activities

Gentlest readers, if not for the fact that my boo (not Boo) is not here, California would be paradise. Once upon a time, I disavowed it. It is too complacent and I hate cars, I said. Harsh weather encourages the intellect, I said. It's not that hard to be active on the east coast, I said. Why did I say these things? Sour grapes. Now that I am back here and I am old and have no self-confidence and all my youthful ambitions have deflated into all I want out of life is a short commute by bicycle in the sun to a job that will leave my weekends free for hikes with my boos, California here I come! Right back where I started from! Where bowers of flowers bloom in the sun! Each morning, at dawning, birds are singing! Sun-kissed miss says don't be late! That's why I can hardly wait! Open up your golden gate! California! Here! I! Come!

[This would be the part of the song where I kickline with four Chinese-American girls named Wendy Lu, Cindy Wu, Sherry Chu, and Sandy Yu to stage left, where we disappear into elaborately staged chapparal simulacra and a shower of silicon semiconductors drown out the applause of a hundred thousand fleece-vest wearing engineers/mountain bike enthusiasts.]

Some observations about the Bay Area:

(1) Radio is more clearly designed for white people. Although I appreciate that on 99.7 FM I can hear Sheila E. and En Vogue hits fifteen years after they were en vogue, the rest of the tuner is dominated by alternative rock hits, also from fifteen years ago (it's not unusual to hear "All Apologies" followed by "Basketcase"), new butt rock (double bass drummed screamy metal with loud guitars on chorus effects) that sounds suspiciously like how butt rock sounded fifteen years ago, and old hip hop ("In da Club" is still on rotation). Since I am 5-15 years behind on musical trends, I guiltily like this retrogressive feature of this part of the country. Plus one can drive down Highway 1 singing along with noted homophobe/my secret celebrity crush Marky Mark, the less ugly Wahlberg brother, as he thuggishly commands you, in his Saugus-inflected accent, to "Feel the vibration! Feel it, feel it!" Yes, sir! How can you not like this?

(2) The fact that radio is tailored to white people, a little sleuthing will reveal, results from the fact that the Bay Area is comprised of a lot of white people and Asian-American people who have been assimilated into white tastes. There are also a lot of people who are not white or assimilated, but they have been covered by chapparal and/or live in East Palo Alto, or Oakland, or the backward facing seats on the Pittsburg/Bay Point-Daly City BART line, and only emerge to spray pesticide on the weeds in the spaces in the concrete between Priuses in the driveways of law firm partners who live in Portola Valley. Or at least, that's what it seems like.

(3) Richard, my brother, thinks it's funny that I have been blogging a lot about white people and race. Well ha ha fucking ha, Richard, it's still not as funny as the fact that you left 35 copies of BEAVER magazine from 1972-1979 stuffed in shoeboxes in the closet for me to discover when you left for college - what's funnier? Who's laughing now? Ha ha ha, pervert!

(4) You really can be much more active here. And I've stopped resenting it, and have fully accepted that perfect weather for 9-11 months of the year makes me much happier than the five months of frostbite, four months of inadvertantly erect nipples and damp toes, two months of unbearable humidity, two weeks of flash-floods, one week of snowblindness, four days of sunburn, two days of Coney Island, and one day of perfect weather that allows you to take a nice trip to Dia:Beacon with your awesome girlfriend if you guys don't miss the Metro-North and/or get arrested by NYPD for wearing yellow and black on the wrong day, that comes with living in New York. I'd rather just throw a little yellow ball for my little black dog on a big field fringed by the shadows of redwoods. Today I hiked through chapparal and intermittent Jurassic fog with my NYU pal Sonia, who never seemed to get cold or tired or whiny, even though I shivered and complained for 7.1 of the 7.2 miles we walked. And then we went and drank beers as we bobbed in a swimming pool in Redwood City ("Like Melrose Place, but we're much less attractive!" said Kathy) and got sick on Coke floats. I look at a map of the bay and there are a thousand spots to explore with Boo. Why? Why? Why would I not live here?

(5) I wish things were open later and the pizza here wasn't disgusting.

(6) I like living with mom and dad, especially when they look over my shoulder as I am Google chatting my lover and they look over my shoulder and say "What's that word? And that one?" I like that when I buy mason jars from Goodwill to convert into solar lights, my dad says that they could have been filled with poison because they were second-hand and forces me to bring them to the backyard and place them on the lawn and retreat fifteen feet and then aim the hose at high pressure into the jars. I'm not even being sarcastic - I find something very endearing about all of this. Today I said I was going to Vietnam in three weeks and my dad shook his head and said I should not go, then said I should not go unless I knew its history of resentment against Han Chinese people, and then said that he would teach me the history of Vietnam's resentment of Han Chinese people, who in fact might be Vietnamese people anyway. In the course of this education, he drew this map of East Asia:



I can make out the words "Afhan" and "Altaic" and "Nomad" and "Viet," lots of Chinese, some attempts at Korean, and then an amazing tangle of blue penstrokes that represent the movement of nomads and conquerors and war crimes across East and Southeast Asia. I am finding that I don't have to consciously conjure any patience for this, because it comes naturally, and I actually like hearing my dad tell me all of the history he has gleaned from watching South Korean soap operas.

I just took a break to give my dog a half hour massage. Most recent Google searches are "how to give a dog a massage," "dog massaging," and "Pacific Crest trail with dogs." Effleurage and Shasta, Google answers all of my questions.

I wish Stephanie were here because I would like to make out for five days and then go to Seattle. Wouldn't that be nice, darling? I'm sorry you are watching gunfights from our window in Brooklyn instead. Most likely they were not gunfights, but just loud reports that might have come from any variety of sources, like trash cans hitting security grates, or riot cops launching bean bags at protesters, or a .45 Magnum thrown (not discharged) at someone's head - so chin up, trooper! I will see you soon and I wish you were here so we can make out/express our love through More Than Words, which is just a song about making out.

Goodbye for now! I have to turn mason jars into solar lights now!