Five minutes ago, I was about to send an email to Pauline Kenny, who designed this blog, to tell her I can’t do it anymore.  It’s been almost a year since I wrote last, and I am not going to bore you with all the excuses I have for not writing in it.  (OK, here’s one excuse – my head is splintering, and has been, with all the things I have going on.  But an excuse it is, because I am good at time-wastage.)

I almost sent the email and then I stopped myself and said YOU CAN DO IT to myself.. hehe I’m a walking Nike Slogan (not.)  And I started thinking about Benjamin Franklin, how he had this sort of datebook list of what he’d do every day like:

6 AM Wake up

7AM Wash, eat, read for one hour

8 AM study French

9 AM go over my accounts

And so on and so forth.  I kind of wish I could do a schedule too, because then I could schedule in everything I am not doing and maybe it would work, like blogging.  But schedules don’t work for me too well mostly because I never stick to them.  And when I make other people try to follow MY schedule they pretty much just ignore me, laugh, or ask why I don’t have children.

I do have a trip to Spain coming up in three weeks.  And after that trip some pretty interesting life changes.  So, maybe it’s time to get Poptarticus back into the schedule or at least the, uh, thought of scheduling.  It’s not like I don’t have a gazillion things going through my mind every freaking minute.  It’s just that, I have forgotten how to blog about them.

Pauline spent a lot of time putting this website together for me, so for her, I am not going to just give it up.  I’m really going to try this time.  Stay tuned then, for my adventures in Valencia and Catalonia.  And onward.

Writers block is weird. Tonight I was outside in a park with a jam band playing, and a gazillion people all worthy of writing about sitting around me, and literally hundreds of children there – running, yelling, taking over the land. I just sat there, observing it all, unable to speak.

I guess that we all have these ups and downs when it comes to communication. Times when we feel like talking, times when we absolutely cannot talk. Times when we should NOT talk. I guess I should be happy that I have, well, times.

It is kind of crazy to be around so many children all at once. I think, tonight, they may have snapped me out of my lethargy. Animated faces, contorted bodies, little flashes of fire that ran by so fast I could feel their wind on my back as they passed. Thankfully for them, none knocked against my cup of wine. But they took over that field of several hundred people – they ruled it. I know I saw this last year too, but there are more children now, or I forgot how many there were.

I knew I recognized the name of the band, but it wasn’t until I walked up close to the stage that I recognized Tapwater as the band who sat with us at dinner on the Xingolati cruise. They were the band that was playing in the bar when we first got on the ship, and I think I remember a washboard being involved, but I could be trippin’. Last night, they had a bunch of kids come up on stage to play percussion with them, and in front of the stage, a hundred kids danced around. By kids I don’t mean teenagers. I mean the five to eight set. I am telling you, they absolutely ruled the park last night.

It is cold, gray, lovely here at the beach. I never thought I could love fog so much. It is an abrupt change, as I could never, ever stand the fog before. I think I am going through some kind of life hoop all of a sudden and everything is changing. I even got my hair dyed a permanent color. Am I growing up? Is there a curve ball coming? Or is this state of ease, of happiness, normal, at least for now?

Whatever’s coming, I am ready. I don’t even care if some kid rams into me and knocks over my glass of wine. (Unless it’s, uh, a really good glass of wine.) I don’t care if I can’t write about it, I don’t care if I am crushed by it. All I care about is, the whatever coming. And it is coming, I assure you. And me. I think.

This is why.

Also, Pimientos de Padron. And, Albarino. More later, have a great weekend.

Last night, I was at the Vine, hanging out with Mark and Andy, and Brian had to replace a glass of wine for someone because a fly flew in it. So then I had to start talking about a conversation I had recently had there, where other people were talking about how it wasn’t so bad to fish a fly out of a glass of wine and keep drinking it. I was like, that is gross, I wouldn’t drink out of a glass of wine if there was a big ol’ fly in it. (Fruit flies I can deal with. Big ol’ grandpa flies I cannot.) So then, Brian says, “do you know how many bugs you ingest in your lifetime?” Or something like that. And I was like, “yeah, but not huge flies swimming in my glass” or something like that. To which Brian replied, “I bet you don’t walk barefoot on the sidewalk, either, do you?” And I all but roared, “HELL no, I don’t walk barefoot on the sidewalk. That is gross, also, you could step on a rusty nail, and then you would have to get a tetanus shot!”

Brian just looked at me and calmly said, “Shannon, with all that shit you put in your hair, you are probably going to get brain cancer.” Uh. I guess he has a point. There is not much use worrying about a rusty nail when you’ve been plastering your hair with chemicals for a million years. Is there?

So then, today, in the slowtrav chat that I co-host with Marian every week, there was a discussion about bringing wine home from Europe. Due to the new (totally ridiculous) restrictions on bringing liquids in airline cabins, I went out and bought a really big suitcase, so that I can bring home more wine in it. Because I HAVE to bring wine home. Only, in the chatroom, someone I totally respect and trust was like, why are you doing that? You can get wine here. Well, I know I can get wine here, but somehow I just want to get it there. The crazy thing is, I have a feeling that this giant suitcase is going to get to be a bit of a drag. Even though it rolls. I am wondering if I will be cursing it in the end. Especially when there is no elevator. I am strong, and I am not a pussy, but I am going to be moving around a lot. What am I doing? Hmmm.

Oh well, I am all packed now, and maybe I can just treat this as an educational opportunity. As in, my mom can remind me for the rest of my life, “REMEMBER WHEN YOU HAULED THAT UBER-SUITCASE AROUND SPAIN JUST TO BRING HOME FIVE BOTTLES OF WINE?” Maybe I’ll just get brandy, instead. Fundador, like Mike drank in The Sun Also Rises. Oh wait, can you get Fundador here?

Oh well. Like Tim Gunn says, Make it Work. Make it Work. Make it Work.

While there is something to be said for our happy go lucky ways over here in America, I sometimes wish the Italian postal service would come over here and take over. I do, I really do. I am kicking myself for saying that right now, but I think the Italian postal service might be doing it right. And we might be doing it wrong.

Today I was in the post office, waiting to mail one package, and this woman in front of me has: two shoe boxes, one shipping box that holds one of the shoe boxes, and a roll of tape. She proceeds to the counter, where she wonders out loud how she can get both shoe boxes in one shipping box, so she can save some money.

The ever efficient postal worker somehow manages to stick both shoe boxes into the shipping box, but there are numerous open spaces that will have to be taped up to make the thing shippable. I am thinking already, the postal worker has the patience of a saint.

So then the woman says how she is worried the box won’t make it, and the postal worker tells her, well, tape it up. Great! The customer says. I brought tape! She breaks out her roll of packing tape and HANDS IT TO THE POSTAL WORKER. Tape it up! She said.

Can you believe this shit? The postal worker did it. She sat there for – I kid you not – fifteen minutes and taped up this box that had all kinds of openings around the sides because it wasn’t the right sized box. Then, there was a long discussion about priority mail ($9.50) vs. parcel post ($7 something or other.) It went on for decades. Finally the customer decided on parcel post because, TIME WASN’T REALLY AN ISSUE FOR HER.

Can you imagine this happening in an Italian post office? NO. I would love to see someone go into an Italian post office and hand the clerk a roll of tape and ask them to tape their box up. Ha ha ha… I would oh, so love to see that. Instead, the clerk would cooly light a cigarette, blow it into the customer’s face, and tell them to fuck off. AS THEY SHOULD.

I still think that post office worker has the patience of a saint, but I don’t think I should be paying for it. Pack your own parcels, biyatch! OK, I am done now.

In just over a month, my mother and I will be taking off for Spain again. Our first few days, we will be in Galicia, the northwest corner of the country. Intentionally set forest fires are burning the region up right now.

Isn’t it weird how, as a traveler, everything seems so much closer? We are going to be there, so we will see the devastation, instead of just hearing about it. Kind of like when we went in 2004 right after the Madrid bombings.

I have this feeling about Galicia – I don’t know how to explain it, except I feel like I am going to love it there in a very special way. I know I will love La Rioja and the Picos de Europas and the Sierra de Grazalemas too, but it is really and truly Galicia that seems to be calling me. Why is that? I even looked at property on-line when me and my mom first decided to go there.

It’s a troubled area. This is something that I have to always tell myself, after first-hand experience. I wanted to move to Italy SO BAD and I finally did and I can tell you, living the reality is not living the dream. So all these dreams about Galicia are, well, just dreams. Dreams coming out of some dark, yet instinctive, part of my brain. The romantic part, for sure. It’s weird how we latch onto places in our subconscious. At least us dreamers do.

So the fires burn, very close to where we will be, and I am very safe over here in Ocean Beach while all this craziness happens everywhere else.

I have been reading this blog to get ready for my adventures over there. And I am worried about a place I have never been and never even thought about until a year ago. Is that weird, or what?

It is very weird, also awesome, to be home with absolutely no plans to go anywhere for the next few months. Except L.A. of course, where I will be hitting the two Radiohead shows at the Greek in June and whatever other shows start popping up. I’m going to try to limit myself to eight L.A. shows for the entire summer just because it gets so freakin expensive. But, I don’t really have any control over any of that. If the past summer was any indication, especially.

I keep saying “I am home for the summer.” BUT IT IS NOT SUMMER YET. Why do I keep saying that? Like the year hasn’t been going by fast enough? Yeah, let’s just forget the last five weeks of Spring and jump right in. With that kind of attitude it’s no wonder my life is going by like those first six Absolute Mandarin and Sodas drunk while playing craps on a Tuesday night in Vegas when you should be sleeping.

I don’t want to sleep, I want to live. But gravity always wins and it wears me out.

Anyhow I am already dreaming, like really dreaming, about the Radiohead shows. This morning I dreamed I was there and trying to stake out a place on the grass right in front of the stage. There is a whole trippy anxiety thing with any general admission show, especially with a band you totally adore, because there are so many variables involved. Like, will I get right up in front and then a crew of the Dumb Dickhead Youth Patrol come in and start a moshpit, thereby totally wrecking the whole experience? It has happened before.

I dreamed about a lot of other stuff too, and all last week I thought and thought, and I was going to write it all down and then I didn’t and now it is gone. Oh well. There are some ideas kicking around in there which is good.

I am a bit disturbed today, by many things but mainly that Spoon is coming to San Diego in August, but to open to Death Cab for Cutie. WHATEVER. Of course I am going but sheesh. Spoon shouldn’t be opening for anyone at this point, unless it’s, uh, RADIOHEAD.

One more thing… Harold from Top Chef has a page on myspace.com. He goes to CHURCH? Oh well. Two nights to go… I can’t wait!

One of these days, I’ll meet Britt Daniel and apologize for constantly using his songs as titles for my blog. Maybe. Hopefully. Anyway.

I am home now, and for the first time since almost the beginning of the year, I can put my suitcase away indefinitely. All this constant travel has somewhat ungrounded me, and to top it off, a few days in Vegas, that place that always brings out the best, but also the worst, in me. I’ve closed my heart in so many ways but the enormousness of the human condition in Vegas never fails to open it up again. That place is fucked up, crazy, and now, to add to the insult, soulless. Those questionable attributes are a crushing blow to a gentle spirit like me (joke.) No, better to say that it is probably not the best place in the world for me to hang out in. I like to have fun too much, and I am too much of a romantic, and it doesn’t take much too put me over the edge. Too much being the key words here.

I used to really love Las Vegas. My grandparents moved there when I was in my early twenties, in the late eighties, and it was totally and completely a different town in those days. It wasn’t glitzy, it was seedy. It wasn’t about youth culture and money in those days. It was, I guess, just about the money, but in those days, nickels would do. The only smells on the Strip in 1989 were the smells of urine and the erupting volcano at the brand new Mirage. I remember that. Now Vegas smells of the propane blasting out of the backsides of a gazillion taxis. New carpet and chlorine. Garlic. Greed. It’s not a good combination.

I’m not sure what it is I am most scared of. Is it how Vegas has changed? Or how America has changed? Or is it how people, in general, have changed, or is it how they’ve totally stayed the same? Or is it how I have never changed? I am still the same as I was in 1989, except there are now a few lines on my face. I am still easily awed and easily crushed. Fucking stupid crazy killer city, making me think and feel so much. Thanks god I am back in Ocean Beach, where I can insulate myself from a world where it is so easy to throw myself against the sharpest rocks, just because it feels so good.

Reader: Where have you been? Where? WHERE?

Blogger: Uh, on the road. Like, nowhere new.

Reader: But WHY OH WHY have you not been blogging?

Blogger: Uh, well, um, like there was no computer.

Reader: Oh.

Blogger: But I saw some preteen softball tryouts and stuff.

Reader: OK.

Blogger: Yeah, in my hometown and I was with my best friend from high school and it was her daughter in the tryouts.

Reader: Fascinating.

Blogger: It was sort of weird because I had to watch what I was saying around her kids.

Reader: Yeah, like what? What could you not say?

Blogger: Well, stuff like – remember when we were in high school and we used to crawl in that cement mixer over there and take bong hits?

Reader: I can see how that would be sort of weird for your friend.

Blogger: Weird for me too because as soon as I saw that cement mixer all I could think about was how smoky it was in there.

Reader: What else?

Blogger: Oh well. You know. It is always kind of weird to go back to your hometown. There are two people who know way too much about you and the rest don’t remember you.

Reader: This isn’t very good. This is boring.

Blogger: Yeah? Well fuck you, I am tired.

Reader: Yo. Calm down. There is a light at the opening of the cement mixer.

Blogger: Really? No more Travelodges? No more Days Inns?

Reader: Yep, you are almost there, and you will get a treat.

Blogger: The only treats I want are my own bed and a case of St. Amant Tempranillo.

Reader: The bed you will get. Maybe I can get together with the other readers on the Tempranillo.

Blogger: About time I got something out of this deal.

Reader: OK then! See you in a couple of days.

Blogger: Whatever.

Ok, now I have something to write about.

As I begin to plan, REALLY plan, me & mom’s Spain trip, I am having a hard time not Slow Traveling. In other words, I am trying to do too much.

As it is on paper now, we are flying into Santiago de Compostela for a few days, then down to Pontevedra in Galicia for two nights. On to the parador in Vilalba (because that place looks hella cool) for one night, then to Leon for one night, then to Laguardia in La Rioja for three. THEN to San Sebastian for three or four nights and one in Bilbao before our flight to Clive and Sue’s place in the Sierra de Grazalema.

It’s too much. I know it, you know it, there is no way we can cover this much ground. It basically amounts to crossing the entire northern coast of Spain in a two week period.

So, I guess I am pondering the idea of dropping San Sebastian, and instead, taking it alot slower from Pontevedra to Laguardia, stopping off here and there to smell the Picos de Europas. But then the thought of the tapas scene in San Sebastian…

I don’t know what to do. But I have to say that, I am so happy I won the week at Clive and Sue’s, because part of their deal is, they do EVERYTHING. Pick you up at the airport, drive you around, cook for you… being the worst kind of anal planner, this is beyond relief.