so very much to think and say and write and talk about.

clearly i have been truant for a month - and what a month. i do believe it was a month that i was yammering about a few posts ago. and yes, it was a few posts ago because i have been such a shoddy correspondent. so where to begin. well, i suppose we begin where all stories begin - at the beginning. of the month that is.

california.

a delight, a dream, a haze of palm trees and nostalgia. from LA to san diego, gazed at the pacific coast like i'd never seen it before. and i guess my older self hadn't -- it had been 7 years since i had looked on it in all its salty splendour.

sandiego was gorgeous and seemed untouched - like a dusty book still marked at the same spot you'd left it ages ago. but of course, things had changed. we'd all grown up - no more were we cousins making home movies about fictional lands in the backyard -- we were young(ish) men and women attending a wedding. seeing my cousin get hitched was wild. and the wedding reception was just as surreal as i'd predicted.

i now know why the beach boys (& later david lee roth) wished they all could be california girls. they're buxom, they're blonde. they're poured into their dresses like maramalade. and fat skinny or somewhere in between, they all dance dirty enough to shock the pants off of patrick swayze. i watched in awe and vague horror as they grinded away to "tootsie roll", much to the anti-delight of my 93 year old grandmother. and my 58 year old mother, come to think of it.

beyond the wedding, there was much latte sipping at pete's (the sunshine state's answer to starbucks), much stuffing face with mexican food, much chatting with the folks, and of course, much shopping. i do love a good dose of over-consumption. and what better place to do it than the land of the fat, the fake and the five dollar party dress marked down from 100?

so that was cali.

next up -- cannes.

oh, cannes what do you say about cannes. glam, shazam, thank you ma'am. i had a stunner of a time. and stunner might be an understatement. flew to munich, flew to nice - with butterflies the size of dishplatters knocking about in my stomach. took a helicopter to cannes, which was frightening as all hell, but exhilirating. and the 10 days there - well now. here's a summary.

there was the poetic:

gorgonzola pizzas and big mugs of beer. lying on a beach for hours, soaking in the mediterranean light. sitting in little cafes, mowing down brie baguettes and smoking cigarettes. wandering down little cobblestoned alleys in the old town. dining next to frenchmen and their dogs. strolling down the boardwalk, apple and san pelligrino in hand, in search of a shady spot to sit and people watch. being handed a peppermint by the old lady who minded the front desk of the hotel, and running lightly up the four flights of stairs to my little room. yes, it all sounds like the pages of a bad harlequin. but my goodness, it really was that romantic.

and then there was the overly-frenetic-energetic.

schmooze. days of meeting, greeting, business card swapping. but in the most unembarassing way. there were literally hundreds of people from every corner of the world just waiting to be bumped into at the bar, rubbed shoulders with at a party. the quality of people was astounding. i met chileans who were internet designer superstars. brazilians who had written books. brits who jetted around the world snapping photos for getty images. worldwide creative directors of gigantic new york agencies. company presidents from amsterdam. my voice got lost about four times from all the talk talk talk talk talk.

booze. days and days of parties and dinners and cocktails and afterparties and such. in between the two fanciest hotels in cannes - the martinez and the carlton -- lies a street that turned into an insane outdoor party called the "gutter bar" every night after all the other bars closed. so nights would take on a bit of a crazed dazed schedule - dinner at 10, followed by some exclusive private beach party (all beach parties are almost the same, i learned), followed by a drink or two at the carlton bar (10 euros a beer), followed by the gutter bar. followed by your feet following some sort of stumbling path back to your hotel for an early morning croque monsieur at the bakery next to the hotel at oh, say 7 or 8 am.

and how could i forget the festival itself. the meeting (as aforementioned) of so many phenomenally talented talents. the seeing of ads from everywhere - spectacular pieces that made you realize that this was an artistic medium after all. hacks be damned. from the sony bravia balls bouncing down a san fran street to jose gonzalez to the stunning backwards to forwards messaging of an argentinian long copy (!!!) television ad -- to the ecko viral stunt of tagging air force one to the simple banner that advertised furniture polish by showing pinnochio's pants falling down over and over -- it was just inspiring. and i realize that that is a cliche-ridden nightmare of a sentiment to throw down. but eff it - it was dope. (there, that's the same cliche-ridden sentiment, just more in my language).

sunday i woke up and could hardly move from the experience of it all. or maybe just the cumulative amount of booze ingested. whatever it was, i decided to relax and decompress and absorb all that had happened to me. so i abandoned my barcelona trip (for now) and kicked it in the south of france for an extra day or two. pretended i lived there, kinda. did my laundry, bought some groceries, explored nice, walked up and down monaco.

an absolute delight to be quiet for two days.

and finally onto london.

and oh there i fell in love. it's funny that i never had been to london before. it's such an expected place to go, to see, to do. and there i was, toddling off the plane with nothing but random images of pubs and palaces and indie nights and oasis haircuts and big bens dancing in my head. it knocked my socks off. or it would have, had i been wearing socks, rather than the dingy little chinese slippers that robed my feet. stayed with some friends who ex-patted there four years ago from here. and proceeded to pretend i lived there.

meandered through the metro stops, stopping along the way to snap pseudo-artistic shots.

obsessed over the tate modern. that place is pure and utter Joy. no, scratch that - it's J-O-Y! the kandinksy exhibit, with its colorful lines wowing all over the place - the poetry and surrealism display with my very favourite Miro that i picked out on a t-shirt on a 5th grade family vacation to the prado in madrid years ago -- (little did i know then that i had the words "a star caresses the breast of a negress" in french emblazoned across my chest).

there were the picture perfect gurskys, the legers, the mindblowing installations. everything was everything great.

so gush gush gush. rush rush rush.

i shopped and topshopped. i ate in pubs and drank afternoon pints. i went dancing with friends at a lovely little dancenight called "how does it feel to be loved" -- and met up with a bunch of beautiful kids i've been meaning to meet forever. the night was "seven and seven is" and only 7 inches were played. a night full of blissful jumping about and hearing things like felt and the pastels - long forgotten favourites of yore.

so london killed me. it willed me to come back. and as i spilled into my planeseat home, i realized that it might just be the ad-city for me. after all, new york and my american citizenship aren't going anywhere. and my youth for a uk working visa most certainly is.

must. start. saving.
and working.
and hoping.
and praying.
and wishing.

and goodnight. there you have my month. in little bit more than a nutshell. i could write for days, but that might be excessive. twas magical and bright and and all sorts of other twee descriptors. suffice to say it was an eye, mind and heart opener, and it made me love all the little things and people in this little life of mine - but also dream and wonder and wander and plan.


and i make it my mission to see both cannes and london again soon.