Tuesday, January 09, 2007

But We Could Be Safer, Just for One Day

This time of year seems to make me even more nostalgic than normal. Last year, I wrote this post about living in Ottumwa during high school. Tonight I don't want to go back that far. I've been thinking about San Francisco more, really.


While I'd never want to get anywhere near thinking like a twenty year old again, there are still some parts of that life I miss. I know people will think I'm crazy, but I miss working in a cafe - even if the owner was an entitled asshole who had to leave Iran after the Shah was deposed and thought Americans (more specifically, American girls) were stupid. There are days I would love to go back there and wait on famous people who would tip like crazy and let me and my friends into their famous comedy clubs for free even though we were underage.
I would love, even for one evening, to have my old boyfriend (and this is only because my memory of the bad parts of our relationship is really fuzzy twenty years later) stop by and pick me up after work so we could go to our favorite Chinese restaurant to drink cocktails and eat potstickers and scallion pancakes with peanut butter sauce.

He could even walk me home to my hideously painted, Pepto Bismol pink living room and my two dorky roommates. The same weird and wonderful girls who would sit up with me for as long as I needed, to cry and bitch about said boyfriend.

Then, because it would be 1986, we could put on our brightly colored scarves, hippie skirts and leggings and wander around San Francisco taking photographs of Chinatown, North Beach and all the strip clubs along Broadway.

It would be great to have just one day like that - where no one needed anything from me and I didn't sit in a cubicle for eight hours and I wasn't the grown-up. Of course, it would mean trading in my daughters, which I couldn't imagine doing even for one day - and worst of all, I would still have to sport those frizzy bangs that make me cringe to look at twenty years later.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Waxing nostalgic tonight huh? How did you get from San Fran to Iowa City. I would love to hear that story sometime.

rel said...

Churlita,
I would like to be 29 for a day again.

If you need a sitter, so you can go back for a DAY. I'm available. I think I can handle teens-for-a-day. ;-)
rel

Margaret said...

time travel, the ultimate fantasy vacation....

booda baby said...

No Wonder You Have Moments - it looks deeeelicious! San Francisco will always have something rare and exotic about it, though, at any age.

I HATE blogger today.

Churlita said...

Bice,

I came back to Iowa City to fix my bad grades and get my degree. There were too many distractions and it was too expensive to live in San Fran and get decent grades.

Rel,

29 was kind of a bad year for me. Usually, Im so much happier being my age than any other age I've experienced, but this time of year, I like to feel like I have options - even if those options are all in the past.

Margaret,

It really is. Though, usually I'd just like to observe the past and not have to participate in it.

Booda Baby,

You're right. Though, there's no way in hell I could afford to be a single mother in San Francisco. At least in Iowa City, everything is so cheap.

egan said...

This post is making me nostalgic too.

Anonymous said...

oh I have those days -

Churlita said...

Egan,

What part is making you nostalgic? Is it the part where I talk about leggings and hippie skirts or is it the pepto Bismol pink living room?

AKelly,

I think its worse during the ass end of winter when I'm feeling more trapped in general. I'm sure dating and hanging out with a bunch of twenty year olds would make me pull my hair out in any real sense now that I'm in my forties.