Child, father and I are in Foster Bros Coffee in Cleveland Park, three burning hot laptops on our laps, three icy coffees dribbling water-sweat unto the tables. Still no internet access at home.
Sprog is reading over my shoulder.
The past week has been damn heady and confusing. Even when attempting to balance the jet lag out of the equation, I\’m still spinning in circles. We touched down first in LA: city of sprawl, smog, greyness, cocaine, everything green having long since decimated… LA digs me to my very core as the epitome of all things I hate about America. We spent five hours in layover at LAX, the last hour of which was spent watching Americans get ugly because the Burger King had run out of food. Cocaine clears the ugliness away, but at the same time, makes you apart of it.
The observations I had from the USA to Australia were mostly along the lines of how much more similar Oz is to the USA than to the UK; I was surprised. Some Australians I discussed this with, such as , disagreed with this synopsis. On the return trip, I realized my mistake. There are a lot of similarities, to be sure, but whereas I found Oz strangely like home, I now find America to be disconcertingly unlike Australia. Things I had prior overlooked or just not cared about or had taken for granted are now blatantly and disgustingly obvious to me. Everything from the extreme rudeness of people (I miss hearing \”no worries\” twenty times a day) to the incredible obesity. I remember feeling uncomfortable that people in Australia seemed to be much skinnier on the whole, but doing the reverse trip I\’m appalled by how fat the majority of people here are. Maybe it was the jet lag, because usually I don\’t give a damn so much about that sort of thing, and I am well aware of the vicious cycle of poverty and obesity, but sitting there in LAX, watching people waddle around with their enormous plastic Starbucks coffees with extra whipped creme… oh man. Then watching the redness in so many peoples\’ faces as they walked down the over-air conditioned terminal, people huffing and puffing in their hundred dollar designer running shoes that have never stepped on anything other than a man-made surface… oh god… back to happier thoughts, please!
So yeah, America, the beautiful. It is beautiful, a really beautiful landscape. Enormous. I miss Australia so much it hurts, but America has a different natural beauty that Australia made me forget about. Kind of like my trouble with lovers: each one makes me forget the last, so that it becomes so easy to love the one you\’re with. Until I made my way home from U Street Tuesday night, I had forgotten how much I love DC. The city, you know, the essence. Not the politics, not the gentrification, not the activism, not the \’scene\’ or any of that, but the soul of the city. Sitting in the back of a cab at one in the morning in mid-August, the cabbie blasting some Ethiopian disco as he cruises through Rock Creek Park, the smell of the damp woods wafting up and settling into my brain. My bones relaxing with the humidity of another late summer on the swamp. Sitting on the balcony, sweat dripping down between my breasts just like the moisture dripping off my beer. Feet up, legs bare, smoggy night air, listening to the cicadas on a non-infested year. Love. Hot times in the city. I\’m having a love affair, all right. Just a quickie, just a few months before I head back to Australia. Mmm, Brisbane. Still gotta hit that one up, too, so much, so much to divulge, but still no time. My parking meter is up and I have to go.
DC PEOPLE: PLEASE COME TO FORT RENO TONIGHT. WE WILL BE GOING TO THE DELI AFTER FOR MOTZAH BALL SOUP. See previous entry for cell phone number.
