a new thing...
outside on the back steps, computer on lap, past dusk-time, 7:30, typing in the dark, under a reddish fire moon.
i am thinking of portland tonight (somehow, i always think of portland)...it is warm, the kind of warm, still, dry nights that are very portland-in-august. only here it is la-in-october and just so because half the city is on fire. we, in our little perch on the hill, overlooking the ocean to one side and culver city to the other, are surrounded, by the fires in malibu, ontario, orange county. the moon is red, the air is dry, i looked up the essay santa ana (i know that is supposed to be underlined, but blogger lacks an underlining option) by joan didion on sunday morning, and re-read her feelings on the winds. the winds the winds the winds. i had forgotten.
she wrote about the violence in the winds, the violence in this city. and i've been thinking about that, only to its opposite side: regeneration. good and bad, we, here, are a people obsessed. always getting over one catastrophe or another: wind, fire, torrential rain, earthquake, riot. charred remains are constant on corners. building cranes are, too. very few old things remain. only maybe in deep downtown, broadway and such, and while yes, they remain, they do remain abandoned. we are not longtimers here.
no one is from here, that's whats struck me the hardest since my return. people consider themselves "locals" who grew up in sunnyvale, a suburb of san francisco, 400 miles away. i didn't notice this so much around the time i left...granted, i was 18 and in high school and everyone i knew was from here, we had practically all grown up together, same schools 10 years in a row.
what i notice in people i meet: the long-timers, they are a little hardened. not so impressed. not so dressed up. more about style (the inner style, the style in one's walk, say, rather than one's shoes), than fashion. the new comers seem different: dress their babies up in outfits with matching hats (am i feeding into this by making baby outfits with matching hats?), little three piece suits on their 1st birthdays. they work in television, or wish they did. they live in places where people who were born here would never live: east of downtown is always a no no, i don't care if beck, jason lee, giovanni ribisi and all the other hipper-than-thou-scientologists hotties have mortgages there.
anway, apologies for the rant: regeneration. i think the people have taken it to heart and therein explains the quickness. the quickness of everything. it might not be there tomorrow. i might not be here tomorrow. i might look totally different tomorrow. regeneration, recreation, in stark response to restoration.
what i am realizing: it is hard to type in the dark.
what i came out here to write: it seems i don't write anymore. in a conversation recently, i was told, "well, i mean, its not like you write anymore". what on earth did that mean?! apparently, it meant i don't write anymore, which was a strange thing to hear because i write all the time, in my head. little vignettes, stories, ephemera and what not. but i guess i don't write it down which is where the "you don't write anymore" comments come from.
all of my writing, what little there is, see the blog history for proof, comes here, or goes into letters or pops into my head when i'm way too tired to grab a notebook and, upon falling asleep, poof! is gone. thing is, i'm not sure i wnat to do anything about it. i am working, i am knitting, i am sewing, amy came out of the florence woodwork, and thankful be to god that she's alive, i owe her the email or two. no writing.
plus, no tragedies. no boy maladies. sorry to say, you young alcoholic boys, you were my bread and butter. what i was thinking earlier while i was sitting out here on the porch, staring into the dark and looking up at the moon, was that i used to do this in portland, on the front steps, with wine, with cigarettes, at 1 in the morning, waiting for drunk boy company. now i'm on the back steps, with wine (and its white not red: gewurtstraminner - did not spell that right, and i'm not getting up to check - has changed my life), no american spirits, and no drunk boy soon to show up.
instead its 8pm. and the boy i am waiting for is stone sober, though no doubt massively jangly on caffeine, and soon coming home to dinner and then going to his studio to work much of the night. i will take tylenol for the toothache i'm nursing, and read and go to bed around 11, to be up at 6 to do this all over again.
regeneration.
also: though i'm not too worried about our grass hills succumbing to the fire (the south bay tends to a climate more livable: more afternoon breezy than all day windy. ), i am wondering what on earth would happen should the oil fields to the east of us go up. asking what happens if oil catches on fire seems a rather stupid question, but...
i am thinking of portland tonight (somehow, i always think of portland)...it is warm, the kind of warm, still, dry nights that are very portland-in-august. only here it is la-in-october and just so because half the city is on fire. we, in our little perch on the hill, overlooking the ocean to one side and culver city to the other, are surrounded, by the fires in malibu, ontario, orange county. the moon is red, the air is dry, i looked up the essay santa ana (i know that is supposed to be underlined, but blogger lacks an underlining option) by joan didion on sunday morning, and re-read her feelings on the winds. the winds the winds the winds. i had forgotten.
she wrote about the violence in the winds, the violence in this city. and i've been thinking about that, only to its opposite side: regeneration. good and bad, we, here, are a people obsessed. always getting over one catastrophe or another: wind, fire, torrential rain, earthquake, riot. charred remains are constant on corners. building cranes are, too. very few old things remain. only maybe in deep downtown, broadway and such, and while yes, they remain, they do remain abandoned. we are not longtimers here.
no one is from here, that's whats struck me the hardest since my return. people consider themselves "locals" who grew up in sunnyvale, a suburb of san francisco, 400 miles away. i didn't notice this so much around the time i left...granted, i was 18 and in high school and everyone i knew was from here, we had practically all grown up together, same schools 10 years in a row.
what i notice in people i meet: the long-timers, they are a little hardened. not so impressed. not so dressed up. more about style (the inner style, the style in one's walk, say, rather than one's shoes), than fashion. the new comers seem different: dress their babies up in outfits with matching hats (am i feeding into this by making baby outfits with matching hats?), little three piece suits on their 1st birthdays. they work in television, or wish they did. they live in places where people who were born here would never live: east of downtown is always a no no, i don't care if beck, jason lee, giovanni ribisi and all the other hipper-than-thou-scientologists hotties have mortgages there.
anway, apologies for the rant: regeneration. i think the people have taken it to heart and therein explains the quickness. the quickness of everything. it might not be there tomorrow. i might not be here tomorrow. i might look totally different tomorrow. regeneration, recreation, in stark response to restoration.
what i am realizing: it is hard to type in the dark.
what i came out here to write: it seems i don't write anymore. in a conversation recently, i was told, "well, i mean, its not like you write anymore". what on earth did that mean?! apparently, it meant i don't write anymore, which was a strange thing to hear because i write all the time, in my head. little vignettes, stories, ephemera and what not. but i guess i don't write it down which is where the "you don't write anymore" comments come from.
all of my writing, what little there is, see the blog history for proof, comes here, or goes into letters or pops into my head when i'm way too tired to grab a notebook and, upon falling asleep, poof! is gone. thing is, i'm not sure i wnat to do anything about it. i am working, i am knitting, i am sewing, amy came out of the florence woodwork, and thankful be to god that she's alive, i owe her the email or two. no writing.
plus, no tragedies. no boy maladies. sorry to say, you young alcoholic boys, you were my bread and butter. what i was thinking earlier while i was sitting out here on the porch, staring into the dark and looking up at the moon, was that i used to do this in portland, on the front steps, with wine, with cigarettes, at 1 in the morning, waiting for drunk boy company. now i'm on the back steps, with wine (and its white not red: gewurtstraminner - did not spell that right, and i'm not getting up to check - has changed my life), no american spirits, and no drunk boy soon to show up.
instead its 8pm. and the boy i am waiting for is stone sober, though no doubt massively jangly on caffeine, and soon coming home to dinner and then going to his studio to work much of the night. i will take tylenol for the toothache i'm nursing, and read and go to bed around 11, to be up at 6 to do this all over again.
regeneration.
also: though i'm not too worried about our grass hills succumbing to the fire (the south bay tends to a climate more livable: more afternoon breezy than all day windy. ), i am wondering what on earth would happen should the oil fields to the east of us go up. asking what happens if oil catches on fire seems a rather stupid question, but...
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