Illin' for Real

In a sea of suits in the Valley, I found myself mingling and drinking tiny bottles of water as the sun set over the mountains the other day.  I was speaking with a man who came, if I'm not mistaken, from Santa Monica, which is a respectable distance.

"That's some drive," I said.

"It's Ok," he replied, "I drive a Prius."

"Oh, so you actually made money on your drive out here."  That was a joke.  It was, at least, meant to be a joke.  Regardless, the person that I was speaking with shot me a glance that seemed to indicate that I was using a tone that shouldn't be taken when speaking to a Prius owner.  I was too worn out to really care.  I had been sick all week, and, after this one, final, last event, I would be able to crawl into bed and just read, or listen to the radio, or experiment with the healing powers of the human mind.  I could take the suit off and put the tiny water bottle down.

The week had been a busy one.  It started on Friday when the Brewers won the division.  That's what got me to bump my run out of my schedule on Saturday morning.  And then, on Sunday, I went to a German Fest held by one of the families at church.  I had spoken with many of these people before, but somehow it had escaped me that, unlike the Lutherans back home, many of whom are German, many of my current fellow parishioners are German-German.  So I was welcomed to butcher the only foreign language that I had ever put any dismal effort into studying while listening to stories about the old country, eating hand-crafted bratwurst, and drinking homemade beer.  It all amounted to a pretty exceptional time.

By the time I woke up on Monday, I had a bit of a scratch in my throat.  I realize that my paragraph placement may look like I'm insinuating that this could have been caused by something at the German Fest, and that is not at all true.  As a matter of fact, immediately after I began to feel ill, I went through a mental montage of things that could have done me in: eating food off the floor, drinking out of the hose, not washing fruit, smoking cigars after the Brewers took the division, etc.  After a brief pause reflecting on what may have gotten me sick, I came to realize that with my lifestyle it's a miracle that I'm not dead yet.

But, it was Monday, and there was work to be done, or found, or whatever.  I had five interviews lined up for this week.  In my line of work, at least in my most recent line of work, it's relatively easy to tell when there are and when there aren't opportunities that will be fitting for me.  So, when I say I have five interviews, two or three of them may be worth pursuing.

And so my week began.  Progressively running a week-long gauntlet around Los Angeles while slightly sick is kind of a trip.  The difference in temperature from the valley to the city can make a guy think that he's got the chills on top of everything else going on.  By day, I would drive an hour in this direction, and then half an hour in the other direction, and then, by night (or, sometimes, late afternoon) I would crawl into bed and read, intently listening for the smallest violin in the world and hoping it would play just for me.

During this onslaught of activity, I also had the opportunity (and I can't stress enough how great this was) to see the California Angels play in their ballpark.  The day before, the Angels still had a shot at the Wild Card before fate decided otherwise.  I came within twenty-four hours of seeing a baseball game that actually mattered!  It turned out to be a great time, and the first time that I had ever seen a ballgame that wasn't in Miller or County.  The feel was subdued, with a lot of prospects being called up from farm teams.  One by one, they consistently maintained their highly-sought-after .000 averages.  But it was still baseball, and I still loved it.

I've found it odd that, as this week may indicate, my social life doesn't necessarily coincide with times that I would find it particularly convenient to have one.  As I dragged myself from interview to interview, open house to open house, and from this and that to the other thing, I met some interesting people.  I got to have a discussion with an East German Refugee, and listen to Europeans express concerns that the US is becoming too much like Europe.  I also had a terrific conversation with a manager at one of my interviews who had immigrated from Lebanon.  He had been working in Dubai, which had been an astoundingly easy place to make money over the last few years.  Still, he had seen fit to move his family to America where he once again found prosperity.  It was Mideast meets Midwest.

"So, why did you move here?" I asked.

"I think we're going to have another civil war in Lebanon," he responded matter-of-factly.  "I don't want my children to go through what I went through the last time we had one.  I don't want them to have to see pieces of fingers on the ground when they walk through the streets.  I want them to have better."

Not expecting that, I started laughing.  "Well, God bless you, man."  That was really all that I could thing to say.  His attitude left an impression on me.

I'm beginning to feel a little better.  My throat hasn't been as scratchy for the last couple days.  I may even feel up to meeting my running buddy tomorrow after church, or I may just watch the Pack or the Brewers' postseason action.  I've got another job interview on Monday, which would be the fourth with this employer.  And, yes, I am still listening for the smallest violin in the world.  It seems, however, like my chances of hearing it are becoming slimmer by the minute.

An Open Letter to Bud Selig, Mark Attanasio, and God

Photo: Reuters/Darren Hauck

Dear Bud, Mark, and God,

I am delighted that events have called for this letter to be written on a Saturday.  I assume that you three could discuss some of its finer points over Bloody Marys tomorrow during your weekly brunch.

In 1982, the Brewers clinched their last division title, and in the process they set a then-record for the most homeruns by a team in the history of baseball.  I wet myself.  I know this, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, because I was seven months old when they ultimately went to the World Series.  At seven months old, I had seen what has so far been the precipice of my baseball life, which amounted to a loss in seven games against the Cards.

I'm not going to lie.  It's been a tough road for the Brewers fan.  It took almost one hundred years to figure out if our Milwaukee Brewers were Major League or Minor League; American or National.  "Bushtown," they called us...  Bushtown.

The darkest hours during my baseball life involved concerns about my team leaving town.  They involved getting used to the idea that 13-0 starts doesn't mean we'll have a postseason.  They involved a Twins fan getting the prestigious "fan of the game" title while my American League team got shellacked in an empty, dilapidated County Stadium by the Twins.  And, as somebody who had always claimed the Cubs as his National League team, they involved several years of therapy since 1997.  Bud, I'll bill you later.

Still, there were things to rejoice over.  Bud got Bob Uecker (who I've always assumed was God's distant relative) to become our local ear candy.  There were Bucket Brigades, Vaughn's Valley, a 1987 no-no, 3000 hits for The Kid, and there was, eventually, something brewing in our farm system-- the Baby Brewers.

These Baby Brewers-- they're all grown up now.  Many have gone to other teams.  But when they came, in the mid aughts, change was in the air.   Our beloved Milwaukeeans in the Selig clan had given the reigns to Mark Attonasio, an outsider.  Forty years after a team showed up in Milwaukee with outlines of stitching that spelled "Seattle" still visible on their jerseys, forty years of identity crises, ups and downs, and worrying that Major League Baseball would be leaving Bushtown-- forty years of hoping for some daylight... and the sun began to shine.  Change was in the air, and, to our collective relief, for the better!

Last night, I got to be a Cubs fan one last time, when, powered by shear hatred cultivated over a century, they managed to not suck, albeit briefly, and destroyed the St. Louis Cardinals.  Your Milwaukee Brewers; Division Champions.

Bud, Mark, God, to you three: hats off.  Somehow you three got baseball in Milwaukee, gave it to me, kept it there, and made it something to be proud of.

But... the timing.  As you know, I had taken off to Los Angeles this last year.  If the deal is that the further away I get from Milwaukee the better the Brewers do, that's no problem.  I can be in North Korea by the start of next season.  But I'm going to need a place to watch the postseason here in LA.

Mark, buddy, I'm looking at you.


With sincere gratitude,

N.T.

A Memorandum to Live while One's Heart Is Still Beating

There is no Saturday like a Fall Saturday.

The first chill in the air calls all stratified segments of the population to a brisk attention.  For all the talk about unity in the work place, politically, within families, and toward any historic cause, really, no leader has been able to emulate the inspiration that Fall does.  Leaves get raked, oil gets changed.  Baseball and football converge into a Shangri-La for sports fans, allowing for them to reflect and come to terms with baseball's results while still providing dreams of what is to become of the nascent football season.

Ceremoniously, today, I donned my Fall Saturday uniform.  As with most people's, mine is a combination that is designed to cover as much skin as possible as comfortably and in as aesthetically repulsive of a manner as possible.  A tattered dark blue sweatshirt and "Guinness" pajama pants are my mainstays for these mornings, to wander my territory and to clean and to read.  For flair, I wear a camouflaged Brewers hat that I bought for four dollars not too long ago.  For all obvious reasons, I have not been dressed like this recently.  Nonetheless, it is the most comfortable outfit I own.  It keeps the chill out.

The chill serves as a reminder that there are a number of things that are not under our control.  In a sense, I suppose, this could be negative.  It's also the beginning of every true adventure.  It's the mother of necessity which, in turn, is the mother of invention.  Nobody can avoid the chill; nobody can avoid change.  So we cope.

Yesterday, the business day before I was supposed to begin my new job, I received a phone call informing me that they did not have it in their budget to take on all the people that they had hired.  I was one whom they had decided to let go.  Bad news is bad news; bad timing is hell.  I had informed the other company that I was interviewing for that I had decided to take this offer, not twenty-four hours before I received this phone call.  Due to circumstance, and I'm sure nothing but circumstance, I found myself back on square one.

Them's the breaks.

I took a little while off.  I took a few minutes to just sit down with my mouth open, staring at nothing in particular.  But, I eventually realized, every minute that I'm staring at my hands is a minute that I'm not using them.  Previous to receiving that phone call, I had been prioritizing; picking through what tasks I wanted to take action on, and deciding how I would take action on them.  Two days before, I had given blood for the first time since my arrival.  I had begun contacting charities to see if there was any way that I could volunteer for them.  The night before, an online magazine said that I could write some posts for them.

A lot had changed, but what, exactly?

So today I felt this chill.  I didn't think that it would be reaching California this early.  After a minute of shuddering at the thought of cold (although it will not be like anything I have been privy to in the past), I put on my uniform.  My sweatshirt and pajamas had never been so comfortable.  I sent applications to a few jobs, and contemplated what I would write about for the online magazine.

Then, I went back to reading my book on Eisenhower by Stephen Ambrose in the ambient sunlight, filtered by my blinds.  It's amazing that Ambrose, Eisenhower's hand-picked biographer, criticized Ike so openly about the results of many of Eisenhower's decisions.  But nobody ever criticized Ike for his decisiveness.

One Exotic Hayseed

As new and different as the Los Angeles area is to me, so I am to it.  Evidently, there is a Wisconsin accent.  I say that relatively facetiously, as I tend to wallow in mine when I can, like when I'm talking to other Midwesterners at Church: "Hey, I 'ope yer Vikings do real good tuh-day!  Yah, I 'ope dey lose wid' dignity."

Yeah, I said it...

Yeah, I meant it...

The most ridiculous highlight of my journey, thus far, that involved the Wisconsin accent came at the first Packers preseason game that I watched after my arrival.  I was at a table with my friends Chris and Jessie, both of whom come from the Dairy State and have been living in the Los Angeles area for some time.  As we were sitting there, the accent issue arose in conversation.  Evidently, the rest of the world has a way of saying the word "bag" that is entirely alien to the Wisconsin tongue.

"How do they say it?" I asked.

"Well," Chris said, "It's like... baahg."  Unsatisfied with his attempt, the professional actor and student of regional dialects confided, "I don't know, I still can't say it."

Jessie tried: "Behg, I think-- No, that's not it either..."

"Baahg?"  I asked.

And soon, all three of us were simultaneously droning the word "bag" over and over in this empty bar, with the only non-Wisconsinite at the table pounding her fist and demanding: "BAG!  Just say 'BAG!'"

Around the natives, though, I try to tone the accent down.  I thought that this would be a breeze before relocating, as the most difficult to pronounce place name in the surrounding area appeared to be Cudahy.  Yes, as in Cudahy meat-packing.  With the befitting smugness that comes with having mastered the new language of Californian, I moved into my new neighborhood.  "Where are you from?"  I was asked just yesterday.  "Why, ma'am," I replied, "I'm from none other than the fine city of Alhambra."  The woman with whom I was speaking paused and glared at me with a crooked smile.

"Ok, I meant where are you originally from?  Because," she explained, "you are not from Alhambra."  As in ham-- the food.  My city, the one that I've lived in for over a month, I still can't say it right.

I also stick out a touch because of being a blonde-haired blue-eyed minority.  In Wisconsin, for nine months out of the year, I was Caucasian.  During Winter, for the other three months, I was fluorescent.  Since I've been here, I've picked up a pretty ferocious tan and my hair has bleached, bringing me to look a little less determinable.  These conditions are further complicated by the amount of melting that has occurred in this particular corner of the melting pot.  There are people that I meet who are a little Japanese, a little Mexican, a little German, and so forth.  The conversations that led me to finding out about these ethnic bouquets typically began when these people look at my blonde-lobster complexion, which had been further exasperated by dimmed lights in a restaurant or bar, and ask me: "So, what's your ethnicity?"  I would cordially explain.  Then comes my favorite part, when they respond, "Guess what I am!  Go on, guess!"

Will I use my exotic Sconnie powers for good or for evil?  I still don't know.  For the time-being, I'm just focusing on finding out all that I can about, well-- here.  And to do so, I'm blending in better than I could have imagined.  Quietly, almost accidentally, I've already been slowly woven into the outer-fringes of different social webs.  It's something of an honor to me that in such a little while, during perhaps the most reclusive single month of my life (due to the big, nasty job-hunt), I've come across people that remember my first name and shake my hand.  In a gracious act of selflessness, the hulking monstrosity that is Los Angeles seems to have offered itself to me, a stranger... from a strange, far-away land.

Tales of the Road

I would venture to say that the one thing that sets America's culture apart from most others-- "culture" in the sense of folklore, music, literature, and arts, that is-- is our obsession with the road.  For other societies, the road only seems useful as a means to get somewhere.  "All roads lead to" someplace; or the main character is taking "the rocky road to" somewhere.  In the Cantibury Tales, a pivotal work in British literature, the road is treated almost despondently; it's our antagonist.  The stories which are told by the characters in that particular piece are the cure to having to put up with the lousy, miserable road.  The road is the waste and rubbish of global literature.

And like flies, we Americans swarm to it.  All our folk heroes suffer the same fate ("Some say he went to...  Other claim they last saw him in...").  We're the people of Johnny Appleseed, Easy Rider, Jack Kerouac, Bobby Mcgee, and hundreds of comedic situations involving chicken trucks that happen to pass by at just the right time.

We write songs about roads.  Many, many songs about many, many roads.

I think that this adoration speaks volumes about our collective mindset.  And, daily, I'm given just cause to reflect upon our love affair with travel and asphalt.  I take I-10 to church.  I'll be driving the Ventura Highway to my new job.  And today I had the pleasure of being personally introduced to Route 1, more affectionately known as the Pacific Coast Highway.  There is probably a song that's written about Route 1 as well, but a song couldn't do it justice.   I know that there had to be blasting, and hammering, and drilling, and shoveling to construct that highway, but the way that her black ribbon lies gracefully and delicately as a buffer between the restless power of the ocean and the resolute stillness of the mountains; the way that it somehow seems to fit in, even while surrounded by a land so untameable, contributes to an unnerving sense that the road belongs and that the traveler does not.

Of course the traveler doesn't belong.  And therein lies the beauty, bitter-sweet and unchangeable.  Therein lies our obsession, and our commitment to the journey, regardless of where it may take us.  And, readily, we accept that for all of our yearning to go somewhere else or achieve something more, we must pay a price.

Last week, I stood on the pier where The Mother-Road, Route 66, either starts or finishes depending on whether the person traveling would rather be in Chicago or Santa Monica.  It was like a carnival.  Street performers entertained passers-by, there was a ferris wheel, and trapeze artists.  It was fitting that the artery that was the American Adventure for so long had that celebratory feel.  "Here's the ocean!  You've made it!"  This week, referring to the other side of that circuit, for the first time since I've been here, I thought to myself "I wish I could have been there."

I had missed the first marriage among my cousins on my Mother's side, in Chicago.

The couple chose this particular weekend because it fell on the ten year mark of September 11, which is oddly fitting since they are a police officer and paramedic.  I'm not the only one who missed it, from what I understand.  My uncle* flew to New York to participate in ceremonies, in order to honor his fellow firefighters that had died during the attacks ten years ago.

I've had other things going on, besides these melancholy little tidbits.  I just ran the longest run of my life today, at sixteen miles.  I've submitted some writings just for fun to see if anything comes out of it.  I've met people, had laughs, and whatnot.  But, as light-hearted as I typically like to be when I write these correspondences, I think that it would be unfair to pretend that everything's fine all of the time.  And this marks the ten year anniversary of what I can say without flinching was unequivocally the worst day of my life.  Obviously, it was unspeakably worse for many, many other people than I'll ever begin to imagine.

But, as with the rest of the nation, I know that the worst things that anybody can throw at me will someday be part of the journey.  We are, after all, the nation in love with the road.  I am, after all, fortunate enough to be a traveler.  And to live dedicated to the ideals of travel is to take up a covenant to endure also the hunger pangs and heartaches that come with it.  The solace of this being that, as long as we remain committed to our roads, someday the worst of these things will be left behind on the journey, regardless in how long and in what way we choose to carry them.

During the darkest of these periods (of which we've had many, lately), there will still be the sunsets and wildflowers all around us, if we bother to look.  The roads will still lead us through innumerable placid places, and provide us with ample opportunity to drop our bags and be privy to all that these offer, be it ever so briefly.  The lessons that we learn will be the ones that we choose to; the emotions we feel will be the ones we decide upon.  We have an indelible freedom to do this as we see fit.  That's why I, personally, have always loved, and will always love the road.  That includes even the unsavory parts.

Kim, Josh, I really wish that I could have been there.  I love you, and I'll see you both soon enough.

Take care of her.





*Cousin once-removed, or second cousin, or whatever.

Noah, Muddy Waters, and Me

To me, one of the most useful recurring Biblical themes is the concept of forty days.  Forty days, on more than one occasion, is the amount of time that Biblical characters were tested, or faced hardship.  During Noah's flood, for instance, it rained for forty days.  Christ was tempted in the desert for forty days.  Elijah took a forty-day journey while he fled Ahab for fear of his life.  On the entirely secular level, the idea of "forty days" highlights the temporal nature of suffering.  Regardless of the facets and nature of one's hardships, suffering must come to an end.  It may not be an end that one would find particularly pleasant (as in "... at least they're not in pain anymore."), but an eventual end to hardship is nonetheless guaranteed.  When the concept of  "forty days" is commingled with the concept of an eternal God, eternity itself, or a great big world out there with a whole bunch of people whose real problems put your piddly little issues to shame, a measly forty days of suffering is actually something of a bargain.

"Forty days" has become a sort of a mantra for me.  It's an acknowledgement of inalienable truths, if I may be so bold.  It's an acknowledgement that we need to suffer.  There are times when we need to prepare to suffer.  And we need to realize that sought-after experience, after all, is merely hardship that has spent its time in the cask.  I, at least, find this philosophy useful.

Good Midwesterner that I am, I had been preparing myself for a type of suffering that I was not used to upon my move to Cali.  Unemployment is something fairly novel to me.  Becoming accustomed to unemployment is something that scares me to no end.  An unfortunate facet of moving to California, as became evident from the fruitless applications which I had submitted in the months prior, was that I would be, for the first time in six years, unemployed.

I would be unemployed with bills-- Character building, set in stone... bills.

Pleasantly, I have always been predisposed to the appreciation of beauty over glamour.  (For reference, Beauty: Graciously working twelve hours a day to feed your family.  Glamour: Sammy Sosa complaining about the Chicago Cubs not paying him enough to feed his family.)  I feel like this stance had both provided me with a practical advantage upon my arrival to LA, a city only rivaled by Wausau when it comes to glamour, as well as unfortunately dulling some of the excitement and novelty of Tinsel Town.

For instance, when I went to Hollywood for the first time to meet some of Chris's friends, one of them asked me excitedly, "What have you always want to do in LA?  What's the first thing?"

"Get a job," I replied.

And I meant it.  Like so many other transplants to the cultural and artistic hub of the West, I had visions of Paparazzi bulbs flashing like lightning as tabloid reporters would bombard me with inane questions:  "Nate!  Nate!  How did you find a company so well-recognized that still provides for upward professional growth during a recession?"  "Can you comment on your benefits?  Is it true that your 401k is matched 100% up to 8% of your pay?"

But, as the natural course of change and hardship would allow, I found myself with an internal battle between resolve and practicality.  Every day that the phone didn't ring only amplified the ups and downs of life.  I had begun the "forty days" that I knew I would have to endure from the onset.  Regardless of principle, regardless of plan, experience, and work ethic, my idea of  "a good job" became more subjective day by day.  I'm excellent with calculus...  And a forklift...  I guess I could learn how to wash dishes...  Imagine how chaotic this world would be without doormen...  Begging is technically a job; it's kind of like sales.

I should interject here to say that I had no right-- absolutely NO RIGHT-- to complain.  This, of course, had always been a leap of faith.  I probably could have done a few things to lessen the blow.  I, however, had merely rowed my ducks fairly decently and made my move.

So be it.

But, getting back to my pity party, I strove to maintain my schedule and regiment while pursuing my dream-job.  Or something that would pay the bills.  Or begging, which, as I understand, is as respectable as entrepreneurship in many cultures.

The best piece of advice that I had received concerning this transitional period came from my friend, T. Heinle, who had warned me: "Don't rediscover youtube.  It will be all downhill from there."

Youtube wasn't even in my vocabulary at this point, though.  No, I was one of an elite group of Americans that would use their time off to hone his or her professional skills, catch up on reading, and attain outstanding physical fitness while applying for various positions.  It would be like a vacation; a well-deserved vacation during which I wouldn't leave the house, and after which I may end up homeless.  It was just like a vacation.

Of course, 100 slowly-read pages into my self-betterment I began to panic.  Over twenty days, I filled out something to the tune of forty applications.  I started getting superstitious ("I'll get the call the day after I finish this book, that's the way it always works out"), sometimes for the worse ("I'll get the call the day after I starve to death, that's the way it always works out").  I channeled the healthy dose of Midwestern guilt and sensibility handed down from generation to generation of German, Scandinavian, Polish, and French families, and I applied it to even the most modest of purchases: "OK, Mr. Hughes, go ahead and buy the pre-made salad.  But that's a buck ninety-nine that you'll never see again."

But through the murk, still there were golden moments.  And I always tried to remember that it was only a period of  "forty days".  I applied for jobs that, simply put, were out of my league.  Gladly.  I submitted for freelancing positions.  I applied for the X-prize foundation, and knew, even as I pressed the "submit" button, that despite the New York Fashion Week slimness of my chance with them, that I had been able to apply-- to even just apply-- to a foundation that spurred common man into Outer Space.  I applied to charities that I wanted to volunteer with, even if they couldn't put me on the payroll.

For brief moments, I felt like I was five years old again.  Back then, I wanted to be a race car driving astronaut that played for the Green Bay Packers in his downtime from Indiana Jones-style archaeology.  To be completely honest, I kind of still do.

But with the click of the "submit" button, it was back to my less glamorous, but still beautiful reality: discovering the ins and outs of an exotic place far from home; flirtations with possible employment during impromptu phone interviews.  Brick walls, and brick walls, and brick walls.

But then I got the call.  And then I got another.  And then I got another.

"Forty days" is an abstract concept that helps me get through my periods of hardship.  It's something that reminds me that all hardship, no matter how deeply etched into us, is destined to be temporary.  It's a reminder that healing is always offered through God; through those that He puts into our lives.  In no way is the "forty days" ever-- ever-- to be taken literally.  However, I left Wisconsin, effectively becoming unemployed, on the twenty-fourth of July.  I got my first firm offer on the second of September.

You do the math.

Pictures are fine, but no autographs, please.

One Big Month!

Hey all,

This will just be a quick post, I'm hoping to make a more in-depth (read: drawn-out) post later this weekend, though we shall see.  I do have to thank everyone for checking this, though.  I've had over 100 page views in my first month, and I'm having a blast doing this, too.

Just a couple of pictures (literally, a couple) of my first venture into Angeles National Forest for today.

That's what a day of trail running in the desert will do.  I'm hoping to start a foundation to vacuum the place so I don't have this problem again.

That's my top half after the run.  I was attempting to get the sea of mountain peaks in the background, which was absolutely stunning.  Unfortunately, I guess you had to be there.

The trail I ran on was about 2,500 feet higher in elevation than where I live, so I assumed that it wouldn't be too big of a difference.  Yeah, it was just like being in the city of Los Angeles, even down to the ski hills.  I also knew that it would be in my best interest to carry a spare 20 pounds of water and emergency supplies on this short five-mile run in the mountains.

I had a blast, and I can't wait to wake up tomorrow morning to a brand-new kind of sore.

Thanks again, everybody!

Observe and Report

Once, in my first couple of weeks here, I needed to complete some work at the local library. I wrapped this up, and headed outside. There, a gentleman who looked like the lovechild of James Hetfield and The Dude (from Metallica and The Big Lebowski, respectively) was carrying a conversation on his cell phone.

"Yeah, I don't know what to-- Hold on a second." He looked to the sky. "I'll be damned. It's raining! No, I'm not kidding, it's actually raining!"

It was hardly raining. I've been in humidity that has been wetter than that sprinkle. I decided that Dude Hetfield was over-reacting and kept walking.

Continuing down the street, I gave a "good day" smile to a pleasant looking middle-aged African American woman. Pleasant as she was, she smiled back. Her smile seemed broader-- more cheerful than the traditional "good day" smile. It was the smile that we Midwesterners only dust off for special occasions: Christmas, birthdays, asking to borrow money, etc.

"Rain in the Summertime, huh?" she chuckled.

In the hours to follow, I discovered that I had witnessed the kind of phenomenon that Southern Californians evidently ask for as a sign that God exists. It really, actually, truly never does rain in Southern California. So people here need sprinkler systems, and car washes. [Author's Aside: At this point, it is unfortunately evident that I still need to get a handle on "the need for a car wash" part.]

Just like the Great Summer Downpour of 2011 (which lasted all of six minutes), there have been a number of little things in my neighborhood that had caught me off guard. Happily, though, they have just make my transition a little more adventurous. These things include:

Parrots. Real, live, feral parrots roam the hills of LA. Especially when one is trying to sleep. Somehow. I first discovered this when I heard a pair of parrots screeching from the telephone wires that run by my house during a morning workout routine. I stared wide-eyed at them, grinning from ear to ear, and thought to myself, "I bet this won't seem quite as enchanting if I hear them screech like this every morning." It isn't.

Actors. Los Angeles doesn't have any horrible cockroach problems that I've heard of so far. However, there are neighborhoods where, if you turn on the kitchen light, you will see five thespians scramble under the fridge. In some clubs and bars toward Hollywood, Studio City, et cetera, people don't ask "What do you do for a living?" Rather, they cut to the chase: "Are you an actor?" My response is typically, "No. Are you?" Then they get all excited that you figured them out. It's kind of cute.

Immigrants. From all over the country, and the world. This is an authentically nice thing to have going for me since I am, in my own right, an immigrant. Making friends in Los Angeles is easy, because nobody is from Los Angeles; nobody has a preexisting social circle that you won't fit into. The diversity also gives you something to talk about with everybody you meet: where they are from, what kind of food they miss, how much they wish they were a Packers fan, and so forth. It's also a great opportunity for me to broaden my own horizons. In my little, mostly-Asian side of town, I've been able to experience excellent, authentic Chinese and Japanese food. While dining at one Chinese restaurant, I got to experience pictures of seabirds, deep-fried, head and all, in the menu. (I ended up getting the barbecued ribs.) Of course, when there are large populations centralized in specific locales, diversity is a given, but assimilation is not. I couldn't even order at one Chinese restaurant because it was a freaking CHINESE restaurant. The sauteed jellyfish smelled really good, though.

Palm Trees, Beaches, and Mountains. Occasionally, I find myself looking back nostalgically on my times camping in Wisconsin. From the bluffs to the lake, and all the hills, forests, lakes, and prairies in-between, outdoor enthusiasts have it made in the Dairy State. But then, at the end of the weekend, I would leave these places, and I would go home. Unlike home, the scenery in Los Angeles sticks with a guy. If you leave the mountains, they're still towering over you in the distance. The palm trees and cacti intermingle as if the shore to the West were shaking hands with the deserts of the East. Every moment of scenery is as radically characterizing to the area as a post card, while being as comfortably familiar as wall paper.

It has been a terrific journey so far. Every day has been filled with one little adventure or another. Every morning, I am able to wake up excited to begin.

Viva, Wisconsin!

God bless LA.

A Deep Breath

As I approached Indio, CA, I quietly murmured to myself what I assume to be the the cliches of many bygone explorers: "What kind of place is this?"

Go West, young man, and don't take an airplane. Drive a '98 Merc Sable. All the headaches and heartaches and fatigue involved in my decision to head to this new land were justified just east of Indio. The rain that poured on the distant mountain to my left washed uncertainty away as the bright sunshine directly overhead spread its light on the green valleys of a new place to call home. Having traversed the continental divide days before, I took my foot off of my accelerator and coasted. For the time, I was done fighting my way to a new start. Now, as my trusty, white, and rusty version of a magic carpet glided down the mountains that served as the deserts' boundary, the landscape sucked me in, willing or not.

I sat passively in a moving theater; vineyards, mountains, and electricity-producing windmills towered overhead. "Are you ready for this?" I could hear it. It was the land that takes us in, and the land that spits us out. This is the place of tested mettle. This is where Levi Strauss made a fortune changing American life while others searched for gold that simply wasn't to be found. This is the set that John Steinbeck used as a backdrop to some of the greatest works in American literature, finding success while describing the slowly deteriorating dreams of others. This is where the wealthy head to squander it all, and those who have run out of options go to chase (and sometimes catch) impossible dreams. This is California. "Are you ready for this?"

I managed to make it to Alhambra half an hour early. My landlord, who has been terrific to me on many levels, was happy that I was reliable the one time that I had needed to be relied upon.

"Ah good, you came early."

I smiled. "I'm a numbers guy. That's what we do."

Then came the greatest joy of all. While examining my new apartment, I discovered that I wouldn't need to buy a bed. One was... one was provided. There was a functional BED in my apartment! Even as I sit here weeks later, I look at the bed with a certain euphoric fondness. Practical providence is the sweetest of joys.

The house itself is shared with a terrific blend of people-- people who come from all over the world and many different walks of life. Yet they share the vital courtesy and decency that living together with strangers depends upon. The yard is like a small park, exhibiting various vegetation that still seems exotic to me. I have three fruit trees growing in my little space (two of which are native to China), a prickly pear, and a very small palm tree. It's a palm shrub.

The thrill has never worn off, but I knew, while wearing even the rosiest-colored glasses, that there was a mountain of mundane that I needed to climb. Parking passes, driver's licenses, birth certificates, bills, and (most importantly) applications for jobs needed to be sought or organized, and aggressively. This amounted to me running all over a strange new town, and coming to a realization: the only thing worse than performing the mundane is not quite performing the mundane. T's weren't crossed, I's weren't dotted. Eyes were crossed when I got through with it all. I found myself with my life: a jigsaw puzzle. It was mostly assembled in Wisconsin, but I had seen fit to take it apart, put it in a box, and ship it off to California. Now here it is, urgently needing to be reassembled.

As I pieced these things together, I took some time to take liberties as a tourist. I went to meet Chris in Hollywood. Concerning Hollywood: no surprise there. Everybody who hangs around Hollywood looks like somebody who would be hanging around Hollywood. After a few drinks, we went to a friend of Chris', whose husband is a fairly successful model. They live in a gorgeous house, with walls that are bejeweled with pictures of him half-naked. I would recommend this to anybody. In my case, I would think that it would keep the Jehovah's Witnesses out.

And so began my next chapter. Slightly disoriented, yet steeled, another resident had come to California to see if there was any gold left in those hills.

"Are you ready for this?"

Wisconsin to LA-- Tucson by Tonight

I stumbled into Craig and Angie's pad in Tucson around 9:00 that Friday night. I had left Eastern Texas a short eighteen hours before, managing to get through the Dallas/Fort Worth area before the morning rush hour. The morning had two major struggles: 1) Fighting the ongoing effects of fatigue 2) Truck stop bathrooms. I ended up succumbing to both of these in due time, but the fatigue wore off. The memories of those bathrooms never will.

After endless miles of the Texas flatness, the mountains were an exclamation point to progress paying off. The vast low deserts of Texas, followed by high desert terrain in New Mexico and Arizona, gave testimony to the resilience of the few who call these places home. Sometimes the radio would begin to fizzle, signalling that I was almost out of range. When I would try to scan for the next station I would only hear the sound of my engine as it dutifully strained in the heat, while the radio went through its entire dial without avail. As a recovering history addict, I thought about the first to cover this territory. Thank God I wasn't on foot.

I almost got a nap in El Paso, but sleeping in the mid-day desert isn't what one would call particularly possible. Other than that, I was running off any energy that I mustered from the three hours of sleep that I got after seeing Hamlet the night before. I was disgustingly tired; my mind was sickeningly worn out. I was tripping-- on awake. This is important because, as I found out, the lack of atmosphere and high altitudes make for sensational sunsets over high desert in Arizona and New Mexico. I would also discover that Eastern Arizona has a truly eclectic radio station that isn't above playing European prog rock during these twilight hours. It was an awesome experience. Homer found his soul mate.

And so did Craig. And Angie. Like Chris, I have known Craig since my formidable years. He and Angie got married this year in a lovely ceremony surrounded by friends, family, pets, fields, and an open bar. Both of them have gone off to see the world on their own, and, against all odds, actually managed to spend enough time on the same continent simultaneously to fall in love, make a cute couple, and rewrite history. Then they let me crash on their air mattress in Tucson. I can't think of enough kind things to say about these two.

In the morning, everybody went on the patio and read a book. I was the last one outside, about half-way through the essay I was reading, when Craig came out to me. He said we were going to the mountains. The essay could wait.

The road wound through the mountain passes and up the sides, with Craig at the wheel, Angie in the back, and me riding shotgun. "At the top of each of these mountain are a variety of plants and animals that can only survive at these altitudes," Angie was explaining. She gave a lovely description of the ecological uniqueness of these Sky Islands, while Craig confidently navigated the mountain roads. Meanwhile, I was smiling like I lost my mind; ogling the surroundings like an infant looks at a mobile. It was simply spellbinding.

And I knew, within the first half of a mile on the trail, how stupid I was for hiking at 9,000 feet altitude one day after partying in a honky tonk with Shakespearean actors at sea level. I have never sucked wind on a hike like that before. But the views were also breathtaking. As far as one day in the mountains, if I had to pick only one, I would just as soon have that day as any other. The coolness of the altitude, and the occasional breeze gave a familial feel to the otherwise rugged landscape. We watched a distant desert rain fall on Tucson as the sunlit trail guided us through ponderosa pines, rock formations, streams, hills, and valleys. As if the mountain knew I had only one day to spend there, Craig and I also got the treat of (safely) encountering a thirty inch rattlesnake. I had it all, just outside of Tucson.

The rest of the evening was filled with a giant cookie, Vietnamese food, and the hotel that John Dillinger was arrested at. Tucson is a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people. The lawns are decorated with cacti and pebbles, in neighborhoods that house quail and the occasional coyote. The nightlife is filled with people that carry themselves with the independence and self-assurance that calling the desert "home" would bring. Angie calls Tucson's vibe "grit". She says it's comparable to Milwaukee in this way. Reflecting on this, I've come to agree. It's peculiar that 115 degrees and dusty can drive a city to the same feel as one that's -15 degrees and snowy.

Even aside from the graciousness of my most hospitable hosts, Tucson was a personal celebration for me. I had only one border left to cross. From the moment that I drove over the Wisconsin state line, I had been committed, but now I could feel it in the air. In a short time, I would be out of my comfort zone for good. And that place, away from my lifelines, is where I've always felt the most comfortable.

Shakespeare and Shiner Bock, Together at Long Last

The freeway out of Illinois was long, hot, and boring. My phone kept updating... and updating... and updating. I would later find out that this was because my Crapberry had evidently caught a virus. I would also find out the value in purchasing the (relatively affordable) insurance policies that can cover smart phones. But for now, I was in the process of finding out how my '98 Mercury Sable could handle a one thousand mile drive between Illinois and Texas with absolutely no avenue for help in the event of an emergency.

This stretch of road led me to the biggest discovery I made during my trip: evidently, between the Mississippi River and the California border, people actually drive the speed limit. I saw the numbers on the signs bump up from 65 to 70, and I thought to myself, "Do I really need to be going 78 miles per hour in this heat, while driving a car that was born when Clinton was President?" Much to my surprise, however, the opportunity never really presented itself. Evidently, fellow Wisconsinites, there isn't just one state that has the Mississippi River on one side, Lake Michigan on the other, and God-awful motorists in-between.

Wink.

So through the congeniality belt I went, every now and then touching base with locals along the way. As the day drew on, the people seemed to get friendlier and friendlier, and my knuckles seemed to get whiter and whiter. After all, night was creeping up on me, and my mission for the day was to find a dorm room somewhere in the largest state in the contiguous US without any means of communication.

Heading westbound through Arkansas, after finally deciding that I hadn't misread the directions and missed my exit 150 miles before, I smelled radiator fluid. My concerns were amplified by the fact that it was scorching hot out, even in the late afternoon. A chill ran up my spine when I saw the drops hitting my windshield, and I stuck my hand out the window, desperately hoping that the mystery liquid wouldn't burn. They drops stung, but they were so small that I couldn't tell whether or not they scalded. My heart rate shot through the roof, my stomach dropped into my shoes, my mouth dried up, and I committed to the idea of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with dignity. That all changed when I saw the stranded vehicle on the side of the road and realized that somebody else's radiator had blown during a light rain shower. I had been pranked; I had been pranked by God.

Finally, I pulled into Kilgore College, following signs that led to the campus. I decided to circle the perimeter of the the school until I found my friend's car. After one turn, there I was, asking about where I could find him. After fourteen hours on the road, watching both a sunrise and a sunset from my car's window, suffering extreme heat, and navigating back-country Texas roads which Texans evidently have no scruples about giving names to in Klingon, I knocked on his door, tired, yet relieved. "Chris! It's me!"

The response? "Go the !@#% away! I'm busy!" You can all take the surgical masks off. It turns out that Southern hospitality isn't contagious.

After I asserted that I would not be going away (Chris had just thought I was somebody else, or so he says), he introduced me to the Texas night-life. BBQ, beer, baseball, and pool. Chris had grown up by me, and we have known each other for about fifteen years. Although he makes his permanent home outside of LA, he made his pilgrimage to the Lone Star State this summer for the same reason that most people would head to a small town in East-Texas oil country: Shakespearean theater. He and his fellow actors were mastering their craft at the Texas Shakespeare Festival. And master it they had.

Every year, for over a quarter of a century, thespians from New York to LA descend on the sleepy town of Kilgore to perform in the Texas Shakespeare Festival. It is, in my opinion, an amazing ordeal. The actors leave some of the most prestigious Drama schools and theatrical hubs in the nation to go to an incredibly hospitable town that offers home-cooked meals to dozens of them at a time in the private homes of theater supporters. It is a level of reciprocated appreciation that few theater companies ever achieve: first-class hospitality is exchanged for first-class culture. The results are outstanding. You have not seen Hamlet until you have seen it in Kilgore, Texas.

Likewise, you have not gone to a honky tonk until you have gone to one with a small army of Shakespearean actors from the coasts. Being in this scenario was a beautiful form of culture shock. I'll never know if the Texans out-friendlied the actors, or if the actors out-schmoozed the Texans, but I had a riot. Watching one hundred people dance in perfect unison, unrehearsed, in cowboy boots and high heels, just for fun, must have been a little humbling for those who need to rehearse for weeks in order to do the same thing professionally. Cowboy hats and pool cues and beer and baseball and bikinis (Yes, bikinis were worn with chaps by the bar girls. Say what you will, this is a terrific business model.) were muddled into a gorgeous potpourri with discussions of plays and professions intertwined. I can only hope to experience anything like it again. It was the definition of Gemutlikeit.

Through my entire stay in Texas, I kept grilling Chris about his experiences in California. I'd asked question after question about the mundane points of life out West: traffic, work, social life, beer prices, housing, etc.

"How are the bugs?" I'd ask.

"No bugs," he'd say. My jaw dropped. Each response seemed to push the big picture a little closer to idyllic.

I was getting more and more eager to see this Golden Coast at the very time that I had quietly predicted to myself that I'd be starting to reconsider my decision to go. Instead, I felt more driven; more committed.

Seventeen-hour-straight-through-drive-to-Tucson committed.

On to the Old Stomping Grounds

I started my journey southward after I said my fair wells to those in Milwaukee, including a few of my friends' kids of whom I happen to be quite fond. [Author's Aside: never say goodbye to anybody under the age of four. Quietly and quickly sneak out of the room while they're down for a nap or in the bathroom. Actually verbally saying goodbye is too heart-wrenching.] My first stop was going to be a little town in Northeastern Illinois that one side of my family has called home for something to the tune of, oh, five-- maybe six generations. I suppose that we liked it, so we stayed.

On the trip to said Mayberry, I saw the last Wisconsin sunset that I would see for a while. It was definitely worth the price of admission. I also relished my last opportunity to get irked about Chicago traffic. And, in the hundreds of trips that I've taken through Chicago, I finally, for the first and possibly last time, visited the city's luxurious and scenic South Side. What's the occasion? Well, it just seemed like it was time to indulge (after almost running out of gas on the freeway). I'm glad I did, because I found that the South Side of Chicago is just a great place to get away to with every worldly possession that you own packed in your car in the middle of the night when you don't know where you are and you may run out of gas at any minute. Take it from me.

Finally, I got to my home away from home. There, my Grandmother and Uncle stayed up past their bedtimes and the three of us talked about this, that... practicalities and the sort. My Grandmother and Grandfather both had seven siblings, and my mother is one of five, and pretty much everybody else is still in the area, so, when we talk, there's always news. To spread the word of my departure to all these people, I made one phone call to my Aunt. In a small town, that works like a charm.

The other bit of info that I received is that my Uncle (who's technically my cousin once removed, but who's counting?), wound up in the hospital due to heart problems. He would have gone to the hospital in town, but he decided that he felt sick enough, slow enough that his wife should keep driving to the other hospital-- the one that isn't known for patient neglect. He's the family historian, and I got to visit him while accompanying my Grandmother to a doctor's appointment.

He was laying in bed, wearing a hospital gown, stitched up, and giving me the details of his predicament. Intermittently, he would get up to spit in the garbage can that was a few steps away, with his unfastened gown showing what God gave him to the rest of creation. And I was there, too. Sadly.

We talked baseball, watched cartoons, and sooner or later started talking about my move.

"You know, for a while, California was the place to be," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I think Scott was even born there."

I had been taking notes from distant relatives' transgressions into the great beyond. My favorite cue was my Great-Grandmother, who became a fan of the AL Angels so as to not conflict with her allegiance to the NL Cubbies. Same with me and the Brewers now.

"So where you movin' to?"

"Alhambra."

"Really? I think ____ and _____ lived in Alhambra!" [Remember, hundreds of relatives. Thousands, practically. Names are hard.] He began to get up. "Op! I need to spit again." I rushed to move the garbage can to him, but he intervened. "No, don't worry, I got it."

Unfastened gown.

Strangely, despite the gown situation, I still left the experience feeling a little more at ease. People had done this before. They had left, seen what it was like, and had come back. Nobody in my Mother's immediate family had, but Mayberry forgives, right?

That night, I sat down with my extended family, ate spaghetti that we had been getting from the same restauraunt for as long as I can remember, caught up, laughed, hugged, and went to bed early.

I woke up at 4:30 the next morning. The relaxed atmosphere of the previous night had been replaced by determination. From here, it was all uncharted territory. I would be taking a fourteen hour drive to Kilgore, TX to visit a friend. The car sounded fine, my bags were packed, and all systems appeared to be go. My phone was updating, but how long could that last? I kissed my Grandmother and Uncle goodbye, and I got my early start, before the sun peeked over whatever it is that they have in Illinois instead of hills.

It was going to be a hot one.

In the Merry Month of July

... From my home I started. Wisconsin-- sweet Wisconsin. A bounteous land known for football, beer, festivals, motorcycles, fishing, and serial killers. Why anybody would ever leave, I still don't know.

But, I opted to. So I packed off and headed to California. It oddly enough doesn't seem like that big of a jump. California has Orange County Choppers, Wisconsin has a little upstart called Harley Davidson; California is getting better at dairy production-- an art form that was perfected back home. Microbreweries are popping up all over Cali. Beer? Yeah, we Cheeseheads have heard of it. So ultimately, it seemed to me that everything that had ever been perfected in Wisconsin sooner or later headed to the Golden Coast. Why should yours truly be the exception?

That being said, I'm writing this as a recording of my struggles. I can only hope that some of you will appreciate that. You should know that I did not have enough time to get to a computer and blog nonstop this past week, so some of the next few days is going to be by memory.

I left the Dairyland on a day so hot in July that thinking about it should cure any homesickness for the foreseeable future. All the ladies begged me, "Please don't go, you're so sexy." At least that's what happened as best I can remember it. With a wink to said lasses and a tearful goodbye to my folks and family, I took off. I also need to give a nod to my friend PBo, who organized a smokeful goodbye the previous night at the local cigar bar and watering hole.

The oddest thing about my leaving was that so many old friends came out of nowhere. One friend was passing through while on vacation from his post in Connecticut. I ran into others with whom I had attended grade school, and still others that I hadn't seen in a number of years. The odds of seeing all of these people, from so many different places, in such a short time are fairly staggering.

Part of my drive to experience new things, to do things like move to California on an educated lark, is because I don't feel like I can help it. I need to struggle, to indulge in what Teddy called "the strenuous life". I feel made for it; like it's in my fiber. That said, every lunatic in the history of man has claimed that their actions are because God, or the Devil, or Dan Rather drove them to act against their better will. I can't make that claim. This is my decision, the consequences will be mine to deal with. Still, I look back on the dwindling last days that I had spent back home and I can know that I'm blessed. And I can only hope that the chance encounters were maybe, against my typically cynical approach to life itself, not only a reminder that I am blessed, but a blessing on the journey to come.