:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Saturday, January 01, 2005 ::

First off, Happy New Year everyone.

Now that that's out of the way, can I tell you? I'm so completely zonked out of my mind right now. To say I'm jet lagged is an insult to chronic stragglers. I left Los Angeles at 10:20pm and walked into my apartment around 7:00am the following day. Yes, I spent New Year's on a plane. I slept for maybe four minutes. I saw SportCenter's "Not Top 10" plays of the year three times. I listened to "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" twice. And not once did I say "Happy New Year" to anyone since 10:00 last night.

Oddly, I'm ok with this.

You really do learn to appreciate things you take for granted when you've been away from it long enough. I enjoyed a fun evening with PK and his wife Thursday night and when I left, I decided at the last minute to take the scenic route home. What's normally a quick 24 mile shot down the freeway became a drive more than twice that long. One of the things I used to do back when I had a car was something called "aimless driving." If I needed to clear my head or just wanted alone time, I'd point the car in some random direction and drive.

I took the car down through Long Beach and up around the Palos Verde Penninsula. Along the way are a couple of places to stop the car and enjoy the scenery. One spot along the northwest part of PV gives you a breathtaking view of the Los Angeles coast that on a clear night, would let you see from Redondo Beach up to Santa Monica. That view was amazing and had it not started raining, I would have stayed there a little longer to take in the view.

LA may be the posterchild for urban sprawl gone haywire but if you find a nice high perch after the sun goes down, you see before you a twinkling backdrop of a city that's truly alive, teaming with activity, and beckoning you to explore its interwoven network of diversity. And none of that came back to me until my plane took off and I looked out the window. Bono may have been writing about New York City in "City of Blinding Lights" but I always envisioned Los Angeles at night when I listened to that song (drug free even).

Neon heart dayglo eyes
A city lit by fireflies
They’re advertising in the skies
For people like us

I love that stanza because it can be about Los Angeles. And what makes it different from any other city is that it's sometimes covered by a mist that gives everything an ethereal glow. Bono may like NYC but The Edge had the right idea when he got himself a place up in Malibu. I think part of the reason is that I can almost see myself describing LA that way to someone. As for who else would be of that "us," well...

Don't get me wrong, I love Miami and I'm glad to be back but I just had to describe those intangibles about my hometown that no other city will ever have.

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 7:35 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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