Taste These Teeth Please

I arrived in San Francisco on Thursday, after an almost awkwardly short flight, as it's difficult to get comfortable when you know you're only going to be sitting in a particular spot for maybe two hours. I shoved in my headphones and lost myself in video games for the entirety.

I got off the plane and asked a sweet old man at the information desk where I could catch the subway. In basically pajamas due to a lack of foresight, toting my enormous suitcase and laptop bag, I rode the eight-dollar subway into downtown San Francisco and came up for air about one-thirty.

My hotel room wasn't ready, so I ate across the street and wandered into the public library--a much nicer one than San Diego's, but full of twice as many crazies.

When I checked into my room, I discovered it to be tiny and lovely. Once settled, I put some actual clothes on and went walking to find the Trader Joe's that allegedly was located about a mile away. It was late afternoon and the clouds were rolling in to partially block out sunlight. There was a light wind that blew my scarf behind me. I saw a man urinating in an ally. I wandered into a thrift store and talked myself out of buying books. Eventually, I found the Trader Joe's and bought a baguette, a wedge of brie, some strawberries, a package of California rolls, and some milk to put on the cereal I brought from home.

Back at the hotel, I had a snack and tried to watch a movie, but the wireless internet connection was too horrid, so I planned out my schedule for the following day instead. I played a few games of Starcraft with Andre and another guy and fell asleep with A Brave New World on my face.

I woke up Friday morning about ten, got dressed and headed down to the train that was supposed to take me to Golden Gate Park. I got on the train which ran for a few miles toward the water and stopped. Looking behind me at the front of the train, I noticed there was no more track. The driver wandered in, and exclaimed in surprise at the fact that I was still there--the last stop had been the end of the line. I told him I was supposed to get off at Irving and 9th, and he laughed at me, as this train had been headed in the opposite direction. After a few minutes, we set out in the right direction and I got off at Irving and 9th as the Muni robot had told me to. I found out later that the actual festival took place around 36th street. I walked for almost an hour to find it.

But find it I did, and I entered Outside Lands about one thirty. I wandered around the five stages based on the list I'd comprised the night before.

I had been trying to avoid bringing a bag, so I tried to do all my eating and hydrating before I left. It didn't work. By this time, I was already dying. I ended up buying a hot dog and a bottle of water, much to my dismay.

Most of the bands that played this time of day were one's I'd never really been into, and the list was based on very little information. As a result, I went to see West Indian Girl, Built to Spill, and the Dodos and was slightly disappointed with all of them. Less with the Dodo's, but all three bands came off sounding rather generic and unimpressive. Eventually getting bored with the Dodos' set, I wandered to the other end of Lindley meadow and sat in the grass up near the Presidio stage, and waited in the sun while a sound check went on in preparation for Blind Pilot. Never having heard them before, I leaned on the bar in the front row and stared up at them. A double bass, a lead singer with a guitar, a drummer, a girl banjo player who also took up the guitar and another instrument that may have been a dulcimer, and a man who played a trumpet, a keyboard and some kind of accordion, sometimes a combination thereof at once. They were wonderful.

Refreshed, I stopped in to see Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears for a moment, which was a spectacle. Great music, upbeat, with the band consisting mainly of goofy white boys in white shirts and black ties, with Joe Lewis in the middle, wearing shorts and t-shirt and rocking out. After that was Tea Leaf Green, another indie band that grew on me throughout the set.

I caught ten minutes of Tom Jones (because I had to see it for myself) before getting lost in a mob for Pearl Jam's set. People had been camping out up front all day, so needless to say, I was in the back. I stayed for a good chunk of the set, but left a little early to try and avoid the crowd on the way out. Walking a dirt path through the park, surrounded on all sides by trees, I heard Jeremy playing through the growth as I left.

The bus ride back to the hotel was a joke. Five buses passed by without stopping, packed beyond capacity with people. Eventually, one did stop and I shoved myself on with at least sixty others, the doors barely closing.

I watched Big Fish on my laptop when I got back to my room and fell asleep.

Saturday was much less intense of a day. I slept in, showered, and bought snacks for the day, which saved me. I caught a bus instead of the train, which was still packed to the doors, but which brought me right to the entrance and saved me a lot of walking. I met three guys from Chico state and we talked bands for a bit. I waited at the Land's End stage for half an hour, trying to get a spot near the front for the Raphael Saadiq show--not so much because I'm such a fan of Raphael Saadiq (though he was awesome), but because I was hoping to rush the stage and get a front row spot for Jason Mraz. I ended up with fifth or sixth, about, but I was nevertheless only twenty feet away, maybe. It was fabulous, despite Jason Mraz's new tendency toward a Reggae sound instead of his usual nerdy white boy style. At one point, right before the show, for no apparent reason whatsoever, a girl several feet in front of me suddenly hurled some kind of cup across the aisle and smacked some stranger right on the side of the head. Immediately, she dove down below the heads of the people around her--the guy she hit was pissed for at least twenty minutes.

I saw a few minutes of Bat For Lashes, to crowded to really see them play, but I sat in the grass at the back and listened.

Then it was back to the main stage for The Black Eyed peas. I was miles from the stage, it seemed, but it was enough to be able to dance with the crowd and hear the good stuff. I decided not to stay for Dave Matthews Band or The Mars Volta, and packed up to leave.

I was propositioned by a bunch of stoner boys to stick around (one even offered to keep me company in my hotel room, how nice...), but I left regardless and was in bed by nine, exhausted. Andre called about an hour after I passed out and we talked for a little while, but I was soon asleep again.

Sunday I was up by nine, had some breakfast and was out the door by eleven fifteen. Once again, I grabbed the bus, this time with a little more confidence and with less stress. Back inside the festival, the first band up was Cage the Elephant. A great show, but the lead singer was out of control--I could have lived without a mosh pit before lunch. After that was The Morning Benders, another great band, much better for hanging out in the grass, having a snack, just listening. The Avett Brothers came up next--these guys blew me away. I was up in the front row and was nearly brought to tears--fucking amazing. I was going to catch the Dead Weather which started playing halfway through the brothers' set, but I couldn't leave. So I got an OK spot for Modest Mouse (awesome), a much better spot for M.I.A., and an even better one for Tenacious D. What an amazing day.

Back in San Diego tomorrow...

The Same Old Dancers in the Same Old Shoes

The last few days have been spent lost in a world slightly outside reality, the perfect distance from home, while I've been melting into the comforts of routine, everyday trifles that barely keep me conscious and lucid. Eating cereal twice a day. Petting the cats. Watching endless DVDs and YouTube videos, only coming up for air to pour another bowl of Lucky Charms. Soft kisses. Not wearing makeup. Not changing clothes, even. Couch cushions, the whirring of the laptop, House, Futuramaand StarCraft. A vacation from everything that makes me need one.

Last night, we found a tiny worm poking his head out of a cocoon the size of a pine nut. He was pulling it along behind him, stuck to his abdomen, as he inched across the kitchen floor. We watched him for at least an hour, hoping that he would pull himself out of his little fibrous shell and expose his soft body to the world. I wondered what the evolutionary point is behind wrapping something tiny and brand new in bindings they can barely rid themselves of. As of this morning, he had not accomplished his task, and is now out in the dirt somewhere, his fate unknown to us.

We're ocean-bound tonight, hopefully soon, to sit by the bay, inhaling smoke coming off of flaming pallets, to watch my sister and her newly freed-from-high-school friends celebrate their last chances to do nothing before the world begins to expect things from them.

We missed the meteor shower last night...we got up around five this morning to see if the cloud cover had budged, but it hadn't.

I Never Told You I Agreed With You; I Don't Think I Do

Another week begins with me waving a sleepy goodbye to Trader Joe's and looking forward to four days of no motivation and not enough time to do everything.

How am I expected to make a living like this? The requirements: discipline, reliability, responsibility, solitude, goals, a clear vision of what's to come and how to get there...which of these is supposed to describe me? A terrifying concept considering that I do not possess even one.

My nerves are splayed and short-circuiting, I'm crying at commercials and puppies tied up outside grocery stores--much less valid issues like the loss of my roommates rent check and the $158 I apparently owe some diagnostic lab for a biopsy done in February and the complete failure of the first workshop I set up and my boyfriend's sudden apathetic abandonment.

My car registration is overdue. My day job is sucking my soul out of all my orifices simultaneously. My friends all seem very far away, in worlds of their own problems. I can count on one hand the number of people I actually like anymore, and out of those, only one or two still come around.

I have a perpetual knot in the base of my stomach that makes me want to start crying and never stop.

How did I think this was going to work out? My incessant naivety strikes again.