No place feels like home
Made yet another drive tonight, as I headed on down home to meet up with probably one of the best people I've ever known, who's unfortunately in town only until tomorrow morning. The choice between driving two hours to hang out for an hour and a half and driving zero hours to sit in my room in solitude is no choice at all. It was good seeing you, bud. Have a safe flight and take it easy back east.
Going into Albertson's right before my drive back up to LA, ran into an "ex" (quotations are intact because I have no idea what the hell we were). Awkwardness and quick fumbling of phones in a rapid exchange of numbers ensued. I forgot to save her new number, which is probably a good thing in the long run. For some odd reason other than "Robert is a clingy, sentimental ass" I have her old number and house number saved in my phonebook. I can always dial her old number to hear that grossly pleasant voice tell me, "The person you have dialed is unavailable." Unavailable. Always was, and always will be. Don't you forget it. Thanks for the pep-talk, automated answering service.
I'm caught in an unenviable position as of now. As indicated by the title and content of my last and just about every single post I've written in my entire, oh, let's say, life, I'm not too happy up here in LA. But at the same time, I'm not looking forward to going back to south Orange County either. There's really not much going on there in terms of just about everything. Working for three straight days in Arcadia and hanging out with cousins in Pasadena has made me somewhat yearn for the half-suburban, half-urban messiness that is characteristic of older cities, a rugged attribute I'm somewhat fond of. All the "cities" in Orange County lack distinction in that historic, social sort of way. Aliso Viejo is unique to me in that it has that big-ass Edwards, and after 9, is the best publicly lit place to down 40s. Laguna Hills has a skatepark, and oh yeah, some high school. Mission Viejo has a lake. That's about it. Irvine has that artificial sheen that just screams, "corporate plot of land," which makes sense considering that the entire city was built by a company, of all things. Not a group of settlers or prospectors, a company. Ugh.
And yet, Orange County represents so much to me, above all things, comfort and security, discounting that one guy that went all Toshiro Mifune on those poor souls at the Ralphs on Culver. Stability has become the new status quo for me; I want to settle down and find my own niche in OC before I've even given myself a chance to venture out into the real world. This is both disturbing and comforting to me when I think about it, as its both a sign of me growing up and wishing for some kind of reliable standard of living for myself and a sign of my as of yet unseen spinelessness when it comes to exploration.
I need to take a vacation once all of this is over. China is still an option, and if not, I could still travel for a few months, maybe find an apartment in Hong Kong for about 6 months and get my shit straight, so to speak. Cancel my phone and freeze my bank account. I'm not coming back until I figure out just what it is I want at this point in my life.
Or I could get a one-room apartment in the ghetto parts of Pasadena for a few months. At this point in time, chasing around cockroaches with a gleeful, childish smile on my face sounds like Heaven to me.
Going into Albertson's right before my drive back up to LA, ran into an "ex" (quotations are intact because I have no idea what the hell we were). Awkwardness and quick fumbling of phones in a rapid exchange of numbers ensued. I forgot to save her new number, which is probably a good thing in the long run. For some odd reason other than "Robert is a clingy, sentimental ass" I have her old number and house number saved in my phonebook. I can always dial her old number to hear that grossly pleasant voice tell me, "The person you have dialed is unavailable." Unavailable. Always was, and always will be. Don't you forget it. Thanks for the pep-talk, automated answering service.
I'm caught in an unenviable position as of now. As indicated by the title and content of my last and just about every single post I've written in my entire, oh, let's say, life, I'm not too happy up here in LA. But at the same time, I'm not looking forward to going back to south Orange County either. There's really not much going on there in terms of just about everything. Working for three straight days in Arcadia and hanging out with cousins in Pasadena has made me somewhat yearn for the half-suburban, half-urban messiness that is characteristic of older cities, a rugged attribute I'm somewhat fond of. All the "cities" in Orange County lack distinction in that historic, social sort of way. Aliso Viejo is unique to me in that it has that big-ass Edwards, and after 9, is the best publicly lit place to down 40s. Laguna Hills has a skatepark, and oh yeah, some high school. Mission Viejo has a lake. That's about it. Irvine has that artificial sheen that just screams, "corporate plot of land," which makes sense considering that the entire city was built by a company, of all things. Not a group of settlers or prospectors, a company. Ugh.
And yet, Orange County represents so much to me, above all things, comfort and security, discounting that one guy that went all Toshiro Mifune on those poor souls at the Ralphs on Culver. Stability has become the new status quo for me; I want to settle down and find my own niche in OC before I've even given myself a chance to venture out into the real world. This is both disturbing and comforting to me when I think about it, as its both a sign of me growing up and wishing for some kind of reliable standard of living for myself and a sign of my as of yet unseen spinelessness when it comes to exploration.
I need to take a vacation once all of this is over. China is still an option, and if not, I could still travel for a few months, maybe find an apartment in Hong Kong for about 6 months and get my shit straight, so to speak. Cancel my phone and freeze my bank account. I'm not coming back until I figure out just what it is I want at this point in my life.
Or I could get a one-room apartment in the ghetto parts of Pasadena for a few months. At this point in time, chasing around cockroaches with a gleeful, childish smile on my face sounds like Heaven to me.
posted by 99thdream at 12:57 AM
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