A Single Writer in… San Diego???? (coming to this blog real soon)

Today, I updated my mother on my future plans. Yes, I’m getting the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks out of dodge. I was going to wait until the lease is up in February of next year but I simply can’t last that long.

I’ll put it this way… Last month, I was home back at my old Coffee Bean in Marina Del Rey, basking in the past… and the sun too. And this chick takes a seat behind me with her boyfriend (I have to assume that’s who he was). She was on her cellphone having this whole LOUD conversation in which she mentioned  some kind of personality issues the guy that was with her had, her percentage of body fat and how her employees think they hate her but she’s the best damn boss they ever had. She ended by telling her boyfriend how sexy he looked that morning… and off they went.

And do you know what I did?

I smiled.

And thought…

Only in LA County will you hear this conversation… She had ZERO shame or reserve.

People don’t know this but us Californians do have the capacity to call a spade a spade–and we WILL, if we cared. See that’s the problem… Most of the time we don’t care. That’s ONE of the many things that make us “LIBERAL.”

See we live by–you do you, I’ll do me…whatever.

But here’s the clincher… I’m going to do ME. I’m going to BE me. I don’t want to offend you but I’m not self conscious, every second, self conscious about offending you….

I miss that.

So this stranger’s, I don’t give a damn what you think, now pass the Xanax conversation was quite refreshing to hear, AGAIN…

Sighhhh….

I miss home.

And yeah, I’ll miss Macrina Bakery, Belltown Pizza and the Yoga place but I’m sure I’ll find the equivalents back in Cali, Cali… (hmmm… I don’t know about Macrina Bakery though… I don’t know how I’m going to live without that place… Shall not think about it now)

I Digress…

That is why in three months, I plan to pack it up and head down south–that is back to Southern Cali! I’ll be a Single Writer in San Diego! A place where I should’ve moved to in the first place.

Maybe… Maybe not.

I’ve already canceled my trips to Hawaii and New Orleans and I won’t be going to Manhattan at the end of September either. All of my resources, which equals $$$, will be put towards this move.

And let me just say, I almost kicked myself for making this move and then discovering it wasn’t all I thought it was cracked up to be. People do have regional differences and I will never gel here–because regionally, I’m LA, that’s Los Angeles.  I mean, I don’t need to know my neighbors although I do like meeting new people, but  I like meeting people who aren’t TRYING to meet new people. Because those sorts of people come off superficial to me. And that’s the culture here…. Let’s meet! Let’s meet! Lets meet! Join this, join that, so we can meet, meet, meet!

I mean, not knocking that… I just don’t get it. Only people in LA who are that RABID about meeting new people are people who are trying to get ahead. In LA it’s network, network, NETWORK! Which to me is as equally nauseating… And too, can be OVERDONE.

Like once I became instant friends with a guy in graduate school who told the professor, after she showed us clip of Sexy and the City, “Ah, Dr. Regean, don’t ever show me a clip with yuppies having sex again…” And it was just the way he said it. He was so sincere about and of course ME, I, was the only one in class who laughed out loud at his comment. But we were friends from that point until, being his friend became WORK. Sighhh… I used to have this problem with believing that actual people can arc, like characters in a book. But sometimes, most of the times, people don’t start in one place and end up in a better place after learning and growing. That’s most of the time actually, because it’s one the most difficult feats for a human being to accomplish. Looking at ourselves, SEEING what needs to be changed and DOING something about it. Easily said. Very hard to do.  And I have learned to expect an arch from the characters on the page but not from those in real life.

Sighhhh….

He was a darn good friend though. Crazy as heck though…

But anyway, like that’s how I make friends–in a very natural way–and definitely over time. All my friends are so different. No two of them are alike. And I’m different from all of my friends other friends. And that’s the beauty of not FORCING it…

And don’t get me started on this political correctness…  But I don’t know… It’s just weird to me.

I mean, as Holden Cauflield would say, they just knock me out here in Seattle… And it’s fine… Really… If this is you, then please, do YOU. But… Their values, mores and beliefs are at a different degree than mine, so… to me it’s PC but maybe they really mean it. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m getting out of dodge, so I don’t have to think about it.

But coming here was NOT a mistake, I guess, because now I know, the Pacific Northwest is not for me.

AND….

I did something, brave.

I’ve been involved with a handful of guys who were so brave in the same regard. They’ve lived all over the country… It’s okay to seek and find. I’m from a religious background where that is frowned upon. But here’s something you might not know about me from reading my books; I’m not religious. I believe in God. I love God. But religion…. uh uh, not a slave to it. If God came to make us free, then why do we let religion bind us? And if he is the judge, then why do we let it make us judgmental? And finally, why do we let religion make us idol worshipers–worshipping people mostly. I don’t worship people.  I’ll let God tell me how to live.

Anyway…. I digress.

I only hope San Diego is for me, but if it isn’t, then, mama will be a rolling stone….