Genevra's Weekend

Genevra just spent the weekend out here. It's the first time I've ever had someone who lived in my neck of the woods come out to the place I was traveling to, just to visit me while I was away. I've had people travel with me for the whole trip, or most of the trip; but she just came out for the weekend, in the middle of my multi-week voyage.

It was great! Everything came together, timing-wise. She arrived on Friday night, which is traditionally the day Kar and James have a little gathering, with wide-ranging discussions and a late night for all. Genevra had booked a flight that would get in at midnight, so just by chance everyone was still going to be awake when she made it to the house at 12:30. Usually 10PM is bedtime.

Saturday is traditionally "movie day", where Kar and James wake up, make sandwiches, and start off with an old film, often pre-code; and then watch more and more recent films until by the end of the day they get to one from the last ten years or so. So Genevra and I got to be part of movie day, and I'd arranged for a massage therapist to come by; so she and Kar and I all took turns getting massaged. Another case of things timing out perfectly; because the people waiting for massages all had nice movies to watch.

Then Sunday, Kar and James put on one of their traditional barbecues. It was kind of short notice, but a bunch of people showed up, and there were burgers and sausages, and everyone sat out in the beautiful garden for a long time until it got chilly, and then we all moved indoors and continued the discussion. So, that was a third case of timing potentially being bad, because people might not have been able to show up on such short notice; but where it all worked out and was nice.

I also got to meet two of Genevra's friends who live out here. One came to the barbecue; but the other turned out to involve a fourth case of interesting timing. I'd been scheduled to hang out with my old friend Riana for lunch on Monday, and somehow I just hadn't connected to the idea that Genevra was still going to be in town for the day, and wouldn't leave till evening. I just thought of her as leaving on Monday, and did my usual thing of booking myself up with friends for that day. So I ended up rescheduling with Riana for next week, and then it turned out that Genevra's other friend wanted to get lunch with her that same day, in the same neighborhood that I'd been planning to meet up with Riana.

So to that extent I was more like, "dang, if I hadn't rescheduled with Riana, everything would be perfect now, because you could see your friend and I could see mine, and we could head downtown together, and come back to the house together." But instead I ended up going with Genevra to hang out with her friend, and that was actually better, because I'm still going to get to see Riana, but I wouldn't have gotten to see Genevra's friend this visit. So ultimately things timed out for the best.

It was a weekend of oddly propitious timing. And it was really nice and strange to get to see Genevra in the middle of what is usually a completely non-NY type of situation.

Her two friends were both really interesting. During the barbecue, Genevra and her first friend (whose name I already forgot - stupid me - I'll call her friend A) Genevra and friend A were hanging out and catching up on old times; and I was sitting with them, and one of Kar and James's roommates was there, Caitlin, a 20-something with braces, kind of just starting out with life. So, somehow it came up that Genevra's a delivery nurse, and the three of them started a really detailed discussion of vaginas, and birth, and shaving strategies, and I was just sort of sitting there being happy. Usually I'm the one who raises the taboo topics and watches the people around me blushing, and then I'm the one who may also get yelled at for it; but no. This time it was Genevra and friend A. I loved it because those kind of topics shouldn't be taboo, and the people who get offended by them should chill out. I think Caitlin loved it too, because earlier she'd confessed to me that she was shy and awkward in groups; and it looked like she was having the time of her life in that discussion.

Friend B was also interesting. We met up and ate at a fancy place down town, because she's a successful TV producer. In fact, Genevra was on the identical career path when she decided to switch into an ethically more meaningful career; so I sort of looked at friend B as the 'Mirror Mirror' version of what Genevra would be like if she'd stayed in TV and become a bigger and bigger producer.

Oddly enough, James is a big-time Star Trek person, and the 'Mirror Mirror' episode and its progeny had come up in discussion a number of times already during my visit; so it was actually really apropos to get to meet up with friend B, who I kind of feel like now I should call Evil Kirk or something.

But actually she was great, and I posed a question to her. She was clearly doing very well financially, and during the conversation she confirmed that she was really just in it for the money; so the question I posed was, if all jobs paid the same, and there were no stock options or bonuses, and she could start fresh in any career she wanted, which would it be?

She thought about it for a bit, and said she'd probably be exploring the benefits of herbs, and practicing holistic medicine. She'd always been interested in that, and she told us some neat stories about holistic cures she'd heard about or experienced. So holistic medicine was her real dream. That was cool, and since I'd gone to a holistic doctor the week before, that James had recommended to me; I got to talk to friend B a bit about the whole topic.

Actually my mother had been really into holistic medicine when I was growing up, but I never got interested in it back then. Her books had been full of diagrams that were beautiful but made no sense to me. I was surprised at the doctor's office, to see that he had holistic medical texts dating back to 1911. I'd always thought of it as strictly the province of the 60's and 70's. So those were some of my thoughts during the friend B experience.

In between all the events of the weekend, Genevra and I did a lot of talking and hanging out. All New Yorkers are morning people in California, so we ended up getting breakfast together every day. Once at the Squat'n'Gobble in West Portal, and the other times at the new Whole Foods on Ocean Ave. The breakfasts were very fun, and the whole rest of the time was very fun. The only bad part was that on the very last day, my knee hurt a little and my back was bothering me, so I was a slower mover than usual. I need to get back into swimming. Swimming is clearly the way to go. That's first on my list for back home.

The whole visit was nice - a lot nicer than a surfacey blog post can reveal - and after Genevra left, Kar and James both said they liked her, and that she was welcome back any time. In fact, the way they phrased it, it was almost like they were saying I could stay in New York if I wanted, and just send her along to visit them. Which I know was just in my head, but I still found it funny.