I woke up this morning with Tyrannosaurus arms. Or as the cool kids say, "T-Rex Arms".
How I came to have these mutant useless stubs on each side of my body is far less intriguing than the label may imply.
It began with everything in my life...procrastination.
You see, I've been putting off the inevitable need to get myself into a strength training routine for months now. I don't really know why. It's not like I wasn't going to the gym for cardio or otherwise working out.
I guess I perceive hitting the weights as requiring more planning and more time than a quick 30-40 minutes on a tread mill or elliptical . But you never really lose weight in a healthy way without building some muscle to increase metabolism so the endless claims of "I'll start tomorrow" had to end. And with that it was time to bring strength back into my workout. And yesterday morning was the day.
BUT--I've had the same thing happen almost every time I've started a new workout--I push it too hard and I'm sore for a week. So I was extra cautious. I stretched extensively before and after. I didn't try to get that extra rep or pounds in. I did everything I could think to do to ease back.
It wasn't enough.
I opened my eyes this morning and OWWWWWWW! What is this? My two useless arms are locked into stiff right angles. Again...OWWWWW! Not a great way to start the day. As the hours pass, I keep stretching and massaging but it's not getting much better. There's a very slight bit more motion in my right arm now. Can't come within a foot of touching my nose with the left though. But it all hurts like hell. Now I remember why I kept putting this off.
I better never have these damn T-Rex arms again. Stiff arms are not conducive to the writer work flow. This just means I need to keep up the weight training routine! FOREVER! (I remember telling myself this last time it happened. To be fair I think I kept it up for a few months though. Not bad.)
Although if my right arm continues to improve faster than my left, I may have to say I have John Silber arms tomorrow. (give yourself a cookie if you got the reference without clicking.)
Why do we always get screwed when it comes to live sports on the west coast. The latest our post-season baseball starts here is 5PM.
Sure we're known in LA for having more than our share of freelancers, actors, models and trust fund kids who have the free time to head up to a game at 4PM on any given day.--and it remains a goal of mine to get back to that absolutely fabulous freelance lifestyle. But that crowd isn't the base for the Dodgers. The majority of fans in Chavez Ravine this afternoon will be working class stiffs who had to struggle to get out of work to attend or watch--and this is only game one.
I know...I know. It's TELEVISION (he says with flair)! It just seems silly that New York or Philadelphia can't play a single game that airs at 9 or 9:30 locally. Of course ratings for east coat teams are higher! No one on the west coast gets home early enough to watch. And if the world series ends up being Anaheim vs. Dodgers in a freeway matchup that's most appealing to those who live in the west.....we STILL play ALL the games at 5PM. God forbid a Dodgers fan in New York needs to stay up late.
But ranting aside....
Thanks to some kindness from a certain friend--I'll be one of those stiffs leaving early to attend the game tonight! GO BLUE!
Got up this morning and dressed up for an early gym workout. As I walked across the street under cover of darkness to the local 24-Hour Fitness a light rain was falling from the sky--it would have been unremarkable most other places on Earth. It felt nice and refreshing in the crisp morning air.
I climbed up on a stairmaster to start my cardio. In the mood for morning news, I plugged into the audio jack and looked up at the televisions. You would think the apocalypse had begun last night from the coverage.
They had reporters in the notorious "burn areas"...yet no mud slides and no destruction.
"It could still happen so homeowners are being vigilant!" Suuuure it could
They had reporters in low lying areas that often flood in bad storms...yet no floods today.
"I think we lucked out this time," the reporter said only to have the anchor add with concern, "We may not be so lucky next time." Lame.
But in one area all the predictions come true. They always come true. Every. Single. Time.
Traffic.
Between midnight and 6AM this morning there had been a total of nearly 200 accidents on the local freeways. That's up from a whopping 16 the same period last week. Ridiculous! They cut to a traffic screen and the highway grid was painted red with a couple dashes of yellow. There was certainly no green. What is wrong with people?
I drove my daily 0.9 miles (jealous?) to work and sat in traffic the entire way. When I tried to hop on a side street that was backed up too. What the drizzly eff? No I'm not complaining that my short drive took an extra five minutes! It's just so absurd that even down by the beach, traffic was completely gridlocked this morning.
I like the rain. I like the change. I like the hint of seasons.
Unfortunately the hype/traffic/hysteria is unavoidable.
It's an early Christmas in LA with the mid-October arrival of STORMWATCH!!! across the entire spectrum of local TV news.
Usually we don't get to be this worked up about rain until the end of December so it's really a treat to see all the stations pull out their hype-driving screen graphics and dire doomsday predictions so early in the season.
It seriously gets beyond the level of east coast blizzard crazy in the lead up. And then what usually happens is reporters stationed all throughout the city "southland" will report on drizzle when the super-hyped event fails to meet the sky-high expectations of destruction. It's hard to blame them. For most of the year our weather is entirely pleasant yet wholly unremarkable. We don't get hurricanes. There are no tornadoes. And there isn't usually much rain at all for 9 months each year.
But we do have fires...and fires lead to burn areas...and burn areas lead to mud slides...and mud slides lead to something for the news to obsess over. "Will the burn areas survive!?" "How to protect your house from mudslides!" "How to talk to your kids about mudslides!" "Send us your mudslide pictures and video!" It's like a little cottage industry.
And then on top of that there will literally be a billion accidents on the freeways. It doesn't matter if there's drizzle or a foot of rain. People will crash their cars--everywhere. Gotta love it. But that's not because of the storm--that's because people are idiots. It's like driving in snow with someone from Georgia.
I've lived here for ten years and I can count the number of storms that were legitimately over the top destructive on one hand. Sure, the bad one's are bad...but we get the STORMTRACK hype four or five times a year--kinda makes one numb to it all. We'll see if this new hell storm makes the list or duds out like most of the rest.
Here's the official word from the National Weather Service. Even they hype it up here...
Issued by The National Weather Service
Los Angeles, CA
3:12 pm PDT, Mon., Oct. 12, 2009
... PACIFIC STORM WILL BRING THE POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY RAIN AND STRONG WINDS TO MUCH OF SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA...
A STRONG STORM SYSTEM... ESPECIALLY FOR OCTOBER... WILL BEGIN MOVING INTO NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA LATE TONIGHT. CONSIDERABLE REMNANT MOISTURE FROM FORMER WESTERN PACIFIC TYPHOON MELOR IS EXPECTED TO BE PULLED INTO THIS SYSTEM. AT THIS TIME... IT APPEARS THIS STORM WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT RAINFALL TO THE AREA ALONG WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF MUD AND DEBRIS FLOWS ACROSS RECENT BURN AREAS.
OVER SAN LUIS OBISPO AND SANTA BARBARA COUNTIES... THE PERIOD OF HEAVIEST RAIN WILL LIKELY BE FROM TUESDAY MORNING THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT. PRELIMINARY RAINFALL ESTIMATES FOR THESE AREAS RANGE FROM 1.50 TO 3.00 INCHES OVER COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS TO 3.00 TO 6.00 INCHES ACROSS FOOTHILL AND MOUNTAIN AREAS. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE OVER FAVORED SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST FACING MOUNTAIN SLOPES. A FLASH FLOOD WATCH HAS ALREADY BEEN ISSUED FOR THE RECENT BURN AREAS OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY... WITH RAINFALL INTENSITIES OF ONE HALF TO ONE INCH PER HOUR POSSIBLE DURING THE PEAK OF THE EVENT.
OVER VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES... SIGNIFICANT RAINFALL IS ALSO EXPECTED... ALTHOUGH AMOUNTS MAY BE SOMEWHAT LESS THAN AREAS TO THE NORTH. AT THIS TIME... IT APPEARS THAT COASTAL AND VALLEY AREAS OF VENTURA COUNTY COULD RECEIVE BETWEEN 1.00 TO 2.00 INCHES... WHILE FOOTHILL AND MOUNTAIN AREAS WILL HAVE THE POTENTIAL FOR 2.00 TO 5.00 INCHES. THERE IS STILL GREATER UNCERTAINTY OF RAINFALL AMOUNTS ACROSS LOS ANGELES COUNTY AND POINTS SOUTHWARD. HOWEVER... PRELIMINARY RAINFALL PROJECTIONS FOR LOS ANGELES COUNTY COAST AND VALLEYS ARE BETWEEN 0.75 AND 1.50 INCHES... WITH 1.50 TO 4.00 INCHES POSSIBLE ACROSS THE FOOTHILLS AND MOUNTAINS. AS WE DRAW CLOSER TO THE EVENT... THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH MAY NEED TO BE EXPANDED SOUTH AND EAST INTO THE BURN AREAS OF VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES.
IN ADDITION... MOTORISTS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THE FIRST RAIN OF THE SEASON ALSO BRINGS VERY SLIPPERY CONDITIONS TO LOCAL ROADWAYS DUE TO THE BUILDUP OF OIL OVER THE SUMMER. RESIDENTS OF SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH PROPERTY OR INTERESTS IN AND AROUND THE RECENT BURN AREAS SHOULD STAY TUNED TO THE LATEST NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECASTS AND STATEMENTS AS THIS PACIFIC STORM DRAWS CLOSER TO THE REGION.
ALONG WITH THE HEAVY RAINFALL... GUSTY SOUTHEAST TO SOUTH WINDS ARE EXPECTED TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY. THE STRONGEST WINDS WILL OCCUR OVER SAN LUIS OBISPO AND SANTA BARBARA COUNTIES... AS WELL AS THE MOUNTAINS OF VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES. A HIGH WATCH HAS ALREADY BEEN POSTED FOR THESE AREAS... WITH DAMAGING WIND GUSTS OVER 60 MPH POSSIBLE TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY. THE COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS AND HEAVY RAIN WILL BRING THE POSSIBILITY OF DOWNED TREES ACROSS THE REGION... ESPECIALLY AREAS UNDER A HIGH WIND WATCH.
There are seven restaurants within very short walking distance of the office. If I want to take a short lunch as I did today, my options are even more limited.
Option 1: Big Wok Mongolian BBQ.
Nah, kinda gross and takes forever. I've seen people sneeze then grab things out of the buffet with bare hands.
Option 2: Farm House
Fantastic tri-tip sandwich and bbq but kind of pricey for every day. Needed to save some cash.
Option 3: Rinaldi's Deli
Very tasty massive sandwiches. Already went there twice this week. Big sandwiches = big calories and I'm trying to lose pounds!
Option 4: Panda Express
By the time I take a lunch the food has been sitting under the warmers for about three hours. ...and it's terrible.
Option 5: El Tarasco
Local mexican mini-chain that's quite tasty. Takes more time than I had today.
Option 6: ???? Mexican
I've walked by this very old Mexican sit-down restaurant that's connected to a roach motel many times. This is not charming old--it's dirty, grim, how-is-it-open old. I don't even know the name.
Option 7: Taco Bell (yes, nearly half the options are Mexican)
Yup, it's gross. But it's cheap and I didn't want a deli sandwich. As gross as it is I can order something that does less calorie damage than anything at El Tarasco. So that's where I went today.
2.5 hours later and I am regretting the taco supreme and blackjack taco (a taco supreme in a black shell with blackjack instead of cheddar cheese). I could go on a rant about the need to invent weird variations on the taco every other month--do we really need a taco with cheese sandwiched between BOTH soft and hard shells?-- but my stomach hurts too much....
What the hell was I thinking, again? I should have driven somewhere. What ever I saved in calories I gained in meat bacteria.
Life would be easier if I was a robot. And I don't mean so I could get more done in this world -- (you'd need a clone for that, duh. HELLO Multiplicity?!) I just find myself at work completing the same inane pointless task or similar task over and over and over. Yes, task. That's all I do is tasks.
Don't I exist to create? To do work that requires actual thought? To bring life experiences into my work and my product? To make things better through idea?
Yes, I do. And on those rare occasions when I feel like I'm accomplishing those things, I am exceptionally happy that I'm not a robot. Last night I broke through some self-inflicted neurosis and got some ideas on paper. Ideas that can help bring progress to a project that I've been frankly afraid to move into new territory. Robot me couldn't do that. Of course robot me would have never begun a creative endeavor to begin with.
So why the drive to drop the emotion and process like a motherboarder?
It's my day job. My 9-5. My creative vacuum. I spend so much energy processing with dry cold detachment that I begin to forget how to be creative by the time each day ends. It's draining to process...to JUST process something in a way that's designed not to be good or interesting or relevant, but instead only meet the needs of gaining singular approval. It's exhausting to grind out material below capability because the best isn't what anyone in a position to decide actually wants. The lowest common denominator is easy to find, but it drains your soul every time you give it a treat.
Anyway...the goal isn't to fall into a pit of despair. That's not where I am. I accept that things are what they are for as long as they are. Change can come, but until it gets here, it'd be nice to be a robot during the day so I didn't have to fight and struggle to relight that creative fire each and every night. Go to bed excited. Wake up a robot and go to work. Then at the end of the day I become a human again with the drive just as strong.
But no, I've got the up and down... Sometimes it's easy. Often it's hard. Occasionally it's impossible. Only option right now so got to keep the neurotic concern at a minimum. I need to find a better way.
I'm sure if I became a robot my programming would get corrupted and I'd turn evil and take over the world. That wouldn't leave much time for writing.
But I would be a robot king. That'd be kinda cool.
Last night the temperature hit about 50 degrees at the beach. Yeah that might not be all that chilly to most people but it's downright cold for LA at this time of year.
The weekend had been gorgeous. Rode my bike at the beach on Saturday and Sunday was spent inside watching football and movies with friends in Hollywood.
It wasn't until I was almost home Sunday night that the changing weather made itself known. As I stood outside filling up the gas in Liz's G35, a brisk evening breeze gave me goosebumps for the first time since Spring.
Back at the house I could hear the wind blowing the blinds back and forth before I opened the door. I closed the windows (again for the first time in over three months) and pulled out the comforter to put on the bed. I thought about turning on the heat for maaaaaybe 5 seconds then thought better of it.
After a busy weekend I got warm under a blanket and caught up on Dexter and Mad Men. Then I crawled into the cool bed and fell asleep as ocean wind whistled through the tree branches outside the bedroom window.
Today the temps will hit the low sixties but the air will be clean and clear. It won't be long before the distant mountain peaks will be covered in snow--visible only during the months when the shifting seasonable breezes push out the summer smog. We'll undoubtedly have a few more hot streaks before December, but they'll become distant memories of August as we move closer and closer to the holidays. I adore a SoCal summer at the beach, but there's something to be said for fall and the subtle change in season that even a hardened Eastcoster can appreciate.
It's a time for long-sleaved shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts. It's a time for thin scarves and fashionable boots. It's a time before the rains of winter begin to take the sun away.
It's autumn in southern California. And it's perfect.
Nearly two years ago I attended a work Christmas party at a place I'm no longer employed. Let's just say I got a little smashed and the night ended with me wandering lost along the streets of downtown LA...
I flew home for the holidays and shared the story. Later that day, my grandfather decided to retell it. He didn't exactly get everything right. Here's his version:
And here's what really happened:
(Remember--this was TWO years ago--I'm all grows up now!)
While it's not true that women were banned, it IS true that the party didn't allow significant others-something Liz likes to remind me of consistently. Truth be told my current company doesn't allow significant others at the holiday party either. In fact the only time I've ever worked somewhere that allows you to bring a guest, Liz went back to visit the fam early for the holidays and missed the party. (I won an iPod Mini at that party and gave it to her as a bonus xmas gift). ANYWAY...
The party was a friday night and began after work. There was plenty of free booze and dancing. It was a lot of fun. When it ended around 10 everyone hopped to at least three more downtown bars. The Library Bar, Seven Grand, and The Golden Gopher. I remember things clearly through the second one. After that point there's a lot haze and holes filled with the words of others.
Apparently I walked outside Golden Gopher to get a cheeseburger from the roach coach parked in front just before the bar closed (this predated the recent age of gourmet food trucks in LA) and something happened to make me want to walk away. So I walked. And walked and walked. My memory clicks back in about nine blocks from the Golden Gopher in downtown LA. It was around 230AM at this point and I really am in the middle of nowhere. Abandoned warehouses all around. There weren't even any cars. It was very very sketchy. So I start calling Liz. I'm leaving messages. I'm panicked. At some point I tell her, "If you don't pick me up NOW, you will find me dead!" I never tell her where exactly I am because I don't know where I am.
Then a cab drives by...AND it stops! I hang up on Liz.
Not really sure 1. why a cab was driving by and 2. why it picked me up. But of course I'm getting in!
A brief bit of backstory...
At the start of the office party, everyone who needed it was handed a cab voucher. So the entire night I'm thinking I have this cab voucher that can get me home. With a tip it's over $80 to get from downtown to my house in Hermosa Beach.
So I get into the cab--voucher in hand--and ask the driver to take me to Hermosa Beach. Off we go! About ten seconds after we start moving I see the sign in a 500 point helvetica font attached to the back of the seat in front of me....
NO VOUCHERS.
Well....fuck.
I look at my Voucher.
VALID FOR TRAVEL IN ANY YELLOW CAB TAXI
I look at the signs in front of me again.
YOU ARE IN A UNITED CAB OF LOS ANGELES TAXI
Dammit!
I check my wallet. Twelve dollars.
Uh oh.
My phone rings. I can't get the phone to work so I hang up. It rings again. I answer. It's Darrin. OK, this is weird...it's after 230. Why's he calling me?
Turns out Liz had been playing Rock Band with him online before she got my lost husband call so he was still up. And after I accidentally hung up on her four or five times, she asked him to make an attempt. I start ranting about the voucher. I'm very loud about the fact that I have far below the needed cash and only a voucher. The driver glances at me in the rear view but keeps going. I hang up on her again midrant.
This whole time Liz had been a worried wreck speeding in her car towards downtown to find my lost ass. Darrin gives her word that I'm alive and "well"...so she turns around and heads back to the abode.
I'm sitting in the back of the cab silently until we're nearing my house. I tell the driver that I only have a voucher. "No vouchers!" he says and pulls the car into a parking lot at a McDonalds near my car. He locks the doors and we sit there.
I now get a little WEEEEEE bit belligerent.
"I'm going to call the police and tell them you're holding me hostage!"
"OK. You should do that."
So I call....yes...911. Fortunately at 3AM in Hermosa Beach the cops have already forced out all the bar drunks so I don't think I was disrupting any more important calls. (They showed up in less than two minutes too!)
Their car pulls up next to the cab and two guys in uniform get out. The cab's rear doors unlock right before one of the cops pulls a door open. I get out and he frisks me. I'm sure I argued about that but didn't resist when he said it's normal procedure. After the frisk I show him the voucher and explain the situation. I added a bit about doing the right thing by taking a cab rather than drive.
It's clear at this point that they don't think I did anything wrong and they release holding me. One of the cops finds the 12 dollars in my wallet and asks the cab driver, "Will you accept this $12 for the fare?" The total on the meter at this time was over $70 at this point. Now we're across the street from an ATM machine so the cab driver could have insisted, but instead he says OK, gets my $12 and drives off.
I thank the cops for their help but they insist on driving me home--it's only two blocks away. I live at the bottom of a steep street and right when the cop car rounded the corner to my street something incredible happened. Just as they let me out, a pickup truck sped backwards up the hill and hit a parked car in front of the police cruiser. We're all just shocked for a second. Both cops and I don't move. Wow...THAT was random.
They send me away and investigate this bizarre car crash. I walk down the street and Liz is standing on the porch waiting. Half her face says 'glad your alive' while the other half says 'what did you do!?"
As I walk up the stairs she asks, "What is that all over your shirt?"
I look down and my entire shirt is covered in mustard. Like so much mustard that I had to have poured it all over myself. "Oh that, that's the mustard." And I walk by her straight to bed.
The cops investigated the car accident for over an hour eventually hauling off the driver. I'm sure that wasn't a friendly ride like mine. Turns out the dude was drinking at a party on our street and was going to drive home to a house only a few blocks away. His night ended with a DUI on a barely travelled quiet street. Talk about bad timing. I think he could have cabbed it for less than twelve bucks too.
And the mustard? I learned on Monday morning when I ordered that cheeseburger at the roach coach, I almost immediately dropped it and it slid right down my shirt--covering me in mustard. My embarrassment set off the chain of events that followed.
So lessons learned:
1. Make sure the cab takes your voucher
2. Don't back up a street after you've been drinking
3. Use mustard sparingly after 2AM
I better never have these damn T-Rex arms again. Stiff arms are not conducive to the writer work flow. This just means I need to keep up the weight training routine! FOREVER! (I remember telling myself this last time it happened. To be fair I think I kept it up for a few months though. Not bad.)
