El Camino Unreal

[Vignettes from the weekend Down South:]

[That curve after you hit Gaviota Pass and you're in the home stretch to Santa Barbara: there's that same feeling I get exiting the Waldo Tunnel and seeing the Golden Gate and the city spread before me, or driving up Broadway toward Sonoma's City Hall. I doubt I'll ever live in S.B. (or Sonoma, for that matter; but never say never) again, but it's in me, a home.]

[Even a basically motel-like hostelry can be made agreeably bungalow-esque with the addition of a few well-placed banana trees.]

[The Conejo Grade between Camarillo and Thousand Oaks is a terrible place to run out of gas. It would've been catastrophic if Jessica didn't have AAA.]

[Depending on where you go, Angeleno clubgoers don't seem much different from the San Franciscan variety.]

[Why is it so much easier to drive in L.A.? I hadn't been there since '98, and I haven't forgotten a thing. Shut down Highland at Santa Monica? Child's play. Ask me how to navigate West Hollywood at 1 a.m.? No problem. That weird transition from the San Diego Freeway to the Ventura? Pie, easier than. But just try to drive the mile or so from my apartment to 101 South in San Francisco, and I burst three blood vessels.]

[A car, a ninety-minute drive, and three friends who know all the words to an old album. What else does anyone really need?]

[At the gay bar in Santa Barbara Saturday night, I remembered yet again why I left. Good thing Max, John and I had help having fun.]

[Weirdest moment: Taco Bell. King City. All the white folks scared to hit the very Mexican downtown (plus John and me, who were too tired to find an authentic taqueria.) "Fall At Your Feet" by Crowded House on the loudspeaker. OK, I need to be home, now.]

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