Excitement-Eating in California

"...the Fitzgeralds did not seek ordinary pleasures. they wanted something unusual to happen, some act that they might not even understand. Zelda had never seen a young man who loved excitement, antics, outrageous happenings as much as she did, perhaps more."
- The Women of Montparnasse, The Americans in Paris
by Morrill Cody and Hugh Ford

Zelda Fitzgerald described her youthful, heedless life as excitement-eating. Zelda was a terrible flirt and men like Hemingway got pissed when she didn't deliver.

Zelda was a girl after my own heart, leaving Scott to go to her own set of parties, competing with him for attention and trying to become a ballerina late in life. She ate much excitement, she had her fill and some helpings from other people's plates as well. She was an excitement-glutton.

Let's not think about the fact that she lived out her later, less-excitement-filled years in a loony bin, abandoned by Scott, until she was burnt up in a fire that is. Loony bins lock you into your room at night so if a fire breaks out...Shudder.


After 7 days of excitement-eating in Northern California, I am ready to gobble Pepto Bismo, but also, ready to take on my next set of tasty tasks. Chomp, chomp, You see, things are afoot and it looks like I may be Stuck in Vermont for a good long while. Oh boy! Slurp, munch!

More than anything, I am just so damn happy, and so dang lucky! Lucky to have such lovely and talented and thoughtful friends and happy to have been able to see so many of them in flesh and blood, face to face. I'm not worthy. God, I miss 'em something terrible.

And oooh, the landscapes, the majesty, San Francisco, the Bay Area, they never cease to amaze me, and when you combine 'em with the people, well, YUM: cheese and baked goods and massive renovation in North Berkeley, heavenly meatballs in Piedmont with Robin, crazy views from Sarah's bird's nest in the Fillmore...

...a picnic lunch at Fort Mason overlooking Alcatraz, never ending sushi boats in Japan Town with Danny, the lizard-like shapes of over-lapping freeway overpasses, Hawaiian drinks with Jeff and Robin and an active volcano, a gang of school kids in the Marina...

...the nose-bleed SF hills that leave you worried you might tip over, the red bridge looming on the horizon from Lev's convertible, Market Street after dark falls, Lemondrops underneath the Bay Bridge with Sarah, a sudden burst of bougainvillea (ab0ve with Miss Jackson)...

...lying on the grass outside the De Young with Travis, a drunken meal in the Mission with Renee, Joanne and Jeff, a 50s Brit girl band in a packed club, bubbly in an Albany backyard with strawberries, Sue and Jen, ice cream on a Friday night near Dolores Park and an art show in Margaret's apartment.

Everything is so big and impressive and colorful in California, even a simple mural in a pee-infested alleyway in the Mission leaves an impression on a country mouse like me.

It all makes me feel so small and awe-struck. It is almost too much, too beautiful to be real. California dreaming seems more accurate, reality has no place in those surreal landscapes.

I spent much of my vacation marveling quietly to myself and savoring these awesome fluttery feelings whilst riding on BART trains, the 38 Geary bus or in my friend's Bugs, Minis and Miatas.

My love affair with California is not over yet. I think I saw sides of her that I never knew existed, little corners of her personality that were obscured when I lived inside her gates.

I plan to visit Cali at least once a year, so there VT, you will just have to accept that my heart will always belong to San Fran Sissy. No offense. I love you both equally. And as everyone who carded me noticed, "You look so happy in your license picture!"

"That's right," I said and then I told them the story of my recent move to VT and how shocked I was when the people at the DMV were NICE in Vermont, chatty even, laid back!

Unlike the Oakland DMV where you knew that any moment someone might snap, break out of a long line of angry people and start shooting, and that it might be you who pulls the trigger.

"So THAT is why I am smiling! Because VTers are nice." My little VT story. I swear, I told that to about 5 strangers in Cali this trip. Did they care? I think the girl at the Mac counter may have been listening...

More Cali blogs to come, pictures a plenty even if I did manage to resist bringing my video camera. But look at this here, a Castro collision of Junk Thieves and Deadbeats over tea as chronicled by Monsieur Thief.

IS it me or do I look like I am about to EAT him in this pic? I got carried away with my excitement-eating, as usual. Gobble, gobble.

Most importantly of all, the main reason for my trip, to SURPRISE the SHIT outta Jeffrey Raymond at his 40th birthday party as planned by his ultra amazing hubbie Charlie. Well, total success.

After a morning of sky diving, the boys returned to their NEW house (yes, apparently it is still possible to buy a home in SF!?) to a room full of well-wishers. I thought Jeff might screech bloody murder and run down the street screaming (I would have) but no, he did the gracious thing and entered the house to talk/hug/shower love on people.

Jeff is not much for birthdays, surprises, attention or large groups of people. So he did an amazing job of hosting, even after Charlie went to bed. What a swell 40 yr old guy.

I love you Jeffrey! And damn you for looking so young and vibrant and putting the rest of us ol' codgers to shame! Can we sit on a porch and whittle when our excitement-eating days are through!??!

And in closing, a word from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, which, I must add, takes place in SF and is my current HOT read:

"Well don't dynamite her too much, what do you think of her?"

"Sweet! And you telling me not to dynamite her."
Archer guffawed suddenly without merriment.

.... "Where Bush Street roofed Stockton before slipping downhill to Chinatown, Spade paid his fare and left the taxicab. San Francisco's night-fog, thin, clammy, penetrant, blurred the street."