Depression and restlessness. It's a fine description. I was either frantically exercising (for two, sometimes three hours a day) or asleep on the couch. A bad sleep, a dull sleep, where you woke and your head hurt. I lived for e-mails and phone calls. The drive into LA ran 2-3 hours as well, and was hard...didn't want to drive all that to see friends and drive back home the same night. Hard. There were a few nights where I nearly went off the road for need of sleep and had to stop. Dangerous.
One night, mind numbed by this and that, I was driving back from the Starbucks via the main drag - everyone drove 40mph, despite the 30mph speed limit; an unwritten law. This time, someone walked into traffic (were they drunk?), and the car next to me going in the opposite direction ran them down, dead. The body flipped over the top of the SUV. It happened right next to my window, like a bad TV show. Shock, panic...stopped the car. By then a crowd had already surrounded the body, and I decided to go home. Numb. What could I tell the police that they weren't going to hear 500 times from other people? When I got home, called friend. Cried. Couldn't sleep. Eyes wide. Drank lots of water, upon advice of said friend. Heat oppressive. Air conditioning the same. I looked the next day but there was no news...I thought about going to the police station, but didn't.
The kitty next door was named Brewskie. A terrible name for a cat, but he was loved and seemed to think it was OK. He was grey and skinny, a good cat. Hiding in the desert plants, coming out for kibble...occasionally freaking me out by playing with black widows. He would follow me to the pool at night. I would always head out at dusk to swim for hours. A lovely older German woman would be swimming each night as well, and compliment me on my energy to which I had nothing to say. It's hard to explain that this time last year you were much heavier, slower, and still think of yourself that way. I became friends with her over time - she made some lovely artwork and had traveled everywhere. Her advice to me was to keep traveling and experience the world. She said with my smile I could get away with just about anything. Brewskie would sit by the pool and watch the laps for a while before he became bored and wandered off. But he'd always be there to greet me as I got back.
An amazing number of insects would gather at the pool. No WAY could you walk in bare feet out there. They were calling it the "Year of the Widow", black widows ran rampant everywhere. Huge; blood clot colored. They would hang upside down from their schizophrenic webs daring you to come closer. They crawled in the dirt at night, along with centipedes, solpugids, scorpions...a few solpugids got in the house and fucking terrified me. I'm an arachnid lover. I have voluntarily had many tarantulas in my home. But these are too alien. And fast. And strong! I couldn't comprehend them, and did little dances of fear when releasing them outside. One night I thought that I'd released one ON me, and adrenaline was pumping as I swirled around trying to find it. Haven't been that scared of anything in a while. Big lazy cockroaches, crickets and cicadas would find their way to the pool. One week, a wind storm blew in at 85-90mph....the next day the pool was filled with detritus. And with a bunch of mimic moths that looked like hornets. I forget what they're called. Was sorry to see them all floating there. But then cleaned the pool. Made a game of it for the day, diving for sticks and pine needles and shingles. There was a gent who lived down the street, a Vietnam vet. He would come by the pool and chit-chat, and I think he was flirting in his own way. Very blunt discussions about functionality of equipment and the like. He liked to talk about his musicianship and also his guns. He made some comments about the war that I found abhorrent even after reading nearly everything abhorrent there was to read about it, seeing more than I needed to and knowing other vets. The day after the wind storm he came down and wondered what I was doing in the pool. I wondered too, even then. But the answer comes quickly enough. Cleaning the pool by hand kept me busy and preoccupied, thus keeping me from woolgathering and sitting in the house.
I would go to Palm Springs on occasion. It was sweltering, and had the delightful side attribute of being hellishly humid as well. Two minutes there and your shirt was stuck to you. Palm Springs seemed to mainly be inhabited by people with too much money and their spoiled idle children; a California tradition (I recently visited another town like this, north of San Diego). Lots of shops filled with expensive bric-a-brac. Little expensive cafes. A lot of Europeans in the area, so that helped a bit.
One day, sitting in the fly-filled Starbucks, an Italian man tried to become my sugar daddy. May I mention I don't look the part. He offered me money, wanted to take me out gambling, and get some food...the invoice was never mentioned. He started to say I should get a nice dress that showed my legs, a manicure...and so it began before it began. I went to lunch with him for amusement's sake (calling a friend first to let them know what I was doing and where I was going). At lunch he attempted to pay for a $20 meal with a hundred. He pulled about three grand out of his pocket, and I asked him if he was really that stupid. And such was the end of that short-lived friendship. I blocked his calls.
I liked to go to Trader Joe's and get their ginger soda - isn't it the best? Chill it and drink during the hot days while ripping LPs and EPs from my friends' collections. I'd purchased a USB turntable and was figuring out the Audigy program, soda sitting next to me, albums very carefully placed on other side away from potential mishap. Occasionally a random insect would make its way into the house...crickets mainly, with eardrum-shattering chirps made all the more loud by the immense silence of the desert. They'd hide in nooks and crannies that acted as megaphones; some nights I couldn't scare them out. At this point the insomnia started. My sleep, if I got any, became erratic. Up all night, sleep in the morning, exercise/swim, sleep again, go out at night for groceries, and then stare at the walls. I became edgy and needed to get out more and more; traveled to Joshua Tree a few times, going in the pitch blackness of night, knowing I was asking for trouble but not getting it. I planned a trip to Arizona and New Mexico again, and had great fun. Although as the summer wore on, the need to have someone with me on these trips took away from the joy. At least a little. I'd dated someone very unsuitable the year before, and then fell for a line in the spring. I'd been involved with someone else, but they had too much fun disappearing and reappearing and it was becoming too painful to put up with. I was meeting other people who were real and liked me and confusion was running rampant. I would sit out on the cliffs at Malpais and wonder about my life and where it was heading...who might be in it and when. But luckily, many of the places I visit are so mind-blowingly gorgeous, this bullshit didn't take up all my time.
The summer wore on. I was slimmer and tanned, muscled...I'd gotten my hair chopped and was quite pleased. Was becoming a very confident traveler. Listened to new music every day and enjoying a delightful ongoing conversation and project with a friend overseas. On the other hand, I couldn't sleep. I would linger for hours not doing anything, no motivation to do more than stare at the floor, the sink, the tub. Started taking a lot of baths. I hadn't resolved the other relationship, which was tearing me up. I'd do the backstroke in the pool staring at the stars and wonder what had happened, where exactly I had misstepped and driven him off. This alternated with new love interests and friends, and wondering about them. Or just thinking about travel and where I might like to go. Those were good nights, when I imagined this grassy plain or that island. Around 11pm, I would stop my swim, pet Brewskie and head inside...maybe write an e-mail or find more music. No word yet from work about the next project.Shazbott Kat died sometime during the summer. I'd felt great guilt about farming my cats out to friends, originally believing I was good for the responsibility of a cat's life. She died in Yucaipa, with loving friends....found her under a bush with her mouth full of dirt. She reeked of rosemary. Was she eating it? What happened? Will never know. But that was a long drive, and even longer coming back, everything smelling of rosemary. She had fans around the world and was missed. When I arrived at the veterinarian's, I pretended I wasn't upset for the benefit of the other patrons. No need to upset anyone. Was difficult under this pretext to get the assistant to understand what I needed. Would have been comical if circumstances were different.
I went out and watched the Perseid meteor shower in early August, which was one of the best moments of my life. I tried to call a friend, but they were away. Hard to share something like that over the phone anyway. So I hung up the cell and stared at all the flashes and blurs above me. I plan on going again this year, hopefully with a telescope. Joshua Tree was more than adequate stomping grounds for amateur astronomers. Was there for hours until my eyes started to hurt from the strain...and stayed a bit past that.A few weeks before the LA project (had finally gotten word) I was driving back from LA to the desert. People drive very fast out there and so do I. This night, on a stretch of nothing leading nowhere, someone in a black car doing about 90mph didn't see me in their rear view mirror and was going to hit me. So instead, I hit the guardrail. I never got their license plate, and they never stopped. I was lucky - so lucky - for being unhurt. I laughed when I realized my laptop was really in my lap, that everything in the car had flown forward in a blur during the collision. The car still drove, although I wondered if I should move it. But was so tired, and so done in by the summer, I just wanted to get home. Drove back. My door wouldn't open. Whole left side smashed in. I called the insurance company. Looked at my car, and wept a bit. This being the final memorable event before leaving.
The summer was hot, depressing, meandering, sleepless. It introduced me to many new people, a few who've become some of the more important people in my life. It signaled the end of a love affair that shouldn't have happened. It flickered the potential for other affairs. I walked away stronger, healthier..perhaps not happier, but not unhappy either. There were many extremes on both sides. The recession means that half the houses there are for sale or abandoned now. The artist who's work hung next to mine in the desert house died of an OD while I was in London. My former lover wants no part of me. Brewskie cat was found dead the other day. Poison, they think. There are beginnings and ends.
You would think this was all bad, but I'm realizing that it's an ongoing play. At this point I neither applaud nor boo, I simply wait for the next act.
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