Sunday Afternoon

I stole some cardboard boxes from the trash room at my friend's apartment complex. I was scared about how I would feel with them sitting in my apartment. They are currently sitting in my kitchen, and so far, no panic attacks.

I'm starting to fully embrace the last few fleeting moments of my L.A. experience instead of dreading the move back and crying all the time.

On Saturday, two of my girl friends and I rode our beach cruisers around Venice and Santa Monica and had a day that really felt like summer. It hasn't felt like summer at all so far. June Gloom has unfurled its black tentacles into May and July, and it's been difficult to feel upbeat when every day looks like Seattle in February. Today is the first day since May that it has been sunny, and I am feeling positive again.

Saturday was spent sitting on the back porch of my friend's Venice beach bungalo, eating hamburgers, petting a Jack Russel-ish, all American-looking dog, and sitting around in the sun.

Sidenote.

Persian women hate white girls, I think. This cook out event was predominantly Persian. The dudes were nice, but the girls never said "Hi" or "Nice to meet you" or "Go Eff yourself" to me and my white girl friends. Whatever.

Friday was great. I went to see an 80's cover band with my friend and we ska-danced to "Come on Ilene" types of songs all night long. Something about wearing plaid pants and Chuck Taylors and kicking my feet around on a dance floor makes me feel retro and American.

Speaking of retro Americana. I'm going to give you a lot of back story and then tell you about my retro American feeling on Sunday.

I was feeling pretty down in the dumps on Sunday. I went to church and the power was out at Beverly Hills High School (where our church meets), so we all sat outside on little folding chairs, and something about being under that gray blanket of death-clouds made me feel a little bit like going home and watching movies that make me cry my ass off and popping about 40 melatonin and sleeping my life away. Of course, I didn't do that. I just kind of felt like it.

Driving around in the pitch-black parking garage at BHHS reminded me of Africa. I've never seen night so black. When I was 8, I went to Africa, and it was so black at night that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It was like that in the parking garage on Sunday. Between the gray sky and the black garage and feeling weird, I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt really burned out on all of the negativity.

This is where I would like to insert a paragraph about good friends.

I'm one of those people who has about 309823 aquaintances but very few good friends. Maybe most people are like this. I'm not sure. I just know that I only trust about 3 people in the universe. The people that I consider closest are the ones I can really act like myself around- myself meaning that I don't have to laugh or joke or even smile around because being together is enough. Being quiet and together and not having to entertain is enough for good friends.

So my friend texted me on Sunday afternoon and suggested that we go hiking. Hiking sounded like the worst idea ever to me at that time. I wanted to eat a grilled cheese and sleep all day. But I figured that maybe the endorphins would pull me out of my rock-bottom mood, so hiking away we went.

We started driving down the PCH with the windows down listening to Jan and Dean and the Beachboys and a bunch of other awesome surfer rock. I felt like I was on "Beach Blanket Bingo" or some other 1960's cheesy beach movie. It reminded me why L.A. is my favorite city in the world.

We cruised along the ocean with the windows down singing "Barbara Ann" at the top of our lungs and stopped at Ruby's in Malibu and had some milkshakes. Ruby's is sort of like Jonny Rockets. The whole day felt incredibly vintage, if that makes any sense.

We cruised along some more and stopped off at Paradise Cove, where we took our shoes off and "hiked" through windy sandy hillside. We walked down about a thousand stairs to the ocean. The waves were braking all over these smooth gray stones. I could picture some '60's muscle car speeding over the cliffs and "Dead Man's Curve" playing in the background and the car smashing into a zillion pieces on the rocks.

We walked along the beach and the clouds broke up and the sky was blue and huge and stretched out for a million miles for the first time in months. The waves were huge and they kept rushing their way up the shore all over my feet and the bottom of my pants and I didn't even care. The water was freezing and my feet were really cold and my pants were all wet and covered in sand, and I took my pony tail down and closed my eyes and welcomed the sun and sand and freezing water with a smile on my face. Feeling it all over my feet and legs made me feel really alive.

I kept seeing these little oysters all over the beach that were split open. They were black on the outside and pearly on the inside, and I kept picking them up and washing them off in the ocean and putting them in my purse. It's like I wanted to take every piece of the beach around me to store in my heart and mind for the rest of my life.

When I was a kid, I had a film canister (I bet my future hypothetical kids won't even know what a film canister is) and I put some sand from Hawaii in it. I kept that sand for years. I always do that. I will pick up a rock or a shell or some sand somewhere, hoping that one day when I look at it in my suburban house full of busyness and routine and boredom, that I will somehow be able to close my eyes and remember the feeling that came with seeing that seashell or rock or sand for the first time. That never happens, though. It's like going to your grandma's house and looking at some seashells covered in an inch of dust and they're sitting in a chipped glass dish on the bathroom sink around water stains and random strands of hair. It's depressing. These poor seashells were probably beautifully gleaming in the sun in Florida in the 1970's. And now they're covered in dust and Comet cleaner and dog hair. I kept hoping that maybe I could keep these little oyster shells in a dish on my bathroom sink in Memphis and remember this day forever, even though in the back of my mind I knew they'd wind up all dusty and domesticated one day.

We left the shoreline and walked back to our car and drove up to Point Dume and went hiking again- this time through the mountains. We had to wear shoes. I saw deer and rabbits and little birds everywhere. We hiked through brush and dirt and rocks and we could see the ocean in the far off distance.

This is part of the reason why I love California so much. You can hike without wearing shoes and walk on the ocean in one hour and the next hour you're hiking up a mountain wearing full foot gear and hanging out with deer and the smell of camp fires all around you.

When we got sick of hiking, we had a race, and we ran down a hill, down a rocky trail, as fast as we could. We were breathless and laughing at the bottom, like we had both just got sucked into a time machine back to childhood.

Every once in a while, in life, you come across a friend you wouldn't give up for anything. You have a friend that you can just be with and feel comfortable with and there isn't any threat of betrayal or back stabbing or awkward romanticism. It's just easy and fun.

I've had my share of fair-weather friends out here. I recently was at a friend's house and noticed that all of our pictures were removed from her fridge. Only a month ago, there were pictures of the two of us stuck all over the front of it, like some sort of kitchenette collage. We got into an argument a couple of weeks ago, and next thing you know, all of our pictures are gone. Like the history of our friendship was completely erased.

The great refridergator picture removal incident of 2010 made me think of that part from "Catcher in the Rye," one of the best books ever written.

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "F*ck you" right under your nose. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "F*ck you." I'm positive."

That's how it's been a lot in L.A. People hugging you and asking you to be a bridesmaid or a wife or the mother of his children one second, and the next second they are erasing you and writing eff you all over the place. The thing is, though, there are a few people in life that bring out the best in you. There are a few people who will make you go hiking when you feel like crap, or they'll take you out for a milkshake, or they'll let you cry and not judge your raccoon mascara tracks. They'll laugh with you or congratulate you or send you a card in the mail for no reason. And these are the people that make you a better person. These are the people that have made my life rich with memories.