Southern California - Kill Me Now

Over Memorial Day weekend, I traveled to SoCal to visit with some dear friends. I now remember why I moved away.

The first stop was the Huntington Beach Hilton where I joined a friend for breakfast poolside. We decided to sit outside so we could enjoy the sun, fresh air, and view of the ocean on the other side of Pacific Coast Highway. As we were seated, we immediately asked the waiter to raise a nearby umbrella to block the sun. Apparently, we did not enjoy the sun as much as we thought we would. As we indulged in our seventeen dollar pancakes and reminisced about old times, I was constantly interrupted by thoughts of our expiring parking meters adjacent to the hotel. I had to excuse myself at least twice to go and pump more money into so we could "relax" over breakfast.

Eventually I decided I could no longer afford the view of the recretional vehicles that filled the beach parking lot across the street and we decided to reconvene at a local strip mall where we could sit outside a Starbucks and park for free. Here, we still avoided the sun and now we had no ocean view. Breakfast - $45. Parking - $103 (all in quarters). Catching up with an old friend -priceless.

Next, I was off to Long Beach - my old stomping grounds - for an overnight stay with one of my best friends. It was just like old times - literally! You see, his one bedroom apartment has not been remodeled since 1962. We circled my friend's apartment for what seemed like hours looking for a place to park. Eventually, we got tired of circling and settled on a spot three blocks away.

At the kitchen table, I quenched my thirst with a diet soda and then searched in vain for the non-existent dishwasher to put my glass in. We opened the windows to let the admittedly cool ocean air breeze through the apartment because there is no central air conditioning. As the ocean humidity filled the room, I asked if I might do a load of laundry as I had packed lightly and was informed that his designated laundry hours in the shared laundry room were from 2am -3am on Wednesday nights (or some such nonsense) and that doing laundry was out of the question.

Later we took his dog for a walk because she had been locked in the kitchen all day since he cannot afford a place with some sort of outdoor living area where the dog could excercise at will. While we walked, I caught a glimpse of the nearby apartment building where years earlier I had watched one of the residents pull a knife on a passerby. Turning my attention to the truly lovely flowers that populate the sidewalks, I pointed out an unusual and impressive variety that he said he had never noticed. Who can be expected to notice the flowers when you are too busy watching for knife-weilding neighbors? Still at $800 per month, I had to admit that his apartment was a bargain, especially since it was three blocks from an ocean park, which of course he had never personally visited.

The next day, it was off to Palm Springs for another reunion. As we drove, we traversed one freeway interchange after another. Freeway numbers in this part of the country are all preceeded by the word, "the" as if they are somehow unique. We all argued about the best route to take, finally deciding to allow our GPS to guide us. We took "the" 405 to "the" 22 to "the" 57 to the "60" to "the" 91 to "the" 10. Apparently we were not the only ones driving to the high desert this day and were almost sideswiped no less than five times. During our two hour drive, I remembered that it is against the law in Southern California to let people know your intent to change lanes by using your turn indicator. I also remembered that it was fuel efficient to drive three feet from the car in front of you at all times so as to cut down on wind resistance.

Upon arrival at the hotel, I had no choice but to listen as the guest next to me scream at the front desk clerk that he had spoken to "Jane" or "Joe" or someone and that he should be charged $189 for his room that night, and not the $219 as shown on his confirmation - and don't forget the 3% discount he was entitled to for using his American Express card! I decided not to announce that I had reserved the same room for less than $90 per night as I'm sure the front desk clerk was living in an old apartment that had not been remodeled since 1962. Surely he had come close to being killed several times while driving to work that day and was probably already having a bad day before he had even arrived at work.

After a lovely evening, we braved the freeways once again back to Long Beach and then on to LAX for our flight home. I noted that there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the traffic patterns. The same number of people traveled at any given time in every direction, regardless of the time or the date or the city. Freeways and side streets were filled to capacity at all times in every direction. There was no compelling reason for the majority of people to head in the same direction, like in other cities, making it impossible to predict traffic patterns and avoid traffic jams.

I won't argue that Southern California has this country's most beautiful weather. But for me, the advantage of living there escapes me. Give me a Colorado winter day, automatic climate control, an unshared washer and dryer, a private garage to park in, an uncrowded freeway to drive on, and the freedom to enjoy it all without being trampled to death by the rest of the Souther California any day.

I'm On The Wagon

If you are anything like me, while you put your time in at work, you can easily think of several things you would rather be doing instead of working. All day long, thoughts pop into my head reminding me that I need to buy milk, write a blog, or find something on the internet. Thoughts of projects never started and tasks never accomplished breeze in and out of my mind all day while I work. Powerless to do anything about them, I relegate them to a little yellow sticky note that goes into my wallet. Then, the minute I get home, I don't even remember that I ever wrote myself a note in the first place. The next day at work however, I will remember my list and wonder once again why I didn't get anything done during my free time.

Today I began to wonder why this happens. I'm not sure, but I think I have an idea. The television gets in my way. Of course, none of you ever watch television. You are all Rhodes Scholars with personal libraries so large you have to build a new room for your books. You don't even have cable, right? Yeah, right.

Every morning when I get up, I make the coffee and flip on the tube. I sit drinking my coffee and getting frustrated at the number of commercials, the unecessary proclamation that there is still "unrest in the Middle East", and assinine news stories about squirrels, pandas, polar bears, or elephants that can water ski. Somehow, my morning is quickly lost and I find myself hurrying to get out the door. But even during those last few minutes of freedom, before my time belongs to "the man", I change channels furiously looking for something of interest.

So what do I do when I get home? Kick off my shoes, start dinner, and flip on the television of course. This time I'm regaled with the same squirrel story I already heard about this morning, reruns of sitcoms I didn't like the first time, and game shows full of idiotic applauding audiences. (What are they applauding for anyway? It's not like they get a share of the winnings.)

But still I watch. I watch while I cook. I watch while I eat. I watch until bedtime. I watch in bed. The television is turned off only just before my bedside lamp is extinguished.

This scenario has repeated itself practically every single day for as long as I can remember. And I have begun to wonder if television is the reason that I don't feel fulfilled. I wonder if my time could be better spent. I could read a book, learn something on the internet, take a walk, do some shopping, get some housework done, or God forbid even take a class.

So, readers, for the next thirty days I have pledged to myself that I will not watch television. I will not avoid television altogether, but I will not watch without purpose. I will not give up the pleasure of my Sunday evening Family guy chuckles. Also, I will not give up the Will and Grace reruns I enjoy watching in bed just before I fall asleep. These two programs are watched with purpose. I enjoy them. They bring me pleasure. I'm not giving them up. But I will not flip the television on without a specific program of interest. I will not waste hours accomplishing nothing except wearing out the buttons on the remote control and catching flies in my open mouth.

Why don't you join me? Leave a comment here. Tell me what you discover. I'll keep you informed of my progress. (I'll bet you at the end of the thirty days they'll still be talking about that damn water skiing squirrel.) So (pun intended), stay tuned...

Sportcasters Should Take Valium

Recently, I was subjected to several hours of the year's most important television program, the NFL draft. I could tell how important the draft was because the four sportscasters that were hired to narrate the program, were talking and sweating like four cocaine addicts that had just been released from a year in solitary confinement and each handed a bag of drugs.

It turns out that this draft is a bit different than other drafts because the draftees have actually volunteered to be drafted - confusing no? It would be a more genuine draft if the camera were to zoom in on some shocked kid sitting in a library in Miami as he receives a phone call telling him that he has been drafted by the Bears and will be leaving for Chicago tomorrow.

For several hours television cameras zoomed in on excited young men having cell phone conversations and then suddenly donning a cap with an NFL team logo on it. Then, because the audience is too stupid to understand what this means, four excited sportscasters would break in to explain which team the young man had just been drafted by. They would then go on to explain that the weather in the city where the young man would play was very different than the weather where the young man currently lived. Finally, an older man dressed in a suit would walk across a stage to announce the same thing that already been shown to us on camera and then explained to us by the four overheated sportscasters.

Basically my question is this - what is wrong with sportscasters? Do they get this excited about everything? Do they go to a special school to learn synonyms for the words "won" and "lost"? Imagine for a moment if all television news personalities delivered the news in the same tone as the sports team. "The Taliban pulls away late to grab a 2-0 series lead against the Pakistani Army! Details at eleven!"

The Era Of "Good Enough"

What is the meaning of the word enough? I don't mean the dictionary definition, but instead what does the word mean to me? It's something I've been giving a lot of thought to for the last few years.

There was a time in my life when I was all about the "stuff". It seems I could never get enough. I had the pool, the SUV, the boat, the enormous television, the French crystal and many bathrooms. I'll never forget the day a friend told me that my house looked "like Pottery Barn threw up". (I think it was a compliment, but with her, you can never tell.)

You know what I discovered? Pools have to be cleaned. SUV's are hard to back up. Boats have to be hauled and stored. Nancy Grace is scary as hell on a huge television screen. Wine doesn't taste any different in a Baccarat goblet. And no matter how many bathrooms you have, someone will mess up every one of them.

When we sold our house in Las Vegas, we got rid of a few things to make our move across town easier. When we moved to Florida, we got rid of everything that we didn't consider to be essential. When we moved to Colorado, we discovered that many of our "essential" items that we dragged to Florida had never been used, so we got rid of them as well. Alright, so we kept the Bacarrat. You never know when the Queen (okay, "a" queen) will drop by for a drink.

For the last year we have been living with one bedroom, one bathroom, one set of dishes, and one place to eat off of them. My dining room table only seats four people. My television screen is only thirty two inches. My Ipod only holds two gigabytes. My car does not have automatic climate control. And you know what? Life is getting easier. It turns out that all that stuff never really brought happiness afterall. It was just stuff.

You know what does bring happiness? Cleaning the entire house from top to bottom in one hour and spending the rest of the day doing whatever we want - together. Just being together is enough for me. Well, that and my new capuccino machine. Let's not get crazy.

Follow up to April 11

Well, it only took nineteen days, but my friend ***** finally took the time out of her busy day working for the government to read my blog. And she left a rather lengthy comment. So far the best reasons I've heard to join are that I can play Scrabble and find old friends from elementary school. Well, we all know that I have a limited vocabulary and since I don't even remember elementary school, I don't know if Facebook holds any benefit for me. However, since so many of you have asked me to join, I have decided to sign up. It remains to be seen whether I'll be a Facebook "superuser", but I guess I might as well check it out.

There was an editorial cartoon in Sunday's paper that showed a man and a woman sitting together in a typical Starbucks-like coffee shop. The man was using his laptop computer. The man says, "I blog, send emails and text messages, post videos and subscribe to Facebook and Twitter so that I can let everyone know what I'm doing." The woman says, "So what are you doing?" The man says, "I just told you."

Later in the week, I saw a news story posted about a woman who posted on the web that she was bored with her job, and quickly found herself fired. It seems her employer was doing a little snooping.

I believe a battle is brewing between what is good technology and what is destructive technology. People need to stop and ask themselves, what is the price to be payed for being wired in 24/7? When do the cons of technology begin to outweigh the benefits? Or is new technology always a good thing? I think the day is coming when people become so tired of being obligated to respond to every text and tweet at a moment's notice, and bound by the loss of privacy that technology poses. Some day there will be a backlash - a conscious move away from technology.

As for me, I enjoy email for communication and I enjoy this blog as a creative outlet. But I long for the days when people used to have inconvenient but close friendships. I miss the days when the number of friends a person had could be counted on one hand, and not a number on your Facebook page.