February 01, 2013

Sunsets



Venice Beach, California (January 4, 2013)


Greg Before Sunset, Venice Beach, California (January 4, 2013)

Today is February 1st of the new year and I've been quite delinquent in my postings. Clearly. With conviction I can say ringing in 2013 by myself in my apartment with cardboard boxes strewn everywhere, packing paper in piles around this fancy new (HUGE) apartment (I'm dwarfed here as is my stuff) was more than likely the hardest, most fiercely emotionally taxing and most confusing thing I've done in all of my decades of life. I just wanted it to be over. It did finally end, and 2013 showed up at my doorstep with a visit from Greg from the East Coast effective January 2, 2013, wherein he flew here and landed, rented a car, and proceeded to drive from LAX to Dodger Stadium to pick me up. Was it the 2nd or the 3rd...? Either way, when he texted me that he was driving and en route, my butterflies started doing uncomfortable exotic dancings in my belly and I sat there at my desk staring at my phone awaiting updates. Sea of red, LA traffic, etc. etc...finally, finally, finally...he text-announced he was pulling into the Dodger Stadium Main Gate and so I jostled my purse together and phones and everything and rushed out to meet him.

I'm going to insert a disclaimer here, now. This Love Story has lost its footing. In fact, it's on such a steady (rapid fire) decline that I barely know if I can recap absolutely everything that LA was for us without breaking down and therefore, I may not include as many details as I had initially planned to immediately after he left. But I'll get as far as I can. We're on a decline because, well, I'm evidently more needy of his attention than I ever could have imagined and only a personal strife in his life (to be explained at some point) upon his return to New York could have driven that stake into my heart, and, into his. And we're not in a solid place at this point. *End of disclaimer.*

He pulled into the Main Gate with the high beam headlights on so I was blinded as I approached the car. He stopped, and I attempted to open the passenger door and it was locked, and he unlocked it but he said, "Wait," and jumped out, came around to the passenger side (in his bear hat, love) and strode right up to me and we embraced. It was a moment I'll never forget and in fact think of each second I pass that spot going into and leaving work, day to day. I was...weird. I felt weird. I felt awkward, ugly, awful, happy, with turmoil churning inside over how very amazing it was to have him standing there before me, in the flesh, no longer a text message or a Facetime late evening hour or email. We untangled and got into the car and he had bought me a milkshake which by the time he had reached Dodger Stadium had turned to cold flavored milk (love!) and he turned the car around in the Main Gate area and I guided him to follow Elysian Park Avenue straight to Sunset and hang a right. That's how to get to my apartment in Los Feliz: take Sunset through Echo Park and Silverlake until Sunset becomes Hollywood Boulevard, which has become this monumentally emotional stretch of road for me, watching the vintage stores and cute cafes and bars and Taco Trucks and Mexican Cantinas and neon lights and graffiti and Donut Shops and Vietnamese and Thai restaurants and everything amazing pass me by, all flanked by the beautiful hills of Silverlake residential housing and just, everything. He was talkative, kind of, but I was quiet, and felt like easing back into being near him was freaking me out. He could sense my sense of quiet and it slightly had him confused but by later, I had eased back into myself, in his midst.

We arrived at my apartment and parked his rental and I showed him into my building. And we came into it, he strode around it taking it all in, the unpacked (yet) boxes, the couch swallowed whole by the huge wall where it rests, and we sat together, and grew back into each other. It was...very much the beginning of what became an incredible and indescribable love adventure. He wanted to walk Los Feliz, so we did. I was shaking from having not eaten that entire day. My blood sugar was screaming at me for lack of appetite and desire to shove food into my system. We wove through stores on N Vermont, returning early to my apartment then, and settling comfortably into my couch to remember each other, be close, gaze at each other, talk, laugh. There was a bear hat incident prior which is too hilarious and "on location" to depict here, prior to getting into my apartment (wherein we ended with him crawling on all fours across my living room, just, something tiny and awesome for us only to have in our memories.)

(Insert: I'm home sick with a head cold feeling so groggy and furry, so my recollection of our LA may leave much to be desired, but I'm wanting to remember every second, so somehow I shall try.)

He landed on a Wednesday night with the intention of working at his Google office in LA (Venice) on Thursday, knowing I, too, would be working that day. He drove me to Dodger Stadium, dropped me off, and we proceeded to both work. That evening, traffic back from Venice to Los Feliz proved to be a nightmare and we were trying to make it to the Griffith Observatory in time to see the sunset. The Griffith Observatory is like a 10-minute drive from my apartment, so instead of having him drive all the way to the Stadium, I took a cab and met him at my apartment with little time to spare, and we made it literally to the top of Griffith Park *just in time* to watch the magnificence of LA's sunsets. Sunsets in LA are...I think, one of a kind. The array of colors is astounding. And mind-numbing. I love LA, a lot, a lot. I love LA.

We decided to then head into the Observatory where there is a Planetarium, to see a show. The seats were reclining so as to lean far back and stare upward at the domed screen; the movie started with mass destruction (digitally animated) of Santa Monica Pier (the ferris wheel rolled off its axis!) and Greg turned to me abruptly and hissed, "What the fuck!?? I thought we were seeing a show about stars and the planets???" and I laughed (he makes me laugh basically every second of my life) and we looked back up and it turns out, the intro was a lead-in for a "Mayan-Post-Apocalyptic" Universe/Big Bang Theory film...so yeah, the movie wound up being about the skies; it just started off strange. 

We had a terrific time. Then we resolved to go downtown for sushi.

Little Tokyo in downtown LA is adorable. It's this open air shopping/sushi/ice cream shop area with dangling tiki lights and tons of cuteness...for most people who have known or do know downtown LA, downtown LA about 10 years ago was crack and prostitutes on corners. No longer...it's become this cleaned up and hopping area, so now filled with life and activity. And we ate sushi (Greg told me I was doing it wrong; I will forever curse him for that, ha) and then headed back to my apartment again to get ready for Our Friday. I'm now realizing Our Friday was actually the day we were at Venice Beach and so many other amazing Los Angeles locations; will adjust calendar dates accordingly. *DONE* (we traversed Los Angeles massively on Friday the 4th. I mean. I think.) (Yes, that is correct because he left on Monday, January 7th.) (Oh, who cares about calendar dates at this rate.)

Friday morning...we did what we wanted. We clambered over to Hillhurst to brunch at Alcove (so fucking cute and awesome) and then headed in the car OUT, to see Los Angeles.

And this is where I'm suffering a breakdown of emotion. So I'm going to end this post with the promise of (hopefully) some other day completing my exposition of everywhere we were, everything we did, every eye to eye exchange we had, every moment of every sight of every finger grazing and ice cream cone/milkshake consumption and every breath we shared while he was here.

Regardless of where we're at right now (with my now seemingly unusable booked flight to New York for Valentine's Day weekend)...I love him. With every ounce of love I've ever known. And maybe more than that.