edge of the continent

I’ve taken the week off of work to handle some personal business and to rest a bit. I’m feeling a little burned out and the need to step back and reassess is running pretty strong through me right now.

I didn’t plan much, as I wanted to go with the flow and do whatever feels right. Today’s agenda, for instance, had just one item: take my car to the dealer for some regular maintenance and get the accessory socket fixed so that I can use my phone and iPod chargers again.

It was a wandering kind of day. There’s a trolley station near the dealership, so one trolley, two buses, and ninety minutes later I arrived at the movie theater in Hillcrest only to learn that their earliest weekday showing isn’t until after one o’clock (I was early for once!). I ate a cobb salad and drank so much iced tea that my stomach hurt at City Deli. I was accosted by a strange little man at a newsstand who questioned why I was sweating (it was hot outside!) as well as my magazine selection. I walked to a coffeeshop that was no longer there, turned around to look for another one, had a different man tell me I’m pretty, and finally bought a coffee in a blissfully air conditioned shop and slumped into a comfortable chair to read said magazine for half an hour. I finally walked back to the theater in time to watch the thoroughly enjoyable Waitress, then retraced my route to the dealer so that I could part ways with a few hundred dollars and pick up my freshly washed, fluffed, and folded car.

As I walked from block to block I mused over how nice it would be to wander around like this everyday until I remembered that a) I am not independently wealthy and would soon be broke, and b) I am otherwise terribly reliant upon the day-to-day use of my car. Deep down I know this meandering around town was an opportunity to clear my head and think of other, less pressing things if only for a little while. I know I’ll have to come back to the rest of my life soon enough.

As much as summertime leaves me disagreeable and sticky, it’s hard for me to resist the pull of a late afternoon light that doesn’t slip past the horizon until eight o’clock or so. I’m lured by the false promise of extra time, when for the briefest of moments the earth’s rotation seems to slow ever so slightly and you begin to believe that the sun may never set at all. Summer is all about lingering — toes in the sand, cold beers on the porch, conversations with friends that go on and on — and longing for something simple and easy.

With it being the day after Memorial Day — well, the day after the day after Memorial Day — I officially mark the start of another summer without television. The rules are simple: no tv at home, movie rentals are kosher — but tuning in to Turner Classic Movies and aimlessly waiting for a flick to catch my attention is not — and switching on the network news in case of national disaster is allowable (although its usefulness could be debatable).

I’ve got the rest of the year to mourn the cancellation of Veronica Mars and to get wrapped up in Heroes, Boston Legal, and the increasingly infuriating Grey’s Anatomy. It’s summer again… time to go out and play.

I have lived with family or friends and rented a moderately creepy (read: someone died there) condo from a good friend’s now ex-boyfriend who did little more than mail me a key and cash my checks every month, so this is the first time I’ve had to actively search for an apartment through newspaper ads and Craigslist postings. Now that I’ve started looking around — just casually a month ago, and much more seriously these past two weeks — I can’t believe all the good times I’ve been missing out on.

Worried that I wouldn’t have my stuff together, I got myself super organized and started carrying with me everyday all the documents I need in a file folder along with my checkbook and a winning smile. I’m more organized than most of the landlords and managers I’ve met so far… not exactly a vote of confidence in any of those places, clearly. I don’t mind absentmindedness in myself or in others and actually find it a bit endearing (mostly out of the hope that others find it endearing in me), but I figure that a landlord should be on it, right?

I don’t have a lot of requirements other than “1bd/1ba”, “habitable”, “clean”, “not feel like a cave”, “meets my budget”, “is centrally located”, and “has off-street parking”. The first three have been easy to find; the others… not so much. Highlights of recent go-sees include the Busted Mailboxes Apartments, the Eye-Bleeding Blue Las Vegas Casino Carpet Apartments featuring the Mysterious Stains in the Corner Unit Next Door, the No Sunlight Ever Crosses Our Door Apartments, and the My Relative Is Moving Into the Unit and I Just Found Out Right Now This Second As I’m About to Show it to Five People Apartments.

So far I’d say the search has been promising. More updates to follow.

Stationed on the USS Arizona as a member of the ship’s band, my grandmother’s youngest brother died during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was so young… still just a boy, really.

I just wanted to take a moment to remember him and what his loss meant for our family, and for the country. One of his shipmates who survived that day — the father of a coworker of mine — still cannot bear to talk about what happened after all these years. I’m thinking about him today, too.