the return...

So we are back!

It is a rather bittersweet feeling. Nice to be back in your own bed…and your own shower… and yet, the incredible freedom that we had for a month was undeniably intoxicating. How many times in your life do you get to get up in the morning and think “where should I go? and what should I do today?” And actually REALLY have the choice. And then imagine getting to do that for 4 weeks straight! Pretty special.

I hate how quickly the sheen from vacation starts to fall off your body and your consciousness… and how the real world and your real life start to enter the picture like a jackhammer… it’s my first day back at work today and it’s actually not TOO bad…fairly quiet…helps to have it quiet when you have a million e-mails to wade through. it’s just crazy to me how quickly you can fall back into patterns… and with the snap of your fingers, it’s like you never really left.

I was telling a co-worker today that I wish I could bottle this ‘just back from vacation’ feeling and keep it in a drawer to whip out whenever I really need it down the line. Wouldn’t that be nice? Hey - having a shitty day? Just whip out your bottle of sweet memories from glacier national park and suddenly you are basking in the smell of cedar and feeling the cool alpine breeze. That would be awesome. Ah well. Someone will invent it someday.

I’ll put up some more pics soon. I just have to find the energy. And the time. :)

San Francisco is a really dirty city. And the homeless population is really out of control. These were things I knew before I left, but they smack you in the face in a whole different way after being away for a month. It’s strange. I forgot just how many streets smell like urine. I forgot just how defensively I had to ride on my bike because no one – car or pedestrian – sees you or pays you any heed. I forgot how tight lipped and tight faced and intense and self obsessed people seem in a city. There are a lot of places in the world where people walk around with an amazing degree of open-ness. It’s lovely, really. I miss it. I miss the assumption that your fellow man is good and maybe even interesting, and better yet, maybe kinda cool. I feel like my shoulders had become a bit more relaxed and pushed back and in the city I feel like you have to carry yourself a lot more rigidly and closed off.

Yeah…

This morning, during the first bike commute of my return, some young whippersnapper in baggy pants who looked like he was once in the backstreet boys jumped off a curb and yelled ‘Boo!’ inches away from me and my face. Before I knew what was happening, I hear this growling tiger escape from me and without a beat respond, “oh that’s really funny, you motherfucking asshole.” I never even looked back. I guess he didn’t have a gun. Oops. Tee hee.

But as a strange antidote to that, some tall, gawky asian man stopped me about 15 feet from the entrance to PwC as I was coming back from my lunch break and looked very shy as he stuttered out, “excuse miss, um, could I perhaps take you to lunch sometime?” I told him that I was sorry, but I was taken and he said some very nice thing about my beauty, which was stunning to me as I was still red and puffy from aerobics class and my straggly wet hair had never been brushed after my gym shower. But whatever, to each his/her own.

Dave wants to move to Portland. It really is a pretty great city. I’m not actually sure how serious he is…