home again

Getting out of bed yesterday was awful. I don't remember jet lag like that since I visted New Zealand in 2005. I feel less spaced today, and my sense of taste seems to have returned. Long haul really fucks with your mind and body.

So, wow, LA. People keep asking what it was like; was it what you expected? Kind of. I expected the writers and film guys and movie chat (which was fun). The people and the food and the things going on in the city are incredible; the place itself, a bit odd. I am used to London's busy flow of people. Everyone is in a car in LA. Public transport barely exists. I am lucky to know someone who was willing to show me around and take me to cool places. If you went on your own and without a car it would be pretty miserable.

Incredible things: watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the Hollywood Cemetery; Gogol Bordello at the Mayan Theatre (weird website); Anthropologie; Harold Lloyd silent shorts at the Cinefamily cinema; the Hollywood sign and the observatory building; the Korean BBQ truck (they gave us - three girls, admittedly - free food); the Cabazon Dinosaurs; the Ace Motel at Palm Springs; the iced coffee drinks at Koffi, also in Palm Springs; so much more... I'll write about some of it in more detail next time.

LA made me miss London, which was a shock. I have suddenly fallen in love with the city I live in.

american dream

For the last ten years, only one thing has been constant in my life "plan". I use the irritating little " because I am well aware that every major decision I have ever had to take has been made at the last minute. I have no plan. I have only this overwhelming, sickening desire to move to the US within the next five to ten years.

I cannot really explain it. It is an American Dream as far removed from Steinbeck's as you might get, but then, not. I'm not after wealth, but I am in search of something seen on the screen, something ostensibly perfect, something a little Desperate Housewives with a big twist of malicious Stepford smashed in among the ice. I want Disney, but I want it with the undercurrent of all that is terrible about clapboard facades and signs swinging in a humid bay breeze.

I'm in Connecticut. I might get my wish, if just for a while.

I'm afraid I shall be sending e-mails to all those who didn't request them, telling you about the things we're going to get up to, but do check here for pieces more tedious and pretentious in tone. Wouldn't want to let you down.