Been a long time

A colleague was recently at a café in the “downtown” of a Spookytown outskirt town where apparently a group of “old ladies” were sitting around talking about their favorite Led Zeppelin songs. I’m not sure just how old said ladies were, but hearing this immediately brought back memories of singing “All of My Love” in my elementary school chorus (we also sang “Come Sail Away” by Styx, although that was because I for some reason had the sheet music) and made me feel kind of old too. Not only is a long time since I’ve done rock and roll (sadly, so very true) but also since I’ve managed to post anything here. Basically, I’ve been sick in one way or another since late January and am only now finally getting everything under control (I'll spare you all boring details).

So, even though I've been ill, I have been actually been going places and doing stuff. For example, a sudden sale on cross-country flights meant a last minute jaunt in mid-March to SF to hang out with Stovie (and Mom too). It's funny the stuff you get used to when you live somewhere, and then un-used to once you've been away for awhile. By the end of my time in the Bay Area (after living there for 7 years), I had stopped noticing all kinds of things: piercings of any kind; inappropriately youthful garb on hipster types; dyed hair; the sheen of dirt that seems to coat oh so many. And I'm still surprised when people comment on things that I wear that were literally completely unremarkable out there (e.g., my leopard-print rain jacket). But now that I've been gone almost three years, I feel like I walk around there with the eyes of a stranger, if you know what I mean, and what I am seeing is that that town is filled with freaks. Who knew?

Anyway, my visit coincided with the only sunny days in what was otherwise like 5 straight weeks of rain, which was great in terms of running around town (although our planned visit to baby elephant seals was foiled by rain, hail, and it being Day One of an icky cold). We mostly did a bunch of urban hiking, marching around town in different formations. One was for an anti-war march on the third anniversary, bringing back lots of memories of the day it all began, when San Francisco became surprisingly militarized -- tear gas, helicopters overhead for 12 hours straight, and police arresting people in droves. Stovie and I had trained for direct action, including how to be appropriately arrested, but in the end we hadn't been able to find any action we were willing to be tossed in jail for. This march was much calmer,

and I ended up sneaking away not long after it started to go get acupuncture. There was plenty of time all weekend though for urban hiking of all kinds. I learned that any place is a good place to do yoga,

although I also learned when heading into Stovie's yoga studio that anyplace is a good place to smoke crack as well (crack smoker not pictured).

On a more innocent note, I met Baby KingFather, who looks really a lot like his Greek dad, even when dressed for St. Paddy's Day.Baby Utrecht, on the other hand, looks a bit more like his Mom, and is also apparently a burgeoning foodie. From plastic toys, goat cheese or roasted figs are just a step away!In lieu of looking at giant sea mammals, we found other ways to entertain ourselves: e.g., after a visit to the (temporarily housed) aquarium, some hat shopping.Looking at ferries coming and going was also almost as good as being on the beach. Also entertaining was laying down backing vocals for a track on Stovie's in-progress album.My voice gave out about 5 minutes after the above photo was taken, and flying home with my cold led to a massive ear infection on top of everything else. So what with being on pencillin and antihistamines and two other kinds of medication, although in principle I know that I went to New York for a conference at the end of March, I can't actually remember much of what went on up there. I was apparently too dazed to document my trip photographically either, because all that was in my camera was a photo of this gravel barge that was chugging along some mystery river in Maryland (the bus took a long and winding detour to avoid an accident on 95),
and this photo of a construction site in the East Village that I passed in a fruitless search for an open cafe where I could work on my conference presentation. I have a few vague memories of the conference itself (somewhat dreamlike, although thank god my dreams are not as boring as that conference), seeing a Balkan band from Seattle in one of my new favorite places (J-ka's friend's friend ended up Balkan dancing next to my favorite choreographer, who is world famous and also apparently quite happy to correct the amateur dancing of handsome Italian men even if said handsome Italian men are clearly irritated by being corrected), and sitting next to a woman on the bus ride back to Spookytown who somehow managed to make her fried chicken last 3 out of the 4 hours of the trip. Three pieces of chicken! How did she do it? Just another talent exhibited by the remarkable inhabitants of Spookytown.

Finally, this weekend I took a 52-hour micro-vacation down in Florida (last-minute airfare + Priceline hotel = good times). It looked mostly like this,
although sometimes it looked more like this.
It was great! I feel better now...