My California: Words
It had been a while since I went down to San Diego. On Saturday morning I drove north from the Gas Lamp district to come home.
I ate breakfast in Del Mar. A friend of mine from high school, a skater, would pass around Thrasher magazines. In between pictures of skaters doing hand plants, I would see references to a place called Del Mar. "What an interesting name for a place," I would think to myself and let the words roll off my tongue to hear them out loud: Del Mar. Work eventually brought me there and I’ve never gotten it out of my system since; the quaint seaside town, the hill that runs down towards the ocean, and the quiet of a place that money can buy. The residents ignore me, which I might like best.
You could say that everyone is white except that tans run so deeply among locals. A girl next to my table flaunts her Harvard sweatshirt during breakfast with her mother. Everyone seems to have brought their dogs. The ocean is visible at the bottom of the hill.
I left Del Mar for Irvine. I had to take a Microsoft exam and wanted to give myself some time to get situated.
In Irvine I’m at the corner of Culver and Irvine Center Drive. Across the parking lot is China Trust bank. Around the corner is Sam Woo, the best Chinese food I’ve had in southern California. The bakery where I’m sitting is manned by a shopkeeper who barely speaks passable English. And why should she? The parking lot has no American cars save one: a lonely Dodge parked by itself, defining aloof to perfection. The occasional White or Indian person is a tourist, just like me.
Today I head back to South Dakota. But I’m taking the eclectic back with me, experiences from Del Mar, the Gas Lamp, Pasadena, Fullerton, Uptown Whittier, Los Angeles, Huntington, Laguna, Long Beach and the apartment in Buena Park; experiences with Mexicans, Armenians, Chinese, Korean, Black, and White; experiences in urban space, suburban sprawl, desert, beach, and wastelands.
Now it’s time to reflect, piece it together, and experience the contrast.
Goodbye, Angels and Insects.
12:38:13 AM 
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