SUNDAY
The Plan: Depart LAX at 4:50 pm, land in Missoula, MT at 8:20 pm, meet the missus at the airport, meet, greet and crash at the residence of her Aunt Nina.
What Actually Happened: Delayed in LAX four extra hours, tossed an insufficient meal voucher for $8, eat the world's most disproportionately expensive cheese pizza, dawdle on the tarmac for forty-five minutes, land in Missoula at 12:50 am, meet the missus at the airport, crash at the cat-piss smelling residence of her Aunt Nina.
MONDAY
The Plan: Depart Missoula by car at 8:00 am, drive through the majority of Montana, a portion of Idaho and a small portion of Utah, stop for Subway lunch someplace, check into La Quinta in Orem, Utah by 5:00 pm, chill the fuck out.
What Actually Happened: Depart Missoula by car at 10:30 am, eat an extra nutritious breakfast of nachos at the local Sinclair station, drive through the majority of Montana and a portion of Idaho, devour a meatball sandwich from Subway in Idaho Falls, drive through a small portion of Utah, read some juicy new Scott Lynch short story, miss the appropriate exit in Orem, get re-directed from trio of drunk women in a Shell Station, check into the hotel, devour some mushroom pizza, sleep the contended sleep of the well-traveled.
TUESDAY
The Plan: Depart Orem by 8:00 am, drive through the majority of Utah, a tiny portion of Arizona, a portion of Nevada and the majority of California, stop for Subway someplace, navigate the treacherous streets of Los Angeles, arrive at Archstone, celebrate.
What Actually Happened: Depart Orem by 10:30 am, drive through the majority of Utah, rock out a singalong of The Hazards of Love through the appropriately pseudo-taiga of southern Utah, stop for Subway in Cedar City, Utah, drive through a tiny portion of Arizona, rock out a singalong of Hadestown through the gorgeously badass Virgin River Canyon, pit stop in Vegas' Chinatown for a stretcher, get stranded in Baker, California, home of Alien Brand Jerky and the worst fucking on-ramp in the history of transpor-fucking-tation, watch the sun set over Zzyzx, finish our subs in Barstow, press onward to Los Angeles, listen to Tom Waits as we arrive at Archstone, celebrate.
Showing posts with label la. Show all posts
Showing posts with label la. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Urbanite
I think cities can only be really appreciated from above. Especially after dark.
Flying into Los Angeles past eleven the previous night, something about its scope struck a chord somewhere in me. During the day, the sun illuminates every corner and crevice and the unbridled baldness of every visual assaults you; it's too much for your system to handle. At night, however, only the light, the electricity, is visible.
Illimitable tiny pinpricks, perforating a pitch black field, only suggest, rather than outright show, the sheer depth and spread of the city. Each light is a tiny testament to human industry; for all the thousand, thousand street lights, headlights and porchlights, there were people responsible, people who designed, constructed and sweat to make each possible and, from thirty thousand feet, they are infinite.
I couldn't help imagine the sensation over Hong Kong or New York or Tokyo.
Makes me feel lazy. Makes me want to stamp the world.
Beyond that, returning to the city invigorates me. I feel like Jerusalem, smelling, tasting, absorbing the squalor, the stink, the clamor. After a month in the quiet, being tossed back into the frenzy, the limitless faces and places, stimulates me to no end. May I never live too far from the honking, sweating pandemonium.
Also I bought a squirt gun for six dollars.
Flying into Los Angeles past eleven the previous night, something about its scope struck a chord somewhere in me. During the day, the sun illuminates every corner and crevice and the unbridled baldness of every visual assaults you; it's too much for your system to handle. At night, however, only the light, the electricity, is visible.
Illimitable tiny pinpricks, perforating a pitch black field, only suggest, rather than outright show, the sheer depth and spread of the city. Each light is a tiny testament to human industry; for all the thousand, thousand street lights, headlights and porchlights, there were people responsible, people who designed, constructed and sweat to make each possible and, from thirty thousand feet, they are infinite.
I couldn't help imagine the sensation over Hong Kong or New York or Tokyo.
Makes me feel lazy. Makes me want to stamp the world.
Beyond that, returning to the city invigorates me. I feel like Jerusalem, smelling, tasting, absorbing the squalor, the stink, the clamor. After a month in the quiet, being tossed back into the frenzy, the limitless faces and places, stimulates me to no end. May I never live too far from the honking, sweating pandemonium.
Also I bought a squirt gun for six dollars.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Out of the Woods
Chapter: 25
Page Count: 300
Word Count: 162,000
Nemo's Bounty: 998,000 Commercial
"Yet for all the ferocity of wind and snow, what Moira simply couldn't have adequately prepared for, had she tried her absolute hardest, was the cold. It's a unique brand of cold, entirely foreign to Moira who'd over the years, grown accustomed, if not necessarily comfortable, to the unfeeling chill of dead space. This terrestrial cold is malignant, resentful and harrows something deep in Moira's psyche as she continues to slog to forward; the pervasive notion that, no matter her equipment or trappings, humanoids were never meant to dwell in this place. Fifteen minutes into the blizzard, her bones ache where they suddenly didn't before, the kerchief across her face annealed hard as stone from frozen moisture escaping her mouth and she's laughably past the point of shivering. The wound on her neck flares in memory of another such hopeless march through this planet's wilderness barely a month previously when she hears something."
No time to blog. Too busy writing.
Okay, fine. If you insist. In brief, though.
The past few weeks have been unreasonably, unfairly busy. To make a long story short, I'm finally, finally, FINALLY moving to Los Angeles. A little sooner than I would have liked, but the film I'm in, Pinching Penny, is having its premier early next month and Blockbuster Video Store, who's just picked it up as one of their few indie features this year, plans to shop the cast and main crew around to several locations and do signings and stuff. Thusly, I've been summoned out west and thought I might as well make a go of it.
In other yet related news, I've decided I'd like to have a finished first draft of my novel before I make the move, which is next Wednesday. As you can imagine, it's been a busy few weeks, particularly this most recent one - I don't think I've ever been this productive on anything in my entire life. Today, in fact, I churned out 4,400 some words in more or less one sitting. I'm a little exhausted, but if I crack 2,500 a day, I'll be done on the plane between here and LAX.
So, apologies to all 18.4 of you who are statistically reading this, but the next time you hear from me, I'll be in California. I'm, as Tom Waits would say, goin' out west.
Until then.
- T
Page Count: 300
Word Count: 162,000
Nemo's Bounty: 998,000 Commercial
"Yet for all the ferocity of wind and snow, what Moira simply couldn't have adequately prepared for, had she tried her absolute hardest, was the cold. It's a unique brand of cold, entirely foreign to Moira who'd over the years, grown accustomed, if not necessarily comfortable, to the unfeeling chill of dead space. This terrestrial cold is malignant, resentful and harrows something deep in Moira's psyche as she continues to slog to forward; the pervasive notion that, no matter her equipment or trappings, humanoids were never meant to dwell in this place. Fifteen minutes into the blizzard, her bones ache where they suddenly didn't before, the kerchief across her face annealed hard as stone from frozen moisture escaping her mouth and she's laughably past the point of shivering. The wound on her neck flares in memory of another such hopeless march through this planet's wilderness barely a month previously when she hears something."
No time to blog. Too busy writing.
Okay, fine. If you insist. In brief, though.
The past few weeks have been unreasonably, unfairly busy. To make a long story short, I'm finally, finally, FINALLY moving to Los Angeles. A little sooner than I would have liked, but the film I'm in, Pinching Penny, is having its premier early next month and Blockbuster Video Store, who's just picked it up as one of their few indie features this year, plans to shop the cast and main crew around to several locations and do signings and stuff. Thusly, I've been summoned out west and thought I might as well make a go of it.
In other yet related news, I've decided I'd like to have a finished first draft of my novel before I make the move, which is next Wednesday. As you can imagine, it's been a busy few weeks, particularly this most recent one - I don't think I've ever been this productive on anything in my entire life. Today, in fact, I churned out 4,400 some words in more or less one sitting. I'm a little exhausted, but if I crack 2,500 a day, I'll be done on the plane between here and LAX.
So, apologies to all 18.4 of you who are statistically reading this, but the next time you hear from me, I'll be in California. I'm, as Tom Waits would say, goin' out west.
Until then.
- T
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