Setsuled's Journal

I’m having a hard time even now believing last night was real. I’m having a hard time deciding if it was more like a dream or like a nightmare.

It started on Sunday, I guess, when Trisa and I went to see Rasputina. We got to meet Melora Creagor after the show, which was utterly amazing and I still can’t believe that pictures of Melora Creagor appeared on Trisa’s digital camera for me having simply aimed it and pressed its button.

“That’s a big camera,” remarked Rasputina’s adorable lead singer and mastermind when she saw how awkward I was with the thing.

After pictures, Melora signed a pair of posters for us and invited us to come and see her show in L.A. on Tuesday—which she told us would begin at 11pm.

As we walked away, Trisa and I marvelled at what we had experienced just moments ago—we’d actually chatted with Melora Creagor.

We talked about how cool seemed and . . . well, our fan-glorious conversation continued for hours and followed us to Denny’s for dinner.

Trisa suggested that we go to L.A. on Tuesday to see the show Melora had mentioned.

I immediately had a bad feeling about that. I was really hesitant to agree with the plan, but I couldn’t think of a very good reason to say no, so I grudgingly agreed.

When I saw Trisa again for class on Monday, she asked me again if I was sure I wanted to go on Tuesday. We were in a classroom full of people, so maybe it was in the interest of not causing a scene by arguing about it publicly that I said I was indeed sure. Even though I absolutely wasn’t.

But even later, when we were walking away from class, I couldn’t say no because my reservations about the trip were so vague and elusive.

Well, maybe not completely so.

I’d never really been to L.A. before, and I didn’t exactly relish the idea of blundering about an unfamiliar city at night. But Trisa seemed utterly unconcerned when I mentioned this, so I decided I was probably just being a silly stick in the mud or something.

After I parted with Trisa on Monday night, I went home and found that I was extremely anxious. I needed to relax, calm down, calm my nerves, I realised. I watched half of The Fellowship of the Ring, which helped considerably.

And I thought to myself, “I should really be more adventurous. Do I just wanna sort of sag into a vegetable heap in my room in front of the computer forever and ever?”

“Well,” I answered myself, “Now that the computer can play DVDs, that doesn’t sound bad at all,”

“Oh c’mon!” the other part of me said angrily, “Take life by the horns! Go out there and live you young bastard! You can watch DVDs when you’re old,”

And so, at around 7pm on Tuesday night, after I’d had a normal and sedate dinner at my parents’ house, Trisa and I set out on our journey.

I’d gotten my mp3 CD player working with over 200 mp3s on it the night before, so I had this playing whilst Trisa read Chuck Palahniuk’s new book Choke as the night time I-5 north scrolled beneath us.

One unexpected factor was that it was raining.

This, though, did not become terribly bothersome until we finally entered Los Angeles, where the slick, reflective streets made already difficult to see lines almost invisible to me.

The directions Trisa’d printed out from Yahoo! maps were simple. Unfortunately, the actual route could not have been very much further from simple.

All of my instincts, my savvy, and my dexterity was required to negotiate that hellish network of “intersections” and “streets”.

We came to one intersection that connected I still don’t know how many streets from every conceivable angle except the sane regular ones.

Hundreds of pairs of headlights, sketchily representing cars through the curtains of deluge, streamed past on my left as I sat at the green light, waiting for an opportunity to turn left. It was only when I finally did turn left in front of a furiously honking motorist that Trisa and I realised that I was not allowed to turn left, and that the street I’d turned onto was some strange back alley of who-knows-where.

“Hm. I have no idea where I am,” I said.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” Trisa was saying, “I almost got us in an accident . . . !”

Not wanting to dwell on this, I told her, “Don’t worry about, just tell me where to go next,”

In the mad roaming that followed, replete with a number of death-defying, tire squealing left turns and mergings through practically imaginary lanes, Trisa’s printed out map was on rare occasions useful.

Finally I spotted something familiar, something that promised to warm body and soul and before Trisa could protest (and actually even despite her protests) I took it.

A parking a garage.

A sweet, well lit, parking garage for something that looked like it might probably be a mall.

“I need a breather,” I explained to Trisa under no uncertain terms, “Maybe we can study the map or something,”

The place proved blessedly to have a Starbucks, where I was comforted by the familiarity of the universal Starbucks décor and menu. And by the bathroom, which allowed me to pee.

Trisa reluctantly agreed to my idea that we continue on foot, and from that point on I actually rather liked L.A.

We passed a Macy’s larger than any I could have imagined on our way out, walking up a steep hill coating with rain beleaguered snails that crunched beneath our feet (“Feel like fortune cookies!” I said in my best Short Round accent, and then said in my best Harrison Ford, “Those aren’t fortune cookies kid,” The performance was lost on Trisa, sadly).

We reached Santa Monica Blvd where this place—the Troubadour—was located. We walked half a mile before we finally found it.

And discovered that the show was sold out.

For some reason, this didn’t really bother me. For some reason, I felt like giggling maniacally, but I didn’t, mainly because Trisa looked horribly upset.

We sat down together on a cushioned bench because the heavy soled boots she was wearing had been slowly pulverising her feet.

After a few moments, I convinced her to join me for dinner.

We wandered in the opposite direction on Santa Monica until we came to a little Italian place where I discovered, to my amazement, that I was still full from eating dinner at my parents’. It had been, after all, only about three hours since I’d eaten, which was mind boggling to think about.

On the walk back to the car, Trisa said to me, “I bet last night you didn’t think you be right here by this time,”

I thought about it a moment, and said, “Actually. I pretty much did,”

On the road back, my mp3 player seemed to play mostly recordings of Jack Kerouac reading, which seemed very appropriate, hearing his voice cutting through the long dark, rainy road south.