San Francisco - NY - Toronto

To call today stressful would take an act of restraint beyond my reach at the present - and yes, I probably should look for my lost perspective at this point.

I did end up going out tonight for drinks (in my case lemonade) & tapas with A. after he complained I had neglected him when I was here last (a week ago when rusty_halo and I painted the town a goth black) and that didn't suck. I found a store full of gypsy skirts I fell in love with (baby blue line) and that mitigated the turmoil raging in my bosom. Helped with the migraine too.

Operatic or not, the point is that reservations were screwed up and instead of being up north, chez redeem147's, I find myself still in New York.

and I can't wish elizard100 a Happy Birthday in person. Sorry, pet. IOU a hug & more.

I will do a recap of the trip - more for myself than for anybody else (only because I tend to think what is interesting to me will not, necessarily, be interesting to others) - but not today. It's late and the only reason I'm still up is because I did finally get my reservations straight for tomorrow and am too excited to sleep (I last saw redeem147 in Vegas and that was way too long ago).

I do have to say that San Francisco left me both fascinated by its beauty and infuriated by its horrible, horrid and horrific traffic. Though I'm sure to forget the traffic and remember only the joy of eating a whole crab on my first night in the city down by the Fishermen's Wharf and how, when stopping for a bite at Boudin, I found out that my waiter was a grad student from back home and that I could speak my own language for some glorious, precious minutes. San Franciso was also where I read my first Jonathan Carroll novel, White Apples (I have no excuse for not doing that sooner). And I'll for sure remember the cable car rides and how I ended up getting on the same car so many times the guy greeted me as if I was an old friend (yes rusty_halo, it seems I end up doing that everywhere) and tourists asked me for directions.

The last time I managed to get online I was on my way to Los Angeles, by way of Monterey (one week with basically 10 minutes of computer time and I survived!), but a number of mishaps made my fellow travelers and I turn back (superstitious or not, it was sort of bizarre to deal with: live deer, dead bloated deer [not in that order]; rosary broken; losing the exit and then getting lost, full stop, when Monterey sucked us in and would not set us free - in under 3 hours).

This also happened on the way to Monterey.
Would you have ignored the signs?

We turned and never looked back. Say goodbye to Hollywood, goodbye to my baby... and no West Hollywood Book Festival. Sniff. Oh and I had what could be classified as a total and complete exhaustion episode at this point (not to be confused with the boom goes the dynamite episode in the car when stuck for 4 hours in San Francisco traffic).

I leave you with some images. Those are worth a thousand words they say. As somebody who cherishes words, I'd beg to disagree - but not tonight.

( Goodbye and thanks for all the fish )

( Golden Gates )

( The Strange and Unusual )

( Half of Me )

( Coreline? )

( Here Lies Emperor Norton I )

( MirrorMask )

And that's all she wrote. Letterman is long gone and now so must I. To bed.