9ish pm, Sunday 17 July, Aunt G's dining room ....being with family

You really recognise where you come from when you go to a family reunion. 34 people were expected for yesterday's gathering in Elwood City, Pennsylvania. This gathering, which I assumed was one of the normal summer gatherings that we used to have at Aunt L's house, turns out to have been organised in my honour - because I am so rarely in the country. This induced some guilt, but also an emotional swelling in realisation that a lot of family were coming out in part to see me. Or more that my Aunt G thought it the right thing to do, that the family gathers to see me. And sadness that the big family gatherings no longer bring the family hoardes back to the centre of the family tree, the reason why Aunt G does not regularly organised them any longer.

I don't think visiting the relatives was ever a fraught experience for me before, but in my adulthood, like so many things that are no longer unambiguous, its given me a lot to think about.

It is a family that loves nothing more than to eat and where most of the people over the age of 25 are chubby. Most of my young cousins, twenty-somethings, are quite attractive, and thin. It is probably only my parents who go on and on about dieting, but I feel more anxious about my weight and looks here with my family, am concerned more about being judged and found physically wanting. These are age-old issues for me but perhaps are compounded by the liberal sprinklings of criticism my family produces. Despite their overt tolerance, there is a lot of gossip, complaining and criticism going on in private conversation, which makes me a little uncomfortable. Probably because I am the same way - just narky about different things and different people than they are.

Also, compounding my insecurities is my singledom. I love being single, but in a family where everyone is married off with copious kids, I am afraid they think I am unwanted rather than single by choice. I don’t want my young cousins to think I’m too weird to find a man. They have all come with their boyfriends or babies. The more boyfriends and babies there are, the less I want to have anything to do with them and the less interested I am in talking to and getting to know my cousins. I was originally so excited to find out what these young people were up to. I have such fond memories of them as toddlers. But they showed little to no interest in me and I never overheard any conversation about work or studies or projects. I did hear about wedding plans and engagements. I do have one cousin who is also a traveller, travelling more roughly than I do, but she was not in the country.

So I am watching myself turn into a crusty old spinster - and worse, being proud of it. I have to accept that most people want to pair up and bear children and that this is mostly not a feminist issue and no one cares if I am different. Though also excited about seeing my old uncles and aunts again, by the evening of the reunion I was bored with the aimless chatter, at not having a really meaningful conversation with anyone except for my cousin with a history of alcoholism who can barely bear the fact that no one in the family likes her. My aunt, who organises, cooks and cares for everyone seems stressed and not like she's enjoying herself.

I find myself contrary here, arguing with my dad over our opposing degrees of respect for authority figures, when really we aren't so far apart in our views. It is just that I need to resist his conservatism. I'm not usually like this with him, though, at least I don't think so. Definitely not over the phone.

I am hungry here because idle and unengaged, and picking my split ends. On a more positive note, I had a good time with my sister after we had a long heart-to-heart last night. I admitted to insecurity over her body being so much better than mine. She admitted being envious that I am not as fearful of some sorts of things as she is. There is so much for me to overcome: self-emphasis on attractiveness, the need to accentuate my rebelliousness, a tendency towards the critical. And I know all this. Generally I feel I've made progress. Not so with my family – it was a regressive experience.

12.10pm, Friday July 16, ACKC Cocoa Bar ....gay men in tulip fields

Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections is a large cafe cluttered with three-tier stands of chocolate and brightly-patterned artist-glazed round tables in addition to truffle and cafe bars. On one wall are mosaics for sale, depicting gay male romantic scenes – beach, shower, tulip field with rainbow.

I am eating a warm dark-chocolate gooey cake with dark chocolate sauce in the middle. Sending that email to MS must have been a good idea despite my doubts about its tenor. I feel much better this morning – like my old cheery self. A nice way to go to Pennsylvania and reunite myself with my extended family.

Last night J cooked us a dinner of avocado soup and a spiced carrot and coriander salad (it was supposed to be with parsely but I love coriander). It was very nice. After dinner we walked to the ACKC but it was closing, so we went to a local bar instead for a quick beer.

I am sorry I am not staying longer with J as it is lovely to be with her, despite her doubts about my armpit hair and hippy clothes.

afternoon, Thursday July 16, Museum of American History cafe ….subway debacle

I am eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looking out at the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency. I have been through the First Ladies exhibition to see some of the inaugural gowns of the presidents’ wives. It was a disappointing exhibit because a)most of the gowns aren’t there and b)the exhibition is laid out in such a way that the information about the women and their dresses were not in the same place, nor was anything organised in chronological order. I couldn’t get a good sense of the flow and relationship of fashion, history and women’s changing roles.

Lately I haven’t felt much like writing, other than heartfelt and unsent letters to MS. I am still in mourning for him and angry that I am so. I finally sent an email this morning expressing my disappointment. I needed to do something so I could move on.
I’ve been enjoying my time with my sister, N, and stayed with J last night. We had dinner with N and her feminist friend and the four of us argued over noodles at a Thai restaurant. I ordered spicy Thai soup but it wasn’t a laksa.

Afterwards, J and I headed to Gibson’s, her favourite bar. Gibson’s is modelled after a speakeasy, all dusky earth tones and only accepts a certain amount of people into the bar at one time. J gave her mobile number to the host at the bottom of the stairs and we hung out at the bar next store while we waited for our text message telling us there was space in Gibson’s for us. We drank old-fashioned cocktails and yabbered about boys. Then we went back to J’s apartment, which she has decorated herself in awesome fashion, and continued talking over wine. J’s bathroom is a good example of her design skills. She painted one wall in black and pink strikes, hung a black-and-pink art-deco-patterned shower curtain, put a pelvis (bones) on the wall and a Barbie on the toilet top.

Yesterday I went to a talk at the Library of Congress. An academic lectured on the lack of acknowledgement of women’s roles in decolonization history. It wasn’t a very interesting talk for me. Most of what was said wasn’t news.

More interesting (and distressing) was my intrusion into a total stranger’s life. It happened in the public transport system. On the way out of a subway station I stuck my ticket in the turnstile and it beeped at me. I didn’t know why it beeped at me but the guy behind me stuck his ticket in, the gates opened, and we walked through. A female security guard swooped on us immediately and began questioning us. Did we know each other? Why was he letting me get through on his ticket?

N and I explained that I was a tourist and didn’t understand what had happened. It happened so quickly, and I hadn’t realised my ticket didn’t have enough credit on it. The security officer let me go and pay for the ticket but she insisted on fining the guy who came through behind me. N and I waited for him to emerge from under the shadow of the vicious guard so that we could apologise, offer him money, at least give him N’s details so he could protest the ticket. But we never saw him emerge from the station and we eventually left, all flusteredly worked up and horrified.

I am now in the Library of Congress Jefferson Building. It is insanely beautiful, with tiled floor, collonaded balcony, stained-glass ceiling windows, and bright gold, yellow and deep blue frescoes along curving ceilings. The walls depict hazy sunny murals and famous quotes from literature.

This whole town is insane. The magnitude of its architecture beats Europe, I think. It is all so clean and sparkly and enormous and grand. No wonder the self-importance that goes on here. These government buildings were built to glorify the public servants that work in them. Unlike in Canberra, where public servants work in office buildings like the rest of us.

7.00pm, Friday July 10, bus to New York City ...liberty

I have now seen Philadelphia (I suppose I must have been there with school when I was a child, but I don’t remember...). At least I've seen the historic district: the Liberty Bell, much smaller than I'd imagined, Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's printing press, the cemetery where he is buried, a cream-coloured Anglican church with a beatiful organ. We arrived into Chinatown, but there was no time to see where Philadelphians actually live.

Back to Saturday night in Caracas... S and I finally left to go dancing around 2am. By that time I was ready to go home, I was so tired. But out we did go, into the wilds of safe and wealthy Caracas to find a regaton bar. We danced across from the bar, hugging a couple of chairs, with our $35 bolivar gin and tonics (!!). There was a small square dance floor in the front of the club, from which a girl who was with a few guys kept poking her head out to talk to S. After this happened a few times, S told me that the girl wanted S to dance with her group and did I mind. Of course not, I said. But the girl and one of her male companions got S onto one end of a sandwich, grinding away. It was very strange. S and I left pretty quickly after that, speculating on what that was all about.

Meanwhile, back in New York.... On Tuesday night, SW and I went to a Mets game. We had excellent seats three tiers above homebase. The Mets lost to the Dodgers 8 to 0. They kept getting out very quickly and only had four hits the entire game. They were only slightly better in the field than they were at bat. A lovely old usher explained to us that the Mets’s four best players were out with injuries and minor leaguers were replacing them. However, the next night the Mets beat the Dodgers, as SW and I noticed on the television playing in the hotel bar while we were sipping cocktails.

MS still hasn't emailed me back. It has been a week since I emailed him. I read an email from J today asking when I would decide to give up on MS and just remember our time together as a great experience. I'm getting there, but I’m not ready to let go yet and not sure what to do or how long to wait before I do it. Two weeks? In any case, reading the email from J tinged my day with sadness.

11.00pm, Thursday July 9, hotel room ....another long day

I walked and walked today. Good thing too, as I had Nathan's cheese fries for lunch and Indian food for dinner. SW and I slept in, had complimentary breakfasts at the hotel, and then made our way to Coney island on the F train.

SW wants to see dodgy New York and so far I have failed him. When I visited Coney Island in 2005 I found it a lower-class area: dirty, empty lots, black-sanded beach of Hispanic and Arab families. (This is my memory.) I loved it – it had character. Now the beach has normal-coloured sand, the sun-bathers are white people, and down the boardwalk a bit an enormous complex of luxury apartments has gone up. So, no real dodginess.

SW and I rode the WonderWheel. Its carriages slid down individual tracks as well as revolved slowly around so it looked like - and was - more fun than a normal ferris wheel and, of course, offered great views.

SW and I walked to one end of the very long boardwalk and head into the residential streets. We saw blocks of old brick Brooklyn houses, fronted by small flowering gardens. We ended up walking to the Sheepshead Bay station (I think; don’t quote me on that one). When I asked a few cops how to walk back to the Stillwell Avenue station (accessible) they told me it was too far to walk. But I've walked from there to here, I said. I don't think they believed me and directed me to a bus. We took the bus.

Our next stop was Prospect Park. We walked through the park to Grand Army Plaza, oohed and aahed over the sculpture there. I went in to the grand Brooklyn Public Library to pee and then we walked the gorgeous streets of Park Slope, with their rounded brownstones and elegant front stairways. Such a gorgeous part of town. You can imagine begowned 19th century ladies wafting out the front doors. After walking through some residential streets we walked down the main street of 7th Ave, where we decided to have an Indian dinner, sitting in the open front of the restaurant. The vegetable korma was lovely and the mushroom saag good too, though neither were spicy.

SW and I continued on our way to the Dekalb subway station and finally hit a more ordinary area - Flatbush Ave, a major thoroughfare in a black Brooklyn neighbourhood, all multi-laned road, ordinary city signage and meaty restaurants. Definitely not a beautiful area. SW used the internet in a hot convenience store in order to imbibe the local vibe, surrounded by black men.

10.00pm, Wednesday July 8th, hotel room ....getting exhausting

I really must finish recording the story of my last full day in Caracas. After leaving Louis the Ecuadorian on the heights of Avila, S and I drank beer, bought boutique chocolate and then head back into town to meet F. The three of us went to a very sophisticated hotel bar, decked out with hammocks and couches, big squares of creamy canvas sheets covering the ceiling, with low lighting and a greenish sea tinge. There were two levels of rooftop bar overlooking the city and it was this view for which S brought me there. The menu at the bar was very expensive (and it was my treat), so we ordered a pizza to share amongst us. It turned out to be delicious – covered with arugula, goat's cheese and olives. S had a glass of wine.

We parted ways with F after chilling ourselves looking out over Caracas. I bought a bottle of red to take to M's apartment, stuffed with other couchsurfers and many boxes. M was moving back to her parents’ house. I talked a bit to a lovely couchsurfer but he left and then I felt bored and quiet as all the gals joked around, putting moving boxes penned with faces on their heads and dancing and laughing. I didn't really get the joke.

As the evening wore on – remember, I had only a couple of hours of broken sleep on the bus the night before - M spilled a glass of wine on S's pants and we had to wait for the pants to go through a wash and dry cycle before we could head off clubbing in search of reggaton music. I was fading.

MS called me on S's cell phone that evening. It was a bit public, the other couchsurfers twigging that something had happened between us (M has met MS and the other girls had heard about him, I think). I was a little embarrased but stoked, of course, and I went into the bedroom to talk to him. I had trouble understanding him what with cell phone and accent, but I think he babbled on about staying at his friend's place and talking with his family. He said he had called to make sure I arrived in Caracas okay. He texted afterwards. And now I get one email in 10 days. It is a difficult adjustment.

Today SW and I went back to Bloomingdale's to revisit the Ralph Lauren turtleneck. We went to see Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini in 'God of Carnage' on Broadway. We both enjoyed the play, though SW more than me. I found it funny and always enjoy narratives about how awful marriage is, but ultimately it was mainstream and offered nothing new. The acting was strong but not remarkable and Gay Harden, who won an Oscar, was, for me, a bit too forced. I felt like she was onstage, acting. The others were more natural and I liked Hope Davis best. What I liked about the play was that no one changed. The play had an emotional trajectory but it was one of slowly revealed depths of defensiveness, hostility and dislike that each character had held repressed, not one of resolution, not even revelation, only release. Also, the Gay Harden/Gandolfini couple should have been Jewish (only a Jewish mother and son would have the phone conversations that took place on stage) and Gandolfini is as Italian as they come. The ethnic dynamic may not have been written as between a Jewish and WASP couple (though Yasmina Reza, the playwright, is Jewish), but that is certainly how it seemed and it would have been better made explicitly so.

noonish?, Tuesday July 7, Carl Schurz park ....another beautiful day

Still I am blessed on this trip. The rainy season, late, hadn't arrived yet in Caracas while I was there, and in New York City it had been raining, raining up until I arrived. Oh, it has rained some: when we were on the pier with SA, once when I was walking to get SW, but it didn't last long and the summer heat ensured I dried off quickly. Mostly my vacation has been full of sun and in New York it is only warm, in the 80s. Utterly, utterly pleasant.

I love this park on the East Side. It has an octagonal-patterned walkway above the river, lots of grassy areas criss-crossed by paths, different levels of courtyard, garden and bridges. Now I sit on one of a curving line of benches overlooking the river near the uptown end of the park, all the benches to the right of me holding at least one person, all the benches to the left of me empty bar one. I can see two bridges, one a rust-coloured metal arch, the other held up by curving wire triangles. There are a couple of little cruising boats and the sound of a helicopter overhead.

Yesterday SW and I went to the Bloomingdale's on 57th and Lexington. He bought a punkish designer t-shirt, ogled an enormously expensive Ralph Lauren leather- sholdered black narrow turtleneck knit and failed to find shoes. Then we went to Queens, where I spent two and a half hours at Aunt K's apartment looking up buses and flights. I booked SW and I a trip to Philadelphia for Friday. We ate papusas - one filled with cheese and a Spanish herb, one filled with beans. We ate a corn tamale served with sour cream sauce. Everything was delicious. The papusas came with hot salsa and a bowl of cabbage, like coleslaw but without mayonnaise.

SW and I walked around Woodside for a half hour or so and then left to catch a gig at a jazz bar. Only SW must have gotten the dates wrong because the bands at the East Houston St venue were not jazzy. Nor were there many people there to see the bands. The walk across 4th St was not as beautiful as I remembered. Perhaps more tenenments have been lost. When I got to 10th street I couldn't remember which building was home to my old apartment and I saw a big rat in Tompkins Square Park.

I lamented the garbage in Venezuela but here there is not enough! I associate garbage with a crowded city of people, full of the lower, uncouth and/or rebellious classes. NYC's people now seem so controllable. Obeying rules, respecting each other. I think I want this, but it is very boring in New York. Why go there? Now I will tell people the only reason to come to Manhattan is because it is pretty. And to perve on cute boys.