Journal 2025-05-20

LA is a strange place. I can’t tell if it’s cool and I’m just in the wrong places (probably partially true) or if it’s just an unlivable city. I get the feeling that it’s one of those places that’s like 6 cities combined into one, and that each of those cities is like a decent mid-sized American city and is generally nice, whereas LA proper, downtown LA, is basically cheeks. Again, no idea if it’s true — I’ve been here for a few hours — but that’s generally the vibe I’m getting from this place.

I think all the time — where would I like to live? Kamakura actually does seem like a nice place. I think a lot of those small towns near a major city with decent public transportation is probably what I would look for. You can kinda just chuck stuff into ChatGPT and let it spin for a while, if that’s your thing, and it’ll spit out some decent options for Kamakura-esque places all over the world. But of course, they’re not Kamakura. I’m sure they’re lovely though.

But anyways, I’ve started to notice something creep in over the last few weeks — some small sense of unease. I don’t know if that’s something about being in the US for so long again, but I think my soul is missing something nourishing. Maybe I’m just too possessed by writing these days, but I do feel like I want to always be getting stuff out. Just yeet it out into the world.

Anyways, I feel like I have both a ton to say and nothing at all. That’s partially what this morning pages is really for — I’m partially just killing time until I can get into my hostel, but I also really would like to be working on my next travelogue, or planning my Camino walk, or studying a language. All of those are probably good things. I may go on a walk after this and do some Spanish study. That’s probably a better idea than sitting here just tooting around. But I’m going to do my solemn duty and pump out another 400 words before that happens so that I hopefully have some clay to work with when I write some more in the hostel.

My grief with LA is probably mostly the same as my grief with Dubai. Everything in the city is nice (except, compared to Dubai, a much larger homeless pop, but ce la vie), but it’s also just the least walkable city on the planet.

One thing I think about a lot here is, why live here? I mean, why live in such an expensive place, a place with such bad air quality, a place with awful traffic, if you don’t really have to? But I’m perhaps the wrong crowd here. I mean, I’m sure there’s some delicious food and so on, but my biggest draw for being here is to go to Craig’s book talk/dinner thing. Otherwise, I feel like I can take a pass on the city. I should still do some stuff while I’m here, like the Getty museum or Griffin Observatory, but I also want to sleep and rest and do nothing. Eat a lot of food. But also, if I get dragged into something at the hostel that could also be fun. All possibilities.

One thing I’ve been wary about is losing this spark, losing this fascination and love for life. I don’t have it right now I think because of how poorly slept I am lately, owing to the edibles and all that. But I hopefully will move past that tonight. Get a solid night’s sleep and then be ready to rock the world for the next day. It’s funny that I’ve gotten so much sleep over the last few days and yet I still feel kinda exhausted. So it goes.

What else what else what else, I’m not sure. I am both excited and not about more parks after this. I’m kinda just in this mood though, so it’s really hard to say anything about how I’ll feel about the future probably until tomorrow morning.