Ghetto Copters, "Hikes", and Waving

I met my neighbor the other night. His name is Jeremy. However, in his lovely Southern drawl, it came out Jer-a-mee. Jeremy was standing perched halfway between his living room and porch. I was struggling to hold onto Bartleby’s leash and get out the front door with a bag of garbage and a few empty boxes. Jeremy looked at me with a wide-eyed paranoia and said, “I’m not sure you should go out there. There have been cops circling around. And did you hear the helicopter? It was circlin’, shinin it’s light all over the place.” I said, “Oh, a ghetto copter.” I was just going to walk away when I thought it best to consider my new surroundings. I asked, “Is that unusual?” As earnestly as I have ever heard and his eyes widening even more, he said, “I have never seen that before in my life.” My response, “Oh. I just moved here from LA. Someone was murdered four blocks away from my house. And I lived in a good neighborhood. So…” I peaked in and saw Jeremy’s red suede couches as he said with a twinge of sadness and resignation, “I’ve been to LA. I love it there.” Yes, WEHO is fun.

I have now taken Bartleby on three “hikes”. I don’t think there is a path in the city that is not paved, but I am determined to find it. When we were “hiking” today and I was carrying his poop for two miles, AGAIN, I started to notice something that is really odd to me. Everyone waves at me. Not just a friendly, “Oh hey neighbor” kind of wave. Rather, a make eye contact, smile, enthusiastically wave at you and if I am in a car I will definitely honk. It is really strange. Not that I don’t appreciate the welcome, but I am pretty sure that I have never met any of these people. And I have taken to responding with an obligatory wave without all the smiling and eye contact. This creates a bit of a problem. What happens when I actually meet people who actually see me out and about and they wave and I shine them with my half-assed “I guess?” wave? What happens then, people? I’ll tell you what happens. I become the bitch from LA. Sad day. Sad, sad day.

Coffee and Hipsters

Was it the beatniks that started the coffee shop hipster scene? With their morose poetry and finger snapping? Not sure who started it, but I am glad they did. Yesterday, I visited Crema in downtown Nashville. I made it past the honky tonk downtown area where all the tourists hang out without getting infected by their penchant for visors and black socks with their white tennis shoes. Crema looks like it is in a converted warehouse with a garage door at the end of the room. It was full of late twenties early thirty hipsters. The kind of people that made it through the probationary period on their hipness and graduated to the kind of people who just look cool, pensive, and interesting. The coffee was delicious. The barista took extraordinary care and concern in pouring the steamed milk in the shape of a heart. Nashville hearts L.E. I sat and read for a bit occasionally glancing to see a lovely bridge, giant pile of gravel, and the seats of what I am assuming is the stadium where the Titans play. L.E. hearts city.

This morning I joined a friend for brunch at Bongo Java. Well, a bagel and coffee. It sits across from Belmont University. We sat on the porch on a gorgeous sunny but cool day. This shop too had hipsters. Young ones. The University types that drink their Fair Trade coffee without fully understanding what Fair Trade is and carry their guitars in gig bags in case you didn’t know they were musicians. There was a kid we spotted who alternated between taking a drag of his smoke and snorting nasal spray before offering it to his friend. Who shares nasal spray? They’re young and dangerous! They have punk mullets circa 1976 Sex Pistols. Bongo Java is in an adorable neighborhood. Red brick houses, a thick smattering of trees, and independent clothing exchange stores. Now, I rarely look like I have been dipped in a Thrift Store, but these are my peeps. When I am in that part of town, I begin to feel what I felt on my visit to Nashville last summer: home.

If I could spend every day wasting 4 hours chatting or reading in a coffee shop surrounded by hipsters where I know my t-shirt that says “Balls” will garner an amused smirk or two, I would be a very happy camper.

First Days in Nashville/The Perils of Unemployment

I’m chillin in Nashville now. I got a call this morning that the truck with all my belongings is leaving California today. Super. Looks like I am sleeping on the air mattress for a few more days. The drive from Oklahoma to Nashville was relatively uneventful. I was discouraged to discover that the cleanliness of the public restrooms declined substantially the further southeast I traveled. I mean, really bad. I even watched a person throw a disposable cup out their car window barreling down the interstate at 75 mph. Come on, people. Where is that Southern pride you talk about all the time?

I am living in a fairly central location just a bit south of downtown. It is an apartment compound. There are 632 apartments in this complex. Man, I really wish there was an all caps for numbers. SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO!!! It is insane. I think that as long as they don’t offer me any Kool Aid, all will be well. The apartment has what appears to be granite countertops and hardwood floors in the bathroom and kitchen. Upon closer examination, one sees these are counterfeit. The hardwood floors are actually linoleum that looks like hard wood floors. And the granite is…I don’t know. Not granite. The neighborhood is nice enough. There is a local Walmart (boo) and a Target close by. There are two Shell stations that are directly across the street from one another. I don’t understand the logic of that one. There are some fascinating highlights in my area. Hair highlights, that is. Really, I think they should be called chunklights. These women have a really dark hair base. Then chunks of hair dyed almost platinum and other chunks that are a brassy pumpkin color. It is not at all attractive. It seems that while they all go to the same person to do their chunklights, they also get their hair cut by the same stylist. Everyone, EVERYONE has essentially the same “hip” bob. It is neither hip nor a real bob.

I took Bartleby on a “hike”. It is in quotations because it was on asphalt and you can’t take dogs on the trails. There are little things that California has on hiking trails that I miss. Things like trashcans, waterspouts, and even dog poop bag dispensers for your convenience. Instead, I walked for two miles carrying his poo. We had a near miss when my 63-pound lapdog almost dragged me into the mossy lake where neither he nor I was allowed to be. I passed eight churches in the 2.5-mile stretch leading to the hiking area. Three churches had adjacent lot lines. I am in the South, yo.

They are all really friendly. I will give them that. When drivers cut you off or do something inconsiderate, which is often, they all wave at you. Just a little, “Oh hey, I cut you off” wave. The roads all have the same name. There is a Franklin Pike Circle on one side of the freeway and another once you cross over the freeway. One would think they connect eventually and maybe they do. I might have not driven on it long enough. But how confusing is that? You don’t want the Franklin Pike Circle after the freeway; you want the one before the freeway. Right. Ok. Not that Google maps specifies that or anything. The directions of North, South, East, and West are a bit squidgy. Everything does not travel in an absolute direction. I know this is not unique to Nashville, but at least in LA you have the oceans and mountains to help maintain your compass.

I haven’t really done anything since I got here except for the numerous and costly trips to Target. I hate this stage of moving. The stage where you have to buy baseline products and end up spending more money than you want. I did track down the one Trader Joe’s in town. Thank the Lord. It’s a nice and spacious Trader Joe’s.

Having had a stretch of unemployment once before I have identified some behaviors to watch out for. When you have very little to do, you tend to stretch activities out over several days. Today, I will go to the post office. Tomorrow, I will go to the grocery store. You eventually start to feel like you can’t possibly do several activities in one day. It is the trap of unemployment. You spread things out as so you have at least a little activity each day, but it bites you in the ass in the end. You also have to be mindful of the money you are spending. Which means it is better not to leave the house. You tend to spend money when you venture out. Another double-edged sword of unemployment especially in a new town. You need to get out, conversely; you need to watch what you spend. This one proves problematic for me. I am barely an extrovert. I need quite a bit of solitude to recharge. However, I am also a very relational person. And I need contact. Quality contact. I can feel the solitude closing in on me a bit. All in due time. A part time job should do the trick.

Bridge Ices Before Road

I left Albuquerque around 9 am. Possibly the worst hotel bed I have ever slept in. I mean, they just threw a sheet over a collection of mattress coils. Nevertheless, we rose, packed the truck, and headed east. Now, I understand the ecological value of desert plants not blowing in the wind. How else would they stay rooted? It is less than helpful when trying to gauge the wind gusts on the highways. I stopped for gas in Tucumcari. Oh my goodness. It is the town that New Mexico forgot. The Route 66 museum looks like it is about to fall down. The townies are…interesting. I was standing behind a gentleman in the Circle K who was wearing very short cut off jean shorts and a white t-shirt desperately trying to cover his large belly. He kept bending over. Each time revealing his gentlemanly parts obscured from view by his whitey tighties. Thank the Lord.

As I entered Texas, I saw the largest cross IN THE WORLD!!! I am not really sure the point of it, but it had lots of visitors. There were a gamillion cops just chillin waiting for anyone driving 5 miles over the speed limit.

Then came Oklahoma. I did two things in Oklahoma. 1. Tried to figure out the plentiful road signs that said, “Bridge ices before road”. I eventually surmised that it means the ice starts on the road before the bridge. Or maybe after. (Maybe I didn’t figure it out.) 2. Listening to quite a bit of Christian radio. I had the choice between Country, Christian, or Latino stations. And since I am tired of driving, I went with the station that would keep me awake. I don’t really listen to Christian music. I feel it lacks poetry. It usually comes in two forms; declaration or supplication. There isn’t a whole lot more to it. But Christian talk radio…well, that makes my head explode most of the time and I just can’t resist it. I heard a pastor in San Diego talking about the voting season approaching. He told his church “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord”. He told them to vote their values. He told them that our country has been going astray for a while and about some book he read comparing us to Nazi Germany. He says that we are moving away from being a Christian nation to our own peril. I have a really hard time with this argument mostly because I can’t see when we were a Christian nation. We can’t simply claim that because the men who founded the nation were primarily Christians, that they were establishing a Christian nation. Walmart is a pretty good example of how far Christians can diverge from Kingdom values in their work. Were we a Christian nation when they wrote a constitution outlining the separation of church and state guaranteeing religious freedom to all? Were we a Christian nation when we engaged in the capture, relocation, and in many cases slaughtering of the indigenous people? Or how about when we fought a war defending our rights to enslave an entire color of people? Were we a Christian nation when we didn’t allow women to vote? Or when we relegated the hardest labor in our land to the immigrants because there was no other work we would give them. I suppose you could argue that we were once a more wholesome nation. That there was a time when a higher standard of ethics governed our conduct. But those ethics were reserved for certain people. I doubt that many black people would argue a higher ethic governed the Civil Rights movement. And I’m sure those that fought and died in Vietnam would not exactly call that a Christian war. My point is that we have never been a Christian nation. It is possible that we were a more moral nation at certain points and those morals might be derived from the Judeo Christian tradition. I think that it is like that sign I saw before every bridge on I-40. The ice is morality or Christian values. It can be the road before the bridge, on the bridge, and after the bridge. The road is the road. Just because there has been or is some ice on it, doesn’t mean the road is ice. The road is the road.

38 Miles of Arizona

So, I left Visalia on Monday morning. I have been taking an alternate route to Nashville in hopes of avoiding Arizona. There are two reasons for this avoidance. A. I have driven that route so many stinkin times that I am sick of it. I don’t want any turquoise jewelry or moccasins. 2. I really don’t like two pieces of legislation they have passed recently. My disagreement led me to an Arizona boycott. But between Vegas and Utah, there really aren’t any choices. So I had to pass through the treacherous Arizona for 38 miles. It was a gorge and I passed at sunset. It was magnificent. Unlike anything I had ever seen. I proceeded to get stupid lost in Utah (thank you Google maps). Eventually, we settled for the night. The morning drive through Utah was unbelievable. There were these pockets of fog in the Valleys and perched in the tops of the rocks. It was so beautiful that there were view points every 10 miles or so. The weird thing about Utah was that there was a Ranch Road exit every 60 miles. I mean, how many Ranch Roads could there be? The little towns were quaint. Almost like they were take off the Pleasantville set and plopped down in Utah. Then came Colorado. You could smell the granola in the air. The towns weren’t that different then Utah except the shops are just a smidge cooler. And I have to be honest Durango is intoxicating. The hillsides are covered in shades of golden and red leaves. The clouds spread shade gently across the landscape. It was amazing. It was like I can’t even imagine what it looks like with snow. I did spot to choice church marquis signs. One said, “Jesus paid the price, you keep the change.” And another said, “If you feel like you are sitting on Heaven, Heaven is probably sitting on you.” What? If I hadn’t been going 75 mph, I totally would have stopped for a picture. Now I am settled in Albuquerque. I am going to take a shower and attempt to sleep with my hyper sensitive dog barking every few seconds.

Visalia Beautiful

My first stop on my journey to Tennessee has been a visit to my lovely friend, Ally in Visalia, CA. She has a beautiful house with a walk-in closet that would make the inventor of the walk-in closet blush with pride and wonder. Visalia is sandwiched between Bakersfield and Fresno. Fruit country. With a faint smell of dairy cow poop in the morning. Ally has a three-month-old baby girl with long eyelashes and the cutest dimples ever. There is a steady stream of visitors in her house fighting to hold the baby. One visitor, whose relation to Ally will remain discreet in this post, has a very interesting idiosyncrasy in her speech. She tends to reverse the placement of her adjectives and nouns. When talking about the baby, she described her as “rotten spoiled.” When talking about the architectural style in Nashville, it was “country old.” And she said it with such conviction. I find this fascinating. It’s like she has Post-Descriptive Stress Disorder or Adjective Misplacement Syndrome. I recognize that “rotten” and “spoiled” have similar definitions. Or at least one leads to the other. It is the spoiling of your children that can make them rotten. However, “country” has a large spectrum. You have to narrow it down. But the reversal of country and old is a mistake silly. You can’t have country old or city old or modern mid-century. It just doesn't make any sense. She did it so many times in one afternoon it was hard not to laugh. I’m a big fan of adjectives. They are one of the most effective means of precision in communication. Their misplacement seems like a crime ignorant

Budder Blues and Abitor Dreams

When I was little, I could never say brother. So I took to calling my brother “Budder”. It was cute, endearing, and pretty much the only thing I called him for a while. I was not particularly good at sleeping in my own bed. Always wanted to cuddle. In fact, the family said that I cuddled like Velcro. It was never enough to be near. I had to be practically inside. My brother never refused to let me sleep in his bed. Sometimes we would play a game. While they were in my sister’s room after tucking me in, I would sneak into Josh’s bed and hide. The game was to see if my parents could tell I was under the covers. This was a risky game considering that I was terribly claustrophobic. So much so that if you sat on my legs, I would scream that my legs were suffocating. But my brother never turned me away. And he never has. My brother is my greatest antagonist and my greatest champion. We have our own silly language that annoys most every person we meet. His love is constant. He is kind, aggravatingly meddlesome, and always, always on my side. Even if that means telling me my side is not the right side. He is pushes me to make better choices, to love more fully, and to believe in myself. He is a firm believer in the making of your own fate. And as I said goodbye to him tonight he told me to have hope and make the life I want to live. Josh is my protector, my safety, and my dearest friend.

Our cousin named my sister Abitor. Actually, he named his imaginary sister Abitor but the name stuck for Abbi too. We weren’t close as kids as much as we tried. And we did try. You couldn’t find more opposite creatures with such a close genetic match. We became close as we entered our teen years. Abbi is the loveliest sister you could imagine. She knows that being touched is not a want for me, but a need. And her touch is gentle, kind, and soothing. When I try to describe Abbi to others, I usually come up short. There is a magic to her that can’t quite be described. It has to be experienced. Because when you are around Abbi, you feel her grace. I think our differences are what make our relationship so amazing. She balances me. In fact, there are several people that I became friends with simply because they reminded me of my sister. She is sweet. Not like cheerleader sweet, more like warm cookies when you are sad sweet. Abbi is consummately supportive of me. Completely willing to believe the veracity of my mystic ways. And she too pushes me to believe in myself by simply reminding me to ask the question “What do I want?” Abbi is my comfort, my repose, and my dearest friend.

My siblings have weathered my darkest hours with patience and love. They have served me, loved me, challenged me, and rescued me. There are not two more dependable people in the world. And I know that I derive a great deal of security simply from the notion that there is someplace where I am fully understood.

We were always close siblings. However, in the last eight years, we had the remarkable gift of living in the greater Los Angeles area. It was here that we became friends. We are a unique bunch. Highly opinionated, often loud, determined to make the world around us sparkle, and we communicate in a mixture of made up words (with really long back stories) and movie quotes. Our collective amp goes to 11. Josh has often said that it is the three of us against the world. Nobody quite understands us like us. And nobody thinks we are as awesome as we do. I would feel a little sorry for the folks that have married into our family if I didn’t think they were actually lucky to have us. We have had our fights and rumblings. And between the three of us, we eventually come to an understanding. When two of us are arguing, the third party usually brokers peace and clarity too. Sadly, that is usually Abbi. Whatever damage has been done is easily repaired and mostly forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten, but we don’t hold grudges. There is so much love between us. And we generally adore being with each other. I hate that we are all going to be in different states. Relegating the sharing of our lives to phone calls and short visits. But I know this unequivocally; I have the best siblings ever.

Love to Hate and Love Again

I have started this blog to document my inevitable culture shock to moving from LA to Nashville.  I think everything I write should be taken with a mountain of salt.  And all you grammar hounds are going to have to accept my poor use of punctuation and fragments.  They are there on purpose.  As a start, I thought I should have a summation of my feelings about LA.

  

Last week, it rained.  I think it was the first real rain in about 9 months or so.  When I was at Trader Joes, a woman in line said,  “We don’t have seasons here.  It is nice to FINALLY have some weather.”  She said it with such disdain that I chuckled.  Most people in LA list the weather in the top three reasons for living here.  And yet, we all reserve the right to complain that we don’t have seasons.  See “Gray in LA” by Loudon Wainwright.  Having left Los Angeles once before, I know one thing for certain: This is a place that I love to hate.   This time, it seems that I have made my way from love to hate back to love again.

I have come to terms with my proclivity for destructive relationships.  My unwavering belief that I can make anything work has taken its toll.  Strengths Finder calls it “Restorative”, and it is in my top five.  This proclivity has never been limited to romance.  I have a string of crap jobs that sucked my soul to show for it.  As much as I believe LA to be filled with an alarming amount of self-serving, vapid people, with traffic that makes driving steak knives into your eyes seem appealing, and where you will pay insane rent to live in a hovel, I have learned to love the insanity that is Los Angeles.  I love to hate it.  And I love to hate the love/hate thing I have with it.

The beauty is in the contradiction.   As is the comedy.

I used to live in Korea town, walking distance from the Wiltern.  It was a 1920’s building with fire escape ladders on the outside of the building, wood floors, an exposed brick wall, and cabinets that wouldn’t shut because they have been painted over so many times.  A Bohemian wonderland.  I shared a wall with the rickety old elevator that had that whole double door thing.  It made a not so low hum whenever in use.  And I had to reset the breaker in the hallway every time I used my hair dryer.  I loved this apartment.  It made me feel like a hipster just living there.  But when I walked around the neighborhood, shopped in the grocery stores, or tried to get a drink at the local bars (unsuccessfully, I might add), I was gawked at like an alien.  It was as if I stepped into a Korea that had never seen a white girl.  And I might enjoy the stories of getting stranded in my apartment by the marathon or the section 8 crazy that almost burned down the building by leaving a tortilla on the burner or coming home to see the crack whore that lived upstairs giving a blow job to her dealer in the lobby a little more than I should.  This would make a normal person move.  But when I think about it, there is a sparkle in my eyes.  Not entirely unlike a “Those were the days” twinkle that emerges when my dad talks about his pot smoking teen years. 

I also mostly hate the near death experiences that wait for me in the form of the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus darting and weaving the two lane roads with little to no regard for fellow motorists.  It irritates me, for sure.  And yet, it is an annoyance I expect and eventually have found comforting.  Like living close to an airport where the plane noise makes you nuts until you realize you can’t sleep without it.

Then there are the things that I just plain love, like downtown LA…the library, Union Station, the obnoxious stairs at Bunker Hill, the Orpheum (best LA venue in my opinion). I love downtown LA.  I love to show it to other people.  I love that Century city was built in response to anti-Semitism.  All the Jews took their toys and built their own damn city.  I love Hollywood.  Well, actually, I love to hate Hollywood.  If it didn’t take 45 minutes to drive three blocks, I would really dig it.  I think the fact that there are actually food establishments that serve both donuts and Chinese food pure comedy.  I mean seriously.  Who wants a donut that smells not so faintly of Chicken Chow Mein?  I do love the subway stations.  Especially, Hollywood and Vine.  It has old film reels decorating the ceiling.  I LOVE Venice and all the hippies that work from home so they can’t possibly cross the street in an orderly fashion.  I love the Lazy Daisy Café that sits across from a Famer’s Market in the park on Saturdays.  I love Molly Malone’s.  I love staring at the ocean at night until you start to see neon blue in the waves.  Serenity unlike any other.  I love the ingenuity of the city.  I love that you can feel the energy of so many people that have come to do something great.  So many people that continue to strive even in the face of abject failure.  I love to see detail in the architecture.  Nuance matters.  I am a city girl through and through.  Part of the reason why is that I have a deep appreciation for the limitless potential of the human spirit.  There is wonder in the accomplishments of man.  And I see that expressed in the Biltmore, the U.S. Bank building, the LA Athletic Club, the Getty, the Santa Monica Pier, etc. etc.  Cities can make me simultaneously feel completely insignificant and wholly unique.  I know that nature can too, but it is so quiet out there that I get bored.

When people ask me where I am from, I struggle to answer.  Because although I did not spend my childhood in LA, I certainly know that this is the place where I grew up. I have breathed heartbreak with the smog.  I have been brave and been a coward.  I have learned how to strive to be the hero of my own story.  It feels like I have lived five lifetimes in LA.  Some lifetimes that I would never repeat.  And some that have nostalgia as warm as socks from the dryer.  LA is a part of me, but it has never been particularly good to me.  In the words of Patty Griffin “Tonight I cry for the love that I have lost and the love I never found”

I love you, LA.   And I will miss you terribly.  So I will take a lesson from your natural cycle.  Sometimes you have to shake things up, burn them down, and wash them away to find new life.