Welcome to the O.C.

I arrived last night, after a rocky flight, sitting behind 3 identical Bradley Cooper looking suits, who snarked the poor flight attendant the entire 3 hours...I left Seattle after a very stressful, sleepless and emotionally taxing day. It may just be me, but I think Seattle has an unbelievably powerful gravitational pull. Jet setting aside, it seems to take upwards of 1.21 gigawatts just to break the seal. The cruel irony is so that I leave the emerald city on a clear, crisp day of blue skies and touch down in Long Beach to ominous, looming, dense grey hanging over everything, threatening a storm. apparently there's flooding south here, wind and tree fall, etc. etc. generally the wrath of god, to smote me and the apocalypse hath cometh. I got in and shuffled off the rickety stairs from the plane and ran my bags out to Monas' little car in shifts, as she circled the pick up zone, I ran out to drop a bag in the trunk, sprint back to my bike box, for another round. The bag claim is open to the street...strange? well, I got everything without trouble, and Mona and I motored into Newport to grab a steaming cup of assam and some bread pudding at a charming hole in the wall cafe near her beach house, called Cafe Alto(which could have easily been in capitol hill) for a chat. I couldn't sleep, so I watched some Mighty Boosh, planned for the next day and try to get a few minutes of shut eye.

So, I awoke at 6:30am, rolled around in bed and cracked an eye to an orange "Endless Summer" poster. Monas little hut is a beautiful beach house, she lives in the lower half. It's perfectly themed with a classic kind of 50's surf motif, very charming and fun. The owner and upstairs neighbor, Jaunette (sp?) is really sweet. she came down this morning so I could try out a slew of wifi passwords she thought may get me connected. We ate some fruit and had a cup of tea, then went the 1/4 of a block to the beach to watch the surfers narrowly escape death by jelly-fication on the rocks, catching tasty wave after tubular break, due to the aforementioned storm.

That's a clear flag that I'm actually in California...it's just beginning to sink in, not quite there yet.

Now I'm off to put my bike together and head to "The Bait Shop" with Ryan, and hope we don't run into Luke and the water polo team, cause I don't want to get into any trouble. I'll swing by the comic shop and pic up the new "Legion" issue and throw on some Death Cab.

Surfs Up.