Novel Eye

So, I am traveling again. Lately I find myself worried about traveling in a way I don't remember feeling before. Last year, going to see Hyde, I thought for the first time of being in a metal and plastic box hurtling impossibly through the air at near supersonic speeds, thousands of feet above the ground as many of my "afraid of flying" friends report. But that was a plane, far away with money I had no business spending. This time is by train, relatively close, with other people's money. Even other people's spending money. Yet, I woke up 4 or 5 times last night, certain I would forget something. Even got up to write myself a note to remember to pack my bathing suit because the pool at the hotel is the one thing I'm really looking forward to. And I have over-packed. Of that I am certain. I have probably 4 and a half full outfits for a three day trip, but that can be partially overlooked by the fact that the weather has changed abruptly. It was in the high 30...

Above--Chinatown, San Francisco I've been in three Chinatowns in a month. Pretty cool. Went down to NYC yesterday to see a show that I designed in the spring be part of a Play Festival. So I've had costume design in NYC--Woohoo! It's my set too, but they really couldn't take many pieces so it wasn't really much of a set by the time it got there. One of the actresses had strep this week and I wondered if they might ask me to step in (I did once before for a read thu, and I know they respect me as an actress), but she took antibiotics and recovered and I'm glad. It's her role and she's fantastic in it, plus I'd have to still be there and not getting back until midnight tonight and I have a mammogram in the morning--blech. TMI, TMI! But still, I'd have been acting in NYC. Once upon a time (at about 18 or so) I thought that would be my life, but in college I realized I couldn't live with that poverty and constant uncertainty so instead I've ...

Travel broadens the mind but thins the wallet. I love to fly, and yet I was stressed about this trip--perhaps leaving my husband, perhaps such a fundamentally foolish mission; I envisioned earthquakes and plane crashes (seeing X-Men III the day before I left didn't help), but nothing more untoward than extra baggage searches, leading to a last minute dash to leave my multi-purpose tool with my husband before they confiscated it, occurred. Flying out over Boston harbor (during ascent) I watched the islands recede. Landing in San Francisco and I was again watching the ocean give way to curved shore lines. They are such similar cities after all. San Francisco is still bright and shiny yet sadder too, perhaps because I am older and am seeing it with my own money and my own time--before I was in a comfortable car with my aunt and uncle, on their dime. My hotel was small and neat, as I wanted. I rested briefly in my room and then walked, yes walked, all you fools who attempted to drive,...