i live in southern california.

and i have some really cool friends, but i'll get to that in a bit, i think. so anyways, it was about a year and a half ago that i moved out here after spending four years going back and forth between chicago and dallas, school and home. the cool thing about being in those two places is that it wasn't at all difficult to make it to one place or the other if i had a long weekend or something like that. since pretty much all my friends were either in the one place or the other, i never went too terribly long without seeing friends that weren't where i was.

living out here is a bit different. make no mistake, i love where i live, i got a great job, the people here are as nice as anywhere and i'll never complain about the weather, but geographically (not topographically, there's a difference) this place is in about the worst possible location. head west and you can't go very far before you wind up in the ocean, which is pretty to look at, no doubt, but it's an ocean, and there's really not anywhere to go there, well not anywhere for me to go there anyway. head east, good gravy, have you ever headed east of here? there's nothing until you get to phoenix, and i still have yet to figure out what its excuse for existance is or who the joke is on.

basically what i'm saying is that long beach being where it is, is pretty geographically isolated and limits the opportunities i get to see old friends, the ones that live in other places. now instead of getting in the car and road tripping for a long weekend, i gotta take vacation days and buy plane tickets to do it, complications that are pretty mitigating. so when i get the kinda news that i got today, where i hear that one of my friends is coming out here, well it's the kinda thing that makes you not mind being surrounded by ocean and desert so much. annie's coming out at the end of this month from chicago, in less than three weeks actually, i could write tons about her, i've already written a bit, but i'll just say the list she's on is very short. i haven't seen her in a year, so it definitely feels like a long time coming.

it does mean i gotta clean my place up tho.

feeling: stoked
thinking of: blowing up the desert, but that's been tried i think
music: "tonight tonight" smashing pumpkins