getting out of la: laguna beach

   I don't know what to do with myself on my day off. I remember reading somewhere that when you want to be happy, you should treat yourself like you would a small child. Buy yourself ice cream if you have to. Coddle yourself. Do something for you. I don't know what that might be. I could go to the gym. Do my errands. Eat dinner. All I can think to do are chores in the endless spin cycle of monotonous bullshit that is my life. Even stuff like going to a museum or a show are just things that cost money that I've gotta be mindful of the time about. Will I get enough sleep before work? Will I be able to afford rent this month? I'm so frustrated I want to go back to bed and sleep the whole stupid day away. Instead, I get in my car and just start driving. Over and over, self criticisms run through my head: this is bad for my car, if I had real friends maybe I'd have real plans, I hate LA, why am I here, why can't I escape from myself?

  I drive all the way to Laguna Beach. Damien and I came here once for a meeting with some guy who owns a gallery around here. Damien wanted him to do some live painting at a festival he was trying to start out by Joshua Tree. I went to add credence to whatever claims Damien wanted to make to this guy. I'm smart enough and mild-mannered enough to get along with everyone and to see the meanings between the spaces in between the words people say. We ended up at some sushi lounge and Damien got so drunk on Sake he started yelling at the waitress for not "not letting him do karaoke". He wouldn't back off until I yanked him back and yelled "This isn't fucking Koreatown!" The artist closed his own tab quietly, behind our backs, and sneaked out behind our backs. He left the waitress a solid fifty percent thanks to Damien's outburst. I didn't have enough cash to do that but I respected it as a classy move. That little deal fell through and Damien never mentioned it to me. I didn't say anything either. It was embarrassing enough to have been there at all without reliving it. 

  This time, I'm allowed to enjoy Laguna, but I don't know what to do with myself. I duck around the little streets trying to find parking that isn't three hours only. I can't find any, so I park behind the plaza. I grab my backpack out of my car, it's got a notebook, my laptop, a towel, change of clothes. I wander around the streets trying to decide if I'd rather go write or go sit at the beach. There's people everywhere. Young couples with kids, teenagers holding hands, groups of twenty-somethings on vacation. Everyone seems happy. I walk around in a daze until I find a coffee shop to sit at. I eat an omelette. Drink a latte. I feel itchy, like people are watching me. They see some random dude with tattoos and dark circles sitting alone with a backpack. I don't have the energy to bring myself to smile at people. I feel depressed. 

  I go to the beach and begin writing a story. It's about an alcoholic who wants to run away from his life so he drives into the mountains. He encounters a portal into another dimension and as he climbs a mountain trying to find his way home, he's forced to confront little pieces of his past. At the end of the story, he remembers that he lost the only person that he's ever loved and it's his own fault. He gets to the top of the mountain and waits for the moment: the moment some spiritual being will come and fix him, give him the answers he needs, change his life for him and take him home. But nothing happens. The only option he has is to find his way home himself and to fix his life himself. I'm pissed as I'm writing it, because I know how fucking true it is. It's autobiographical, just not in the literal sense. I think about Lydia. I wonder what she's doing. 

  I miss her. I'm not going to pretend that I don't. But what was I going to do, live at her apartment and let her take care of me forever? It sounds ideal, but it wasn't actually healthy. But I liked it. I liked her coming home and us laying on the couch and watching cartoons together. "This is the safe zone," I used to say. "We're safe in here, no one can get to us here." We'd turn off our phones on the weekends. Talk. Cuddle. Fuck. Listen to music. Smashing Pumpkins. Our song was "Lily" which felt appropriate, looking back. It wasn't healthy. If it were healthy, it would've been "Luna". Lydia. I think about her small, warm hands. When was the last time I held anyone's hand and meant it? I can't remember the last time I ever felt safe, the way I felt safe with her. But I needed to get out. 

  Lydia used to party, a little. Here and there. Mostly with her festival friends. She had a really good job as a Veterinarian's assistant. She made decent money, had a cozy little two story townhouse she rented for a good price. She kept plants that she liked to name. She played guitar. She loved me, also, for some reason. I picked her up in my convertible when I was going to a music festival a few years ago with some buddies. I was sitting outside with the top down and she came out on her balcony and waved at me. "Moonfest?" I called out. She wooed, loud, excited. It made me laugh because it was such a silly response. She sounded like Fry in Futurama when anything sexual happened in the show. Just a loud: OOoOoooooo! "So you wanna come?" I asked. She disappeared back into her townhouse for a moment and then came out the front door. I thought she was just okay-looking at first. I made her hop into my back seat "Duke's of Hazard" style. But she was game. I loved how easy-going she was. When we got to the festival I led her through the crowd holding her hand and thought to myself "wouldn't this be a funny way to say you met your girlfriend?" I remember, too, when we kissed for the first time. We pulled back from it and I melted into her warm, brown eyes. She got me hooked right away. That girl was so goddamn sweet. I wasn't gonna ever let her go. Until I did. Until I had to. Until I fucked it all up. 

  She partied, but she didn't need to party. At least until she met me. We had a problem together. I sometimes feel like I dragged her down with me. But as we got worse my shit became pathological. If we ran out of coke, I'd drink until I passed out, or do DMT, or acid, or ecstasy, or mushrooms. I could usually talk her into doing it with me, too. Then we'd go to bed at seven in the morning and I'd bartend and come home and need a drink and.... She's doing much better without me. I'm doing..... I don't know how I'm doing. I work hard. I pay my rent instead of asking her for money sometimes. I've gotten the pilot written for a good TV show. I hang out with people who are doin' shit or are good enough at pretendin' that the nonfamouses think they're doing shit. 

  I dig my toes into the sand. I wish she was there.