SAN FRANCISCO, CA-

On my way to the airport—a flight to London—I decide to detour to the Levi’s store and risk missing my flight. There I buy a new pair of jeans for a trip that will land me in London for 10 days, then on to Croatia (Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik), Bosnia (Sarajevo) and Serbia (Belgrade) for two days each. I find the perfect pair; the new jeans fill me with delight, the best Japanese denim $189 can buy. Time warps, traffics desists. I arrive at the airport early

My first evening in London with my best friend (Ben), I exist in that fuzzy, copy-of-a-copy jetlag/dream state. On the second night, after wondering my entire life if it’s possible, I fall in love at first sight. It happens on the dance floor in London’s Ministry of Sound (while Gilles Peterson DJ’s), and is confirmed when I approach her, open with, “Hi, I’m Todd. Are you in love with anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you dating anyone?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I’ve never been so relieved.

The next afternoon the girl from the night before—Monika from Poland—e-mails while I’m out searching for a Gilles Peterson CD (I didn’t know him either, but my best mate from London explained his music, and Wikipedia verified Peterson’s legend). Monika leaves the next day, so I write to ask where we can meet that night. Her response comes minutes before I leave for a dinner party. She says Madame JoJo’s in Soho.

The dinner party is to celebrate Isabel, a lively, hilarious 18 year-old Mexican girl who’s been staying with another London friend, Suzy, and heads back to Mexico City the next morning. We eat homemade guacamole, down fresh quesadillas, and clink shots of tequila before sipping. I learn my first Spanish, though not well enough (I just tried to type it and could only remember the words “esa vieja”).

Time flashes by, I feel guilty about eating and running, and by the time we’re out the door to meet Monika, it’s way, way later than I wanted (I was pressing to leave an hour before), and now the train’s shut. I text her friend’s phone saying we’re on our way. No cabs come. I text her saying we’re sorry we’re so late. There are no cabs anywhere. I text her saying there are no cabs. We wait 28 minutes until I text her: Tell Monika I’m sorry, but I owe her dinner, wherever she wants: London, Paris, Warsaw, San Francisco, New York City. I don’t get a response. We go back to the party, and everything’s wrapping up. I feel tired and disappointed. I decide that the first-sight was one-sided. That Monika didn’t like me anyway.
The next morning, I wake up and feel like someone has taken a sledgehammer to my stomach. Not the food, not the tequila, but this gut-shredding disappointment that I finally “knew” about a girl, and blew it. I write her an e-mail of apology, expect to never hear back. But she writes, and seeing her name in my inbox makes my fingertips go numb, my face all prickly with heat. She says she’s too smart to think the make-up dinner will ever happen. I write back with three options: I invite her to Paris, to be my date for the launch of Opium Europe. I tell her I’ll skip my flight back from Paris, meet her in Warsaw. I tell her I’ll just show up in November at her front door, in my warmest winter coat. I hold my breath for a reply.
A few days later, I fly to Split, Croatia with Ben (from London, below), and Dahn (from Transylvania, above). We go on a trip every year somewhere on the planet. Year 1: Prague. Year 2: Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Helsinki. Year 3: Tokyo. Year 4: Rio. Year 5: Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Belgrade. Year 6: To be decided on the final night of our current trip.

The possible nominees are discussed on the current trip during long, meat- and beer-fueled dinners, caipirinha- and vodka-fueled bar visits, during fresh air breaks between scary dance move combos. On the final night, faced with three nominees, Ben chooses, and his vote is final. The nominees going into this trip were hazy (Croatia had beaten out Rejkyavik and Barcelona), but the front-runner for Year 6 was clear: Marrakech, Morocco (in part because we had yet to go to Africa).

In the Diocletian Palace in Split (pictured below), a wowing castle filled with nooks, crannies, and many tiny bars, the three of us realized that Isabel from Mexico City has planted a new seed, a North American possibility (all while I pushed very hard for a Tel Aviv/Beirut combo).

The first two nights of the trip, in Split, are filled, for me, with anxiety. Outside of not having seen Monika a second time—to add to our original six minutes of meeting—I am being sued by a major corporation for something I said in the press, which I really never wanted to say, and was completely embarrassed by having said. Plus, to compound my embarrassment and upset over having said it: the suing. Also, I had intended to finish the first draft of my second novel before the trip, and came up about ten pages short. To relax me, I count my life’s wins: Opium5: Bad Company is at the printer and is exquisite. The Chicago Cubs have gotten it together and could make the playoffs. Opium’s Literary Death Match in San Francisco has taken off. And then the obvious one that sort of slaps my head crooked: I am in Croatia having drinks with two of my favorite people! Life is pretty fucking stellar. Hungry and drunk, amongst drunken Croatians, I order from a food stand and watch as a woman makes a sandwich with mayonnaise, a very slim slice of ham, corn, tomatoes, pickles, onions, lettuce, butter, a horse hoof, a box of marbles, a wooden tennis racket and a few strings of ticker tape. Delicious? No.

In a taxi on the way back to our apartment, I think about how absolutely stupid it was to not see Monika in London. At 5 a.m. I text her telling her so, and in the middle of the night she writes back—the phone makes this click like a pinball machine handing out a free game—and she says she’s thinking of me, and as for the three options I’ve laid out (Paris, Warsaw in October, Warsaw in November): is it too forward to say yes to all three?

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Alcohol, Debauchery, Love, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.