We said goodbye to Annie’s parents in the morning, and I wrote them a letter to say thank you for everything: thank you for the food, thank you for the hospitality, and thank you more than anything for creating the rare delight that is my friend. We set off back to Oakland in the morning, full of breakfast and with a clear sky overhead. First, however, Annie wanted to show me Las Gatos and the area she grew up (which was news to me because I thought we were already in Los Gatos but whatever).
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California Pt 7 | Vesuvio
I hadn’t expected Kerouac Alley and the bookshop to move me so much; the emotion of it all took me by surprise. Truth be told, I don’t often think about Kerouac these days. I read other authors, other genres, and when I write I don’t try to sound like him anymore; I feel I’ve found my own style, more or less. I had my phase and I moved on – left it behind, along with all the other stuff I left in my twenties, voluntary or otherwise. But despite all that, being there did something to me – something visceral. It felt exactly how watching the Lion King on TV feels, even after all these years: it felt like nostalgia, it felt like loss, it felt warm, it felt like a hug.
Continue readingCalifornia Pt 6 | City Lights
I’d written off the 25th of November long before I ever got the plane to California. The day after Annie’s birthday party, I’d imagined, would be an empty one: spinning heads and groaning and human duvet-mounds shuffling back and forth between sofa, bathroom and fridge.
Continue readingCalifornia Pt 5 | Stork
Because of my tendency to roam around, I have only celebrated one of Annie’s birthdays with her since we met: her 23rd. That birthday party – which involved acid tabs, public nudity, rooftop falls, a dildo covered in glitter, leather harnesses and quite a lot of blood – was, it’s safe to say, the reason for my anxiety on the morning of her 30th birthday party in Oakland.
Continue readingCalifornia Pt 3 | In ‘n’ Out
The ‘bomb cyclone’ beating up the west coast intensified on the second day of my visit: silver sheets of rain coming down, pooling on street corners and running rivers around the wheels of parked cars – leaves and newspapers and single flip-flops floating by forlornly, coming to standstills halfway up driveways or plastered across kerbs. The greens and reds of traffic lights and headlights blurred over sodden asphalt, drawing down buildings and billboards into long strange reflections.
Continue readingCalifornia Pt 2 | Artificial Impertinence
I’m always sheepish when I see friends for the first time in a while – and it wasn’t even that long of a while! But I don’t know; I’m not very good at hellos, and I’m atrocious at goodbyes. I think as I get older I’m increasingly wary of sentimentality. A cautious counter, I think, to the oversentimentality of years gone by – of alienating people, weirding people out with my emotional intensity. I’ve learned, quite subconsciously it seems, to say less. Maybe that’s what happens to a lot of boys when they’re little – maybe that’s why so many men are so stoic and silent and struggle to know what’s going on in their own heads. For some reason it happened to me much later on. I never know how much emotion is appropriate, so it’s safer to just be pragmatic.
Continue readingCalifornia Pt 1 | Scaredy Cat
Before I went to California there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over whether it was a good idea. There were a few factors: after Colombia I seem to have developed some sort of post-shitshow travel anxiety, plus at 31 I was unsure whether I’d be able to keep up with the debauchery I felt sure Annie would have planned for her birthday.
Continue readingItaly | Serenità
Italy in autumn – hills that roll with the regularity of those back home, but rise a little higher, sink a little lower. Tall cypress trees looming from the mist that sits in the mornings like water in a basin. A cemetery on a lone hilltop at night, flickering in orange candlelight. Deer in the fields, roaming in pairs. Hunters in camo gear, also in pairs, loading rifles onto quad bikes and sipping from flasks. Hares in the forest. Porcupines too – as big as a dog, fans of white quills like monsters.
Continue readingFrance | Ropes to the Sky
Next stop: Cordes-sur-Ciel.
Continue readingFrance | Cliff and Orcs and Bells Going ‘Dong’
When I (unsuccessfully) attempted to move to France last year, Seth and I spent each Sunday in his van, zooming around the countryside in search of interesting things. I like being in the van; it’s high up so you feel safe on the road, even though the closer you get to the Mediterranean, the nuttier everyone’s driving becomes.
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