Cirque du Malaise

I spent this fine summer weekend in Pt. Reyes and Bodega Bay.
Here are some things I noticed.

Antiquated fridge.

Backlit nostalgia.

Rusty.

The pier behind Nick's Cove at sunset.

And at breakfast.

Wind.Gretel.

Mt. Wittenberg, Pt. Ryes
[ verdant fields of opulent torture ]

The other day I got a letter in the mail. I recognized the handwriting right away, because it was my own. No return address. "That's odd," I thought. "When did I find the time to write myself a letter?"

Then I remembered that I took a yoga workshop on New Year's Day with Christy Brown in Pt. Reyes, during which we took a timeout to write ourselves a letter. Christy must have just mailed them.

This is an old journaling workshop trick that I adore. You write yourself a letter — about your hopes, your dreams, your desires, your goals — and then you have someone else mail it at an unspecified time in the future. By the time you get it, you don't remember ever writing it, and it's as if someone else (someone who loves you very much and really, really cares about your welfare!) wrote it to you. It's quite lovely.

With Christy, a longtime friend of mine and expert yoga workshop teacher, I will be co-leading a retreat in Santa Barbara the first weekend in May. Special guest Helge Hellberg, a renowed sustainable food expert, will be there to talk to us about eating locally and organically (which, incidentally, we'll be doing that weekend).

Now I have to think of a way to top the ol' postponed-letter journaling trick. I'll think of something. Won't you join me there?

 

Read more and please consider joining us for what I'm expecting to be a really lovely weekend in the Santa Barbara hills by the sea!

I'm on the first leg of my flight home from Thailand, via Tokyo on All Nipon Air, where I just made my way through an 8:30a.m. Japanese 3-course dinner served in cute little lacquer boxes full of delicious but mostly unidentifiable processed cubes of things. I ate the ones I was sure were not mushrooms or flaccid boiled egg. The highlight was the banana poppyseed ice-cream ball. Those kooky Japanese chefs.

The Japanese elevate everything to an art form, including cooking, eating, and being a flight attendant. The Chinese, on the other hand, plan their menus as if Hannibal Lecter’s cousin is coming to dinner.

Disclaimer here: I am a very picky eater. I’m not adventurous in the culinary terrain, unlike my mom, who ordered a Peruvian delicacy — baked guinea pig— when we traveled together to the Sacred Valley a few years ago. Judith is a chef and a restaurant owner, so I think she’d want me to point out here that I did not inherent my food pickiness from her. I get it from my father, who, at the age of 62, I introduced to burritos just last year. “Can’t I just stick with tacos?”

On my last night in Bangkok, on the 36th floor of the Chatrium, I ate alone at the hotel's fancy Chinese restaurant overlooking the gray river that winds through the endless city. The menu was an exquisite read — an ornothologist's dream, really — until I realized that it was actually a list of FOOD OPTIONS. I laughed/gagged at the "roasted whole pigeon," but I stopped laughing when I gamely perused the dessert selections and contemplated ordering something with the sublime name "Bird's Nest." I thought, I bet it's some sort of an elaborate drizzled sugar confection, maybe with an egg in it just to be maudlin. Just to be sure, I googled it, and THANK GOD I did because it turns out that "Bird’s Nest" is exactly what it sounds like: a bird's nest.

A swallow's nest, to be precise. A certain kind of swallow that is rare and special, and so it's a luxury of the upper class to get their hands on one of these nests, soak it in water for a bit, and then bathe it in coconut milk. I can only imagine that it tastes sort of like shredded wheat, but with a more fibrous quality that makes it an excellent intestinal stimulant. I might have been intrigued and brave enough to try it, until I read the fine print, which informed me that swallow's nests are comprised primarily of swallow's spit. Yes, their saliva.

I have to point out here that I think my cat Budapest might be Chinese, as once she came home with an entire birds nest (and a few little tiny just-born baby birds, whoopsie) hanging out of her mouth like, no big thang.

I shared the Bird's Nest menu item with my friends. Tom, who is Taiwanese and grew up eating Chinese Food, said, "It sounds gross, but it’s super tasty!  It was once of my faves! Like sharkfin soup, it is a Chinese delicacy.  Unfortunately, the birds are not happy, and they face extinction, so I stopped eating it recently.”

Then Vanessa told me that she actually tried Bird’s Nest, in Singapore. I have a vague recollection of Vanessa going to Singapore but I have to admit that I didn't retain this tidbit about her culinary courage. Although I love hearing about Vanessa's life — which is much more globally glamorous than my own — flying to Singapore for a few days and eating local delicacies is something I just expect from her. Vanessa is a jet setter and she’s cool.

I'm not like that. I'm like this: just before I wrote this blog post, I spent an hour here on the plane meticulously planning my exercise schedule for the remainder of 2011 in my iPad calendar. Knowing exactly what to expect is how I relax.

And on that note, so happy to be home!

If you ever want to figure out exactly what kind of a person you are, I highly recommend traveling alone to Asia. You can't hide from yourself when you are completely out of your comfort zone.

Luckily for me, being out of my comfort zone has been extremely comfortable during this trip to Thailand, thanks to the generosity of two very good friends of mine, and also American Express. For the past week, I've been staying at some of the most extravagant hotels and resorts I've ever been to in my life.

It all started at Le Meridien, a sophisticated highrise hotel for worldly traveler types in the Silom district of downtown Bangkok, where the  retro-chic rooms have both day and night blinds, operated with the touch of a button. I'm a big fan of blackout shades, especially when dealing with epic jet lag, so I got "my" money's worth out of these shades.

After this first day in Bangkok (affectionately referred to as "the day that lasted a thousand hours" by my jet lag), M and D and I took a car down to the coast to a lovely little seaside town called Hua Hin. Sadly for me, I made the mistake of popping a Dramamine for the ride and was in a drooly lobotomized state for the duration, able to lift my head just barely once we pulled through the gates of the  Hyatt Regency. After that, I was forbidden from taking Dramamine again. M referred to it as "drama!-mean" and said that it was strictly off limits. Boo.

The Hyatt was amazeballs. Pictures, a thousand words, etcetera on my Tumblr page if you are interested.

I've never been a great traveler. I get really homesick. Homesickness, for me, often takes me the form of fainting. It's a quirky panic attack symptom I honed very early in life.  When I travel to overwhelmingly far away places, there is always at least one moment when I faint or almost faint. I fainted in Bradley Intl airport once while waiting to board a plane to Mexico City, and another time I actually fainted on a plane, a red-eye from SFO to Miami. That was one of my more dramatic faints. I nearly fainted in Cuzco, Peru, although I blame the extreme altitude for that one. And true to form, I almost fainted here in Thailand, but good news: I kept it together. I can sometimes psych myself out of fainting.

But I can't psych myself out of feeling completely adrift. It's so strange to be on the other side of the planet, while everyone I know and love is not just around the other side of the world, but actually a whole half a day away, so that while I am here, sitting on the beach in the bright sunshine on Friday, you all are sleeping your way through Thursday night. I look out over the perfect celadon sea and wonder if my life in California is a real thing or just a construct of my imagination.

But quickly my life here in Thailand — now I am on the Shangri La island of Samui — is becoming the new normal. Days of sunshine, icy lemongrass water, decadent massages on breezy open-air platforms, brilliant Thai food dumbed down just a wee bit for wussy Western-girl stomachs. I could get used to this. The only thing missing is you guys.

Because here is who I am, it turns out: a major introvert who doesn't like to sit at the community table or talk to strangers. I'm still the same shy 5-year-old. But lucky for me, I've somehow managed to accumulate the most righteous group of friends in the world, and I can't wait to connect with you all again.

But first, I have a massage to get to. Lates.

Today I leave to spend almost two weeks in Thailand. I am ridiculously prepared. Like, Boy Scout prepared. Like, so prepared that it actually makes me nervous.

I've had lists going for days, and sub-lists, and lists-within-lists, and reminders set in iCal with alarms that go off at particular times. I've run every errand, answered every email, packed every possible item, changed every outgoing message. I even managed to exercise the last few days, in preparation for a 14-hour plane ride. I am utterly ready to be away from work for two weeks. My awesome boss (me) is actually letting me not work while I travel.

As far as the vibe I am anticipating for this trip, I'm trying to channel shelter Debra Winger in The Sheltering Sky (great movie and even better book).

I've always wanted to travel with trunks and trunks and trunks that someone else is responsible for getting on the train. Unfortunately, the best I can do, it seems, is pack one really big bag that Thai Air will have to shepherd across international boundaries as I luxuriate in business class.

Which reminds me of a great Hairpin article I read last night called "How to survive a 10-hour flight like a lady." Advice for how to make it through the flight:

Try to sleep for as long as possible. When you wake up, try to go back to sleep. Continue for the rest of the flight. If this isn’t working for you, try thinking about how glad you are that you aren’t doing this journey by sea or worse, not at all, you spoiled brat.

I'll be posting updates on Tumblr, if you're bored enough to care.

I loathe middle seats on airplanes. I know that no one likes them, but you guys, I really, really can't handle them. I had an aisle seat booked on my flight yesterday, but American Airlines had other ideas. (How much I hate American Airlines could be the subject of a whole nother post — nay, epic book.) While seething and pouting my way through this endless, soul-crushing flight, I came up with a great new idea that I want to float by y'all. What if, instead of asking you what seat you want, the airline made you choose which type of person you are:

PLEASE CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. I have narcolepsy. I fall asleep the moment I sit in an airplane seat. I slump forward and go into a coma for the entire duration of the flight. The only time I might possibly wake up is if the "fasten seat belts" sign is on or we are actively landing. I get really annoyed when someone asks me to move so they can pee. (These people get the middle seat and aren't allowed to complain.)

2. I am the type of naive flower who still thinks it's a novelty to look out the window while landing and taking off. I actually listen to the flight attendant when he announces our route over the intercom, and yes, I care that we are flying over the Rockies and might get a glimpse of some dumb inlet or some sheep down there. I never have to pee. (These people get the window.)

3. I have to pee at least every 15 minutes even when severely dehydrated, and more often if I feel trapped, so will be asking the people next to me to move constantly unless you put me in an aisle seat.

Bet you can guess which one I am.

P.S. Virgin America? None of this applies to you. You guys are great.

Like so many people in my circles, I am plagued with first world problems that threaten to derail my fragile psyche on a semi-daily basis. Right now I am spinning my wheels about a really tough one: whether or not to buy an iPad for my upcoming trip to Thailand in September. I can't really afford it, and I thought I had talked myself out of this extravagance, until I had a nice sit-down with my good friend Michelle last night. She is one of the savviest travelers I know — one of those fine modern ladies who has traversed the entire planet with a backback and a pair of sandals on and can hang with equal aplomb in a high-end resort on the shores of Bali or in a seedy hostel in Amsterdam. Furthermore, Michelle knows me really well and she knows how attached my half-assed Buddhist ass is to my gadgetry and my ability to stay in touch via the cloud. She did not recommend that I go cold turkey off my Mac fixation.

My packing list, so far

I don't want to bring my laptop, because I don't want to be tempted to work, and also because I don't want to worry about it getting stolen or waterlogged while I'm frittering away my days on white sand beaches without a care in the world. My laptop is pretty much my most prized possession. I value its wellbeing more than I care about the welfare of my own body. If I get rufied in Thailand, I'll deal with it, but I can't risk getting a scratch on my Macbook Pro.

Michelle advised me to get the iPad. Not only will it allow me to write (what's a pen?) but it will preclude me from lugging armloads of books with me on my trip. Also, movies for the plane. Very important to be distracted on airplanes at all times. I'm sure you've all seen Bridesmaids by now. I didn't even laugh during the scene where Kristen Wiig loses her marbles on the plane for a sec. I've actually fainted on airplanes. Serial.

Because I am a 6, making minor decisions is really challenging for me. I will end a relationship and move cross-country into a brand new apartment in the blink of an eye — and have done so many, many, oh too many times in my life — but ask me what kind of pizza toppings I want and I'm likely to develop adult-onset epilepsy. So this particular decision is really weighing on me.

Can you guys be a lamb and decide for me?

I hate confrontation.

To even my closest friends that statement sounds ridiculous, because I tend to magnetically attract it. Many times I’ve heard this: “You say you don’t like drama, but you obviously do, or you wouldn’t have it in your life.” I’m not sure if I buy into this sort of oversimplified spiro-psychology. I don’t manifest drama. I do, however, have a personality trait that overrides my phobia of confrontation: I am not a people pleaser. I’m a straight-shooting East Coast Yankee.

On a recent flight through from Atlanta to San Francisco, I had an experience where my failure to be a people pleaser resulted in five hours of torture sitting next to an overwrought Southern Belle.

I am always very careful to book aisle seats on flights because I can get panicky about flying and have been known to actually faint on planes. On this particular flight, I had booked an aisle seat weeks in advance, but when I got to the airport, it had magically transformed into a middle seat. Thanks to the airlines’ devious new policies of making you pay extra at any cost, I was coerced into “upgrading” to the aisle seat I had already confirmed. $15 and a desperate sprint across the Atlanta airport later, I got on my plane.

The moment I touched down at my seat, the sweet-voiced Southern belle in the middle seat next to me asked, “Excuse me, would you mind switching seats with my husband?” Exasperated and with a feeling of doom, I said, “Where is your husband sitting?” She pointed to the middle seat behind us. To which my response was, quite simply, “No.”

She looked at me in horror. “You won’t switch seats with my husband?”

Again, I said flatly, “No.” I’m not a sugarcoater.

She was flummoxed.

So, even after the person in the  window seat agreed to switch so that she got to sit next to her husband after all (with me—lucky me—next to both of them)  she proceeded to spend the entire flight trying her best to make my life a living hell in her exaggerated, hyper-polite, passive aggressive way. She talked about me in whisper yells to her husband for five straight hours, while I sat there with my headphones on pretending to be oblivious. She asked me to move at least ten times so she could "get up and stretch my legs." She waxed on about how no one has any manners any more and how people traveling alone should be more flexible. And at one point she actually accused me of "buying" her aisle seat out from under her nose in some sort of crazy me-and-the-airlines-against-her conspiracy plot.

For most of this time, I kept my headphones on and stared enthralled at my posse of electronic devices. I basically just did not give her the time of day. If there is one thing I have mastered in this lifetime, it’s the cold and aloof thing. I may have given her an embolism, and for that, I feel slightly bad. But I don’t feel bad about not giving up my seat.

The celebrity yoga teacher I used to slave for had a saying that I’m sure he appropriated from someone else. It’s one of his few trite platitudes that I regularly apply to my own way of coping with the world:

It’s none of my business what you think of me.

Leslie and our hero, Eric, maniacally hanging Vanessa's word art two hours before the show was scheduled to start.

Ryan putting Ben Shepherd's lyrics up on the wall.

Every girl deserves a wrist corsage on her big night.

My girlfriends and I take a short getaway every summer. Being all three arteests, we have this ridiculously creative name for it: Girls' Trip.

Right now we are on our 4th annual Girls' Trip. This year, we devised an elaborate and involved plan that came together loosely like the plot of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Leslie flew from Austin to San Francisco to meet me just about the same time that Vanessa was on a red-eye back from a leisurely vacation in the Arctic Circle. While Leslie and I drove from my house in Mill Valley to Seattle (14 hours, more or less), a precariously sleep-deprived Vanessa got on yet another plane. Leslie and I spent a fly-by night in the magical garden of my friend Nira in Portland. And then we all convened in Seattle in the lobby of the OK Hotel (not actually a hotel, but an artist's colony, more or less—with a gallery).

We planned this Girls' Trip around Vanessa's very first art installation. Vanessa, you see, is a brilliant word artist. Word artists, naturally, are my favorite sort. It's difficult to describe Vanessa's art: an amalgamation of poetry, prose, spoken word, signage, and sculpture. The pictures here are, I hope, an adequate glimpse.

After a chaotic afternoon of panicky last-minute printing, measuring, hanging, and sticking-on—with quite a bit of catatonic anxiety and hypoglycemia slowing us down—it somehow came together and the opening was a huge success. Vanessa shined (thanks in no small part to the fucking-A awesome wrist corsage that Leslie so thoughtfully ordered) and the whole thing went off pretty much without a hitch.

You can see more pictures of the show and Vanessa's reading on my Facebook page.

Then we set off for the rest of our weekend, which, as is our annual tradition, has so far involved a lot of sleeping, eating, coffee shop loitering, and general lazing about.

I used to live in Seattle for a very brief period of time in the late 90s. I have a nostalgic attachment to the place and can get pretty morose about it. So this trip has been a mixed bag for me emotionally. (But hey, so is every single day.)

On our way out of Seattle to our rental house on Whidbey Island, I forced my besties to take a side trip to Lighthouse Coffee. This unassuming little neighborhood coffee shop was the very first place I ever went when I came to Seattle to live. I had an apartment waiting for me on the Phinney Ridge/Fremont border, but I didn't know how to get there. My roommate-to-be, Ivy, (who was also one of my best friends from high school) told me to meet her at the coffee shop up the street. So that's where I landed.

I got out of my old red Jetta packed full of everything I owned in the world (plus my cat), and hung out at Lighthouse Coffee for a good hour while Ivy finished up her game of backgammon or whatnot. I remember thinking that I had lucked into living in the coolest neighborhood in the coolest place in the world. I still love and adore Lighthouse Coffee, have an unreasonable attachment to proclaiming it the best coffee in the universe (they roast their own beans and holy hell), and would pretty much move onto a bench out front if they would let me.

I took a writing workshop at Green Gulch Zen Center in Muir Beach a few weekends ago. It was very humbling. I did use the time to finally commit this particular story to paper.

The prompt: "Something in me longs to leave a legacy"

The subject matter: The Ring

I have this intricate gold and garnet ring from Prague, the acquisition of which is a story of perseverance and valor.

Not really, but it felt that way at the time.

The ring was symbolic and also quite material gift to myself when I knew that my last relationship was falling apart. When I realized with utter clarity and despondency that, were I ever to want a ring, I would be buying it for myself.

And similarly, if I ever want a family, I’ll need to be resourceful and inventive.

I would like to have a daughter to leave this ring to.

I’d like to tell her the story of my trip to the Czech Republic and my search for the tiny jewelry store called Granat Turnov, down a cobblestone alley off the Old Town Square. How I tried this ring on my finger and fell instantly in love with it. How my quickly-falling-out-of-favor boyfriend and traveling companion talked me out of buying the ring (which, at $75, was an unheard-of steal in these days of gold inflation). How he didn’t either offer to buy me the ring, despite the heartbreak and disappointment so clearly visible on my face. And how we then sat at a café in silence and had an afternoon drink, miles of communication gap, resentment and waning love between us.

And how we broke up as soon as we got back to the States.

And how I then set about tracking down and purchasing the ring after all, through an elaborate sequence of steps involving the internet, a Czech translator, dollar-to-forent conversion calculators, a bank wire transfer, the postal service, and weeks of trust and patience.

I’d like to tell that story to my daughter one day. But for that, I’d need the boyfriend back. And frankly, I get along better with the ring.