5-29-01 M 8:00 AM

I left my backpack with my comp book at my mom’s. Ugh. When did I last write? I don’t’ know. I left my credit card at Q’s on Friday. I have to go get it today. When I came home Friday, I don’t know what we did. Saturday morning, I don’t remember. At some point Saturday, we drove down to Orange County. I typed fifteen minutes on the way. No one was at my mom’s We left the dog in the garage and took the baby to the mother-n-law’s. Rochelle was going to the House of Blues in Anaheim with a girlfriend. I drove down Harbor Boulevard where the beginning of Jim takes place next to Disneyland. That area is all different now. The “Happiest Place on Earth” sign is gone. So is the oleander. There is an all-new gladiola lined entrance and palm trees stationed along the median on Katella. The changes made me feel cynical. A thinly veiled trap to part the fool from his money, distracting him with pretty flower while they pick his pocket.

Guards lined the turrets ready to pour boiling oil. Crocks snapped I the moat and many of the spikes protruding from the top of the gate impaled human heads in various stages of decay.

I continued south along Harbor, vaguely distressed, not understanding why. I felt a failure for choking my audition Friday and so the strip malls were an even more insidious comment on the achievements of men, achievement seemingly meaning strength and size of the wedge we’ve driven be4tween us, nature, and beauty.

As I got closer to old stomping grounds, I grew even sadder at the permanent loss of carefree times and people. I found Harbor Tow surprisingly easy enough. It lent little in the way of description (above). I drove down Placentia to Superior, past places I had forgotten, and upon seeing the forgotten places, even just banks where I had gotten money, I felt not recovery but loss. Newport was fascinating. I drove past bar after bar. I managed not to pull into The Stag, nor The Beach Ball, nor Blackie’s, nor Mutt’s, nor Cassidy’s, nor Woody’s, but at a red light, I had only to turn left to go into DP’s (now Rudy’s) to park, and so I did. They had the National Trivia Network and hockey. I read the news and the Devils were buried by the Avalanche. I had maybe six beers. I rolled a smoke and drove past Video Zone, and some old bars that are gone now. The Sports Page was gone. The High Times liquor store where I worked is now a Blockbuster. The tow yard off Michelson I was looking for, the one I have in mind for Jim, the one from which I had once liberated my Olds, is gone—replaced by chain restaurants and a multiplex. We bulldoze the past, pave over it, and create new memories to be razed for future generations to be maudlin about. I drove back up to Carolyn’s and stayed until the baby fell asleep. Her cats scratched out my eyes. I went to my mom’s and went to bed.