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If you like me,
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Annalisa
Bitter Girl
Sooz
Green Fairy
Jay
Jeanette Winterson
Jen Langley
Maganda
Zeldman

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July 25, 2003

Your guitar's a racecar
sex is your best friend

—Kristen Hersh

I hung out with my friend Annalisa last night, something I haven't done in a while. It's amazing how quickly one forgets the simple pleasure of spending time with a good friend, someone who's watched the ebb and flow of your life over the course of years.

Our lives run strangely parallel, in terms of careers, personal choices, geographical changes.

Even though we express ourselves differently, are absolutely different people, I've always felt a connection to Annalisa, one that transcends the sexual and romantic. I suppose that's what it means to have a friend.

Friends are good.

One other thing: sometimes I'm amazed at how obnoxious a driver I can be. After work, I was rushing across the river to get to this appointment. But sometimes the Gods of Travel just don't want you to rush. Sometimes the streets of Cambridge kind of resembles the arteries of a sedentary meat-eater with hypertension.

So silly me, I tried all my back-street tricks instead of just riding out the congestion. And found myself behind this old, old, old woman—the kind whose flyaway white hair makes a halo over the driver's seat—who insisted on going like 5 miles per hour down every fucking street, and stopping for every fucking pedestrian, and absolutely refused to be assertive at intersections, and wanted to stop for 30 seconds at every fucking stop sign.

And the thing about Cambridgeport is, there are a lot of stop signs, pedestrians, and intersections. The only way to get anywhere is to put your little nose out into the intersection and hope no one hits you.

So I did it. I actually leaned on my horn, and blasted this poor old woman with the sound of my horn for about 10 seconds straight.

Completely forgot that she was just being my bodhisatva, reminding me to relax into the flow of traffic and enjoy the moment.

And the irony of it is that I actually went four blocks out of my way to get away from her, only to end up behind her anyway, ten minutes later.

The Gods of Travel have a really fucked up sense of humor. I think they're telling me to get a bike.