Thursday, May 31, 2007

Am i there yet?


Am I there yet?




Arrival: 2.30pm local time.


Travelling is such a process, a series of them. I don't mind most of them, the non time of flight time seems like a necessary thing to clear way in your head for new things. The next bit is always my least favourite part, that waiting and queuing to get into the country. As sson as the plane has landed I am aware that my leaving section is over, and now I am here, and tapping my fingers about the not quite here yet parts that follow. The security getting in is as bad as I expected. I wonder if there was ever some nice easy going guy who was fired from airport security for having a face that can't help but contain a smile. Amazingly nerves did not kick in, and I didn't blurt out 'I have a shit load of of meat and veg in my bag and a fake moustache.'

Collect car : 5pm

The car we are given is a white dodge calibre. Already I am quoting a line from one of my poems in my head.

'When the old dodge pulls in at ten on the dot

I look at my watch'

I am happy at the coincidence. After 12 hours of being given things we emerge out of our childlike state and are behind the wheel, lurching and blinking into the daylight as we leave the parking lot with the parking brake still on. I am crossing my fingers, making my signature with my hand to tell left from right as I sit on the wrong side, and wonder if I will have to right L and R on the back of my hands like on the toes of the sandshoes I had when I was young, afterall I am learning, back to square on again.

The sat nav woman is clear as a bell.

'Keep right'


I wonder why the voices of computers are always women and American.

On the way to the hotel there is one wrong turn, and we detour into a neighbourhood of baby blue clad houses with peachy windows and American flags on the lawn. Lemon trees. I am looking at everything, waiting for it to tell me something. It is sunny with a cool breeze not yelling instructing flags how to react.


I do not sing Are we going to San Fransisco like I have been for a month. He is looking straight ahead, listening to the satellite woman, and there is nothing I have as important as what she has to say.

'Keep left'

She always knows where she is going, her voice clean as a chip. He is hanging on her every word.

'Keep right'

'Areet pet nee bother, don't you worry about that.'


I do not think Ms sat would appreciate being called pet in the slightest. She is making him nervous when she withholds her voice.

'I worry she just shuts up when I do anything wrong.'

6pm We arrive at Holiday Inn, Fisherman's Wharf, and take a walk out along the wharf, past Fish vendors, Alcatraz reject t-shirts, show globes filled with tiny bridges flashing from shop doorways, and a man who has had somebody pimp his hat as he slides along to a Jamariqui soundtrack. The first place we stop is an Irish bar for a beer, this isn't deliberate, we are waiting to realise we are here. A woman opposite eats overcooked bangers and mash and I want to take the glass of red wine from her hand and replace it with a bottle of brown ale.

There are homeless people everywhere, but they are all very quiet, as we walk by none of them say a word and none of them are holding signs.

The weather is a little chilly, the sky is gathering speed. This is San Fransisco, but as we walk it takes me to slot in pockets of Whitley Bay and Saltburn. I am feeling the cold slightly, and the cardigan I didn't pack nags me from the post of my bed about being placed in the case and taken out again. I think about the advice of a song I didn't heed.


'Hates California it's so cold and it's damp'.


Is this why the lady is a tramp?

The homeless lady who stops us for a cigarette is very polite, in a cowboy hat. Her legs more tanned than my thickest pair of tights.

'You're from England? My brother lives in Paris' she says, then her trolley is rolling away, and she is gone.

'Have a nice day.'


It is time to eat, in England dinner is long gone and the other me is sitting in bed while everyone sleeps watching My name is Earl. We head for the crabshack, and spend a good length of time discussing what is right and nice to tip. What I keep asking is are we really here?

On the way back to the hotel we are collared by the comedy police, for not smiling, enough and he is cited for not holding my hand because I'm 'too cute.' He is actually a charity mugger, but it's a novel approach, we give him some money and I look at the sticker he gives me as I walk away. It is yellow as warning sign, capital letters.

ARE
WE HAVING
FUN YET?

I am not not having fun, but it is hard to say since part of me doesn't know I am here.

First Impressions: The streets of San fransisco are very clean indeed, and everywhere there is neatly pruned shrubbery.

Weather: Closing in a bit, slightly chilly

New Food tried today: Malibu Shrimp. Bud Light.

Falling asleep in the hotel to: Pimp My Ride.

About Me

Poetry is like having an imaginary friend, who still forgets your birthday.