Keeping it together nowadays is hard, for everybody. The stress of an ever more demanding economy, mixed with international tension, and being short changed by an awful education system (at least in Amerika) has left a lot of on edge, or jumping off. I don't know about you, but I could barely handle it. When I lived in Baltimore everyday was just shit, a job that I was assigned which I didn't want to do. Leaving the house was something I never wanted to do. There was no where to go. When I did go outside people would scream at me from cars, or the police would stop me and question me for looking shady, as I was clad in true gangster apparel: loafers without socks, cut off blue khaki shorts I made myself, and a shirt with a design inspired by Gabriel Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. But now there is a reason to go outside! More than that, there are reasons! And there are times I certainly feel unsafe, as this city has some unsavory characters, but it also has, within city limits, the beach.
As a young un I hardly ever got to leave my home, so all I'm used to is a creek and the greenery that grew around it. After that it was the bay of Baltimore, which is grey, sloggy, and pretty dismal to be honest. But here, finally, is the beach. That real place where people go to not give a shit. It feels so much less phony than east coast beach culture, which is more about being loud and getting fucked up than anything else.
It makes me feel like a dork for still being in awe so often here, but there's just something about finally finding people to have pleasant conversation with that's been life changing. Kindness has been something I've always craved, and certainly it probably exists where I came from, but I can find it here. I can feel it here. It doesn't feel like an endless search for someone who has the time for a conversation.
So I'm really grateful to be here, especially so that I get to rent a room from my best friend's father. Much of those skills you're supposed to pick up in childhood I never did, so having someone that's raised a couple kids is a good way to catch up. I'm thinking about learning to drive here too, so if California is where I learn how to cook, where I get my first serious job, where I get my first place, where I get in shape, and where I learn how to drive, then this place will be what made me a man.
Thanks for reading my rambling, fam. I'm a quiet guy, so it's nice to have an outlet. I'll end this with a few more pictures. My camera is a canon rebel t5. Love ya'll.
