Blogging from Dixon

And it is cold, nasty and wet.

It is also 9:30 AM.

I got my car out of storage yesterday. The rear tire had a slow leak that needed a repair, so it wasn't as easy as "Here's your car, see ya!" or I would have had it on December 19th, 3:30 AM notwithstanding.

Once everything was fixed and tidy, once I found the freeway and the right stations on the radio, once I started The White Stripes and switching lanes at 80MPH (not KPH), I paused in my head and pondered the elation. What was it that that had me so pumped?

I have a car in Kuwait. I have access to The White Stripes in all their bass-licked glory.
I can go 80 MPH in Kuwait (125 KPH) if I really want to.
Three lanes instead of 4 don't make that big a difference
The sky in Kuwait is even bigger

So what was it that, even thinking of Kuwait, was getting me a little down?

I drove on, tracing the lines of the hills and trees on the 80 South to San Francisco. I had to make this run from Pittsburg to Sacramento at least a dozen times in the month before I left (70 miles round trip), cleaning my apartment and bringing stuff to storage. There was the memory of Pan Dyrektor too- his place was a regular stop before I crossed the bridge to Concord. I still have a hard time thinking he's not there any more. But good memories of sunny spring evenings, driving breakneck and bellowing tunelessly to songs like "The Reason".

You see, even in November I would pull myself up short. I was living in a foreign country, a chance no one (except M., maybe) could appreciate.

How. F--ing. Fabulous.

Yet I am, still, wrapped around the axle about stupid shit. Drowning in stupid shit. Failing miserably at seeing the beauty and possibility of my own experience because of, stupid shit.

Twenty hours and twenty thousand miles later, I'm asking myself about it. In a coffee shop in Dixon.

Why exactly would I care what people think, in Kuwait, when I don't in California?

I got called on it at 2AM, in a car on the Gulf Road. (Culture Note: Not everyone sticks to the "No arguments after midnight on a Thursday morning" rule of fair play.)

So why exactly do I care?

No punching, no kicking or biting is going to get me out of the situation I live in, in Kuwait. Which is balanced on gritted teeth and toothy smiles. This makes me feel pinned, which frustrates me even more. In fact, just thinking about it pisses me off. I hate being forced to care what other people think for politeness sake. Especially since I work with the building. It's the type of thing that will get me streaking the hallways by April. I am very, very tired of my living situation.

There is a certain amount of refreshment in no one looking at you. Refreshment, freedom, not being under a microscope. Here in the States, there is a blissful amount of "No one cares what you look like or what you're doing!" In California, it is more so. In Berkeley, you can walk around naked for a certain amount of time before you're ticketed by a mildly irritated cop and attacked by a mobile Social Services unit bearing clothing.

In Kuwait, it's not the people on the Corniche. Well, maybe the men because you decided to wear shorts to run in that day. It's not the people on Amman Street. It's the people you work with.

Maybe I'm just lucky, to be saddled with 8 floors and 28 apartments full of teachers over 50. it's like the guy in "Ikiru"- he stared at that girl like she was steak, but it wasn't sexual. It was because she was alive, youthful, fidgety, carefree.

Shed the faintest crack of joy, quietly, in my building, and it's like the sun on a cloudy day. Every face will orient towards That Smell, like bread baking, questioning, sight and hearing blind. Do not bounce, do not throw out your chest and breathe deeply. You'll have a queue of 'Takers" for your joy before you turn around and let that breath out. "How are you?" "Where were you?" "Who was with you?" 'Where are you going?" "When are you going?"

The living space is common property. Unofficially, so is your joy and your spirit.