Sorry for my lack of attention to this. I have been downloading a lot of music lately, and my poor little imp of a computer won't tolerate anything else happening while music is being streamed. It gets worn out easily, poor thing.
I am finally working again. Thank god. I never realized how ugly unemployment looked on me. That was the first extended period of time for over four years that I haven't had a job (or at least something else to do in the meantime, like pretending to be a student) and I sort of went crazy without even noticing. I thought I was relaxed enough of a person to be okay with doing nothing. In periods of intense-busy-ness, I go out of my way to take an hour or two during the day to specifically do nothing. But doing nothing all the time? For me, unhealthy. Once again I prove myself to be such a Capricorn.
No bueno.
But thankfully that turned around.
And now that I am happily working and trotting over to Judi's Deli every day for lunch, drinking in the delights of working in the hustle and bustle of skyscrapers and business and
summer, in a way--minus the whole not-knowing-the-language-living-in-a-foreign-city-doing-intense-legal-work thing.It's bringing me back because I'm still exploring. One of the things I love about Los Angeles is that I could spend every second of my life exploring this, wonderful, amorphous city and I would still never finish.
Every second of every day, I fall more and more in love with LA.
Even when I have shouting matches with people who are driving and texting and almost kill me. Even when 70 year old men hit on me all 12 floors up on the elevator. Even when the bus driver determinedly looks the other way as I bang on the door of the bus, running fruitlessly after it as it pulls away.
Even when most of the people who make LA the sentimental place that it is for me, are gone for some reason or another. I make my way, I put one foot in front of the other.
Just me and the city. We're becoming even better friends, she and I.
What with all this time we're spending together and all.
So today was July 4th. Some sort of independence schtick or other. I was still recovering from celebrating Canada Day on the 1st.
Har har, but really, I had a very lovely time. I went over to a friend's and indulged in the best, most extravagant meal I've had in quite some time. Then there were cherries and cupcakes enjoyed while in the jacuzzi, then we walked over to the park to see the fireworks.
They were lovely.
Now, being your resident firework enthusiast, this brought back an important memory for me. Two years ago, today, I was flying on a plane into LA. I had been in Canada for a short period of time to visit my father.
The plane was landing, and the blanket of lights unfurled itself at the edge of my window--a sight that always makes my heart warm and tingly, and pulls the corners of my mouth into a huge grin. But on the 4th, as I was landing in the night, I saw hundreds of thousands of new lights among the pale yellow. The bright spurts of red, blue, purple, green. I saw fireworks going off all over the city, hanging just above it, suspended in midair, like low flying shooting stars.
It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. And not the kind of thing that most people get the chance to see, unfortunately. It was one of those alignments of space and time that let you glimpse something so unique, so incredible.
So for now, that is my project. I've been thinking about doing it for a while--now it is going to come to fruition. I am compiling a list of what, to date, were the best, most memorable moments of my life. I have had many of them, so, so, so many. And being someone who is somewhat in love with the ordinary, that means that I have so many more moments that I consider extraordinary just because of the simplicity of them, or purely because of the people I was with--not because of what I happened to be doing, or whatever.
So I will try to keep them things that most people do not know I have experienced, would not have expected me to have experienced, or would not normally have experienced in the normal course of things. The most vivid images that I have of my past. The moments in my life that have defined me, or changed me.
This obviously will not happen all at once - I may start with a large chunk of them, but for me the more time I spend sifting through my memory, the more things I find, the more things blindside me as days go by, and I wonder how I ever locked those memories away, because they were so wonderful.
For me, this isn't so much going through, dwelling on, or living in the past. It's just going through and picking out the gems, the pretty little moments that I've glossed over and forgotten. The little bits and pieces that could be trapped in amber and kept for darker times.
Just give me moments. Not hours or days.
So keep your eyes open for that. Coming soon.
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