Yesterday I had to go top my boyfriend’s family picnic and Bocce ball tournament. He has a big family – there are so many of them that it is common to ask, at the reunion, “who is that” and be answered with “hell if I know.” I come from a small contingent of loners. These large family things frighten me. In the morning before we had to go, I fortified myself with a little fino sherry, just to cope.

Once we got there, it was OK. The family, being so huge and all, sets up in little clusters of family-who-know-each-other, in a park by Mission Bay. I almost ate a Krispy Kreme Donut off another cluster’s table. Mark quickly told me, “that is not our table.” (Meaning, those are not our donuts.) It was only two feet away, but whateves, at least I didn’t eat the donut, which is good because if I had eaten it I would have wanted more donuts. Almost every cluster table had a box of Krispy Kreme Donuts on it.

After a couple of hours, the Bocce tournament started. Names were drawn and teammates paired. I was ecstatic to be paired with Mark’s sister Chris, who is the same age as me, and plays well, and also, there would be no stress about meeting someone new, talking to someone new, or getting paired with some freak, like I did last year at the reunion.

Last year my teammate had never played Bocce, which is fine. The scary thing was, he was skittish and withdrawn, and after a couple of rounds he told me his “ol’ lady was pissed, that he was playing with another woman.” He would often leave and go console her, leaving me to throw his balls. It was annoying and also, bizarre.

Chris and I won our first game. That is when we stopped winning. On our second game, we had to play Pete and Rich. Word on the street (or in the park) was, they were unbeatable. Two guys who somehow got paired up at random that were both insanely good.

Well, after watching them all day yesterday, I can tell you that is complete bullshit. Rich was good. Pete was a load of crap riding on Good?s coattails.

At any rate, I immediately hated both of them, just because of the way they treated Chris and I. Sort of like looking us up and down and you could just tell, they were muttering under their breath, “no contest, here.” While we played, if they scored a point, they practically would butt chests and emit caveman sounds. It was pretty disgusting.

They won, but mostly because we wanted to get away from them so bad we lost on purpose.

They went on to beat Mark and his teammate, and Mark’s sister Lisa and her teammate. I wanted Pete and Rich to lose SO BAD. Everything about them totally bugged. I had told Mark if he beat them, I would buy him a pizza and also, perform a sexual act he is not use to anymore (one that sort of stops just shy of month eight.) Mark still lost, despite the promise of, well, pepperoni and pleasure.

No one reckoned on Mark’s little brother Paul though. Paul and his teammate, Denise, made it all the way to the uber finals. They had to play Pete and Rich and everyone thought Pete and Rich had it made. We all sat on the perimeter, drinking the dregs of the day and watching the last game. I have never wanted someone to win so bad as yesterday, when I was desperate for Paul and Denise to beat those guys ass and bring home the trophy.

It was close all the way, but the cool thing was, everyone was screaming for Paul and Denise. No one did anything when Pete or Rich scored. The crowd was clearly on the side of the underdog.

At the end, the teams were tied at 12, and Paul and Denise scored two points to win, with Paul winning the scoring point. Everyone got up and hugged and kissed him, everyone was totally freaking out. I’m not an into-sports kind of person, but that was pretty cool, let me tell you.

It’s another year until another one of these things, and who knows where I will be then. Maybe far away from the family, maybe not part of them any more. But for one day, I felt like I was part of this huge thing, even though I fought it. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the disgust, maybe it was the pride I felt for my sort of brother-in-law. Maybe it was too much sun. Maybe I’ll beat Pete and Rich next year. Who knows?

The other day, I bought a French cookbook at a yard sale, one of those Dorling-Kindersley glossy, colorful and hard-to-follow “you can do it” books popular with British yuppies. Now that I’ve perused such recipes as Artichoke and Sweetbread Salad and Salmon Sausage with Red Wine Sauce (I’ll spare you my typing of French) I think this book is probably going to end up on Ebay with that Jane’s Addiction “Strays” CD I’ve been trying to sell for a few months.

Anyhow, while perusing this previously owned book, a couple of Hallmark cards fell out into my lap. Lucky me, entertainment, for the low low price of one dollar! One was a Christmas card from some guy named Michael to his wife, Theresa, who I suppose sold me the book. Pretty boring…. “You make me happy in a thousand different ways” (Hallmark’s writing) and “I love you, and I am grateful to have such a wonderful little girl. Thank you!” (Michael’s writing. In other words, you are pretty cool, but more importantly, thanks for popping out a brat that looks like me and jumps on me when I come home from work.)

The other card is from Daddy Michael to his Little Girl, Rory, aged one. Looking at this card makes me wonder, once again, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Hmmmm. Or, was Michael this stupid before he had a kid? Did he ever see himself in RiteAid, in a fit of nostalgia, with no creativity whatsoever, buying a card shaped like a mouse with a Santa hat on that says (Hallmark writing:)

Merry 1st Christmas to a Sweet Little Girl! A baby girl’s first Christmas should be nice in every way, and when she’s sweet as you are, it’s a doubly special day!

Oh my god, please, I am going to vomit. She’s ONE. She won’t understand your card, your intent, or the reasoning behind a mouse with a red hat. She also won’t understand (Michael’s writing:)

Rory! YOU are MY Christmas! Thank You! Daddy.

These cards were meaningful enough that Mom stuck them into an unused cookbook and eventually, sold them at a garage sale. Those Hallmark moments. Only $2.50, yet priceless.

It’s not even 5:00 P.M. and I am already exhausted. The good times are killing me – again. I am cooking a chicken and I am going to make a pot-pie, then I am going to pass out.

Yesterday there were something like five million people here. On the beach, you couldn’t even take a step without kicking someone in the head. It was a weird day. I was in a weird mood, my boyfriend was in a weird mood. It’s a holiday thing I think. We went to his sisters house, and hung out by the pool with sister, sister’s girlfriend, brother, brother’s wife and rugrats, and Shelly & Missy, happeners upon happenstance. I was feeling beyond pissy, but managed to cope, and then we all decided to walk down to the beach.

The next event was significant in many ways. What was the event? It’s sort of freaky, sort of embarrassing, and sort of totally pissed me off. Basically, I got hassled by the cops. And this is the second time in Two Weeks that this has happened to me. Three, if you count getting pulled over for doing 31 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, but that was a few months ago.

We were walking, and it is true, I had a cocktail in my hand. But this is freaking Ocean Beach, where I have seen guys carrying signs that say “I have pot for sale.” The cops saw us, all carrying drinks, and walked right up to me. Me! Why not someone else? I used to be a geek-magnet – now I am a cop-magnet. There was a tall, skinny guy cop and a short, slender, blond chick cop.

Man, thinking back now I am so lucky nothing truly bad happened, because I immediately had a chip on my shoulder and so did Mizz Blond Thing. I am so lucky, because they have the power to take me down, and in other parts of the country they would have done it.

But I am sorry – I have total respect for our police force but they pissed me off. For one thing, carrying a drink on the street seems to me to be a bit of an awkward offense. Who cares? Also, MBT starting shouting “got ID? got ID?” at everybody, but then when we said, uh, sure, she didn’t look at it. Furthermore, after I looked her straight in the eye, told her I lived here, and what the fuck??? she told me one of our party was drunk (doy – like the other 8.99999 million people in OB) and was I going to take care of the drunk one? Then, after I stupidly Touched Her Shoulder, assuring her no more wrong would be done, both of the cops went into Fucking Starbucks. Starbucks! No more donuts, only maple scones.

The cool thing about this incident was I was so annoyed about the intrusion that I forgot about what a bad mood I was in, and the rest of the day was great. Fireworks over the ocean, a bottle of incredible wine (because it is legal to drink it on the beach – just not on the street)…

Today was a rough day and I was very careful not to get into any potentially hazardous situations. Some pot-pie should cure my physical ills, but I’m not sure I’ll recover from Getting Busted so rapidly.

Once, after I had been living in Venice for some months, I ran into a Venetian friend on a cold winter day. I was wearing a beanie, and I guess some other items that made me stand out, because my friend said “Shannon, you look so American today.”

I said to him, “I AM an American.” Which I was then, and I am now. And I’ll forever be. Because you can’t change what you are, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to.

I feel so lucky sometimes, to have been born and brought up in California, because it is beautiful here, and I grew up loving the land. I know I have been blessed, to be born in America, if only because there is opportunity here, and if you work hard, you can make a good life for yourself. I know this is not the only country where this is possible, but it is all I have known. It is a lot easier for an Italian to come here, and to work and to live and even to own a business, than it is for me to even get a visa to live in Italy for a few months.

Lots of things about America frighten me. Our power, the way we toss it around. The right wing, and sometimes the left wing. The fact that we are not One Nation any more, but a nation of those who believe vs. those who don’t. The cost of health care and education. The fact that there are a gazillion Americans who don’t have enough to eat. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and in fact have gone hungry before, and I can tell you, it really sucks.

But what do I do about any of it? I was donating money to some homeless shelter here until I found out they made people read the Bible in order to eat. Now I do nothing. NOTHING. And I always tell myself, pretty soon I am going to start doing something.

So, on this day of celebration, I’ll tell myself again, and maybe this time, I actually will do something to give back to the place that has given me so much.

Oh my, what a weekend. Such a perfect day, glad that I spent it with you (yes, I watched Trainspotting the other day.)

Street fair. Hooked up with my boyfriend’s sister and her girlfriend – the sky was half cloudy and half sunny, making me & Mark’s sun/no sun bet a toss up. “Yo-” I ask Robin. “Is it foggy, or sunny?”

“I read your blog.” (This being like, 30 minutes after I wrote it.) “I have to say, it is sunny.”

Traitor! Blog reader! Fucker-upper! I should have lost the bet right then and there but, the fog continued to come in, and in the end we had to declare a push.

The rest of the day was very nice. I had a couple of conversations that I remember. One was with some dude when I was commenting on how a $5 beer in the beer garden was, well, sort of a lot of money for a beer.

“Control.” He said. ” If the beers are $5, you’ll drink fewer beers, thereby making the world better for everyody.”

Now, at the time, that made total sense to me. Yes, more expensive beers, less beers, less drunk people! But then I thought about how many $10 glasses of wine I have been known to inbibe, and also, I thought about how one could leave the beer garden and go into the nearest bar and drink a beer for like, $4.50.

Whatever. This is way too much to be thinking about on post-streetfair day. I did have another conversation that will be with me till my dying day.

While watching Wise Monkey Orchestra, a truly kick-ass funk band, a girl approched me. She wanted to know how I got my fuschia hair to stay fuschia. Because fuschia is hard to keep going. I explained how I slaved and worked in order to keep the pink and purple to last. We talked hair products.

She told me about some hair product from Nexus. “I’m a mortician. And this shit rocks.” She said.

I looked at her. “Er.” I said. “Do you mean, you do dead people’s hair?”

“Yep,” she said.

“Er.” I said. “What is it like, fussing with Dead People hair?”

“Well,” she said. “It probably doesn’t pay as much as it should.”

We left it at that.

Today, a foggy sky and a cold wind… yesterday was exceptional, in terms of beach weather. Today, it is back to June Gloom. And I, today, for the first time, kicked major ass at Bocce Ball (consistently – not randomly) and whooped some boot-hey at Shuffleboard. How do I explain this new Kick-Yo-Assed-Ness?” Can’t explain it. Could be summer is here, or my new Fitness Program is kicking in. Whatever.

Today is the day of Ocean Beach’s annual street fair. There are booths all up and down Newport Street, and live music, and the streets will be full of drunk people by, well, let’s say two o’clock.

This is a party town by nature anyway, so street fair day is an especially partysome day. We have our first appointment at 11:30.

It has been foggy for most of June. June Gloom, without a break, pretty much. So yesterday I made a bet with my boyfriend that it would be foggy most of the day, with maybe a little break in the late afternoon. He said that it would be sunny all day. We bet the first two rounds of drinks at the fair since betting one round wouldn’t make a lot of sense. I should have known better though, since at the time he was totally fleecing me at poker and, one should know when you are on a losing streak, one should not bet on other things.

Well. 9:00 A.M. and the sun comes out! Color me shocked. It’s as though the collective consciousness of the entire community was so into the sun coming out on this very special day, that it burned right through all the fog.

So now we have sun for the first time in days, and I don’t even care about losing the bet. Well I do, but he just cleaned all the windows in the house and that is worth something, right there.

It’s pretty fantastic out there right now, let me tell you. And we have a ticket to party. What could be better than that?

How do you write about New York City? Sometimes I forget how incredible New York City is. New York is our Barcelona, our Paris, but also, so very American. I love Chicago, and New Orleans, and Hollywood. I used to love San Francisco, and now love San Diego. Portland and Seattle have their charms. But there ain’t any city in this country that is as wacky, vibrant, raw, and inebriating as New York City. New York is a giant cement body, the streets are arteries split open wide, and people are the blood spilling out. New York is a screaming monster, a manipulative mother, and the best chef in the world making all the food you can eat, if you can afford it.

I arrived on Friday night and got into Sister Rita, the reggae singer’s, cab. There is something very special about that first New York cab ride after a couple of years away. New Yorkers drive with their front bumper, like Italians do. There is that speed factor. And the getting very close to other cars factor. Rita handled her cab as though she had eyes on both sides of her head as well as in the back, like most New York cabbies do.

I had a dilemma. Should I drop my bag at the cheap Times Square Hotel I had booked and then cab down to the restaurant where the party had already begun? Or should I go straight to the party, bag in tow? Rita thought I should drop the bag first, and I agreed, until we got stuck in a little traffic jam that delayed us for a few minutes. “I’ve changed my mind,” I told Rita. “I’ll go straight to the restaurant.” Rita grunted yes.

Finally we got to a point under the East River where we came to a V in the highway that would take us to either Greenwich Village, where the restaurant was, or Midtown, where the hotel was. A half second before we reached the split, Rita, barely hesitating, said “are you sure you want to carry your bag with you to your party?” “No! No!” I screamed. “Take me to the hotel first!” She veered to the right, barely missing the giant cement partition thing, and we went on our way towards Times Square.

Rita dropped me at the hotel and I checked into the cheapest hotel in NYC, the Portland Square. It’s a good thing I am not squeamish. Bullet-proof (I think) glass separates you from the desk guy. There is a line for the payphone in the lobby. The vending machine is empty except for a few random tubes of Certs. It is not glamorous, in fact it is pretty much a total dive. My room was tiny, with a single bed and a sink, but had a large TV with satellite reception. I dropped my bag and got out of there.

Now it was 10:00 P.M. on a New York Friday night. Outside it was warm and smelled like anticipation, if there is such a smell. I walked to 5th Avenue and got a cab downtown. I met with old friends and new in a loud, hot space. We ate pizza and gelato and drank wine. Later, some of us would drink warm beer in a lame pub, and then went back uptown, where the search for a bar that served expensive cocktails was unfruitful. 1:00 A.M., and they were all closed! Dorothy Parker is turning in her grave. Down at Times Square, the teeming mass wore tank tops and short skirts, but I didn’t want to drink at TGI Fridays, I wanted to drink at the Algonquin Hotel.

Everyone retired, and I went back to my room and stayed up until 4:00 A.M. watching “Secretary” with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. I can’t imagine a better place to watch a twisted movie than a cheap hotel room in Midtown Manhattan.

Saturday in New York. Sunny, beautiful, really exceptional. Who could not want to pack up and move to New York when the sky is so blue and everything seems so clean and the streets and cafes and shops are all filled with people? I want to move to Manhattan and spend my Saturdays sunbathing at Battery Park. We walked around and went into shops where there were millions of people shopping for millions of items. Eventually (thankfully) we got to a cafe and had a glass of wine. I think this is the first Saturday in about 10 years where it was 3 P.M. before my first glass of wine. It was like being on the weekday plan.

Saturday night was the big to-do for the 3rd Anniversary of SlowTrav.com, the kick-ass web site for travel freaks and wanna-be travel freaks and occasionally, just freaks. There was drinks first, and then dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Some of these people have become great friends, and all because of the Internet. Some of these people I have never seen before, and possibly will never see again. There was a lady with a finger puppet she passed off as a living creature (I am so clueless I fell for it.) There was untouched Sprite and Coke on our table and several empty bottles of wine and beer at dinner’s end. There were large platters of jellyfish and fried quail. I think I stopped eating after the 5th course. We had the most raucous table and it was a lot of fun.

After dinner we went to some bar and drank cocktails, then went back uptown. I had to get up at 8:00 to get to the airport; otherwise I would have been sorely tempted to go to a club. I didn’t want to New York weekend to end. It was a small taste, but I think it was enough that I want to get back very soon, and for longer, the next time.

I learned a phrase once from a dear friend, Prentiss Smithson that I use constantly to this day. The phrase is, “I am worn to a Nub.” It is so much more glamorous to say “I am worn to a Nub” than it is to say “I am very, very tired.” I’ve learned things from my years in the Castro District, let me tell you.

Anyway, I am well and truly worn to a Nub. I was in Chicago, I was sick, and now I am home. But let’s not forget that I am also, well, me. So even though I was sick and also WTAN, things happened and before I knew it was 2:00 A.M. (I am talking about today? Yesterday?)

It was Sunday. Yesterday, moving into today. Me and my posse worked hard and then slowly broke down our booth at Bookexpo, being of course the last people who weren’t Union Workers to leave the hall. It’s a combo of excessive wine consumption and attention deficiency disorder, our inability to break down our booth in an efficient manner and I won’t bore you with those details here.

We finally emerged into a perfect Chicago night, brought our bags-full-o’-books to the hotel, and went to a Pub for dinner. That would be Kitty O’Shea’s Pub, in the Chicago Hilton & Towers. Kitty’s is not a normal hotel bar – it’s a cool place. I met one of my long-term (almost a YEAR!) boyfriends there once. We pounded a lot of fattening pub food, drank some cocktails and a bottle of wine, and then my posse (boss, co-worker, co-worker’s mate) all lit up cigars.

Being in my flawed (sick) state, I couldn’t really take the smoke. So I moved a few feet away where two guys were watching the Sopranos on a TV overhead. It was nice, mellow and smoke-free, and then the Sopranos was over and I started talking to the two guys. One was around fifty and lived in Florida, and the other was probably thirty and was a Chicago cop. We were all brought together for a moment by the Sopranos and for a little while, we really had a good time. Things were mellow and it was a perfect Sunday night in Chicago, until things went a little sour.

After a time, the young cop looks at me and says, “I don’t know who your Party is, but…..)” then goes on to tell a story about some guy he hates who is screwing the system, welfare and all that, his wife is obese, and the cop is paying for all that.

This came sort of out of nowhere, and I was like, huh? What do you mean, my Party? Then both of them were totally staring at me. And my hair is looking really, really normal right now.

I am not part of any “Party” I told them. I’m just a citizen. But somehow, somewhere, things had crossed over into a weird space. They both started railing on me about the Democrats and how they were screwing everything up. I swear to you, I said nothing to deserve this, nothing to egg them on. Those two guys went off like a Republican M80 (wish I knew the name of a larger explosive, but I don’t). The cop was fairly mellow, but that other guy… he seemed so nice, but….

I guess the gist of what I am getting at is, I am not use to meeting people who really believe what our government is telling them, i.e. George Bush is protecting you, and me, and our children, and our grandchildren, from the terrorists. Whatever, everyone has the right to their own belief system. But last night was the first night I have ever run across people who would kill ME, run ME down because I don’t believe in the same things as them. It was quite frightening. Florida guy was Really Railing – he was not making any sense at all. He was talking about building a wall around the U.S. and then all the countries that were eating all our food would dissolve. “America is the economy of the the World!” He said. “Without us, everyone else would die!”

“Uh, excuse me, (Mr. freak.)” I said. “I lived in Italy and I think they can do OK without the U.S. Also I think most countries in Europe can do without us.”

“Blah! Ha! Them… didn’t you watch CNN today?” (The D Day thing.) “Without us the Europeans would be Speaking German! Blah! Ha!”

This went on for a while. I had not the wherewithal to fight with this guy, but instead had a very sick feeling in my gut – there are Bush-loving people who HATE people who don’t love Bush out there. Florida-freak went off to the bathroom. Chicago cop said, “I gotta go.” We looked at each other. He knew he had opened this can of worms, and that it had fed on me. And that he was too much of a pussy to admit to that. He left and Florida Freak came back. Thankfully, so did my friend Chad.

At this time, there was also a guy sitting near us at the bar. His eyes looked in different directions and he was very, very drunk. He was totally deranged looking.

Chad, the only one left of my posse at that point, joined me in the bar, where Florida Democrat hater was still railing on me. The world’s problems are because of Clinton, also Democrats like me, you know.

Florida homey wasn’t prepared for Chad though. Hee hee. Chad ripped through that guy like a razor cutting through licorice. “You served?” Chad asked him. “Yeah?” The guy said. Chad really did serve, and spent time in Somalia, and I am thinking Florida guy was maybe telling a fib. The deranged guy comes up and says, “Woof, woof!” The discussion gets very animated and then the deranged guy is talking to me, and I miss the very heated departure of the Florida republican guy. Chad is grinning, but I am still chilled by the vehemence of the Florida guy. He really disliked me, and for no other reason but that I did not believe in Bush and his terrorist threat. I am too WTAN to make sense now, but will try to make sense of the whole thing a little later. In the meantime, PEACE.

Greetings from Chicago, where it is Saturday night, and I am sick. Even though I am sick, the day has not been uneventful. I rode the wave on an endless supply of Aleve (more than the recommended daily dosage, should have read the package I guess before I took seven of them.) At any rate I had no choice because I had to work and there was no way I could get through the day without swallowing. So, I took a major quantity of over-the counter-drugs.

The call of free internet and my addiction to writing weird crap drove me to the lobby of my hotel, but now that I am here I realize I must make this quick, as my drug-induced energy is waning, and quickly. I am too scared now to take more Aleve. I may have to suffer through several hours of not being able to swallow. Luckily I am not yet congested, because that takes all the fun out of partying while sick.

The coolest thing that happened today was we went to a party on a rail car, in Union Station. It is an old rail car and you can rent these things and cruise around in them! All over the country! If you have ever taken a train, please throw away all thoughts of those moments. These rail cars have leather sofas and kitchens. I was completely in love the moment I stepped into that car. There was not much room so there was lots of squeezing around people. I earned bad points for saying that of course Smarty Jones did not win the Triple Crown, that shit is all fixed, and also that George W. was going to try to capitalize on the death of Ronald Reagen. It was a small space, and I guess I should be more conscious of sound carrying in these situations. But I gained points when we were all discussing the renting of the rail cars and how food and beverages were included. “All beverages?” I asked. “Like liquor too?” A moment passes. “Suckahs….” I yell and the whole car erupts with laughter. “I’ll drink a bottle of Bailey’s before 10 A.M!” Some guy says. It was a different kind of after trade show party, one of the best ones I have ever been to. I will not rest until I get to rent one of those rail cars and go to New Orleans in it.

Today we also had an altercation. It was me, my boss, my co-worker Chad, and his girlfriend Gina. (Earlier, Gina, who is a chiropractor, did some weird thing to my neck that totally freaked me out, but that is another story.) We all left the convention center where there was a huge line for cabs and also, for the busses that take you to the hotels. We never wait in line, we just walk towards the hotel until we can flag a cab. But today we encountered the security guard from hell. We walked up the street, and he points back and says, CAB LINE OVER THERE. We were like, Dude, we are walking. (Until we can get a cab that is.) He was watching us for a long time, I guess, because we heard a shout and someone on the other side of him hailed a cab. He was screaming and ranting at these people, when we hailed a cab and got in. This is Chicago – there are cabs everywhere. So, we are in the cab going down the street and the Security guard walks out into the road, and stands, arms outstretched, in front of our cab. GET OUT OF THE CAR, NOW he says. We were like, are you tripping? My boss is yelling, you have no authority here in the middle of a Chicago Street! The guard comes over and demands that the cab pull over and kick us out. The poor cabbie, who had no idea what was going on, said quietly, I can’t kick a fare out of my cab. The guard was kicking and hollering and I swear, was about to completely lose it when we pulled away.

Is it really worth getting your panties in such a bunch? I’ve got to go to bed now, and hope I am not a slave to the Aleve in the morning.

On one of the big travel message boards, one of the ones where people are allowed to be hostile to their fellow humans, a poster reprimanded someone for hating Venice. “Asshole,” she said (in so many words), “why don’t you just go back to San Diego, or wherever it is you are from.” Implying that San Diego is all white bread suburb action. Like not as cool as wherever she was from.

Well, I may be twisting words ever so slightly so, but the jist of it is there. And my message to Travel Board Homegirl is, clearly you have not seen the best of San Diego.

San Diego is a BORDER TOWN. Even better, it is a border town where cool people from other cities choose to move to. Like me! I’m not holding back.

I lived in Italy in 2001, and came home for the holidays. I met with my bosses on New Years Day, 2002, in Sonoma. I wanted to come back, they wanted me back. “I won’t go back to San Francisco” I said. “OK,” said Head Honcho. “Where do you want to go?” He said. I thought for a minute. “I want to go to San Diego,” I said. But really, I meant Ocean Beach.

The reason I even thought of this place is that my brother has lived here for a long time. I would come and visit and drink Vodka Collinses and smoke Camels and eat fish tacos and feel totally at home. But San Diego, and Ocean Beach are different. Ocean Beach is the best part of San Diego, and possibly the best part of California. It is glorious here. It has an edge – like Budapest has an edge, or New Orleans has an edge. Ocean Beach is a state of mind that is totally beyond anyone not mentally prepared for it.

My move here has been ultra-successful. I love Ocean Beach. I love the beach culture, the weirdo in the dollar shop screaming “Linda Blair! Exorcist! Whore, whore!” I love the smell of warm fog. I even love the taste of cheap Zinfandel, when it involves Shuffleboard at Tiny’s Pub. I love that I live a block from the ocean, that there are meth-heads around, that downtown San Diego is directly East from me. I love the Ocean Beach post office, where the vibe is so laid back that someone actually got reprimanded for being an asshole-waiting-in-line. The postmaster lady said, “I’m sorry sir, but that kind of behavior is not allowed in Ocean Beach.”

What does this have to do with Border Town? you ask. Absolutely bleeping nothing. But today I sat on a rock at Sunset Cliffs, a half block from my house, drinking white wine and looking at the sea. There was a Mexican family hanging out next to me, eating some tasty grub like boiled shrimps in the shell, carnitas and salsa, and drinking Bud Light. They were having their Memorial Day picnic like all good Americans, and because of the proximity I kept looking over at them. I was reading my Saveur magazine and also, staring at these girls pounding food.

Finally, one of the Mexican women walks towards me, I think she is walking somewhere else, but soon her shadow is over me. I look up. She smiles, with a gold tooth glowing in her mouth. “Would you like a soda?” She asks, holding out a 7-up. I’ve been here two years, almost to the day, and I love it more with each passing second.