact that the TSA says my privacy is protected through my anonymity. Excuse me? So because I do not recognize someone’s face that is not nudity? Explain pornographic cartoons then, why are they off-limits? I am pretty sure I see a penis here. Is that okay? My Ken dolls never looked like this.
In the end, I realized that at least two complete strangers had seen me naked before I even had a cup of coffee and I am not sure how I feel about that – in terms of security or otherwise. And I think it is funny that the face is blurred, but not one’s… junk. That means that the TSA’s priorities sort of match those of an adolescent boy. This leads me to be less bothered but more confused. Is that the litmus test I want for national security? Are we approaching national security from the point of a teenage boy?
Oh… wait a minute, I think I may be on to something here…
Do you miss it?
If the way that you need
Is too much like greed
Decide if you are rich or you’re poor
I went to a wedding the other day, or rather a wedding reception, for a friend who is more like family than friend. I went with my own parents and the parents of one of my oldest friends who are more like than family than friends too. Chelsea Clinton got married that day too, I heard. Poor kid probably had a lot more headaches than we did out under blue skies and oak trees where I used to suffer through cross-country races back when I was doing anything I could to win the approval of my high school coach. We were headache free.
The people at this party were people I have known (had known?) since before I was able to construct complex sentences or form lucid memories. There is something wonderfully visceral about being around people who you know this well, or at least that you knew well enough at a certain point that the relationship is somehow indelible. It’s nice. These relationships are like Sharpie markers; eternally satisfying.
I caught up with people I had not seen in enough years that they seemed to have gone from first grade to adult in one fell swoop. The kids I babysat had kids. The aunties and the uncles seemed more relaxed, perhaps a little more grey (who isn’t if they don’t have a hair guy like me) and the parents were free to not be.
Of course I faced the questions that one expects after statement, “I just returned from five years in Asia,” comes out. I am getting pretty good at answering a lot of these questions, most of which I have no real answer for… But one of them has been coming up a little more these days:
“Do you miss it?”
I suppose that is to do with the fact that I have now been home a month and the questions about where I am going to live or about work must seem kind of uninteresting when there is no ready reply – or perhaps people feel badly for me that I’ve yet to work that out, I am not sure. Either way, the question of the day was whether or not there was anything I missed about Hong Kong.
I thought about this. In concrete terms, aside from my friends over there, I gotta say: Nope. This may change, but at the moment, it is categorical. But there are things less tangible that are gone, like that certain flair that comes with saying you live overseas… imagined or not, I always felt flair-worthy when I said it. And there is also the loss of the built-in caveat for all commitments that has to do with the reality that every visit may be the last visit – for a very long time. But honestly, that fact remains regardless of one’s location if you want to look at things as a matter of fact. So, those are the sort of ego-stroking possibilities that are no longer there. But in terms of anything else?
If I had to pick something – one thing – that I miss about Hong Kong it has to be the ease with which I could leave Hong Kong. Ironic? Not exactly: HK is the pinnacle of hubs for travel around Asia in my opinion. Somehow, (is it magic?) it seems like everywhere is 2.5 hours away from Hong Kong. I don’t know how that can be possible, and I’ll grant you Bali is 5, but seriously… I am going to miss going to Thailand for the weekend. Or Vietnam. Or Japan. Or Shanghai. You see my point.
Otherwise, as I felt in Hong Kong, I feel pretty good to be right here, right now. Because you know, if the way that you need is too much like greed… it is all down hill from there.
Just ask Boy George.
WC2010: My second World Cup in Asia
Here we come
Walking down the street
We get the funniest looks from
Everyone we meet.
When the 2006 World Cup kicked off I was traipsing around Southeast Asia. That sounds a lot more idyllic than it was. True, I was in Southeast Asia enjoying a lot of what Thailand and Laos have to offer. That was nice. But I was also running from unpleasantness that I did not want to face in the States thereby making said unpleasantness a shit ton more unpleasant. [Duh.] I was also supporting a junkie on the road. To be fair, he wasn’t on the junk at that time, but he had enough hang ups with ex-girlfriends, lager and indigence that things were not looking really auspicious… and they don’t call it a monkey on your back for nothing. [DUH.] My professional soccer exposure was limited, but because I am American it was assumed that I was a total football ignoramus. Not true y’all. As a basketball coach for more years than I often care to admit, I learned a lot about soccer. That is not a semantic error. Coaching basketball is what taught me about soccer.
One of the hardest concepts to coach in sports is the skill of moving off the ball. It is interesting because the majority of the action in basketball and soccer is actually taking place away from the ball (it is another reason refs are so shitty have such a challenging job, they need to keep their eyes away from the ball too, and they forget to do this often occasionally.) The ball in both these sports works like a magnet; everyone is instinctively drawn to it. This seems to be innate. Don’t believe me? Watch a pee-wee soccer game some time, it is one giant moving cluster of bodies, and it is pretty much the same in basketball, just less bodies. Anyhow, knowing this, I spent a lot of time teaching how to move away from the ball and how to be sure that my girls understood spacing on the floor and how to create space. It is the essence of setting a good screen. Or running an effective press. Both of which my teams did exceptionally well… primarily because of the soccer players that hooped it up for me. Kids who play soccer, and who are good at it, understand these concepts because they are even more important when you are dealing with a playing field, (yeah, yeah, “pitch”) that is more than twenty times larger with only two times as many players. [Basketball courts are standardized 94' x 50' and a soccer field - non-bloody standard btw, averages about 90m x 119m.) So, yeah, I knew a little about the game, if not the European clubs and big money players. And anyhow, I am a sports fanatic, making me a quick study and I went to more soccer games than I can count to watch my kids play. [Superfan.]
So there I was, in Bangkok and the World Cup was kicking off. Soccer was everywhere in the news and I was on the road with a group composed of Aussies, Brits and an Irishman; at least half the group full-on football maniacal. And everyone was getting all nationalistic as the days went on.
“What team are you going to support?”
“The US.”
“No, but I mean after the groups.”
“The US.”
[Imagine the most condescending voice ever] “But, the US aren’t* going to make it out of the group stage, so then who?”
“Who do you support?”
“England.”
“Who do you hate?”
“Germany.”
“Germany it is, then.”
*Semantic fun fact: British English assigns plural verbs to collective nouns. In spite of my general aversion to B.E., I like this.
In the midst of all of this World Cup madness I was coerced into picking a Premiere League team because Ex#5 was definitely on the footie-fanatic roster. I told him I could not just “pick a team,” I was going to have to check out this whole “league” concept in soccer (which, by the way, is superceded in stupidity only by the fact that an official game can end in a tie/draw.) But he insisted. Wouldn’t bloody give it a rest.
“Come on, pick a team. Look, here is the listing.”
“That means nothing to me, I don’t even know where some of these places are.”
“Why does that matter?”
[Now imagine the look on my geographile face when he said that.] “It matters.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun, we can each have a team to support.”
“Quit bugging me, it is not even the Premiere League season, I have months to choose.”
“What, are you going to study up?”
“Give me that god dammed newspaper.” I grabbed the sports section from him. There was a giant color picture of a fairly good-looking guy on the front page. “Fine, who does this guy play for? I’ll support them. That is now my team.”
The look on #5′s face was worth the entire breakfast argument as the Tottenham Hotspur loyalist took in the spectacle of the front page that showed Michael Ballack in all of his German glory – signing to play for Chelsea.
“What?!?! You are joking! You can’t pick like that!”
“Look, you made me do it and now I have done it and I am sticking with it. GO BLUES. Now let me have my coffee.”
A Yank choosing to support Chelsea based on the Ballack signing is somewhat akin to a Brit choosing to support the Yankees or the Red Sox based on some equally skeevy signing – think A-Rod or Derek Jeter or a Giambi or something. It was the best revenge. But the Premiere League was hardly the topic du jour. It was World Cup time and people were getting ready.
I need a job and you should really hire me. Here’s why:
I am a teacher. I mean, I am a lot of things, but one of the more significant ones is that: Teacher.
There are all sorts of teachers. In fact, some of my most influential teachers have not been found in school. But I was lucky enough to have a few teachers in school who were all that, and in so being, mildly altered the course of my life. I have also had some really unfortunate teachers. Mostly those were people who didn’t want to teach because they didn’t like kids and/or what they were teaching. I am not sure what it was that sucked me into teaching, but the result has certainly made my life a lot more interesting. Teaching in Asia has also taught me a tremendous amount. In Asia lots of people are teachers who might not be teachers in other places. They are teaching their native language to people who want to learn that language and they make good money doing it. Those facts apply to me as well, but I happen to also love teaching, not because I speak (a derivative of ) English, but because… well, why exactly I am not sure. It just fits for me. I think it is the non-static nature of it, for better or for worse (I’m talking to you Texas.) I have been teaching high school Social Studies since 1995 and in many (most?) ways my work has defined who I am. I guess I think that is pretty cool. I have always worked in public schools and philosophically completely advocate for public education. This in spite of NCLB (education reform categorically opposed by teacher organizations and unions across the country) and offensive budget cuts and California laying off 22 thousand teachers this spring (after 26 k got pink slips last year…) So, philosophy aside, I may need to look elsewhere, but that’s cool.
So, considering the dismal job outlook, the untold numbers of teachers looking for work, and the apparent dearth of funds to educate our citizenry because the budget is “just not that into you,” why should you hire me instead of… well, all those other people? Here’s why:
Amanda
