No Question

I am not remotely hip enough to be in San Francisco. Or California, never mind that I once lived here. In fact, if you really want to know, I'm not remotely hip enough to even be alive in the 21st century. I'm a fucking dinosaur, OK?



I just went downstairs to get a packet of decaf, since whoever made up the room missed the whole Coffee Pot Thang. I go down and ask for a packet of decaf, and the hip young woman at the desk, who may or may not have been the same one who, this morning, had a reverse French manicure, which probably has another name but not for me: she had the tips of all her nails painted black, which looked, as you might guess, as if she'd been doing manual labor of a particularly nasty sort and hadn't had time to clean the sewage from beneath her nails--she brought the little cheap-ass packet of coffee and handed it to me and said, "No question."



I said, "?" But I said this silently, and quickly, as I immediately realized this is the natural progression from "No problem," which I've accepted and can use comfortably.



But "No question"? It felt kind of like she was giving me a pass about the interrogation, the one she had planned to administer, complete with the rusty dental tools and the guy named Claude.



Sigh.

It's been an eye-opening day, here in the city by the bay. In part, it was lovely: we had a wonderful vegetarian lunch with Debbie, a dear friend we see way, way too infrequently. We had a drink at Top of the Mark, where we talked by phone with Wendy, who is in her family cabin in upstate New York--and we're all old enough to be just the tiniest bit impressed by this: both of us being over 1000 miles away from home, in some remote-to-us place, having a phone conversation in the afternoon, complete with the 3-hour time difference.



Plus we went to Flax, where my mother used to buy my Christmas gifts, so that I went around corners and ran into things my mother gave me years and years ago. Sad, but cool.



But the overriding truth of the day is that, once again, I realized that I am not made for Real Life. I am not made to live in cities filled with people and traffic and filth and stench and men talking to their shoes and--oh, get THIS: an obviously-well-to-do white woman who leapt out of her SUV in front of the opera house and ran over to fall to her knees and puke in the ever-so-manicured lawn.

[Which, if you know me at all, you'll know ruined my entire fucking day, sending me into Panic Mode, with sweating and a stomach ache and hyperventilation and much, much ranting.]

I am Not Made For This, and I am ready to go home. I do not want to smell other people's piss and vomit and body odor--and oh, honeys, I have smelled more stale, acrid sweat in the past week than I have any need of, ever. I do not want people to ask me for money or for Jesus or for guidance. I do not want anyone to touch me. I do not want to step in things so foul that I have to wash my shoes every day.

In short, I am ready to go home. I want my regular computer, rather than this POS laptop, never mind that The EGE bought me the Top-O'-The-Line PC Laptop just two years ago--I hate it. It hates me. We cannot do anything at all together (it just restarted itself, without warning, right in the middle of this whole post).

I am made for long days of working at home, in front of the computer, and hours spent stitching on the front porch. I am made for a life of living in a town where everyone thinks I'm a freak but--get this!--leaves me alone. Where you don't run into people who, ideally, should be somewhere where someone can take care of them and clean them and feed them and make sure they're taken to the toilet and don't get lost for hours playing with their shoestrings and walking around in clothes in which they've completed all their bodily functions.

It's sad, and it's nasty, and it's disgusting and depressing and scary and hopeless and noisy and overwhelming.

I always think fondly of California, but I don't know why. I didn't like it when I lived here, and I don't like it now. I do not like big cities, and I don't like crowds. I do not like traffic. I don't like paying twice as much as I pay for things at home. I like walking in cities, and I like talking to people, but I like talking to people who are present, who know what species I am and don't think I'm their shoestrings (yes, we saw several people today who seemed to have a Thang about their shoes, yes, we did).

Sure, Midland is not the bastion of intellectual culture. It is not the place you'd go for entertainment or shopping or, gee, much of anything but religious fervor and an abiding adoration of our last appointed president. But, by god, it's also not the place where you'd constantly be bombarded by other people's issues: their mental illnesses (and I'm not talking just the street people; the well-off successful people with their suits and expensive shoes are pretty weird, too, let me tell you: at home, I'm the wacko because I talk to myself; in the Big City, I'd fit right in: they ALL seem to talk to themselves, and not in any Bluetooth sort of way) and their paranoia (these are people who lock everything they own if they're going to step two feet away; we're people who lock our door only at night, when we go to bed). Yeah, I understand the necessity of all this: I know cities are a different thing entirely.

And that's the point: I'm not made for cities. I'm not made for crowds. I'm made for a much quieter, simpler life. And, as always when I'm away from home for way too long, I can't wait to get back to it.

Sorry to rant. We've met some wonderful people, yes, we have. Kind, charming, funny, nice-smelling people. People who followed me out to the truck to tell me that I'd tucked my skirt up into my underwear. How's that for nice?

But also people who were so remote to me that I had to marvel at how I'm better able to understand and communicate with the animals at home--with the dogs--Freddie and Bella and Gus, and the cats--Angle and Humphrey and Paddington and Milo--than I ever would be with them. I know what animals are saying. These people? I had absolutely no clue.

Travel is broadening, yes, indeed. It also serves to remind you of your place in the world, should you be lucky enough to have found yours, never mind how odd and uncomfortable the fit often seems. If you're lucky enough to have found a place that seems at all like home, you're very lucky indeed.

I can't wait to get back to mine.