venice beach

I'm not starting work until November 30 so I have some time to travel. For the last week I was in North Carolina feeling so much love for a person it was at times literally nauseating; at other times it felt like being supine with a hippo standing on my chest; but most of the time it felt like riding a beach cruiser in the surf with a warm tailwind on a sunny day. More on this later.

Right now I am in J's place in Venice. J and E picked me up from LAX last night saying that they had almost gotten into four car accidents in the hundred yards of the arrivals loading zone, including with one cab driver who looked over and gesticulated with two fingers at his eyes in the "Look where you're going, asshole!" style. We stayed up in J and R's apartment taking turns with the guitar (E: Buddy Holly and Willie Nelson covers; J: two JayMay covers; me: two originals from The Cleaver Streeters' repertoire) and very slowly drinking gin and tonics. J is doing fine in her doctoral program but suddenly thinking about being a doctor; E just left television writing for comedic film writing and is already wildly, wildly successful; she left early to rest for her Saturday meeting with a very famous ex-SNL actress-turned-film-star who is shepherding her newest screenplay.

J and R and I walked the dog around the neighborhood and J invited me to sniff a large white ginger flower, which produced a scent like falling in love for the first time. We passed by another man with a dog who pet J's dog and kept saying, "You look just like Bambi. You reincarnation - you look just like Bambi." Then I spent the night on the click futon with a golden pit bull mouth-breathing on the Ikea Poang next to my head. This morning J and R and I walked to a coffee shop where the baristas and baristos all wore black vests and tattoos and served espresso drinks with great flair. We passed by a Gold's Gym and they told me about a man who walks up and down Venice Beach boardwalk in an American flag speedo, white socks, and white tennis shoes, and invites tourist ladies to walk arm-in-arm with him down the path; apparently Speedo Man also works out at Gold's Gym at midnight on weeknights.

Later we walked the three blocks from their house to the beach, passing by a woman who sat in her fenced-off front yard and passively sold billowing batik shirts and a hundred people with skin of sunny cowhide. I told J and R about S, and J recalled that she had excellent, "voluminous" hair and perfect skin, and was skinny and smiley. She remembered what S wore on the day we went to improv comedy in July 2007, the same day that J and R mocked us for realizing we knew the same person with the same highly-trafficked political blog. We lay on a king-sized towel looking at the surf. J and R are both surfers. R is newly interested in sailing, and as we lay on the towel he explained the semaphores for different types of storms: one red triangle for small craft warning, two for storm warning, one square red flag with a black square for gale force winds, two such flags for hurricanes. R explained the concept of a nautical mile.

R left for his job; J and I bobbed in the surf and she taught me how to dive under breakers. I still got swept up in a couple and tumbled all around in a panic, so we were not in the water long before I wanted to go back to shore and drain my sinuses of saltwater. On the sand we talked about readiness for relationships and R's family; on the boardwalk we walked along eating badly melted ice cream, buying miniature bicycles made of twisted wire, touching knick knacks, and fondling $5 underwear in the American Apparel factory outlet store. We passed by a medicinal marijuana store, and J opined, with no basis of knowledge, that all marijuana did was make a person speak in a whisper and then apologize profusely for speaking too loud.

We shuffled in sandals back to her apartment and then shuffled around Venice eating things and looking in stores. J bought a ridiculous pair of slippers covered in beaded tendrils, and I bought a tin of anchovies for the plane ride to Melbourne. Back at the apartment, J spent a few minutes researching used hybrid bikes and I strummed some disgusting sounding chords on the guitar. Now J is on the guitar playing Ben Harper ("This guitar is impossible to play," she has just said, and now, strangely, "Hey, this piece of muscle is riding a bike like the one you just bought! This piece of muscle is taking the path of least resistance for powerful treatment of insulin resistance!" (her atlas is pharmaceutical swag from her surgeon father, and its cover depicts of muscle cell riding a teal bicycle)) and I am ticking away on this tiny laptop.

I'm meeting C in 2.5 hours for our 20 hours of flying and laying over. First, I must go eat ramen. This city is paradise! I will write next from Melbourne.