Tangents

I was really worried about returning to New York. After spending 2 weeks in California, in 70-degree weather, I had begun to seriously doubt my commitment to Brooklyn. So after kissing my mom on the cheek at the car, late for my flight, I trudged into line to check my one suitcase.

There’s a certain breed of frustration only indigenous to airports. It’s a similar species to freeway traffic, but the special trait is the constant nagging in your mind that if you miss this flight, you’re paying out the ass for it. So every inch gained in line must be carefully measured against how long it took the herd in front of you to move forward, a ratio of minutes to inches is then calculated and approximated so that you can figure how long until you’re at the gate, boarding the plane.

But then some asshole stuffs his codpiece with TNT a few days before and everyone loses their minds.

Thus airport security was especially cautious, and my ratio especially high on the one day that I woke up late and had to rush through an airport. During my entire trip to California I flew 3 times during the Christmas season. Each time I arrived at the airport at least an hour and a half early only to breeze through the airport in 15 minutes and sit around in the airport with nothing to do. But the ONE time I cut it close, everyone decides to fly.

At the bag check counter, I weigh my suitcase. 67 pounds. “That’ll be $50 dollars please,” the disgustingly upbeat girl at the counter says. Doesn’t she know how low her line’s ratio was?! It suddenly occurs to me that I have the Calvin & Hobbes complete collection occupying space in my suitcase and it is a heavy beast. I picked it up in California, which explained my shock since I didn’t have to pay fifty bones on my way out. I tell her. “Oh! Well, do you have another suitcase you can put the book in? Then you won’t have to pay anything!”

“Who made up that moronic rule? So you’re saying that I can occupy the same amount of weight on your precious plane, but if I opt to take up more space as well, you’ll reward me by not charging me extra? This is why airlines are hemorrhaging money: your guys at the top don’t think things through.”

All cheeriness evacuates her face. “Look pay or don’t, you’re holding up the line.” Suddenly I am the guy skyrocketing the ratio. Fine, I’m carrying the book. In front of at least thirty annoyed customers I open my suitcase, which is spring-loaded with dirty laundry, and fish out this 20 pound behemoth. Re-weigh the suitcase, 47 pounds. I’m out.

Now I’m carrying this brick under my arm, awkwardly attempting to balance it against my hip, and recalculating the ratio for airport security. It becomes very clear half-way through the line that I will be missing my flight.

They took my soap. TSA took my soap because it was over the 3 ounce liquid limit. Except that it wasn’t. It was a 6 oz. bottle clearly less than half full. My secret suspicion was that the agent was alarmed by its lime green color. It looked like the green shit that Nick Cage has to save us from at the end of The Rock, and by this stage in the game I wanted a 12-inch needle like Nick had at the end of the movie so I could jam it in her chest. Or mine. Just take the soap, I don’t care anymore.

Defeated, I pass through airport security with no further incident. I am a threat to no one but myself at this point. It’s 10:23 and my flight leaves at 10:25. Out of some sort of masochistic need to punish myself for being late, I decide to run through the airport. Perhaps the flight is delayed? I’m rationalizing, the book under my arm is playing my ribs like a washboard, and I’m running. It should surprise no one at this point that my gate is number 13, the LAST GATE IN THE AIRPORT. It’s closed, I’m toast.

I fantasize about throwing the book through the glass, leaping through its shattered remains onto the tarmac and stowing away on the plane’s landing gear. I saw it in a movie once, big deal. Instead, I inquire when the next flight is. There’s one. In two hours. Sold out, I’m on standby, and #5 in line. There’s no way this is happening.

So to recap, I could’ve either woken up 10 minutes earlier and saved $150 and a day, or, I could’ve opted not to get out of bed with the girl I found myself next to in the morning. Why I picked curtain number 3, we’ll never know.

So to rescue the day, I called my surrogate sister for a pickup. Turns out she’s running errands with her parents and 4-year-old twins today. At least it’s better than sitting around an airport. I book my flight for tomorrow (same time and place!) and trod back out to the entrance to the terminal. Hopefully this day will get better…

I can’t recall exactly when the end of my LA trip begins. Adam and I sit around on Saturday brainstorming potential songs he could sing.

It’s funny: when we were kids, Adam annoyed the hell out of me when he sang along to songs on the radio. A song will play and he’ll sing along, oftentimes wildly improvising on what the artist recorded. I guess I always thought of it as a way to show off or compete with the singer to prove he is better than whoever is on the recording. He usually is. But in his apartment, I realize that Adam does this whether anyone is watching or not. Improvising helps him decide how he will sing it when someone is watching. Now I listen to him wail and I smile instead of cringe. I see in that private space the same side of him that I see in myself when I put on my favorite tracks and pluck out some notes along to it on my keyboard, alone in my room. It is for no one’s sake but my own. 

We talk about unrequited love and his thoughts on the subject. He says things about his current situation that I said in that very same apartment two years previous. 

Sunday is spent waiting for my ride back to Santa Cruz to arrive. I’m supposed to have breakfast with my friend Maggie but we mutually flake on each other. We speak on the phone instead, catching up on the last few months. I’m reminded why we became friends in the first place.

When I was 13, I had a friend who was 24. I did not find this strange. In fact, at the time, she was the only friend I had any genuine fun with. I don’t know if it was because I was an old soul or because she was young at heart, it must be a mixture of both. We drifted apart when I became an angsty teen, though I am happy to say we are friends once more even if it is currently peripheral. 

Now she is 34, a mother. I’m 24, some guy. We speak on the phone as if nothing has changed except that my brother may or may not be imminently famous and I may or may not be moving to another country. It is a rare thing to have a friend purely because the two of you have compatible personalities and not because you both work together, or because you are both in college or in the same city.

Sometimes the most important friends are friends with seemingly nothing in common. Sometimes the best brothers are brothers that have nothing in common until you spend a weekend with them.

I get a ride to Adam’s apartment to find out that we have completely miscommunicated. He is waiting for me at another location. No problem, I think, I’m in an adventurous mood. I’ll just kinda…. walk around Hollywood and wait for him to show up. Adam informs me that there is a public library somewhere in the East. Perfect. So I set out, imagining myself an explorer with walking stick in hand.

During my trek in search of the library I pass a house with a sign out front: “Psychic Readings: Tarot Cards of the Past, Present, and Future”

First off, that’s some poor presentation, Miss Chloe. By your wording I’m thinking you own a Tarot card museum. You should have been able to predict that many of your fellow citizens would be similarly confused. That you didn’t is the first indication that you are a bad psychic. Moreover, the entire house has bars on the windows and doors. Sooo, I’m going to pay you to read my fortune when you can’t even sense premonitions of impending breaking and entry at your home? No, not convinced.

I think of going in, but ultimately choose to save the $15 it will cost to make this post more interesting. I walk on, plodding my way through the urban wilderness in search of my true destination. Along the way I see a Scientology Library across the street. Christ, I hope this isn’t the library Adam had in mind. Again, I briefly entertain the notion of entering the library: “I’m here to research the study of science? I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place.” They’ve probably heard that one before. Maybe I’d say, “My engrams are, like, totally disrupting my destiny. I… I had a very loud birth,” while stifling some unexpected tears. Again, probably been done. Once again I move on in search of my true destination.

I finally find the library and silently rejoice. Of course I go straight for the Science Fiction section. Fahrenheit 451 instantly catches my eye. Hell yes! I’m ashamed to admit to not having read this book until now. Well, dear readers, that will quickly be remedied. I manage to get through one chapter before Adam arrives. It was good. It was really good, in fact, and every time I read something that exudes that level of quality right off the bat I think, “I should write. Not with the intent of contributing anything to the literary world, but because this author so obviously receives such pleasure from arranging words in the way that he does. I’m sure there are untold pleasures that await me if I put a pen to paper, too.”

But then Adam, or anyone else really, appears and my train of thought breaks. Suddenly I find myself riding around in his friend’s car petting her dog, Attila, and the inspiration evaporates. This happens to me quite frequently in many facets of my life: music, writing, pretty much anything creative. I always find myself content to observe, analyze, comment. It’s… hollow. What’s the point of living if you don’t create anything.

And then through some sheer luck or perhaps something more, I recall the quote at the beginning of Fahrenheit:

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. – Ray Bradbury

I know it sounds fleeting, but I think there’s a lot to learn from that. I’m going to attempt to live in this fashion more often.

I slept in a tent last night. In LA. It turns out that upon leaving Santa Cruz, that nagging feeling I kept having that I had forgotten something was not for nothing. About an hour into the drive I slapped my forehead, gripped by the realization that my sleeping bag and pillow were sitting safely at home. So I slept in a tent at a friend’s house in her backyard. I should be clear: “tent” connotes some sort of squalor but I would venture to call this a luxury tent. It had electical outlets. Laptop, desk lamp, music, and my favorite: tons of blankets that her cat had seemingly lounged upon all day. So obviously my allergic response was potent. I made it through the night.

Now I’m on my way, to meet Adam at his house. I have no idea where I’ll be sleeping tonight. Maybe I won’t sleep? I don’t know. I think at some point I’m just going to give in and get a hotel room to make my life a lot easier.

Talkin’ about L.A. there, but I wanted to be all cryptic and well read. I’m going to visit my brother there. On Thanksgiving we had this spectacular blowout of an argument.

You know those arguments you get into which start off innocently enough:

“Could you pay attention to the directions so we don’t get lost?”

“I don’t know. COULD YOU EVER MANAGE TO INTERACT WITH HUMAN BEINGS ON A BASE LEVEL THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SHITHEEL?”

Surprisingly enough, I was the one with the mild shot across the bow and he was the one reducing me to splinters. So it turned into us trading blows for the sole purpose of cutting the deepest. He totally won, which sucked. Since then we’ve made amends and this will be our first test run of our not being dicks in each other’s presence since Thanksgiving. I’m anxious to see how it goes, though I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine.