long beach

Long Beach is not necessarily the place that comes to mind when people think “southern California tourist destination.” Eric suspects that his conference was held there because the CDC got the hotel for cheap. The day before we arrived was the last day of the Toyota Grand Prix, which was held right outside our hotel, and the cleanup lasted for the duration of our stay and beyond. When we first arrived, we were unaware of this fact, and kept wondering what all the concrete barriers, miles of sponsor signs, enormous Eastern bloc-looking metal barricades, and squeal-y tire marks all over the streets were there for. Eventually we saw a sign from the race and figured it out.

The first night, before we had figured out the utterly baffling system of stairs and raised walkways that allows pedestrians to bypass the littered streets, we ended up literally on the racetrack, then in a junky parking lot, then in another junky parking lot, until eventually a maintenance truck drove by and we managed to get instructions that freed us from the post-Grand Prix labyrinth. The experience prompted a teensy rant from me about how my first night ever in California I end up walking in circles in a deserted backalley shithole, which is exactly what happens to me in every place that I ever travel, ever. I have a backalley shithole radar in my brain, and it operates completely without my consent.

Once we were freed, however, we found a lovely brewery, which made the restaurant decision easy. When traveling, Eric and I have a tendency to wander endlessly along city blocks, debating the merits of various restaurants until our shared indecisiveness catches up with my blood sugar and I loudly threaten to drop to my knees on the sidewalk. A brewery, though, solves everything. We are brewery folk. We ate there twice because we were so happy it was there.

Southern California is so weird looking to a person from the Midwest. Palm trees? I thought they made those out of plastic for movies.

I probably wasted the whole week, but I don’t really care. I wasn’t feeling intrepid enough to locate transportation and go explore LA by myself. We were right next to a harbor, and I have never gotten over the novelty of anything related to the ocean, so I just sort of sat around, staring at the water and reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and an excellent book about drug-addicted werewolves in London (I hope to write more about this one later—it was quite stunning). It was the path of least resistance, and that was the kind of mood I was in. The whole harbor area was on the touristy side, but I’m not nearly as tourist-averse as I should be. In fact, if there are pretty parks and views of bodies of water at hand, I can deal with all manner of tourist crap. Mallish restaurants, piped-in elevator music on the boardwalk, battalions of hungry pigeons—sign me up. As long as I have a book. (With zombies. Or werewolves.) For me, this vacation was really just an excuse to read fiction for many uninterrupted hours without guilt. I would add, “under the California sunshine,” except that it was overcast for three days out of five. Still, it was lovely. I can see why people are attracted to So-Cal—such an even-keeled, moderate climate compared to tempestuous tornadic crap that we came home to.

My biggest splurge was an afternoon at the Aquarium of the Pacific, which coincided nicely with Earth Day—a fact that probably explains the battalions of schoolchildren who were there as well. Aquariums are a dazzling experience for me—they generate a cathedral-like awe, a renewed sense that this planet we live on is a place of absolute wonder and endless evolutionary creativity (though a little less of the same on the flu front would be spiffy). I loved the goofy puffins with their torrid love lives, the stunning and gregarious sea lions and sea otters, and all the fish: the cute, little ones; the weird, warty ones; the gender bending ones; the florid, deadly poisonous ones, the ones that just look like pieces of old tire. Did you know that there is a fish called a humbug? (Apparently it starred in Finding Nemo, but I never saw that, so it was new to me.) A Picasso triggerfish? That there is a creature known as the sexy shrimp, and it is no bigger than your thumbnail? I can stare at marine life for hours, which is why I’m best off going to aquariums alone. I learned this in Seattle, when I emerged at the end of the aquarium to find my spouse and his entire family sitting on a bench, wondering which creature might have leapt from its tank and eaten me.

I hope to write more later this week, when I will be holed up recovering from my upcoming wisdom tooth surgery. I may be completely high on narcotic pain meds, but that can only ease the writing process, right?