Two Notes on Long Beach
For some inexplicable reason I spent last night in Long Beach. That's not the point. This morning, decked out in scrungy traveling t-shirt and oversize shorts, overnight bag and admittedly fruity laptop case (not my fault...it was all Dad had!) in tow, I set out for the 10 or so block walk from my friend's place to the local train station. Now they say you learn something new every day: I learned that at about 8:45am on Sunday along Ocean Boulevard between Falcon Street and Alamitos Avenue is the optimal time for perfectly muscled shirtless blonde men in their mid-twenties to take their respective dogs for their morning nose-powdering. I thought the first one I encountered (whose dog refused to move while I stood on the sidewalk pretending to have something to do other than shamelessly ogle shirtless hunks with dogs before 9 on a Sunday in Long Beach, and then again outside said hunk's apartment as I, abandoning my post to run subterfuge on said hunk, approached and unwillingly passed the apartment, which under normal circumstances would have been an optimal chance to hit on said hunk) was but a fortunate fluke. After witnessing a veritable procession of solitary blonde hunks-cum-canine companions with increasing disbelief/exasperation/lasciviousness, I vowed to record the historic date to cap off an otherwise unimportant week.
.
On the otherwise insufferable Metro Blue Line train back to Los Angeles (a fifty-minute ride!) I took the chance to look through the documents Dad recovered from my desktop. It brought back memories of Tea's stories (Mr. Andrews Takes a Shit, which still makes me laugh out loud, and my all-time favorite, The Brejevina Coach, which gives me creeped-out goosebumps even on a crowded train), the brief period when I wrote public-service freshman survival guides (only six of which were completed, and I ought to send those to the twins), and when I wrote a legal opinion on an NOW case against anti-abortion protesters. While reading the final I realized, to my horror, that throughout the document, without exception, I spelled the word "protestors." What to do on a paper I submitted for a class a year and a half ago? Naturally, correct the spelling mistakes and click "save." It's posterity, not perfectionism. I swear.
.
On the otherwise insufferable Metro Blue Line train back to Los Angeles (a fifty-minute ride!) I took the chance to look through the documents Dad recovered from my desktop. It brought back memories of Tea's stories (Mr. Andrews Takes a Shit, which still makes me laugh out loud, and my all-time favorite, The Brejevina Coach, which gives me creeped-out goosebumps even on a crowded train), the brief period when I wrote public-service freshman survival guides (only six of which were completed, and I ought to send those to the twins), and when I wrote a legal opinion on an NOW case against anti-abortion protesters. While reading the final I realized, to my horror, that throughout the document, without exception, I spelled the word "protestors." What to do on a paper I submitted for a class a year and a half ago? Naturally, correct the spelling mistakes and click "save." It's posterity, not perfectionism. I swear.