You be strait trippin if I aint on da vip list yo

8/18/07

I woke up this morning to a note from Jan saying that his friend Karin will pick me up this morning at 10:15 to take me to Yoga class. She arrived exactly at 10:15 and she had a kind, friendly face. I rode off with her on Jan’s bike and I enjoyed a full, German-speaking yoga class with her. Thank goodness I’ve been to enough yoga sessions to know what was going on without having to understand. After class, taking our bikes a little further to the pristine Zurich lake, passing a giant purple Ferris wheel – I felt like I was at home and she had been a neighborhood friend from around the block. She introduced me to all of her co-workers and we laid by the lake in the grass, feeling the sun – and talking.

She took me to a botanical garden – which was one of the nicest I’ve seen. There were three domes in the middle of the park, showcasing flora from the other more-extreme climates. There are a particular species of plant called “Living Rocks” which are used to receiving only 10mm of water per year. They actually look like tiny human brains.

The next time I saw Karin that evening was at her job – She works for “Orange Cinema” Which is an outdoor movie theater event sponsored by Orange Mobile. I got in for free and watched their premier of the movie “The Departed.” Orange had set up an entire movie theatre outside overlooking Lake Zurich. Behind the movie screen I could see reflections of boats moving slowly across the water, and occasionally a shooting star. The air was crisp and cool but cozy.

I helped her close up her area at the end of the night and we rode our bikes over to Jan’s work – which is a popular dance club. We walked up to the bouncers amongst stylishly dressed 21 year olds with our hair in pony-tails wearing sweat shirts and tennis shoes. They weren’t about to let us in, but my name of course was on the guest list. The venue was actually very beautiful and with the loud house music, it appeared to be something from a vampire movie. It looked like an old theatre for opera with balconies and long red curtains. I prefer to dance by myself, and I tend to zone out a little bit, and whenever I looked up, there were always a circle of guys watching me – but not approaching.

I rode my bike home around 3am and crashed in bed. The cities to me seem all the same - As my grandfather used to say "A town is a town is a town" – I imagine that each place means something different to each person at different periods of their life. Because I am alone, the things I appreciate are kind people and cheap food. So each town seems a little bit the same – only differentiated by the friends I make.