Gone Back to Cali

Have you ever felt displaced from your displacement?

Entering the final countdown to 30 (six days and 23 hours or something like that) combined with the fact that I am back in the state of my birth and subsequent growth has put me in quite a place of internal strife.

I don't intend "strife" here to carry with it a negative connotation. I just mean it to express the intensity of the stuff I have gone through (in my head only) during the past few weeks. Ok, moving on. So I arrived in Oakland, Calif., on Monday to throngs of people supporting the political demise of Gray Davis. "Whatever," I say.

I sure as hell wish I could have recalled my last boss. Dead Hands was her name, I think. Ooh, you know who woulda been cool to recall? The Flatulator. Gender prof. extraordinaire. Wanna know how much money that class cost? Yeah? Ok, hold on........I'm just finishing up the math here. Hold on for a bit longer.......$4,500, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. That's how much that class cost. Wish I coulda recalled her. Or how about Bloomberg, even? He's making the NYPD hand out tickets like they're royal toilet paper. It'd be cool to recall him. "Whatever," I say.

But, I don't live here. I imagine California is really a hellish place to be right now. Probably much worse than Baghdad. I'm sure.  So I got here Monday. I hung out in Oakland and visited IKEA for the first time. I helped a friend put together a t.v. stand, but as a result, I was stabbed by a piece of lumber just below the bend of my first phalange. Piece of lumber. That thing hung in till Wednesday. I was intrigued by it at first. But as if it was elective surgery that I was holding off on, I decided to wait to extract it. But when that time came, it was really cool.I hung out with Mary in Livermore on Tuesday. That's where I discovered that the NY humidity has prepared me to deal with the heat. I was totally fine sitting in 100ish-degree weather. And I got to play basketball. That felt wonderful. The feel of orange rubber slipping softly off my middle finger and watching the ball's trajectory into a swish finish was quite rewarding. Later that day, Mary took me to Sacramento. Actually, it was more like I took her and Kayla because I drove the Subaru. It felt so nice to drive. Apparently I drive fast. The 80 MPH I was going only made Mary nervous I found out later for a few minutes. This was the night I realized I was feeling displaced. So then on Wednesday, I drove up to Chico, this time in Alia's Jeep Cherokee. I went there to meet an old friend of mine. It was nice but unfortunately doesn't happen very often. That night, I went to dinner with Erin. We hit Paesano's, but I was still full from lunch. Anyway, after that I drove my old car  to her house. I chilled yesterday at Alia's new place. I actually "finished" my short story. And I have a couple of hundred words to spare. So I'll get back to it in a few weeks to fix it up. Then I'll submit it. I stayed at another friend's house last night. Her name is Mary, as well. But she's not pregnant like the other one. I watched a couple of shows she had Tivo'd. I dig Tivo. One of these days when I'm settled with a plasma television, surround sound for days, and a sweet car, I will have Tivo. I watched the television show "Queer Eye for a Straight Guy." Why do I love that show? Check it out.  And finally, I've reached the end of the week. I agreed to house sit for a friend while she and her family went camping. I'll be in Fair Oaks till Tuesday. I was concerned about not having a car, because this place is pretty far out there. After voicing this concern, my friend said that they'd leave a car for me. Well, imagine my surprise when I pulled up to see a black Nissan Maxima in the driveway. It's a 5-speed with air conditioning and a CD player. Awesome. I think this should be the driving fix I need. This house is in intriguing. Now, remember, I grew up in the L.A. area. I never saw many vegetable gardens, vine-covered walkways, or greenhouses. And I didn't even know people could have turtles for pets. I'm sure they did in L.A. I just never saw them. They have a turtle pond here. There are turtles for days in it. It's kind of cool. But I have realized that my arachnophobia is at an all-time high, and I'm quite aware that they're gonna be up here in the country. Erin's dad took us to lunch today and he was here and he tried to reassure me: "They're more scared of you." No they're not.  So here we are at the end of my week. I apologize for this being a bit rusty and all over the place. I have managed to stay away from not only writing here but also in my journal. I wrote a shitty story for the magazine and I'm actually not so sure about the work I did on my short story. Maybe it's California.