take two and call me… later

watching the broken hearts club with stuart on bank holiday monday afternoon, my mind drifted off a few times to the four years i spent at university in pasadena, los angeles. it would be great to live in a warm metropolis like los angeles again. the smog, the earthquakes, the constant driving… i could happily deal with that crap, to enjoy a bonfire on the beach, a breezy stroll down third street… catching up with long-lost friends like husband josh and diva tom and elephantcrush dan and sara koh and pete! peter. feeling healthy from a bit of sunshine, jamba juice and outdoor dining.

firing off a belated birthday greeting to allison this morning, i visualized a happy surprise birthday party back in san francisco… with a plethora of my long-lost friends… best pal stacy and dancer jason and wiseguy hooman and aussie ken and dozens of other beautiful, familiar faces. i would swallow my pride [not that london has been a failed experiment or anything] and happily return to san francisco, for those amazing friends, astonishing vistas, delightful weather, frozen cosmos and some clam chowder. i’m not sure if i’d be able to deal with the lack of nightlife options, or miniature scale of the city compared to london. why did i leave san francisco? was i miserable there, or was i happy there? difficult to recall.

it’s becoming clear to me that i will be leaving london. will i be able to stay here for two more years in order to secure a british [and thus european union] passport? or should i just chuck it in and marry a girl to get my magic euro-pass? regardless, if and when i leave london, i’ll either retreat back to one of the two aforementioned safe havens, or i’ll proceed onward. sketching out a roadmap of my life, i can intellectualize two destinations:

an obvious choice is new york… i’ve thoroughly enjoyed my visits there, i have quite a few lovely friends there, like pure-hearted tye, xman xavier, wise toby, wicked chelle and even long-lost first boyfriend jeff troi… i would thrive on new experiences, the electricity of the city. but, can i handle being a small fish in a big pond [again?] at least in london i have the gimmick of my americanism, which i exploit at every chance i get. it’s logical for any londoner who’s tired of london to jump to new york—especially if the londoner is american.

the other option besides retreating to the usa is to proceed deeper into the heart of europe. i lived in germany in my teens, and could quite easily see myself settling into berlin, hamburg or frankfurt for a year or two. from my many visits to amsterdam, each time i’ve wholeheartedly decided that i could live there… the combination of progressive modern culture with an ancient ambiance of propriety and politeness astounds me each and every time. spain is perhaps even more foreign [from an english-speaking point-of-view] than holland or germany, but i would love to be able to live and work someplace coastal in spain, or even madrid. madrid is a bit smaller, a bit trendier than the too-touristy, too-dirty barcelona. i could follow in misha’s footsteps, or beat out hiphop marcos’ plan to settle in ibiza for the summer.

each of these plans would require cash, planning, moving, learning, visas, work-permits. i’m lucky enough that webwhoring is universal, and pays well. i’m really good at webwhoring. too bad i hate it. i thoroughly enjoy writing, editing, planning and laying-out print work… just, right now, my magazine dream job is quickly becoming a headache—and i’ve just run out of paracetemol.

of course i floss regularly!

i think the highlight of my day yesterday was my trip to the dentist. through some bizarre, cliché-busting alternate-reality, my dentist here in england is one of the most enjoyable health-care experiences i’ve ever had. i’m not implying that the cliché that the english have bad teeth is false [i've seen some raunchy fangs!], but the staff at this dentist are friendly, efficient, professional, smart, caring… it’s amazing, i tell you! i never have to wait for more than 2 minutes, i enjoy idle chit-chat with everyone, and the dentist always has some crazy new equipment to show me, like a huge microscope which lets him see nerve endings as he performs root canals, or his tooth webcam so he can broadcast surgery on the net, or his dentist chair with in-built dvd player. i regailed him with tales of my 85yo dentist in san francisco, whose translucent hands trembled as they approached my mouth to yank out my wisdom teeth. he really was 85 years old—his dentist school diploma was dated 1942!

the rest of the day i spent stressing about work. i have all this stress and discomfort and hopelessness and self-doubt, which has resulted in me being bitchy, but just internally… i had an elvis-sque smirk on my face all day. i have so much pent-up anger and i just need some therapy or something. i’m hoping—no, i’m praying—that my awful friends leave me alone this bank holiday weekend. please. no more clubbing. no more drugs. no more namedropping. please. i beg of you. let me just drink my soup! ya got my cheez whiz, boy?!

i think if stuart wasn’t moving to australia in a few weeks, i’d be falling for him. i’d be romancing him. i’d be making an effort to get to know him better, and i’d work at impressing him. i’m [very logically] caught in this limbo, however, of not wanting to invest too much, and, as a result, we mainly just have really really hot sex, rather than trips to the theatre and candlelit dinners. we’ll see if he let’s meet his visiting parents this weekend. i think i want to.