I went to London with the expectation of enjoying the usual pleasures of travel, only to find that the horror follows me wherever I go.

After a few days of feeling like I was coming down with a cold, I was unable to get out of bed. I coughed all night and day, watched BBC TV, and finally hurt my back in a stupid move to hide from the room service guy when my sister opened the door without warning me.

Crippled, feverish, coughing my head off, I was determined to catch my flight home, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia.

I’m not saying it was all bad. Not at all. It was amazing to be back in London, where I lived as a teenager with no parents to curb my waywardness. What a time! Hashish and Mandrax all night, reading all day, I formed my adult sensibility there with the help of some arty college students who took me in.

It was amazing, but so different from the London of 1969. It is ridiculously crowded, and people don’t mind smashing into you if you don’t walk fast enough. The streets are full of beautiful immigrants and native Londoners who give you conflicting directions when you ask which way to Spidalfields Market.

I managed to go to the National Gallery, the British Museum, Harrods, Camden Passage, and to meet a couple of dear blogging friends who I’ve loved from afar since forever. I flirted with a hot street performer who passed under a flaming limbo stick. I ate a bunch of scones and learned to effect an all-new, obnoxious English accent.

But what I’ll remember most is the horror of being sick, in agony, worried about bursting my eardrums on the flight home and counting each hour while mentally repeating, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

I came back on October 8th and I’m still pretty screwed up. Now that I’m almost done with coughing, I can really appreciate the pain in my back whenever I move or don’t move.

What about you guys? Anything?

Sometimes people worry when I go silent for awhile, thinking I might have drunk the weedkiller. I really appreciate the concern, by the way! But I’m going to London for a couple of weeks *sans weedkiller, and I plan to have a great time.

Museums, Harrods, museums, Camden Passage, museums, curry, Fortnum and Mason, Miista, etc.

I haven’t been to London in forty years, but I know that Primrose Hill and Hampstead are still there so there will be some good nostalgia to be had.

Enjoy your break from my whining or read shit in the archives. Write to me if you think of somewhere I should go in London.

*Easily the stupidest and most maddening word in contemporary writing, I use it here to show my love xo

Whenever I hear the word “institutionalized” my brain starts playing the old Suicidal Tendencies anthem. All I wanted was a Pepsi!!!!

Lately, someone has been exclaiming, “Sister Wolf was once institutionalized!” I assume this refers to the time I entered the juvenile justice system after running away from home. It’s a part of my life and my history as a rebellious teenager. It’s also a badge of honor that affirms how defiant I was, and still am.

In October 1967, my “husband” and I went to Washington DC along with thousands of other hippies whose aim was to gather at the Pentagon. In the background of the photo above, you might be able to see the National Guard lined up.   But never mind about them, just look at my fringed bag and my hippie love beads! What a time to be young and out of control!

Eventually, while hitchhiking in another city, we were questioned by the police and I couldn’t remember some dates on my fake birth certificate. I was taken to the local juvenile facility and held there until arrangements were made to fly me back home. All I remember about that place was the fried chicken and grits.

Back in California, I still refused to stop seeing my “husband,” who had valiantly hitchhiked his way across the country to be with me, risking a jail sentence.   My mother gave up and I was sent to a correctional school for girls, where we wore little uniforms and learned to accept authority. Some of us were cunning enough to pretend to learn it.

After a few months, I was allowed to spend weekends at home with my mom. I was usually relieved to get back to the school, where people were predictable and not bi-polar.

At 15, I went straight from the correctional school to London. During the day, I took my mom’s diet pills and scurried around Kensington Market. At night, I danced for hours on end at a disco bar in Earl’s Court.

Ah, I could write a book, couldn’t I? But that was my only brush with an “institution,” I am sorry to reveal to those who wanted more than a Pepsi.

In my youth, Max Blagg played a key role, which included my introduction to Astral Weeks.   He was my first “boyfriend” when I moved to London. To a 15 year old juvenile delinquent from L.A., Max was the essence of English allure.

Max was always larger than life, one of those people who emote at high volume and always teeter on the edge of elation or dark despair. He seemed always to be yearning for another environment, another notebook or another woman. He once spent several weeks bitching about his futile search for a Victorian nightshirt. And I once risked his wrath by secretly borrowing his pink corduroy Levi’s, even though I could barely stuff my fat ass into them.

Max lives in NYC now, where he is a poet and man-about-town. I’ve only seen him once in the intervening years. But every time I hear certain records from 1969, I recall the indescribable joy of being free to do everything and everyone, and those memories usually contain an element of Max Blagg.

I missed out on high school but I racked up an education. Some of it was rough but mostly it was thrilling. It’s the kind of shit you can take pride in once you’re a boring housewife with costochondritis.

Happy New Year, Max! I’m glad you’re still around. In my heart you’ll always be 20 years old and the hottest thing on wheels.