the chore of world travel

All of a sudden, I'm in my final three weeks in New York and I just don't understand how this has happened. Apparently time passes. I don't think I'm ready for this discovery. Cue all kinds of anxiety about whether I've achieved enough in the time that has passed, and what I now need to rush to get done or see before I leave. I'm finding it really hard to get beyond measuring this trip in terms of achievements and progress. It's true that I am trying to achieve career progress and finding ways to get back here permanently, but maybe just being here for its own sake is enough. Work ethics have a lot to answer for. I'm also having to suddenly make arrangements for Paris - the next destination on the Life Crisis 2008 World Tour. Not that I should complain about the overwhelming burden of having to find an apartment to rent in Paris. Yes, we all have our cross to bear.

I must simply have been having too many good times to notice time passing. These include a lovely weekend away in San Francisco. I got a cheap fare from the impressive new Virgin America and flew out to visit my dear friend Barry who I first met in New York nine years ago! Barry and his partner Ricky and their adorable superdog JoJo played perfect hosts and devoted much of their weekend to doing fun stuff with me. I got to see Barry's lovely store The Sacred Well in Oakland and saw the master of crystals, gemstones and all-round positive psychic energy at work. In fact, Barry told me that he revisited my astrological chart during my visit, which he'd done when we first became friends, and he was not surprised to hear about the directional confusion that I'm currently experiencing. I love that our friendship is partly based on talking about woo-woo stuff like astrology because Barry just makes the non-rational world something I can connect with without feeling like a fraud or a flake. We also had a couple of nights out to dinner and a few different bars - perhaps oddly, the place I felt most comfortable was the dark bar that reminded me of Manacle (this may just have been nostalgia) but with less attractive men and bad porn. And generally speaking, once again, San Francisco felt a lot like Sydney - in a good way - but visiting again confirmed that it has nothing on New York for the kind of life change I'm after.

This weekend I'm jaunting off again, this time to Montreal, which I'm very excited about. This trip seems to be all about weekends away. I'll get to practice a little French in preparation for Paris (assuming I can understand Quebecois accents), get my first taste of Canada, and see what everyone raves about. I'm going up in the car with Elisa which is going to be a hoot in itself, and Kevin should be coming along for the ride and he and I always manage to amuse ourselves out at the bars. Here's hoping my astrology has a little romance franco-canadienne in store for the weekend!