2003-01-13 - 12:12 a.m.
Walks around Lake Merrit, rides on the BART, too many (new to me) new wave records, looking at art, cats sleeping on Elka's keyboard as I type, finding it seems that my lady friends here are obcessed with Lord of the Rings or Meryl Streep, I am getting drawn into the Bay Area. I think it has successfully made its way onto my list of "place to move next" and has me enamored with foggy January weather and cities that combine natural beauty (mountains, trees, coast, ocean) with manmade beauty (bridges, buildings, industrial landscapes). Staying with Elka, Katy and Andrea and seeing "Team Zine" from Portland/Seattle- the Copy and Destroy zine tour including Joe Biel, Alex Wrekk, Urban Hermitt and Shawn Granton, I realize how much I love these people I know from Portland and the Bay Area. Portland, and the west coast, is not just a place for me to go and escape, I come here because I feel a bond, because these places give me something I need.
It's not that New York doesn't. It's just that I have a hard time articulating it. It's kind of like how I can't answer the question "What kind of music do you listen to?" without alienating even myself. It is impossible to sum up or define. I can only begin to explain New York if I am in it, and then, just barely. I went back to Brooklyn for about 18 hours before heading out here. Lauren and I laughed about the fortune she got in her cookie about being less bitter and sat on the floor, listening to a certain sexist emo band's single from the mid-nineties, singing loud and off key "I didn't leave the house for a month, didn't get out of bed for eight days straight, haven't hung out with anyone, and if I did I'd have nothing to say... positive, negative, positive, negative..." Those are the kinds of things I need.
These travels are bringing new perspectives and shaking me out of stuck routines. And finally its not jarring or disconcerting, but exciting and energetic. Positive, positive, positive.
