Adaptation (Fantasy Exit Strategy Creative Writing Exercise)

On 11/19/12, I wrote something inspired by a Thought Catalog piece. Here's my take:

1.    1.   Run away to Brooklyn for two months. Eat the best food while standing between redheaded sisters and a family of chic, noisy Muslim women. The man in front of you calls home to “Mama” in N’ Orl’ns, talking with his mouth full. Watch a diverse group of loud, confident neighborhood kids argue and tease each other and play basketball with the unspoken knowledge that all their families suffered from the hurricane, and took it in fierce New York stride that you will never really relate to. Crash at a friend of a friend’s tiny apartment, falling asleep on the couch to the sound of a car chase. Try white peach bean paste bon bons. Take countless pictures. Go to a dance battle. Try not to feel too overwhelmed. Do shots with the bartender of the theme bar you like. Go on a few dates with a hardcore Yankees fan with gentle eyes and, as he’s taking you home on the 4, give a subtle nod of understanding to the girl at the other end of the train car – the one who just kissed the back of her boyfriend’s hand. New York has its own magic, and you two, as outsiders and mere mortals, are powerless against it.

2.    2. Two years later, you visit San Francisco.
      Work as a barista and a dog-walker for the curator of a small art gallery. Briefly date his assistant, but dump him for the beach. See Margaret Cho perform live, and try almost every available type of beer. Check out the graffiti…and the hot guy who works at that tiny restaurant you frequent. Support your curator boss at a drag show in which he’s a headliner. Walk almost everywhere and wave at the dark-eyed toddler boy you pass each day when he plays on his family’s front stoop. Befriend his mother, who teaches you the right way to make collard greens and Leche merengada. Get upset that you can’t go home for Thanksgiving. Call your dad and grandmother. Spend that holiday with your new mother-and-son pals, eating a heap of turkey as other guests tell uproarious stories about growing up in “the City”.

3.      Three and a half years after that, you go to London and strut its pavement, wearing black eyeliner, dressing bravely each day, hoping to quietly impress someone. You try meals you’ve always previously avoided and hit up book shops often, usually reading books you’ll never buy. After a little while, you attend some local plays, and, if you can afford it, a musical. Get a new hairstyle – make it colorful. Drink tea in beautiful little cafés. Once you’re very comfortable with the city and have made some new friends, you leave.

4    3. Quite sometime later, you vacation in Sydney. Shop and drink coffee and buy organic groceries and take yoga classes in New Town and meet a freakishly tall Australian woman with shiny hair for barbecue. Take a ton of photos. Meet the musician who had a bit part on New Town Girls and shake your head at yourself for finding her strikingly attractive. Window-shop and people-watch and go to the zoo. Kill a spider in a nightclub bathroom. Meet acquaintances at a party in Annandale. Lose five dollars on the way to your car. Go to Bondi Beach. You’ll be approached by a polite Aussie with vivid green eyes who flirts with you and holds out his hand, saying, “You forgot this”. You find yourself discussing books and travel with him. Soon you suggest a walk along the water’s edge before turning your palm up. Between nervous fingers is a five-dollar bill.

      4. Visit the Bermuda Triangle. You party with a group of old sailors, pilots and a fisherman, many of whom have long, scraggly beards. One of the former Navy men has tattooed his own arm. You share your stockpile of sun block and canned food and an abundance of bottled water. In the distance, one of your comrades sees a cruise liner. You help the men try to wave the giant ship down, but, as expected, the effort is in vain. A mermaid passes your boat and flips off the tattooed sea farer, who laughs it off. “Since 1968”, he says, eyes twinkling. When night falls, the men get nostalgic and misty-eyed and, at times, angry. Your stash of petit fours is opened up to accompany the water you’re all pretending is wine. It’s a profound vacation that ends with your cryptic explanation about why you want to try to get everyone out of the Triangle if they’re willing to trust you. After a tear in time and space, a whole lot of heel-clicking hope, and two sips of a powerful, transporting alien sauce you stole from a John a while back, you get your new old friends to Florida, where you feed and free them in a beachside condo complex before falling asleep for a month, recovering from the other-worldly drug. When you come to, nearly everyone wants plane tickets.

6.    5. Run away to Boston. Drink at great local bars and pubs. Keep your mouth shut about baseball and your silver-and-blue-blooded ex. Stay at your cousin’s place, where you clean in exchange. Enjoy the aquarium and try to find a job. Get frequent sunburn, tan, fill up on vitamin D. Hang out once a week with a bright-eyed bartender named Katie. Pass the stadium one day and flip off an image of the quarterback’s name. You make some great acquaintances, babysit occasionally, and work at an ice cream stand for just over a month. Your motto: Live wide-eyed, live contentedly, and live with very little money. This is nowhere near the end of your travels.