Day 18 - 16/09/2022 - Santa Clara

I had heard of garage sales in the US, but never of estate sales. An estate sale is when a person dies and they throw a sale of all their items at the late person's house. What I find even more curious is that actual companies are hired to manage these sales, to price all the items, be present there while the sale occurs, and then dispose of any items that don't sell. I asked Inês to take me when I saw the pink posters all over the neighbourhood. When we arrived there, a great number of people gathered around a table filled with jewellery items, and I couldn't help but think how weird it was to imagine all your things being sold to strangers like that (though I doubt my small BTS collection would go for so much). My favourite room, however, was the children's/Disney fanatic's room, which was filled with Disney memorabilia that I couldn't possibly afford because the company had clearly done their homework in pricing the vintage lunch boxes at $80. In the end, I left with a vintage Mickey egg holder, with very little idea of what I will use it for since I'm a vegan and don't eat eggs, but very happy to have it to add to my Disney collection and to have done something that I can honestly say I don't do every day.

When Genesis and I were down in San Francisco, walking around the Haight-Ashbury area, we stopped by a shop, Love on the Haight, where I spent a good amount of time picking between David Bowie stickers. I was also wearing a Bowie t-shirt, which altogether must have given the shopkeeper the (very accurate) idea that I'm a big Bowie fan, so she asked me if I had seen the new Bowie documentary. "There's a new Bowie documentary?!" I asked excitedly. I have been in love with David Bowie since I was 3 and saw Labyrinth for the first time. She then added that this was a documentary on IMAX - the idea of seeing a movie about Bowie on such a large screen was a very exciting one. With Bowie having stopped touring before I was old enough to go to concerts, this was probably as close to seeing him live as I was ever going to get.

Paying the $23 for the ticket didn't feel nearly as painful as it usually would, especially when the girl who sold them to me offered me two copies of the movie posters. I went in the middle of the afternoon and sat next to three other people in a gigantic room with insanely comfortable chairs, and was blown away. Moonage Daydream is the name of the documentary and it is both strange and absolutely brilliant. Like Bowie, I suppose. Because I was standing behind everyone else, I was able to lip sync to the songs to my heart's delight and no one was none the wiser. You could hear the music coming from every corner of the room, and at points it seemed as if Bowie was talking right next to you, like at the end (stay until after the credits!). I saw footage of Bowie that I had never seen before, listened to both some of my favourite songs and others that I promised myself I would listen to carefully afterwards, and heard both some of my favourite of his quotes and others I had never known before. For example, when asked if he believed in God, Bowie answered: "I believe in an energy form, I wouldn't like to put a name to it." When asked if he indulges in any form of worship, he answers back: "Life. I love life."