Here I am at MIA - even the airport has a musical name. I'm sad to leave Miami - although I'm leaving at just the right moment, as rains and storms rise up from the Keys. I spent the morning packing and then walked to the Holocaust Memorial - Florida apparently has the largest number of Holocaust survivors. It's a beautiful, wrenching structure - a hand reaching in both hope and desperation to the sky - the crawling emaicated figures surrounding it made me think of the way the poor people struggled to climb upwards in the gas chambers, hoping to [View Full Entry]

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I'm going to miss this place - every building here looks like a radio or a ship. Miami seems frozen in time too - the music is resolutely 80s, if not perky Latin. The clothes are so slutty too - think Dalston Wicked Lady, Louise! - and everyone really does have the tan and rollerblades! Amazing coloured 50's cars line the streets too. Everything is so aesthetic. I almost love it here more than NYC - but how could I be unfaithful like that? What a city tart, I am! I could live here too and I didn't expect that - [View Full Entry]

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My friend, Jo, told me I'd cry a lot on this journey. Having travelled alone for six months at nineteen (!), she said there would be these emotional times. "Crying" she wrote in her mail. "Thank God for crying." As usual, she took me by surprise. Although I'm a Buddhist and know life is suffering, know I should sit with my feelings in order to transform them, tears have been too much a part of my life over the past year or so for me to embrace them - I mean, no sane person wants pain, right? Even if denying it [View Full Entry]

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South Beach (So Be), Miami is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen - art deco marvels at every glance, plus palm trees and sun, sun, sun. I dunno whose genius idea it was to have this whole area decked out in this style, but it's incredible. Ocean drive is one of the most delightful roads on earth. So buzzy too - full of great streetside cafes with Latin beats pulsing out. I ate dinner outside with all the neon signs and had a wodnerful time - mango salad. Mmm. I am very impressed! It's very Hispanic and friendly [View Full Entry]

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Heya. Just a quick one as I'm in a cafe adn Miami's sun and Art deco beauty beckons. I did my astronaut training yesterday - whoopee! I commanded the shuttle (of course!) and toojk her down perfectly! Apparently, many astronauts crash first time on the simulator! I had a bit of trouble because my co-pilot was bossing me around (thinking I'm incompetent as boys do!), but then once I did my own thing I cruised her down right on the line. The pressure was imeense - the crew wer sayign I don't want to die! - but the controller said I [View Full Entry]

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That was the title of the IMAX movie I saw at NASA Kennedy Space Center today. It was utterly incredible - sent shivers down my spine. It was like actually being there, in that 3d world of dust! Although I was initially underwhelmed by the sheer mundaneness of the complex and the godawful muzak pumping out everywhere - as if we needed that to emote about space! - I soon found myself impressed by the Rocket Garden (all the Mercury and other rockets set side by side) and then, on the bus tour, blinking back tears at the sight of the [View Full Entry]

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Today the sun had his baseball cap on (well, we are in the US) so I took a long, long walk. Everything here is set up for four-wheeled creatures, so all amenities are sprawled miles apart - hence there is no choice for two-legged animals like me except to perform the Long March. In fact, I feel so odd here without a car, that I find myself telling people about my sad epileptic past in order to somehow excuse my non-driver status! This state will be the first to go when fossil fuels run out! Anyway, I trudged to the Taco [View Full Entry]

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Well, that's what one of the church billboards here in Cocoa Beach told me!! This place is uber-weird! With its luscious vegetation and outrageous wildlife - I've seen so many eagles! - I have the feeling the Florida would be beautiful, if only humans hadn't come along and screwed it up! It makes me think of that Talking Head song which says "Once there were parking lots/ Now there's nothing but flowers" ... I wish. Cocoa Beach itself is long and lovely - only it's pretty cool today and overcast so the swimming and lazing I'd planned for the next couple [View Full Entry]

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Am really bored here awaiting '''''''my flight to Orlando - so I decided to have a go at penning a Frank O'Hara type poem .. new york city skyline: a graphic equalizer boom boom B B boom and you in my heart like music only listening to itself, only loving itself and me still thinking of you, still loving you, even though our conversations are as one-sided as the letter of wind slapping back from the Atlantic, even though changing is as impossible for you as for the glass eater at Coney Island lunching only on lightbulbs, even [View Full Entry]

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It's late in Brooklyn, but I just had to say a few words of farewell about this my favourite city after what has been another spectacular day - a day of fire-eaters, rollercoasters and tangerine-coloured moons. I'm not exaggerrating either. Travelling to Coney Island this afternoon (way out past Avenue Q!), I nearly had a photographer's orgasm. I mean that place is visual gold dust - weaving skeletons of defunct/ temporarily resting rides, lurid clam cafe signs and mile after mile of school buses apparently on vacation. I shot some much film and thoroughly enjoyed every minute, despite the [View Full Entry]

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