Life: I Believe I Can See The Future; Because I Repeat The Same Routine

At 7:00 AM this morning, I was in my car, illegally planted by the curb, eagle-eye watching the cars parked in a more legal fashion along both sides of my street in furtive hope that one of them would soon leave, allowing me to squeeze into its vacated spot. At least once, I was not fast enough spinning my car around to the other side and someone pushier than me waltzed in instead. By 7:40, I was camped out behind the car of a woman walking towards it with her purse, with my blinker insistently informing anyone hopefully waiting behind me that this one was friggin' mine.

The funny (read: not) part of this, of course, being that I would be moving my car again later the same morning to drive to work. By the time I returned home, the dance would begin again. It's really the only thing so far that's regularly frustrated me about living here. Because the roomy parking lot directly next to our building requires you to be out by morning, we're forced to play this ridiculous game battling too many cars for too few metered spaces out on the street.

As for the rest of the life, the blogposts have slowed because I've been gathering enough to even say. Life has become a repetitive schedule of familiars, and mostly all in the good way.

My mornings see me in one of two offices where I go about trying to find things to do or people to pay me to do them. More than half of those days, I'm out by 2 PM, home by 3:30 PM with the help of some lovely traffic, and it isn't usually too terrible making a few rotations around the block before a parking spot becomes available. This, however, does not usually endear me to wanting to move it again until I utterly have to.

The rest of my time has become divided between two options, both of which are centered around their ability to give me internets. They are as follows:

1) The Starbucks I Can Walk To From My Apartment

Not wanting to move my car makes this walking-distance business a favorite. However, guilt compels me to buy something when I go there so, it costs me money. Also, when it rains, I'm not so much encouraged to go out walking. However, since the latter only applies to APOCALYPSE WEEK, it doesn't quite count.



APOCALYPSE WEEK, as it were, was a full week of rain. Rain, not so bad. Torrential downpours of biblical proportion... slightly more so. You can't even see the rain right in that picture, but I assure you is it going almost straight sideways and at speeds that could stab you in the neck. Rain like this drives Californians crazy, as it turns out, and I'm fairly certain that half of the state remained cradled in their homes out of fear during that week because traffic was terrific, ignoring that you were thundering through huge slippery puddles and had a visibility of little to none.

It was, actually, this WEEK that allowed me to discover option #2, nestled in this shopping mall connected by this courtyard which I'm positive looks better when it's not raining but I haven't bothered to take another picture so you're just gonna have to deal.



2) Borders That Has Free Parking

That's right. Free. Parking. In a garage. And for this, I will forever love them. Not to mention that they are comfy, not powered solely by their A/C, and are full of books which I love a good deal more than coffee, which I do not like at all. Borders is not without its down-points, however.



For instance, though I discovered this perfect cozy spot on a windowsill behind some bookshelves where all anyone could see of me was my feet and I felt secret and alone... there was no outlet in sight. Okay, there was an outlet. But it didn't work. So I'm not counting it. Therefore, no outlet. Approximately one and a half hours after sitting down, I was forced from my comfort zone to find a source of electricity.



In Borders, you have about two options (if you want seating... which, I don't always get around to). The first is the coffee shop below which is quite like Starbucks and where you will be surrounded by a similar crowd all going for the same spots. It is also here that you're apparently presenting yourself to be approached by anyone in the vicinity willy-nilly.

The second option are the chairs along the stairs where you can probably get an outlet if you manage to claim a seat on the outsides near the pillar. I like these chairs. Mostly because I'm allowed to turn them around backwards and use the railing as a foot-rest.

This position is especially endeared to me now because it allowed an Encounter. This is what I'm counting as my first real Celebrity Sighting because the first one was someone I didn't know, and the second one was someone no one else knows. So that kind of defeats the purpose.

No, this one was bona-fide. Because, I was chilling out in my seat with my feet up on the railing and my computer in my lap and, you know, something really epically important on my screen, when a tall lanky form bounded up the stairs. Perhaps he was followed or lead by the attendant he later began talking to... I don't know, why would I be watching the attendant... the point is, I thought I recognized the face despite that it was being partially blocked by a cleverly worn hat. In my sheer surprise, I yanked my headphones off to see if hearing the voice would cement it. And it did. The face? Matthew Lillard. I'm so very sure of it. Check out this tiny-ass, highly questionable evidence.



I whipped open my backpack to take instant proof of this sighting only to find I'd cleverly left my iPhone at home where it would do me loads of good sitting on my desk like a shiny paperweight. So I had to snap this one with my phone where I was instantly reminded that I hadn't turned the sound off because it resonated the store with its extremely obvious "shutter" sound. After this, I was pretty much too paranoid to look up to see if I'd been pointed out for my paparazzi-impression. So I just watched. And lamented that I wasn't obnoxious enough to harass someone who looked like he was in a hurry and didn't feel like being noticed like he wasn't a normal person on a hunt for a good book.

Unfortunately, Borders closes at 9PM. This is early. Not only is this early, but it is part of their new 'winter' hours. These hours are so very new that, without fail, every time they make an announcement over the PA about how they are closing in half an hour and it is eight-thirty someone near me makes a surprised exclamation about how they're closing early. Without fail. Either that or, like me, they are just so irritated by this fact that they feel they must announce it out-loud in similar surprise.


So days sort of blur together as one giant choice between deciding whether to go to Starbucks, freeze, but have one more precious hour of online time, or go to Borders, be comfy in a chair but have to leave in a herd by nine.

Oh. Though, there was this one nice day where my sister and I decided to go to Sprinkles to get her a celebratory birthday cupcake. Then she said we should find a nice place along the beach to sit down and eat them. So I plunked down in the passenger seat with the cupcakes in my lap and we drove for a while... a really, actually, incredibly long while. Apparently, no place all along Malibu was satisfactory because we ended up not on the coast at all but entering Camarillo before the day was over. I comically asked my mother what she'd like from this venture into our old place of living but, since we only stopped right at the limits to get gas and turn around, the snapshots are all out the window of various places along the beach instead.

Enjoy anyway. Because they're just that pretty. And I don't feel like saying anything about them.














Actually, one more thing.



This is what I did on Saturday while other people I happen to know were, like, shoveling or something. I was planted in the lovely courtyard outside the walkable-distance movie theater I just discovered, ruminating over my first 3D movie experience (AND HOW MUCH IT COST ME) and sipping on this delicious Coldstone Cake N' Shake.

You may now commence being jealous.



Then you can reassure yourselves by checking your bank account and being secure in the knowledge that you are less broke than me. I guarantee this is true.

Life: Estimated Time Till Destination

I didn't take this picture. I did, however, drive into ( and past ) LA to talk with the fine people at a production office today. Having been liberally warned about the state of California driving, I allowed myself an hour and a half to get to my destination which was clocked at being "29 minutes" away, without traffic. I looked up the directions beforehand so I'd generally know the freeways it would suggest without solely relying on my GPS, which I wouldn't be able to see at all times without staring obsessively at my lap and, well, common sense informs me that might not be the best technique on the road.

As it turned out, I still made several wrong decisions but, since the GPS had been telling me to head towards a street labeled "Buses Only" while a cop car drove steadily behind me, I'm okay with that. I also ended up making the route easier for myself, so, more power to wrongness. Making the various twists and turns and more turns and sharp turns and mergings that were required of me, I began to get the odd sensation like John Cleese ( my GPS voice of choice ) was attempting to teach me how to lose a tail instead of arrive at a destination.

At one point, I cheered up as I neared a street with several impressively sized studios with their featured movie posters displayed all along the side in larger-than-life form... but was led right past them. I was going to take a picture of these, but even as I began to pull out my cell-phone I remembered that using it in my car in California was one of those newly prohibited things, so I tossed it away. No studio photos for you. Sorry.

Once at the building, I did the vulture-circle dance around the block to find parking - most of it was residential and therefore off-limits without a permit - and eventually realized I was going past three craftily placed meters. Two of them appeared out of order, so I took the one in the middle that was not. Go me.

After nearly getting off the elevator on the wrong floor because it didn't display any numbers that told you what floor it was on, I arrived at Suite 306. I wandered inside and was asked by a man if I was there to meet 'Mike'. Oh, yes, I was. Oh, well, what do you know, he was Mike. Okay, great. Sit here on the couch? Sure, I'll do that.

THREE HOURS LATER -- no, just kidding. But, it was, like, thirty phone calls. Following the first handful of check-ins and reroutes, I started to wonder if this was some kind of test, was I expected to behave a certain way when left alone to wait. Should I look patient? Should I be... doing something to show I'm productive? Should I-- blarrrgh! What should I do?! ... So I was very importantly jotting down a map for myself about where I'd found the available parking when one of the men from the front office went in to help a woman claiming to be doing something involving the "three-act structure". Oh ho ho. But now my writer senses are tingling!

I shamelessly eaves-dropped on their conversation - come on, the door was still open and everything - when I heard the "f" word dropped. Several times.

... A sense of comfort and belonging fell over me in that moment.

No, but, really - casual swearing makes me feel better inside. 1) You can talk like yourself there, 2) They are normal people who talk like normal people. Pleasant conversation has its place, I'm not saying that, it's just nice to be able to relax in a work environment.

Anyway, I got in to have a chat with Mike and he laid out the basics of what interning would be like, where I could find free parking, etc, etc. Those important details. I drove home after that in the lovely backed up but not unmoving LA evening traffic, where I was glad for the slow pace because it allows me to get my bearings without people honking, and turn up my music because I don't need to hear the GPS as often. And maybe it's the slowness of the traffic already, but I found people to be fairly considerate so far when it comes to merging. They are, however, less considerate when they think you had time to make your right turn and you didn't.


In celebration of driving, I present the first installment of What Does This Remind Me Of: California Rivers



I spotted these particular structures the first time my parents and I were driving to our hotel. This view isn't very beneficial to the game, but what these are is cement "rivers" moving alongside the street that collect water when it rains. However, when they are dry, they are just "V"-shaped pathways conveniently out of traffic, sometimes when provided bike paths that perhaps... a bike, or a motorcycle... or a hijacked semi might travel.

Guess away, all 4 faithful blog-followers. What do these remind me of?