Postcard from Firenze

There it goes again, one more of my friend-sneeze particles floating about, on holiday. What an unattractive thought. No, I don't really think of my friends as the snotty particles expelled from irritated nostrils, but it is such a perfect metaphor for the violent trajectory that has sent us all spinning in different directions. Andrea will be back, I imagine, that is, back for me, but not for her. Firenze sounds nice, or her very own Cyprus, right about now.

What's that bull about SB being a "mediterranean" climate, an oasis, and hot bed for ex-pats from the French Riviera and Sicily??? Well, whatever their reasons, it can't be the similarities with homelands left behind. Or maybe it could? I don't know, here Miguel has been reconstructing his homeland too... maybe that should be the new city motto - "Missing your country? Don't fret, we can give you a watered-down, disnified parody of it... no sweat!"

Oh now, that's not entirely true, is it? There are a _few_ original buildings to remind us of age-old inequities, missions formed to colonize the minds of the native peoples, to convince them that they should indeed be slaves to a higher power, dressed in white skin, and binding cloth, and guilded adornment. I was thinking (among other less (or more?) savory thoughts like the virtues of "dry-humping" - Alison, however unrelated, I just _had_ to put this in;) about last year's visit to the Misión de San Francisco... the hispanicized version of the chapel destroyed by fire in 1924...the re-writing of history... Why do we "restore" things in ways that are so different from their original form? Revisionist visual history and a public that probably just ooohs and aaaaahs over the "authenticity" of it all. I mean, really, beautiful things are still beautiful... but what happens when there is no story behind the beauty? Or if the story is a mask, a farce, a brutal "impression"?

I prefer ugliness. Bald, twisted, aching reality. Not always, but I remember that my first thought when deciding to come here instead of say, Palo Alto, was that at least here near the university there is an air of abandon, a little human ugliness, trash accumulated from the reality of living. No stream-lined perfection for me. No sireee bob.

Give me dirty hands, with torn nails, sweaty arms and natty hair, over manicured lawns and fingers any day. That's what I say.
I ain't no high-maintenance woman, nor would I ever want to be.