hello livejournal! I'm on vacation.
I am in Boston and found my way to livejournal because I'm staying at jennifer_cat's house and she's sleeping, and her roommate is hanging out with a girl in the living room/his bedroom, and there's really nothing for me to do but hang out on the fire escape and drink kaluha and play on my computer. I like the east coast much better than the west coast. There are seasons here. I'm thinking of moving to new york in a year or so...
They have a cutting board shaped like a gingerbread man hanging out in the kitchen, next to the toaster oven and betty crocker cookbook and teapot and hot water heater. By which I mean a little thing you can plug in to heat up your water for tea or instant coffee, not the thing that heats up your water in the shower.
The cool air on the fire escape is much better than the hot air in the apartment, and the grocery bags used for garbage and groceries, and the dirt on the floor, and the cockroaches I'm trying not to think about. I kind of wish I were still in new york, and that I weren't going back to san francisco on saturday. Sometimes you just know things without going over them over and over in your mind like the fucking energizer bunny. In some ways I felt more at home in three days in new york than I ever have in two years in california. According to how I saw the world as a teenager, I was supposed to move to new york seven years ago, when I was 18. Maybe now at 25 I'm just catching up? Or maybe I just like being on vacation.
I'm glad I took this time to clear my head, I'm glad I decided to go somewhere new for vacation instead of going back to Michigan like I have every time I've gotten some time off work the past 2 years. Because whenever I go to Michigan I feel like I just stepped off the weird fantasy island ferris wheel and back into reality, and I figured that was just because I was coming home. But I feel like that here too, and it makes me realize the problem is that I'm living on a fantasy island ferris wheel, which is fun for a while until you realize that time doesn't stand still just because it feels like it does, and you're 25 and it's 2007 and you've been living on the party bus while the real world keeps turning and turning outside of your bubble.
Or maybe it's just the fact that san francisco has no seasons. Because it's not like my world hasn't been real: I've worked, I've played, I've made friends and loved and lived and grown. Getting out of Michigan has been so good for me. But there's nothing to mark the passage of time, nothing but six months of sometimes-it-rains, and six months of it-never-rains, and never more than a 10 degree difference in temperature year round. It's not cold in the winter, it's not hot in the summer, you always need your jacket even in july, but there's no need to own a winter coat. You can get by without air conditioning or indoor heating, and many of us do, because we can't afford the rent otherwise. I've been carting around my jacket this whole vacation because I grabbed it instinctually when I ran out the door to the airport, I forgot that I wouldn't need this everywhere I went.
And it's also that San Francisco is such a hipster scene, that every girl in the dyke bar looks the same, that if you're not white and pale and scrawny with dyed black hair and tight pants and whatever the fuck they all wear, and you don't make going to the bar your fucking job, and you don't care about the right parties or the right whatever you'll never be part of the San Francisco Elite, and the point for everyone there is to be part of that Elite, because however much this may be a Big City, and however much it might be the Big Gay City, it's still at it's heart a little town, where people have little minds and little cliques and very little plans or ideals for life to be more than who's the cool girl in the bar.
I think I got drawn in because there is more to it than that, and because it was Not Michigan, and because there were enough queer people that we weren't all part of the Scene, and because I was finally in a place where I wasn't The Queer Girl or The Political Girl, and I was around people who understood and related to many parts of my identity and could therefore see beyond those parts to who I was in addition to all that. In other words, I could be normal. I could be myself without being tokenized. But now I realize I can be that in other places than San Francisco.
So I'm thinking of moving to new york in about a year. At least this is my plan as of the last few days. It's possible that I could feel different when I get back to california. When I left Adina, the girl I'm dating right now, told me she thought I was going to new york to scope out the scene and see if I wanted to live there. I told her I wasn't. But I was getting really dissatisfied with san francisco. So I don't know. I like my job, and I want to stay there long enough to put it on my resume to get another job like it in another place. I like my friends, and I want to stay there to be with them while some of us are all still in one place. I'm not ready to give up on san francisco just yet, but I never deluded myself into thinking I'd be there forever. I mean, I've gotta get out before the big earthquake hits. That much is a given.
So, I don't know. New York in a year? It could work out. I already have one very good friend living there, and a few other people I know. It's closer to Michigan. A twelve hour drive as opposed to three days on the Amtrak. And I could see snow in the winter again.
Jennifer has this wicked cool painting of a lemon in her kitchen and I want to steal it from her when I leave.
Goodnight, my livejournal friends.
They have a cutting board shaped like a gingerbread man hanging out in the kitchen, next to the toaster oven and betty crocker cookbook and teapot and hot water heater. By which I mean a little thing you can plug in to heat up your water for tea or instant coffee, not the thing that heats up your water in the shower.
The cool air on the fire escape is much better than the hot air in the apartment, and the grocery bags used for garbage and groceries, and the dirt on the floor, and the cockroaches I'm trying not to think about. I kind of wish I were still in new york, and that I weren't going back to san francisco on saturday. Sometimes you just know things without going over them over and over in your mind like the fucking energizer bunny. In some ways I felt more at home in three days in new york than I ever have in two years in california. According to how I saw the world as a teenager, I was supposed to move to new york seven years ago, when I was 18. Maybe now at 25 I'm just catching up? Or maybe I just like being on vacation.
I'm glad I took this time to clear my head, I'm glad I decided to go somewhere new for vacation instead of going back to Michigan like I have every time I've gotten some time off work the past 2 years. Because whenever I go to Michigan I feel like I just stepped off the weird fantasy island ferris wheel and back into reality, and I figured that was just because I was coming home. But I feel like that here too, and it makes me realize the problem is that I'm living on a fantasy island ferris wheel, which is fun for a while until you realize that time doesn't stand still just because it feels like it does, and you're 25 and it's 2007 and you've been living on the party bus while the real world keeps turning and turning outside of your bubble.
Or maybe it's just the fact that san francisco has no seasons. Because it's not like my world hasn't been real: I've worked, I've played, I've made friends and loved and lived and grown. Getting out of Michigan has been so good for me. But there's nothing to mark the passage of time, nothing but six months of sometimes-it-rains, and six months of it-never-rains, and never more than a 10 degree difference in temperature year round. It's not cold in the winter, it's not hot in the summer, you always need your jacket even in july, but there's no need to own a winter coat. You can get by without air conditioning or indoor heating, and many of us do, because we can't afford the rent otherwise. I've been carting around my jacket this whole vacation because I grabbed it instinctually when I ran out the door to the airport, I forgot that I wouldn't need this everywhere I went.
And it's also that San Francisco is such a hipster scene, that every girl in the dyke bar looks the same, that if you're not white and pale and scrawny with dyed black hair and tight pants and whatever the fuck they all wear, and you don't make going to the bar your fucking job, and you don't care about the right parties or the right whatever you'll never be part of the San Francisco Elite, and the point for everyone there is to be part of that Elite, because however much this may be a Big City, and however much it might be the Big Gay City, it's still at it's heart a little town, where people have little minds and little cliques and very little plans or ideals for life to be more than who's the cool girl in the bar.
I think I got drawn in because there is more to it than that, and because it was Not Michigan, and because there were enough queer people that we weren't all part of the Scene, and because I was finally in a place where I wasn't The Queer Girl or The Political Girl, and I was around people who understood and related to many parts of my identity and could therefore see beyond those parts to who I was in addition to all that. In other words, I could be normal. I could be myself without being tokenized. But now I realize I can be that in other places than San Francisco.
So I'm thinking of moving to new york in about a year. At least this is my plan as of the last few days. It's possible that I could feel different when I get back to california. When I left Adina, the girl I'm dating right now, told me she thought I was going to new york to scope out the scene and see if I wanted to live there. I told her I wasn't. But I was getting really dissatisfied with san francisco. So I don't know. I like my job, and I want to stay there long enough to put it on my resume to get another job like it in another place. I like my friends, and I want to stay there to be with them while some of us are all still in one place. I'm not ready to give up on san francisco just yet, but I never deluded myself into thinking I'd be there forever. I mean, I've gotta get out before the big earthquake hits. That much is a given.
So, I don't know. New York in a year? It could work out. I already have one very good friend living there, and a few other people I know. It's closer to Michigan. A twelve hour drive as opposed to three days on the Amtrak. And I could see snow in the winter again.
Jennifer has this wicked cool painting of a lemon in her kitchen and I want to steal it from her when I leave.
Goodnight, my livejournal friends.