Tag Archives: travel

Saddled by cilantro

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Well, holy damn. I am still in damn Baltimore. We are officially Pre-Famous! There are a lot of perks that seem to go along with Pre-Fame. Men on the street hoot and compliment our bottoms, and the person making our coffee drink asks if we want whipped cream. Can you imagine? I put the “Privacy Please” sign on like a pasha.

Despite all these positive developments, I’ve developed a rash. I hope this is not related to fame, as it is rather uncomfortable. Some have posited that I am allergic to Baltimore itself. Or maybe I am allergic to crab. There seems to be ground-up crab in every dish in every restaurant. The other night we ate at the restaurant in the hotel, and the menu contained descriptions like “entwined with pasta” and “atop a puddle of…” and “carefully spiced.” I can’t stop thinking things like “beleagured by a balsamic reduction” or “hampered by roasted asparagus.” When I get a funny in my head, I will be thinking of it for days. Help me.

We took breaks from our scrivening to glance at a sporting event taking place in the television. I am not sure who won, but there was a charming advertising interlude featuring monkeys. If I worked at a company staffed entirely by actual apes, I would never, ever leave.

Futurist, evangelist, chocolate muffin

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Dogs and babies, damn. Always this. I am in Baltimore, and as I walked from my hotel to my sister’s house in Quaintsville, a dog barked at me out of the window of a car. ‘Hi dog,” I said. The barks echoed off some overly modern architecture, and the dog barked even more at the bark blowback. The light changed, and the dog was still barking as the car drove away. “Bye dog.” I always do full pleasantries with dogs. They are so much better than people and other things. I was drinking an iced mocha even though it is somewhat cold out. Sometimes I don’t feel like hot coffee. I do what I feel.

We are ostensibly working on faming, but so far we have been interrupted by a balloon delivery and some art school lesbians. Fame is hard. Fame is a grind. Fame is arm wrestling and wine spectating. Fame is a size 8, the gentleman’s C of dress sizes. It did not even occur to me that our book was so sad. People know someone who know someone who knows Steve Buscemi. Skulk, creep. LOUNGE. Did I mention it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland here?

It’s a very modern world, but nobody’s perfect

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1985 was rad and all, but something bad happened in the future land of 2004, and the earth wobbled and wibbled. And then in 2005, the cat can’t decide if she wants to be in or out, and I totally agree with that position, although it can be tiresome. There are theoretical units of value in my bank account, which were placed there because I used some of my time to do taxing things like write emails and make food dance on the internet. I transmitted some of my imaginary holdings via some electrons to be turned into bottled water and antibiotics. Electrons wear pointed shoes and jaunty caps. Then I picked up an issue of National Geographic Traveler, because vacation planning just got harder. As if life isn’t hard enough.

I can’t stay in 2005. I am booking a retreat to 1979, because I had a dream where everyone was speaking gibberish and “Fantastic Voyage” was playing in the background. This seems to be as good an idea as any. In 1979, I had just started growing teeth and learning about my feet. Later that year, I tried macaroni and cheese for the first time and loved it. Come to think of it, everyone *was* speaking gibberish to me in 1979. Maybe this is why I grew up to enjoy pharmaceuticals of all kinds. I have hands? Wow! What went wrong, ma?

Off the reservation

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Let’s run the numbers, shall we?

hours spent flying: 3.5

hours spent in airport: 11

crying children: 4

times I heard “I Shot the Sheriff” while sitting near airport Starbucks: 3

calories in a tall non-fat flavored latte: 210

cost of wireless access day pass: $7.95

cost to park car at airport: $66

hours spent with parents: 12.5

hours spent with stress-induced narcolepsy: 4

cost of flight and hotel: $750

amount of gift certificates received by Mr. H for Sharper Image: $200

things he might actually want at Sharper Image: maybe Robosapien?

amount of cash received: approx. 6 months of therapy co-pays

times i was offered cranberry bread: 9

times i was bitten by a cat: 3

moments of heart-stopping terror and pity upon opening ugly gift: 1

times i said “damn”: countless

times we saw a dog crap in the lobby of a nice hotel: 1

(pictured: actual lobby of our hotel, stunt double dog)

La Vita è Bella

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Norepinephrine, where have you been all my life? YOU are my new favorite neurotransmitter. You are cashmere socks and lollipops, whiskers on kittens and radishes cut like rosebuds, toe separators and expertly placed highlights. You are like that dream I had the other night, the one where I ordered “Canadian” Xanax from an internet pharmacy. When it arrived, it looked like Viagra and baby aspirin, but I took it anyway and spent the rest of the dream riding an old-fashioned velocipede around a tropical city, stoned out of my gourd. I even thought “I wish Lambchop could be in this dream!”

In preparation for flying this weekend, I would like to share my Top Tips for Travel with our dear readers.

1. BYOB

2. Wear a sleep shade, ideally as soon as you get into the airport. There are ugly people allowed in those things!

3. If a child is annoying you, take it aside and kindly explain that you will flush it down the toilet, where it will immediately freeze solid as soon as it hits the outside air, followed by a 30,000 foot plummet into someone’s rumpus room.

4. Stockpile your “Canadian” Xanax. I’d reserve this for long-haul flights.

5. Load up your iPod with the soothing sounds of meditation exercises. “I will devastate my enemies….I am adored as a God….I let you live….”

6. Freestyle. This part is really up to you. Whether it’s twitching, pacing, or screaming, you want to make this flight a memorable experience for the other passengers. They are counting on you!

Coming soon: My list of Things I did not like about 2004. Yup, just phoning it in. Go to hell, I still have to assemble gift baskets for people I don’t like.

Life and Death and Some Other Things

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Always try to help a friend in need.

Remembering you, Lady K.

This weekend I brought The Germans to New York and we did touristy things like the Staten Island Ferry and the Empire State Building. It was such a clear day, you could see to forever. Well, forever being New Jersey. And as luck would have it, Newark was hosting their annual Portuguese “Cameltoe” Parade. This involved hundreds of pots of simmering Meat, the streets flowing with Sangria and spandex. Somewhere in between I had cocktails at the Rink Bar at Rockefeller Center and later at a trashy go-go bar in Jersey, not far from where I grew up. Those Russian girls and their ????????!

I took the train back up with a bottle of Maker’s Mark and Morrissey.

In the meantime Boston has lost a creative young person. Lady K. is an old art school acquaintance/rival. We became friends when I came back, the way you do when you are old enough not to care about who can wear more lipstick. I just saw her a week or so ago. We talked about studio spaces, she recommended some. A couple months ago she laughed at me for buying kiddie underwear at the store where she worked (hey, they had stars on them!). We weren’t best friends, but she has been part of my landscape for-just-about-ever, and we were starting to be friends. Sadly, she was hit by a car on her bicycle, and fell into a coma. She was taken off life support yesterday, and has very likely died in the night.

Everything I have done for the last two days I have relished, with the painful knowledge that she was gone and unable to participate in this moment.

I am also thinking of getting a helmet.

-xo

Das ist Playboy

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That’s what he said when I held up an enormous pair of vintage sunglasses. When Viktor says it looks good, it goes into my pocket. I love the fleamarket on the Akunerplatz in Berlin’s Prenzlauerberg. I love the rows of stands with all the shiny clothes and mod furniture, I love the fashionable people that get dressed up to browse and haggle there. But most of all I love Viktor, the fashion guy. He’s gorgeous, stylish, and delivers a snarky running commentary, “oh, that looks SO GOOD on you”. I have been buying things from him for years, and harboring a massive “he doesn’t know I’m alive” kind of crush. I can only share his stage for the length of time it takes for him to look me over, help me with a zipper, tell me I look fabulous and trade my admiration for 12 euros and a beautiful dress. Then I no longer have an excuse to remain, so I can only steal a glance at his gray eyes, and the fringe of long hair sweeping into them, and go.

Tomorrow morning I catch an early plane back to Boston. Ciao Berlin, ciao Viktor!

Yes, of course I realize he is gay! Shut up.

-xo

Sooooo Good!

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My house is a really great place to watch bad movies. Because we have a fireplace and a lot of ire. Last night offered Ghost Ship, a movie whose only exciting moment occurred in the first five minutes when a roomful of people are halved by a rope and then slide apart like so many wide-eyed steaks. The Movie was aware that it had nothing else, and let us enjoy it again as a flashback later on.

P.S. Julianne Margulies is not Sigourney Weaver. Even in her mondo-sportsbra.

It’s another frostbitey day but I don’t mind. Licketysplit is going to come over and we are going to knit little caps with kitten ears on them. Then we are going to watch Squirm in between slippery mouthfuls of lo mein.

Someone come with me to Lisbon. We’ll eat spicy fish and get low octane New Englander tans and draw pictures of comically oversized genitals in the sand on the beach. We’ll go to a museum. Pretty please?