I am in the airport known as JFK waiting for a flight to Sao Paolo. It is a six hour wait, which is quite long. From Sao Paolo, I will go to Porto Alegre, and from there, to a suburb and an office. We are unlikely to see much of Porto Alegre, although it has (apparently) an enchanting late Victorian central market, where I could (if I wished) buy gee-gaws and sparkling items, and outfits with which to dress up as a goucho.
On Thursday I will take a 6am flight from Porto Alegre and go to New York. I will be there for 3 days. I will have some meetings and some dinners with old friends, and my "husband", the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) and I will wander the streets and possibly sleep. We will have dinners. I will not go to either Eileen Fisher or Anthropologie and buy everything in both shops (especially not the plates). We will fly back to Burlington, again, and from there we will drive home.
Anyhoo. I have been visiting things. Here are my reviews.
Miami
Hot as all hell and like in the pictures. Lots of ladies with scrawny bodies and sun damage. They have heads like horses and eyes brimming with despair. I think they should eat some cakes and not spend so much time on pedicures and all of that. Lots of French people and Quebec people in the W being knobbers. Didn't see much of it, to be fair; spent most of the time buying emergency projectors for $700 and sweating. The Standard is where I would stay if I had to go to Miami again for work. It has views of the lake, Chinese ladies singing jazz, yoga twats in $500 outfits, and millionaire hipsters sitting in swing seats, drinking ironic beer.
Austin
Hot as hell and not like anything else. It is great and people really do wear boots, even when it's hot. I had Mexican food there and it was brilliant. There are hippies there and all of that. On my first day there I was offered a beer, a discussion about Lakeland terriers and threatened with a gun within 3 minutes by the same people - a generously butch couple fresh from their holidays in the Isles of Lesbos, who I intend to visit next time I am 'in town' (week after week after next). I go there a lot so it's just as well I like it. Austin is a bit like Montreal and Amsterdam. People don't give a shit and don't sneer. I like that in a city.
Burlington
I hate Burlington and I've never even seen it. I just go to the airport and get picked up my by "husband' (a man who is an intriguing mix of sociopath and saint), or driven from there to my house by a serial killer called Don who lives in his van and has a girlfriend called Betty who eats crips and rides shotgun (with me paying). When Don gets lost (which is often), he ignores his GPS, maps and me and chooses instead to call his friend Merv, who reads extracts from Wikipedia to him via a hands-free device patented by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1984. Last time, we were 3 hours late.
Montreal
This is where I live now, except I am not really seeing much of it because I am working all the time. It is my choice to work, but I am not managing to remain truly non-working in my heart, which is an ishoo, as I am sure you will agree.
Enough of that. I am in the "Skylounge" with only 2 hours to go until my 11 hour flight to Brazil boards. I am grateful I am in a 'lounge' and not downstairs. I am eating free peanuts and drinking free wine, and being called madam. It is, of course, the beginning of the end. I do not like corporate hotels, but I am consciously choosing a certain type of hotel to collect points. The only place I want to go is home, or maybe Stockholm for a holiday, but I get cross when the work travel agency forget to redeem my flight points against my 3 different cards.
It is odd to see them written down, those things. Even when I do them I am aware they are ridiculous, but for a while, this is what I have chosen to do. But I must confess that it is nice to be writing with my tiny little monkey hands again. Tap tap tap.
Pip "tap tap" pip
NWM
On Thursday I will take a 6am flight from Porto Alegre and go to New York. I will be there for 3 days. I will have some meetings and some dinners with old friends, and my "husband", the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) and I will wander the streets and possibly sleep. We will have dinners. I will not go to either Eileen Fisher or Anthropologie and buy everything in both shops (especially not the plates). We will fly back to Burlington, again, and from there we will drive home.
Anyhoo. I have been visiting things. Here are my reviews.
Miami
Hot as all hell and like in the pictures. Lots of ladies with scrawny bodies and sun damage. They have heads like horses and eyes brimming with despair. I think they should eat some cakes and not spend so much time on pedicures and all of that. Lots of French people and Quebec people in the W being knobbers. Didn't see much of it, to be fair; spent most of the time buying emergency projectors for $700 and sweating. The Standard is where I would stay if I had to go to Miami again for work. It has views of the lake, Chinese ladies singing jazz, yoga twats in $500 outfits, and millionaire hipsters sitting in swing seats, drinking ironic beer.
Austin
Hot as hell and not like anything else. It is great and people really do wear boots, even when it's hot. I had Mexican food there and it was brilliant. There are hippies there and all of that. On my first day there I was offered a beer, a discussion about Lakeland terriers and threatened with a gun within 3 minutes by the same people - a generously butch couple fresh from their holidays in the Isles of Lesbos, who I intend to visit next time I am 'in town' (week after week after next). I go there a lot so it's just as well I like it. Austin is a bit like Montreal and Amsterdam. People don't give a shit and don't sneer. I like that in a city.
Burlington
I hate Burlington and I've never even seen it. I just go to the airport and get picked up my by "husband' (a man who is an intriguing mix of sociopath and saint), or driven from there to my house by a serial killer called Don who lives in his van and has a girlfriend called Betty who eats crips and rides shotgun (with me paying). When Don gets lost (which is often), he ignores his GPS, maps and me and chooses instead to call his friend Merv, who reads extracts from Wikipedia to him via a hands-free device patented by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1984. Last time, we were 3 hours late.
Montreal
This is where I live now, except I am not really seeing much of it because I am working all the time. It is my choice to work, but I am not managing to remain truly non-working in my heart, which is an ishoo, as I am sure you will agree.
Enough of that. I am in the "Skylounge" with only 2 hours to go until my 11 hour flight to Brazil boards. I am grateful I am in a 'lounge' and not downstairs. I am eating free peanuts and drinking free wine, and being called madam. It is, of course, the beginning of the end. I do not like corporate hotels, but I am consciously choosing a certain type of hotel to collect points. The only place I want to go is home, or maybe Stockholm for a holiday, but I get cross when the work travel agency forget to redeem my flight points against my 3 different cards.
It is odd to see them written down, those things. Even when I do them I am aware they are ridiculous, but for a while, this is what I have chosen to do. But I must confess that it is nice to be writing with my tiny little monkey hands again. Tap tap tap.
Pip "tap tap" pip
NWM
8 comments:
Dear god, but those plates are fucking horrible. They look like something you'd find in a crusty charity shop, behind the chipped fake crystal whisky glasses.
I quite like the Anthropologie stuff (it's better than Pottery Barn) although it took me a minute to work out what a plate knob was for.
You should visit Boca Raton which is inhabited by the ancient versions of the women found in Miami and it makes you feel young and vibrant even when you're a woman of a certain age, such as myself.
I don't like Burlington, either. It's the place dreams go to die.
Much like Newark, really.
I wouldn't fuss not seeing much of Miami. Many of us (that is we-who-are-souther-than-you-Canadian-types) do our very best to imagine that Florida simply isn't. Except when we want to read amusing stories about the escapades of stupid criminals and the hijinks of the even thicker police who chase them. Which is well enough unless you've had juuuust enough to drink and then you end up sobbing into your Merlot about The State of the Nation as Typified by the Astonishing Collective Behavior of America's Willy*.
Then you remember that it's elections coming up and unless you do some seriously planning, say NOW, you might be stuck here for it and then your relatives and friends will come across your cold, dead body and sob as they consider how painful death-by-terminally-awful-rhetoric must be.
*ie Florida. Cause of the shape.
NB Nice to read things written by your tiny monkey hands again. Hope you will post photo of gaucho costume as soon as you acquire it
NB II and Austin is just about the only bearable thing about Texas. Well, that and tex-mex as you noted. Sorry Texans, blame it on too long spent in San 'we have five Walmarts and only one bookstore' Angelo.
I think you may have to update this post for accuracy. Of particular concern is the bit about you NOT going to Eileen Fisher.
The only thing about Burlington was the Mac & Cheese at Smokejacks. I believe it's closed now. I've never had such a magnificent M&C.
Every once in a while, one must lapse into workingness, if only to fully appreciate your non-working attitude (either literally or spiritually) when you snap out of it.
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