Five Dollar Footlong + Entourage=FUN

Was under the weather on Friday, so I missed the opening night at the International Black Women’s Film Festival.  After having to cancel all of my travel reservations, I re-booked, switched hotels, and was back on my way Saturday evening.  It’s a short plane trip from L.A. to San Francisco.  Just as we entered the Bay Area, I was treated to the most incredible sunset I have ever witnessed.  An orangey blaze across an aubergine sky.  Felt otherworldly.  Checked into the Clift Hotel…just in time for the party, apparently.  It made me wish I could travel with an entourage.  I so get why folks who find success in the entertainment business often bring with them their closest friends.  For one thing, it gets lonely.  And, then there is also the fact that inside jokes without an accomplice are a little pathetic, as they are only inside your head.  Plus, if you are only in a place for a night or two, the kind of connections that are there for the making are not normally of the kind that a happily married woman wants.  I have never had a problem taking myself to a movie or dinner.  I learned at the age of sixteen that solo movies can be quite a treat.  But, there are times when you just want another human who knows you to bear witness to what you are exploring and experiencing.  My oldest daughter was with me for a festival in Lake Arrowhead, CA a few months back.  The sheer white-knuckled terror we experienced heading up the mountainside to 6000 feet above the rocky valley below is now fodder for us to laugh about until we are doubled over.  We must have looked like a really bad Thelma and Louise meets Twin Peaks smash-up…and speaking of Twin Peaks (and that is where it was filmed), we were convinced that the woods held the most treacherous of mass murderers, just waiting to make furniture and clothing from our body parts.  (We are avowed city people.  It’s official.)  And who else would have had a mutual attack of the juvenile sleep-deprived giggles over the suddenly funny “$5 footlong” Subway song.  Point is, you had to be there…with someone.