Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Rêver de St Louis...

The other night I was on Google Earth, taking its virtual tours from my desk in a little house high on a hill in Los Angeles, to places I've been and never been. I flew over the Forbidden City in China, the former home of the Republican Guard in Iran, my old Tiger Beat office in Cresskill, New Jersey (Yes, that Tiger Beat, where I was an editor for three years in the CultureClubDuranDuranMadonnaSpringsteenU2 WeAreTheWorld 80s, and no, they didn't go out of business after you graduated to SPIN magazine), Mt. Haleakala on the Big Island of Hawaii, Vatican City, Buenos Aires, Argentina.....and then I set the coordinates for Square St. Louis, Montreal.

Whoooooooosh
went the screen, like those TV weather maps, rotating the planet, and then dropping down about to 600 feet high above the square and its fountain in the park. From that slightly blurry angle, I couldn't make out the crazies in the park, or any people for that matter. But it was enough to send a sharp shiver of lonely through me.

March approaches like a zephyr, picking up speed every day. There are plane tickets to buy, arrangements to make, and then, just like that, March will be—over. See, someone else owns this apartment of my dreams, and March is the only month it is available to me until Fall again. I thought about actually swapping apartments to extend my stay through the spring, but I can't imagine living anywhere else in the City. Ah, there are worse dilemmas. (Um, maybe you know someone who wants to live in LA this spring?)

I do know I plan on trying to meet all the people who commented on the blog, and all the strangers who e-mailed me with encouragement and suggestions.

AND I'll play the Sherbrooke station again. Once, maybe twice.

Rencontrez-moi en Mars. Habillez chaudement.