Warning : people swimming and wading have drowned here

Sometimes in San Francisco summer decides to act properly, and it gets hot.
Last night, we went to baker beach to watch the sunset, the gigantic merciless waves, a gaggle of orange-clad Tibetan monks cut out against the blue sky, and the orange bridge in the backround.
An elderly and optimistic Chinese couple in long trousers were trying to avoid being splashed. I got drenched up to my waist with one single sweeping wave. GF wouldn't take her trainers off because she doesn't like having sand between her toes, but after much deliberation I've decided to not hold that against her.

Hurdles

Everytime I go and stay at somebody else's house, my stomach constricts.
I have to psych myself up for the ordeal that it will inevitably bring : I know, I just know that as soon as my guest leaves the house, I will try and use some appliance or another, and fail miserably, and feel like a complete doofus. I will then have to wait for his or her return and humbly ask for enlightenment.
I hate asking for anything.
I want to be the breezy, cool-headed and perfectly composed specialist of everything. I want to be a plumber/electrician/techno-nerd/master of all appliances. I want to know where everything is, and to have used it all before.
Of course I know how to use this CD player/grill/garage door/time machine - I've built myself the exact same one at home from a kit I got from Woolworths.
This 500-button remote control for your TV/VCR/flying saucer is a piece of cake - I invented it.
So here I am, in somebody else's house, looking after somebody's dog and belongings while he is away on a cruise ship with 4000 gay men; and I, humbly, want to take a shower.
Loaded with all scrubbing necessities, I approach the place of scrubbing. All seems normal, the place is fitted with glass sliding doors, a 3 inch-deep bathtub as they seem to favour them over here ( people must have drowned a lot in the past), a perfectly respectable-looking showerhead, what looks like a tap, and a knob thing that, presumably, one must pull/turn/push, or a combination thereof, to obtain a satisying stream of warm water.
I pulled.
I turned.
I pushed.
I even tugged, for fuck's sake.
Nothing, not even the tiniest drop.
I'm aware that these last four lines could be heavily read into, but honestly - I was defeated.
This is just so humiliating.

Just as well there is another bathroom, with a normal shower.


A few weeks ago my mother came to visit; one evening I found he sitting dejectedly on the sofa. She'd tried to use, in succession, the cd player, the radio and my laptop. In vain. She just couldn't conquer them. I laughed mercilessly at her defeat. Such denial on my part !

I'm off to try and use the CD player now. Wish me luck.

Maternal wisdom

It pains me to admit it, but, as usual, my mother was right.

This relationship business is hard work.
It engulfes you. It lures you and sucks you in, and then spits you out.
It lifts you up and thows you down, and leaves you trampled on, with most of your little bones all crushed.
And then you go back in and ask for more.


This is probably why my mother, holder of all wisdom, is single; and counting the years she thinks she's got left.
That's probably why she is alternatively posting humourous quirky ads on internet websites to try an find some reasonably bright man who won't be put off by dark under eye circles and a couple of cellulite dimples, or deciding to just give up now and for all, because, frankly, it's all too much bloody work and she is too busy anyway.

It took her 55 years, two marriages and a few relationships to come to that conclusion, though.

Sometimes a part of me yearns for an era I didn't even know and heavily, wrongly, romanticize; when who and what you got stuck with after the church vows and the dance in the barn embodied all your hopes and aspirations for the next 70 years of your existence. If you were lucky and didn't perish in chirldbirth and abominable tearing bleeding pain under the crucifix. Ah, a life of wooden clogs and bonnets and stiff petticoats, rank milk and chamber pots, breastfeeding and getting up at 5 on Sunday morning to milk the cows.

I'm off to buy some under-eye cream to ward off the impending dark circles, and some self-help books.

Chained Girls

Who and what is a lesbian? Where can they be found? Are they happy with their lives? These are a few of the probing questions raised in a wonerful 1965 documentary that Gf got me to watch the other night. A fascinating slice of objective reporting, using actual I kid-you-not statistics from real genuine medical publications. No, but really. I particularly enjoyed the gang-bang style social event: a young and unsuspecting debutante/recruit is lured in the lair of notorious lesbians. After much hair-brushing and chatting - the impending tension leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat- the scene closes with her lying on the floor in a pool of her own tears as the circle of inverts closes around her for god knows what unspeakable things.
Oh, and the vicious cat-fights were cool, too.

I'm being all cultural here.

Politics

GF's view on royalty :

Oh my god if I were the Queen of England I wouldn't be able to go for a slice, I'd be so annoyed I'd pull my pelitos out."

Clean Hippies

Miles away from the nearest Starbucks, we baked in the relentless sun for two days, stretched out on wooden benches ; naked bodies by a green pool; long-legged hares and giggling wild turkeys came to peer at us. At night we floated in dark and smelly waters, and looked up at the sky, wondering if that was the Milky Way.
We glared at sociable Philadelphians who wouldn't behave in the appropriate way, splashing in the pool and ruining the zenness of it all. We smoked pot and played ping pong, bearing the rattlesnakes in mind everytime we lost a ball. I taught gf how to play Scrabble and she understood why I loathe it so. We laughed at the very butch dyke behaving awkwardly in the naked area; it can't be easy to behave like a butch when you're naked.

Back in the City of Fog, I'm still radiating heat. Thank you Wilbur Hot Springs.

I am unbearable

-So, what do you want to do tonight?
Why do friends always ask that question?
Whenever a friend makes plan to go out with me, they ask what I want to do. Always. I can't believe i only have friends who can't make decisions.,and have tor resort to asking me. Me. How would I know what we want to do?
Do I look like someone who makes decisions? Do I sound like someone who can make decisions in a city I hardly know?
Well they ask anyway. I suppose it's only polite; and I would complain if they didn't.
Unless they try to take me clubbing, in which case at some point in the evening I find myself cornered wth no means of transportation; they all know it's the only way to get me to set foot in a club. And sit it out, gritting my teeth in a mixture of despondency and acute longing for silence, and a bed.
More about how much I hate clubs sone other time.

So, I don't know what I want to do tonight. I've always thought that this what that very handy verb was invented -to hang out. no equivalent in French- I'd like to believe that it's because people are more purposeful, but I doubt it. Let's hang out. It makes me think of colourful bedsheets drying out on clothes lines in the sun. Hanging out.

All in all

It's been four days of complete, sloth-like, deliciously untainted and undiluted idleness. (Remember to write something on the virtues of idleness at some point.)
Now, gf is taking me to Green Apples books !
There'll be barbecue for dinner!
We'll also find out if we've won the lottery!


She won't let me adopt the orange cat and take him home, though.

House blend

Sitting in a house on top of a San Francisco hill is not unlike being on a ship. The wind makes the walls rattle; from where I sit, only the very top of some distant trees is visible, topped by the fog rolling in at high speed. It's a constant presence.
And it's nice weather for November.
I find myself reviewing all the warm items of clothing I should decidely have packed and didn't, in my eternal optimism. Denial. Whatever. So I wear just about everything at once, and alter the order of the layering every day to look like I have many more clothes than I really do.
I'm teaching gf to act French; she coaches me in acting american. She makes a much more convincing job of it than I do, I feel. She's got the shrug all worked out, and her disinterested glare is nothing short of perfection. I can't get the 'ohmygawdthisis justaboutthebestthingintheworldever' quite right. I'll keep trying.

Gone missing

I'll be internetless for the next week or so, looking after an orange kitty somewhere in San Francisco. I'll be back.