Hippocrates In San Diego

Live From Boston

September 24, 2007 at 4:06 pm | In Life, Opinion

N. and I just arrived in this other city by the bay. She has a Psychiatry board review course this week, and I decided to join her for part of the week. Since I booked my trip well after her, we had separate flights. Mine left earlier and arrived later (hers being a direct flight). After spending Saturday evening with friends at our monthly International Dinner (this time at the beautiful Blue Bohéme) we stayed up until two o’clock packing. Of course I missed my 6⁴⁵ AM flight later that day, as we, both exhausted, slept through both alarm clocks. Fortunately N.’s flight was later in the morning and I was able to book a flight only four hours after the original, so we both arrived in this wonderful metropolis without further delay.

Boston is one of my favorite cities — certainly tops among the major East Coast centers. I think the combination of the city’s extensive role in history, the beauty of its design, planning, and architecture, the ease of mobility without a car, and the grit of people found in any US city make it an exciting place to visit. I have even enjoyed Boston in the winter, with two feet of snow on the ground, although that was prior to my moving to California. I most likely have softened in my four years in Southern California, and when that happens one’s tolerance for cold is the first to go. But I digress.

American cities are fascinating to me. I suppose it can be said of cities anywhere in the world, but American cities are like living, breathing organisms, pulsating with activity, with corpuscles moving about in all directions, supplying the very life-blood of the city, generating its energy, and pumping its heart all at once.

An exception to this would be Houston. I hate Houston. Houston is where urban souls go to die — it is a large void on the expansive Gulf Coast. New Orleans should be embarrassed to be so close to Houston. My three days spent there in 2003 have shortened my life by at least thirty. Houston is 10-to-1 in soul-sucking vanilla architectural emptiness.

That felt good to unload on Houston. But let’s get focused on the positive here — back to the topic at hand.

Of course, my favorite US city is Los Angeles (I can hear your teeth grinding — shh). LA is the epitome of the living city as far as I’m concerned. I have limited experience in New York City, but I imagine it, or Tokyo, or London would all be like LA in that way. The neighborhoods serve as the internal organs, each with its own role, characteristics, and susceptibilities. You can tell where you are in LA’s extensive geography just by looking around. Hollywood? Tourists and tourist traps, as well as small residential streets with 1950’s-era single family homes. Beverly Hills has its own downtown, with its share of tourists but more filled with people who buy and sell people like me on their lunch break (there’s something wrong with that metaphor, but I’ll let it slide). East Los Angeles — gritty, with a rhythm and language as rich as its inhabitants are poor. Silver Lake — the New Western Bohemia with a Los Angeleno faux affect that typifies the city. Santa Monica — beach bum vibe with old money flavor. Venice — just the beach bum vibe sans old money.

I could go on about Los Angeles. San Diego is comparable in some respects, although it suffers from a fatal insufficiency of recognizable neighborhoods. I’ve been there for over a year and still cannot differentiate Hillcrest from North Park or Kensington, or Clairemont from Kearny Mesa. Even Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, and Mission Beach, while as a triplet are unique in San Diego, between the three they are fairly indistinguishable. Additionally, San Diego generally has a beach town spirit that is a holdover from its history — which I think makes having vibrations of urban angst difficult. Thankfully San Diego is still a border town in many respects, which is among its most charming aspects.

I will be in Boston for another 2 days. While N. will be toiling away in her review, I will have the good fortune to explore. I’ve already run along the Charles River this morning, and have enjoyed the unusually splendid weather. Now, if I could find where they keep their best beach break and take in some waves, my week would be perfect.

Image courtesy University of Texas Libraries