...more recent posts
Feb 5, 2000
Recently returned from London, where I did travel on the number
19 bus. But wouldn't you know it, it's days are numbered, rear
entry buses will be phased out by 2004. Try it while you can.
Some undigested observations: food tastes better (this is not
delusional and tourist-based, I think it's related to the
environment); one can have a lovely time in the UK if you just
pretend that sterling is really the dollar with another symbol
preceding the figure and not an entirely different value; the NHS
(Britain's free health care system) is a bad idea if you happen to
get ill, our profit driven health system, if you can afford it, is the
best in the world; spring is an entirely different season in those
latitudes: long, rolling, and spirit raising as opposed to vulgar and
sudden, already begun there and truly worthy of all that poetry
those people wrote about the English spring; croissants are
vastly superior there to here, while the reverse is true of the
bagel; London, like New York, is booming, with cranes dotting the
horizon (I wondered, while walking the Southern bank of the
Thames, was that anecdote a construction working student friend
told me true: that cranes are parked, at night, pointing in the
prevailing direction of the winds? He lied a lot and I liked it.)
London is all horizontal like LA; people live in their homes rather
than merely sleeping in them; there appears to be a greater
enthusiasm for books there (this could be delusional, but there is
a lot of reading and book shopping going on from what I saw).
Will tell you more.
Jan 22, 2000
I love this bright dry cold. This time last year I was poorly and
every gust of wind seemed to whistle through my bones and
lodge in the marrow. This year I'm healthy and lardy and it is a joy
to trundle through the streets bundled in absurd garb and not
feel the cold like an enemy. C and M got their picture of the baby
Chinese girl they are adopting. She'll be here in eight weeks time.
From the doorstep of a farmer's house where she was found to
Avenue A; quite a trip. I can see the people who will be her
parents and extended family incubating love in anticipation of her
arrival. She looks ready for Avenue A in the photo.
Jan 14, 2000
Too cold for the monkeys. I work in a restaurant, as an hostess.
This, I like to think of, in my grandiose moments, as some sort of
karmic trial. Tonight the public were pissy. I have always
maintained that one of the interesting phenomena of Manhattan
is that its inhabitants suffer mood swings collectively; tonight
(01/13/00), we were in a fairly foul mood. What I resent about a
particular variety of customer (take P.P. at 7.30pm, for instance) is
their innate inability to have a good time. Me, I like to have a good
time whenever possible. Have decided to become vicously fit, in
the aerobic sense; what with the failure of the apocalypse I like
the idea of training for some inhospitable terrain—even if we are
all subjected to the lap of luxury for the next millenium. My friend
Una had a baby girl.
Jan 10, 2000
Dark and drear. Here we are with our respective saps at their
lowest points. Have resolved to go and visit the monkeys in the
Bronx Zoo to see how they are dealing with it. My inclination is to
be horizontal. This only poses a problem when one is faced with
the necessity of labor. The idea of seasonal work is appealing. I
like to think of Monica and Linda's respective transformations (the
former's weight loss and new role as Jenny Craig spokesperson;
the latter's head transplant) as some new reductive form of
tragedy: Through some form of hubris you find yourself being
immolated by the media and becoming a household name, but
rather than katharsis and the gaining of wisdom prior to death
you merely get a makeover.
Jan 4, 2000
Some naive part of me really thought that there would be
something new about it. The only thing new appears to be the 7
lbs of adipose tissue lodged about my middle and my breasts
(admittedly there are worse things). I think, as I often do, that
escape would be the answer. Even something as far from the
exotic as taking the Number 19 bus through London from Chelsea
to Islington one night. The Number 19 offers a delightful cross
section of the city from South to North and the buses themselves
remain an anomaly owing to the fact that they are some of the
few remaining "rear entry" vehicles still running in the city. This
means that the back left hand corner of the double decker beasts
are open at all times, in fact there are no doors at all, merely a
pole placed on the angle of the corner, which inevitably
encourages one to run for them between stops and mount them
while they lurch along.