The local time is now 1:30AM (as of this sentence). I am writing to you, teh internet, from a perfectly chilled hotel room in Pleasant Hill, CA. I could hear my neighbors fucking a few hours ago. The current temperature is fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. I am here for the next few days on business, then I will be taking the BART into San Francisco to spend about five days on vacation.

This whole trip to this point has been very surreal. The flight here was the first time I had ever been on a plane. It was something so monumental, yet I brushed it off as another day, for the most part. It first hit me when we arrived at the airport right outside the entrance. I had a flash of excitement burst through me. “Christ,” I thought. “This is it.” After the security cattle drive, we waited for a couple hours for our plane to arrive.

When the plane arrived (twenty minutes late), we were rounded up and directed onto the plane. I took my aisle seat and awaited my fellow rowmates. It turned out to be one older female who I found out was flying back to Oakland and barely arriving in time for an old friend’s jazz concert. It turned out that the person who was supposed to take the window seat never showed, so I politely asked if I could take it, as it was my first flight. I offered to rock-paper-scissors for it, but she kindly stepped out of her middle seat to let me take it. Waiting for takeoff, I anxiously fixed my eyes out of the window and watched the non-action on the tarmac.

Several minutes later, the time had come. The cargo was loaded and the plane began to roll back. I was instantly grateful for having taken Dramamine prior to leaving my house, but after several minutes of moment, regretted not taking more. I tend to get motion sickness easily, and this occasion was certainly no exception. I was glad to have a window seat so that I could at least see the plane moving. Had I kept the aisle seat, the magazine pocket in front of me would have had my breakfast in it. The liftoff wasn’t any better, but once we were in the air and cruising, my stomach began to settle.

The view from the window is far too glorious for any human being to put into words, but I will do what I can, as there is no other way for me to communicate this to the world. Watching the world disappear beneath you as you climb into the clouds that you always would lie under, daydreaming, is one of the most amazing sights one could ever see. Floating above the clouds, seemingly gliding across their flowing white surface, I thought to myself, “If this is what heaven is like, I want to be there. How could I ever get so low when I’ve been this high?” I thought about all the tiny people below in their tiny houses and tinier cars, living their tiny lives. I thought about all the ants that scurry along the sidewalk in the hot summer sun, and how their lives are no different than mine from several thousand human feet away. I saw the Great Salt Lake and the Rocky Mountains, and brown hills climbing and creasing and folding like the old wrinkly skin of a Shar-Pei.

I arrived to this:

And that is when I fell in love with California. The weather is unreal. To make matters worse (or better, glass half full), it’s like this, more or less, year-round. I say worse because I have to go back to manic depressive Michigan weather in a week. There’s heat, yes, but there’s no humidity. And most obviously, there’s a fucking surplus of sun.

Our first day of work was today, and I was certainly glad it went well and it didn’t drag on too long. We arrived promptly at 9:00AM (12:00PM EST, which is still somewhat early for the slacker me), only to wait more than a half hour for the employees to arrive. It was very interesting to meet the people behind the voices on the phone. I work in the late shift in tech support, and this particular client, being on the west coast and processing late in the evening, they deal almost exclusively with me, so we’re all very buddy-buddy. Again, it just seemed very surreal to be there. Everything went off without a hitch, save a few minor problems here and there. We had kick-ass Mexican food for dinner, which I was more than obliged to stuff my face with. We ended up leaving around 10:00PM, and because we left everything working, we were given the day off tomorrow (er, today).

And here I am, at 2:03AM local time, logging days one and two of my trip to California. I feel somewhat detached, in a good way, from my usual self being out here. There’s just something different, something I must have left in Michigan. Tomorrow we will likely end up exploring San Francisco, no doubt running into the Pride Parade somehow. That’ll certainly be an experience. Until next time…