cleanup

In Tijuana, we were at one point playing The Pixies so loud that the lights started to dim. The low-key calm that usually defines me has recently been lost, all dials turned to eleven for some reason, and the 'go' button pushed hard. I really don't know what to make of it, beyond that perhaps it's the inevitable response to the seemingly exponential increase in the timbre of the trip as it's progressed. Days go on, and I get weirder and wilder, to the point that all plans forward have temporarily dissolved. There's a project in the works that I can't even speak of at this point, beyond to say that if it comes to pass, which is as far from a sure thing as things get, I'll be take some pictures, because they'll definitely be worth looking at.

In the mean time, there's been my long, strange visit to Los Angeles.

Cruising in on the 101 at an ever increasing pace, two Mondays ago marked my entrance to this alien city, built on real estate speculation and now-fueled by the industry of celebrity that I so loathe. There are also people like my brother here though, making their ways and biding their time, LA just a stop along a much longer path toward wherever they're going and whatever they're doing with themselves. His roommate Andrew has a similar path, trying to acquire as much money as he can in the shortest possible period of time, in hope that it will finance the great, next whatever the hell he does with himself. Very different lifestyles, but with near-identical goals. Strange. There's of course also the omnipresent working class, in sufficient numbers and densities to produce some excellent food and a weird vibrance that exists in none but the largest of cities, and few even of those.

I can't tell the story of much of what I've done in LA, simply because there is no story. To an almost strange degree, it has been life as usual, at least as people with very unusual lives live it. Waking up and sleeping, getting food, drinking beer, discussing things of import and not... these are all done on a daily basis, and interspersed between them are drives to the coast, trips to the hills, and occasional ill-fated attempts at exercise, such as when we walked from Santa Monica to Venice Beach, or the extremely poor effort I made at rock climbing. I am the anti-tourist, engaged in the anti-tour of southern California.

There is one thing here superior to most others. One thing that makes all of the bullshit associated with living in California, and specifically southern California, almost seem worth it. That thing is lanesplitting. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.) Watching traffic come to a stop and being able to tuck in, weaving between cages (mostly necessary to be sure my mirrors- which stick out way too far- clear theirs), buffered from whatever stupidity is causing the delay, is among my new favorite feelings in the world. It just seems like such a natural behavior, and now, if anything, I'm somewhat frustrated that I'll have to leave it behind when I leave this state.

Somewhere in there, Craige (my brother) and I did manage to get to Griffith Observatory in the middle of a heat wave to witness Los Angeles in all of its filthy, baking-hot glory.








Normandie Avenue, as it travels almost to the Pacific.




And downtown, for what it's famous for.




More to the point, perhaps the most LA-appropriate bumper sticker I've ever seen (and also my new favorite):




Beers and discussions and driving around aimlessly permeated no few days. Baking heat and traffic on the 405 kept us from our intended lunch spot one day, only to usher us to a spectacularly good Greek deli and a probably-better meal for it. Los Angeles is a mystery to me, virtually all of its better points yet undiscovered and its resources untapped, yet it's not of the sort I entertain dedicating my life to solve. That's other people's work, and they can have it.

Eventually, despite warnings that I may have my head cut off and my body stuffed in the trunk of a car, I made my way to Tijuana. This worry was in vain, and I had an excellent time. This was documented previously.

Eventually, despite warnings that I may be poisoned, I pointed myself back south to Encinitas. Again, this worry was in vain, and I had an excellent time. Brian and his girlfriend Courtney were kind enough to host me for a couple of nights and show me a town I'd previously visited but could never remember, aside from dim recollections of getting into a fight with a palm tree, Duffy's nap in a U-Haul, and an apocalyptic hangover. (That's what you're supposed to do with your twenty-third year though, right?) Dark clouds hung heavy over Camp Pendelton, and a stream of UH-1s droning as they crossed the freeway and made their turns to land. There's a sick sweetness to visiting California's far-southern coast when it's cloudy, always a slight nip to the wind reminding constantly that even paradise has its off days. Add enough up, and like anything good in life, it's quickly possible to resent the near-perfect weather for not being good enough. Seeing through the bars an old friend who's taken a diametrically different path in life, who's unhappy perhaps, despite having a beautiful girlfriend, a good job, and an otherwise very excellent life, because those things require care and control and planning and commitment, still leaves me with a very unsure feeling about which one of us is actually in the cage.




This trip was to be an exercise in sorting myself out, and it seems to be, but it's pointing me in a direction I previously may not have expected. Well, it's pointing me in many directions, actually, none of which I expected. Now, a little over a month in, the preconceptions I've held, the path I'd intended to find, are finally beginning to crumble and fall apart. As always, life proves itself more complicated than I'd given it credit for being. Encinitas marked the beginning of things really coming unglued, both from the perspective it gave and because it was just time.

Unprepared, off, and mind-still-reeling, I set back to Los Angeles, two hours' time and a million years' distance from where I was. Fortunately, I had a ride in front of me to sort it out. I still do. Again, that's another story for another day.