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hi guess what account I remembered I had
Two weeks ago I drove down to LA to visit some friends for a week! I've been meaning to ever since a bunch of my housemates moved down there at once after we all graduated, but it's pretty far away and I hate flying (and paying for plane tickets, yikes.) For those of you unfamiliar with the layout of California/my general whereabouts it's somewhere between a 300 and 375 mile drive down to LA county and the surrounding areas, so I think my dallying in actually going is at least a little justified. But my best friend of 12 years just moved down there with her girlfriend a few months ago and I told her I would visit for her birthday, so it was time to make the trek for real and then visit everybody at once. I was able to time the trip so I could see the housemate who moved to Chicago instead of LA but was back visiting for something like two days so that was really nice too. I even fully reset my extremely fucked up sleep schedule for the trip, which was not easy considering that I'm incapable of going to bed early so I had to loop all the way around. But I did it :)
I like details and having documentation to look back on, so this is gonna be wordy and pretty rambly. sorry. discussion under the cuts
The drive wasn't bad at all! I'm awful at keeping myself entertained when I'm a passenger, but if I'm the one driving I have something that demands my focus that I can't put down the way I can a book, so it makes the time go by faster. Podcasts help too (currently and very slowly going through Old Gods of Appalachia which is a good time.) The traffic was pretty negligible until I got into the city proper, since nearly the whole drive is like. hours and hours of almond trees and damn near nothing else. My mom also said something about people driving north for the holiday weekend so southbound would have been less crowded but I don't know where they'd be going.
I spent the first two days with my best friend and her girlfriend. My friend took me to Little Tokyo (her girlfriend was busy) and brought me to different shops she likes. She was willing to entertain my whims and showed me a manga/anime merch store but alas there wasn't anything I wanted. It's rough out here for a female shounen character enjoyer/obscure josei fan. sad. After that, we met up with our friend from high school who also lives down there and did karaoke for a bit, where I had the worst mojito I've ever had and it didn't even get me tipsy. But it was fun!! I tend to prefer private room karaoke because unfortunately seven-some years of collegiate opera has trained me out of debilitating stage fright only so much, so it was nice to have the more intimate setting with people I've known my whole life.
The rest of the weekend was really chill and we mostly hung out at my friend's apartment and played pokemon and style savvy (I think? or whatever it is on switch.) They have a dog! I'm very much not a dog guy but dogs love me (it's a curse) and this one was no exception. He just sat on my feet all weekend. It was pretty cute even if I don't like dogs ngl.
My best friend slept over at least once a month all through high school and not infrequently in the years past that. It's been difficult and strange not having her nearby anymore. I'm happy she and her girlfriend are building their life together- just wish LA wasn't so far away. I'm glad for every opportunity I'm able to spend with her, and I really have to get down more. She comes up to norcal more than I go to socal (twice since 2016 so it's not a difficult number to beat) but I should make the effort too.
Next I went to two of my old housemates' (there are so many old housemates. sorry.) place and spent two days there. One of my friends was at work when I got there so the other one let me in and I got to meet his new girlfriend for the first time. She's legitimately the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure I didn't even remember to introduce myself I was so stunned. She had somewhere to be so I didn't get to interact but I've heard great things about her. Good for my friend. He had to leave after a bit too but then my second friend came home with her boyfriend (the one who lives in Chicago and was visiting) so I got to spend time with them too before he had to go to to the airport and leave. The next day my friends had work so I sat around and finally finished Gone Girl after like. six months of reading a little bit and then forgetting I owned the book altogether. Then a fourth housemate visited for lunch before he had to go to work too.
After everybody was done with work, we went to dinner with a few more friends. I was told it was an easy walk. It was not. It was only fifteen minutes, but it was uphill both ways. Worse still, it was raining. This one's on me but I'd also only brought flip flops so that made it even more difficult. I had a minor asthma attack each way. Oops. It was fine though. At the restaurant I got an excellent lemon orange cocktail whose name and ingredients I forgot to document, and maybe the best ice cream sundae I've ever had.
Afterwards we came back to the apartment to have a shindig, as my friend insisted on calling it. Most of my friends (the two I was staying with, the two I would stay with the next day, the friend from lunch, and his brother. this is confusing without names but for privacy's sake I won't use any. sorry.) played Mario Kart but another friend and I sat and talked about miraculous ladybug fanfiction for like two hours, which was a little embarrassing on my part but I was drunk and my friends already know what I'm like so whatever. And then it was 11 pm and I was tired, and shockingly it isn't easy to sleep on an air mattress six inches from a television that's actively in use for video games, so I made everybody leave with authority I did not have but they were gracious enough to pretend I did.
I spent the last day with two more housemates. I went to their wedding in December, which was lovely, but it was nice to be able to see them without all the bustle of a big event like that. These two are much more relaxed and content to sit around and do nothing than my other friends, which aligns with my own energy very well. They brought me to a bookstore where I made the financially irresponsible decision to buy Gillian Flynn's other two books, and then we just hung out and played Tears of the Kingdom. I also got to play with their instruments including a fancy synth that I had truly no idea what to do with, but they're very kind so they hyped me up anyway. It was nice to have a day to wind down before the six and a half hour drive back the next morning.
Good god the drive back was so bad. I was further south so it took a little longer, but there was a lot more traffic, and there was this one stretch about forty minutes from my parents' that has one lane each direction, and one car was going like 25 mph even though the speed limit was 50 and they refused to pull over for sixteen miles. That alone added half an hour to my drive. I was so mad. But I got back without incident so it was okay.
In all it was a lovely trip. I live by myself in the town where I went to college and most of my friends moved away after they graduated, so it's been a little lonely. I certainly don't miss sharing space with six or seven friends (something like 15 different people. there was a lot of rotation) the way I did for our three years of cohabitation, but it is rough not having easy access to them the way I used to. It was nice to have a week surrounded by people I love and remembering that they love me too. My dad keeps making jokes about me packing up and moving down there too and I don't think I'm going to because I hate cities and temperatures above 70 but like. The thought is tempting sometimes.
Two days after I got back I got to go to the Avatar the Last Airbender concert in San Francisco, which was incredible.
I love live music but have gone to only one other orchestra concert since I graduated (it's so expensive. good god. I could go to the ones at my university but I don't want to relive my student days lmaoo) I went with another one of my high school friends- back when the Legend of Korra finale came out we spent I think two hours on the phone talking about it. It's nice that we're still able to bond over the series a whole decade later :) We had seats all the way in the back row of the balcony but the view was just fine and the sound was great. I know I like the cartoon but I keep forgetting exactly how much I like it, and the concert brought it all back. The musicians were so talented and it was such a treat getting to pick apart the music and the performances for things I missed while watching the show itself. Some of that music is in 5/4 which is fun. This is what I use my degree for- watching a conductor in a concert I'm not performing in and figuring out the time signature. Nothing else.
Finding parking was a nightmare, though. The venue didn't have its own lot but had recommended five or so garages in the surrounding area. My friend and I got to the city an hour early just in case, thinking we'd have plenty of time. Nope. The first recommended lot was like. fully shut down, so we went to the second one. It was the same day as the Lunar New Year parade, so a lot of streets were blocked off, and other two way streets were made one way only, so it took literally forty minutes to find the second lot. Which then cost fucking 41 dollars. Like. Excuse me. It was one of those narrow garages that takes up mostly vertical space, so we had to park on the sixth floor. The elevator said "two people only or it will get stuck!!" and it was broken anyway, which wasn't a problem on the way down but it definitely would be on the way up. There weren't even stairs, we just had to walk down the car ramps. Terrible. Luckily we weren't late to the show or I think I would have cried.
My parents were catsitting for me which I appreciate. I only planned on staying at their place long enough to see the concert, but then they had a surprise event in LA too that they had to go to. Now it's my turn to catsit for them, which is fine except I left my switch and guitar at my apartment. I could hypothetically use this extra time to write but I just got done with a long-term project and I haven't found a way back into the groove for any of my current stuff. I'll get there but it hasn't happened yet. My cat is making the most of her time here, though- she's discovered the joys of climbing on the kitchen table thirty seconds after I shoo her off. I think she's up there literally thirty times an hour. There are two other cats here who like her or at worst tolerate her but I'm the one she chooses to annoy. I love her so much but like. come on.
Anyway this has been the busiest two weeks I've had in literal years and they were fun but I'm ready to go back to my apartment and do nothing again.
Two weeks ago I drove down to LA to visit some friends for a week! I've been meaning to ever since a bunch of my housemates moved down there at once after we all graduated, but it's pretty far away and I hate flying (and paying for plane tickets, yikes.) For those of you unfamiliar with the layout of California/my general whereabouts it's somewhere between a 300 and 375 mile drive down to LA county and the surrounding areas, so I think my dallying in actually going is at least a little justified. But my best friend of 12 years just moved down there with her girlfriend a few months ago and I told her I would visit for her birthday, so it was time to make the trek for real and then visit everybody at once. I was able to time the trip so I could see the housemate who moved to Chicago instead of LA but was back visiting for something like two days so that was really nice too. I even fully reset my extremely fucked up sleep schedule for the trip, which was not easy considering that I'm incapable of going to bed early so I had to loop all the way around. But I did it :)
I like details and having documentation to look back on, so this is gonna be wordy and pretty rambly. sorry. discussion under the cuts
The drive wasn't bad at all! I'm awful at keeping myself entertained when I'm a passenger, but if I'm the one driving I have something that demands my focus that I can't put down the way I can a book, so it makes the time go by faster. Podcasts help too (currently and very slowly going through Old Gods of Appalachia which is a good time.) The traffic was pretty negligible until I got into the city proper, since nearly the whole drive is like. hours and hours of almond trees and damn near nothing else. My mom also said something about people driving north for the holiday weekend so southbound would have been less crowded but I don't know where they'd be going.
I spent the first two days with my best friend and her girlfriend. My friend took me to Little Tokyo (her girlfriend was busy) and brought me to different shops she likes. She was willing to entertain my whims and showed me a manga/anime merch store but alas there wasn't anything I wanted. It's rough out here for a female shounen character enjoyer/obscure josei fan. sad. After that, we met up with our friend from high school who also lives down there and did karaoke for a bit, where I had the worst mojito I've ever had and it didn't even get me tipsy. But it was fun!! I tend to prefer private room karaoke because unfortunately seven-some years of collegiate opera has trained me out of debilitating stage fright only so much, so it was nice to have the more intimate setting with people I've known my whole life.
The rest of the weekend was really chill and we mostly hung out at my friend's apartment and played pokemon and style savvy (I think? or whatever it is on switch.) They have a dog! I'm very much not a dog guy but dogs love me (it's a curse) and this one was no exception. He just sat on my feet all weekend. It was pretty cute even if I don't like dogs ngl.
My best friend slept over at least once a month all through high school and not infrequently in the years past that. It's been difficult and strange not having her nearby anymore. I'm happy she and her girlfriend are building their life together- just wish LA wasn't so far away. I'm glad for every opportunity I'm able to spend with her, and I really have to get down more. She comes up to norcal more than I go to socal (twice since 2016 so it's not a difficult number to beat) but I should make the effort too.
Next I went to two of my old housemates' (there are so many old housemates. sorry.) place and spent two days there. One of my friends was at work when I got there so the other one let me in and I got to meet his new girlfriend for the first time. She's legitimately the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure I didn't even remember to introduce myself I was so stunned. She had somewhere to be so I didn't get to interact but I've heard great things about her. Good for my friend. He had to leave after a bit too but then my second friend came home with her boyfriend (the one who lives in Chicago and was visiting) so I got to spend time with them too before he had to go to to the airport and leave. The next day my friends had work so I sat around and finally finished Gone Girl after like. six months of reading a little bit and then forgetting I owned the book altogether. Then a fourth housemate visited for lunch before he had to go to work too.
After everybody was done with work, we went to dinner with a few more friends. I was told it was an easy walk. It was not. It was only fifteen minutes, but it was uphill both ways. Worse still, it was raining. This one's on me but I'd also only brought flip flops so that made it even more difficult. I had a minor asthma attack each way. Oops. It was fine though. At the restaurant I got an excellent lemon orange cocktail whose name and ingredients I forgot to document, and maybe the best ice cream sundae I've ever had.
Afterwards we came back to the apartment to have a shindig, as my friend insisted on calling it. Most of my friends (the two I was staying with, the two I would stay with the next day, the friend from lunch, and his brother. this is confusing without names but for privacy's sake I won't use any. sorry.) played Mario Kart but another friend and I sat and talked about miraculous ladybug fanfiction for like two hours, which was a little embarrassing on my part but I was drunk and my friends already know what I'm like so whatever. And then it was 11 pm and I was tired, and shockingly it isn't easy to sleep on an air mattress six inches from a television that's actively in use for video games, so I made everybody leave with authority I did not have but they were gracious enough to pretend I did.
I spent the last day with two more housemates. I went to their wedding in December, which was lovely, but it was nice to be able to see them without all the bustle of a big event like that. These two are much more relaxed and content to sit around and do nothing than my other friends, which aligns with my own energy very well. They brought me to a bookstore where I made the financially irresponsible decision to buy Gillian Flynn's other two books, and then we just hung out and played Tears of the Kingdom. I also got to play with their instruments including a fancy synth that I had truly no idea what to do with, but they're very kind so they hyped me up anyway. It was nice to have a day to wind down before the six and a half hour drive back the next morning.
Good god the drive back was so bad. I was further south so it took a little longer, but there was a lot more traffic, and there was this one stretch about forty minutes from my parents' that has one lane each direction, and one car was going like 25 mph even though the speed limit was 50 and they refused to pull over for sixteen miles. That alone added half an hour to my drive. I was so mad. But I got back without incident so it was okay.
In all it was a lovely trip. I live by myself in the town where I went to college and most of my friends moved away after they graduated, so it's been a little lonely. I certainly don't miss sharing space with six or seven friends (something like 15 different people. there was a lot of rotation) the way I did for our three years of cohabitation, but it is rough not having easy access to them the way I used to. It was nice to have a week surrounded by people I love and remembering that they love me too. My dad keeps making jokes about me packing up and moving down there too and I don't think I'm going to because I hate cities and temperatures above 70 but like. The thought is tempting sometimes.
Two days after I got back I got to go to the Avatar the Last Airbender concert in San Francisco, which was incredible.
I love live music but have gone to only one other orchestra concert since I graduated (it's so expensive. good god. I could go to the ones at my university but I don't want to relive my student days lmaoo) I went with another one of my high school friends- back when the Legend of Korra finale came out we spent I think two hours on the phone talking about it. It's nice that we're still able to bond over the series a whole decade later :) We had seats all the way in the back row of the balcony but the view was just fine and the sound was great. I know I like the cartoon but I keep forgetting exactly how much I like it, and the concert brought it all back. The musicians were so talented and it was such a treat getting to pick apart the music and the performances for things I missed while watching the show itself. Some of that music is in 5/4 which is fun. This is what I use my degree for- watching a conductor in a concert I'm not performing in and figuring out the time signature. Nothing else.
Finding parking was a nightmare, though. The venue didn't have its own lot but had recommended five or so garages in the surrounding area. My friend and I got to the city an hour early just in case, thinking we'd have plenty of time. Nope. The first recommended lot was like. fully shut down, so we went to the second one. It was the same day as the Lunar New Year parade, so a lot of streets were blocked off, and other two way streets were made one way only, so it took literally forty minutes to find the second lot. Which then cost fucking 41 dollars. Like. Excuse me. It was one of those narrow garages that takes up mostly vertical space, so we had to park on the sixth floor. The elevator said "two people only or it will get stuck!!" and it was broken anyway, which wasn't a problem on the way down but it definitely would be on the way up. There weren't even stairs, we just had to walk down the car ramps. Terrible. Luckily we weren't late to the show or I think I would have cried.
My parents were catsitting for me which I appreciate. I only planned on staying at their place long enough to see the concert, but then they had a surprise event in LA too that they had to go to. Now it's my turn to catsit for them, which is fine except I left my switch and guitar at my apartment. I could hypothetically use this extra time to write but I just got done with a long-term project and I haven't found a way back into the groove for any of my current stuff. I'll get there but it hasn't happened yet. My cat is making the most of her time here, though- she's discovered the joys of climbing on the kitchen table thirty seconds after I shoo her off. I think she's up there literally thirty times an hour. There are two other cats here who like her or at worst tolerate her but I'm the one she chooses to annoy. I love her so much but like. come on.
Anyway this has been the busiest two weeks I've had in literal years and they were fun but I'm ready to go back to my apartment and do nothing again.
