if i was filthy rich from writing filth...hmm

When I was 25 or so, I thought certainly I'd be famous by now. I just had this 'feeling' that I was meant to be famous. For what, I don't know. Acting maybe. During my delusions of grandeur phase when I was a size 2 with a head full of pissy vinegar and no wear on my tires. Yeah, then.

But I had met so many famous people in my younger years I sort of figured I'd turn out to be one of them myself. Possibly by association but, in my hopeful brain, ideally by talent.

Now, as I've spent much more time being alive, that's pretty much the last thing in the world that I want. It's not that the fame itself would bother me, it's that I no longer see it as any kind of necessary validation for who I am in the world - the way I once did.

Yet here I write this semi-private blog that's fairly hard to find online. It's hard to find because that's how I like it. But, all the same, I'm absolutely tickled when someone actually reads it. And even more pleased when they tell me they like it and I can tell they're not lying.

I feel, even in some miniscule way, that something I feel or express is noticed or matters to someone. And I like that.

I am in the fourth month of living in the Bay Area. I am a total newbie in every way but it feels right.

Berkeley reminds me of Cambridge, MA. I get that. The buzz of intellectualism and some of the same architectural simliarities makes me feel right at home. Oakland reminds me of Los Feliz circa 1997. I'm no longer afraid to buy gas down the street or even go in and buy a water or a Slim Jim (yeah I actually bought one of those recently, how gross I know) from behind the bullet proof glass. I smile at people as I come and go. They smile back. I could be in Boston, Jersey, Indiana. With a sparkling, hilly view.

San Francisco, however, is like nowhere else I've ever lived or visited. In my humble opinion, I think it is the most beautiful city in America. From the elegantly Bay spanning bridges to the crooked and steep streets, from the iconic buildings that define the foggy cityscape to the more intimate structures that mark the inner heart, it is a city that pounds with uniqueness with so much beauty that no one, and nothing, can take that away from it.

I don't care if I'm ever famous, living or dead. I just want to do something worthwhile while I'm here. Sometimes I think I could make a pretty penny writing some craptastic sex book like that hideously written (not even that shocking, sorry) book 'Fifty Shades of Grey.' Dude, anyone who has ever glanced into the nether regions of the interwebs can find much deeper, darker filth than that. So I'd be rich, quite possibly famous, but embarrassed at how it happened to be so? Or would I, lollygagging and being massaged endlessly from my private hut in Tahiti, care at all what anyone thought?

I'd actually only be in Tahiti for short stretches. The rest of the time I'd be traveling and touring and reading and learning and teaching and listening and....being. The idea of just...being is so wonderful to me. And by being I don't mean sitting around and eating and lying on the couch. I really mean...BEING. What a gift that would be.

Should I do it? My mom always used to say why don't you just become the next Danielle Steele? (I think some of her stories, particularly when I was in my formative years, were pretty entertaining, albeit full of romantic slop). Here I am, living in her city (well, 11 miles outside) and I think, hmm, why not. Not to be rich. Not to be famous. But to see if, maybe, just maybe, I could.

After all, I can always write a 'real' book later, right? I mean, lofty literature can wait. Tahiti is calling.

And New Zealand after that.

And Hong Kong after that.

And....