Overheard
While waiting to cross the street this evening:
"Cheating only really counts if you're cheating emotionally as well as physically."
"Yeah, I think that's fair."
Two men, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear.
The Englishman Abroad – Cracking Up
So, and I need to put this carefully in case I come across as a total loon, I've realised I've started talking to myself.
Not all the time. Not walking down the street, unlike a lot of people in this town. Not in most of the places I go.
Only in my hotel room.
And this is why I'm not quite as freaked out by the realisation that I'm doing this as I might otherwise be. See, every night, and for a good chunk of my weekend, I'm alone in the single room I'm living in for these few weeks, and I'm eight hours separated from most of the people I would usually pick up the phone and talk to, or get online to chat with; eight hours which in the evenings especially puts the time as the middle of their night. It's quite a solitary existence.
And so I talk to myself. In a conversational kind of way. "Should I watch some crap TV?" "Should I go to the noodle bar down the street for food, or should I grab a sandwich and bring it back here?" "Where did I put my key card? On the desk where you always put it."
I know I don't do this at home, and I'm pretty sure I haven't done it on previous business trips. It's just the slightly more protracted nature of this one - not just the time so far, but the stint still to do. It gave me quite a moment last night when I realised I was doing it though.
Airline Logic
I'm currently planning a trip from San Francisco to Seattle early next year, and as well as the easy option of Expedia, I've just taken a look at some airline sites to see what they have available. One in particular turns out not to fly between the cities directly, and so offered me a couple of options with connections along the way.
One of these, brilliantly, was via Houston (which is a long way in another direction), and even more spectacularly, via Newark. Yes, that's right, it suggested I'd like to fly between two relatively close cities on the west coast of the US via a city on the east coast. Whoever programmes these things needs shooting.
Incongruous
I've not watched much TV since I've been away, but this evening I've decided to do some junk watching, so I caught a double bill of Bones and House. House, I've talked about before because The Mrs is mildly obsessed by it (and I've now seen one he hasn't. Hah!)
But Bones is an odd one. It's based on a forensic anthropologist and her team who help law enforcement solve crimes. Kathy Reichs, a Producer on the series, has written a sequence of detective novels focusing on a forensic anthropologist called Temperence Brennan, the name of one of the characters in the series. But the TV version isn't based on the fictional character's exploits, it's based on Reichs herself, who based the character on her own impressive CV. It's kind of tosh, but diverting enough.
But the reason for this post's title is that inexplicably, Stephen Fry's name appeared at the beginning of the programme, and lo and behold, there he is in an apparently recurring role as David Boreanaz's therapist. Most odd.
Can I Just Say…
.... that I'm loving my iPod Touch?
It was a bit of a mad purchase a week or so before I left Blighty, and I got it because I was expecting (rightly) that there'd be plenty of evenings when I'd be questing for entertainment while away. But it's *so* much better than I ever expected it to be. The interface is brilliant, the functionality it great, and the display quality is simply astonishing for its size. I was watching an episode of Doctor Who last night and I couldn't believe the clarity of the picture.
Of the two of us in our marriage, one is a Mac Geek and the other is me, but even I'm willing to admit that this, this is a thing of beauty.
The Englishman Abroad – Knackered
San Francisco has a lot of hills. I know, because I've walked up and down a significant number of them in the last two days looking for somewhere to live.
World AIDS Day
For a few years, I took part in the Link and Think initiative for World AIDS Day, but it fell by the wayside a few years back, so today, as I sit here in one of the places in the world that was earliest and most devastatingly hit by the epidemic, I've decided just to indulge in some quiet contemplation and reading of some online local comment and memoirs. It's incredible to think just how many people were lost to the gay community in San Francisco - I read a comment in a guide to the Castro the other day that described the patrons of one particular bar that is popular with older men as 'the survivors', which gives a sense of perspective - to be of San Francisco and of a certain age, you must have survived that which so many didn't. Like most gay men of my age I've known a few people who've lived with or died of HIV/AIDS, but I find it impossible to imagine what it must be like to have lost people by the dozen.
Tomorrow I'm heading down to the Castro for the first time in a couple of years, and I know I'll see a vibrant neighbourhood full of people who can safely acknowledge their love and their diversity, and who all seem very young and in a hurry to experience the next excitement. But here and there, in the form of various tributes and memorials, there are reminders of the people who didn't make it. I hope in the mad rush to the future there always will be.
The Englishman Abroad – Witnesses
So while I was out earlier, two Jehovah's Witnesses tried to stop me on the street to ask if I'd like to "share an encouraging moment".
"A religious encouraging moment? Never in a million years."
At least in the UK they have the decency to come to your door where you can safely ignore them. Being stopped in the street is simply not on.
This was about twenty minutes after the Scientologists had tried to have a crack at me via the 'stress test' scam.
"I think I'd be even more stressed if I let myself get caught up with a cult, thank you."
Actually, thinking about it, the stress test thing is hardly a very appealing pitch is it? "Excuse me, you look like shit, but L Ron is here to help...."