totallygone

travel, at a tangent


Dear John

This post is brought to you courtesy of John. I don't know who John is, but like many democratically-minded and generous San Franciscan geeks, he's sharing his wireless connection, meaning that if you've an 802.11 card in your laptop, you can flip open it's lid and connect to his high-speed connection, within a 100-meter radius of his router. At my current address, a neighbor i've never met who goes by the name of Joe shares his Apple "extreme"wireless network, meaning that I've free internet access from anywhere in the apartment, or in the street, if I so wish. A recent drive to collect something from the DHL depot turned into a fully fledged nerd adventure - I managed to find the place using my laptop from the passenger seat of the car, "hitch-hiking" on various wireless connections as we raced through the Mission. I'm here at the moment, writing at a table in a shabby little cafe whose walls are covered with a century's worth of tat, sipping peppermint tea and listening to jazz, surrounded by vegans, bearded old artists, that kind of thing. There's a faintly Parisian feel to it, even down to the music (jazz - natch).

Tonight, I'm resolution-juggling. This is when you've made two resolutions - like going to the gym or updating your weblog, and you ditch one in favor of the other.You'll notice I've decided to adopt U.S. spelling. That's another resolution. But writing to you all from here, at least once a week, is one that I'll try to stick to.

You'll have wondered what's been happening for the past three months, why no postings (of note or interest), no cards or calls. The truth is, I've been suffering from such a massive culture shock I've been completely knocked for six by it and have had my first major case of "writer's block" since Pushkar, where I was just too stoned to get out of my hammock. That's not what's been happening here, sadly, although it's certainly possible to exist in San Francisco on a 24/7 diet of illicit substances and do nothing for days. I've resisted so far. San Francisco is a very odd place, indeed. Full of refugees from places where it's not OK to be a vegan lesbian transexual amputee with lactose intolerance (and a menagarie of bipolar cats), of dinosaurs in leather and denim, where the extraordinarily diverse ethnic population: Asian, Hispanic, African-Americans and gays are visible only in their own neighborhoods, each of which coincidentally has its own climate. Really. You can walk three blocks and change seasons three times, literally. There's no winter as such - it's a place of enduring spring and fall. I once met someone who thought he could remember snow, but it could've been somewhere else.

Tomorrow, I move to the epicentre of the gay universe, the Castro - my short-term stay in the Lower Haight is up and I'm taking a room in a shared apartment above a quaintly-named little caf?. No word of a lie - underneath my typically San Franciscan bay-windowed bedroom there's a sign that says "It's Delectable." Imagine. A couple of doors down, Bette Davies' eyes loom large above the local gay travel agent, and, as just about everyone I've mentioned my move to has said "hey, you'll be right in the thick of things". Sounds about right, huh? So I'll sign off for now and write from my new pad. By the way - it's delectable. Happy New Year!


Social Bookmarking
Add to: Digg Add to: Del.icio.us Add to: Reddit Add to: StumbleUpon Add to: Furl Add to: Yahoo Add to: Google Add to: Technorati


0 Responses to “Dear John”

Post a Comment §


archives

geek stuff

    mots du jour

Locations of visitors to this page


gecko & fly templates



© 2006 totallygone | Blogger Templates by Gecko & Fly No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.