Friday Night Beauty

Life continues to be lovely here in SoCal...honestly, I never thought I would say that. The weather has been incredibly gorgeous. I drive through mountains on my way to and from work every day. The road is lined with sunflowers that would be impossibly cheery-looking anywhere else, but here, they are par for the course. At night, I have to contort my body and arrange it around two cats that insist on sleeping on either side of me--I dread to think of how they will adjust when there's a human addition to the sleeping arrangements. In the morning, I awake to Austen licking my face and biting my nose.

There's a real estate boom down here, and a lot of advertising for new houses going on. One currently popular trend is to hire people to stand on a street corner and energetically swing huge signs advertising new communities and home construction programs. Apparently, a recruiter arranged to meet several interested people at the Sunnydale Library. Of course, no one notified us. So yesterday, a little before eleven, people started coming in. A woman approached the reference desk...

Her: I'm supposed to meet a someone named Justin.

Me: Uuuuh...no one's come up to the desk. I don't know if anyone is here waiting.

Her: It's a meeting for swingers.

Me: (Nonplussed silence)

Her: You know, the swinging signs? He's hiring people to swing the signs.

Later, I related this story to my colleague Mr. E, and mused, "You know, swinger meet-ups...that's one way to bring libraries into the twenty-first century." Mr. E chortled and said, "Now that's what I call 'adult programming'!"

Tomorrow, I think I am heading out to a party in one of the beach towns of Orange County. I am somewhat apprehensive..what happens at these shin-digs? Cocaine? Roofies? Orgies? Togas? Word is that the person holding the party has transformed his tennis court into a dance floor. I can honestly say that I think this may be the most glamorous event I've ever attended. God knows what the hell is going to pop out of my mouth tomorrow night.

In all honesty, though, I think I have a strong hunch about what is going to happen. At some point, it's likely that I will disengage from the crowd, head down to the beach, settle into the sand, gaze out at the ocean and the night sky, and chase down eternity as I quote Sara Teasdale poetry in my head. (Ha! I am assuming this place is on the beach.) It's anti-social, I suppose, but some old habits die hard. That's just the kind of thing I do.

I am spending the evening relaxing, doing a little cleaning, and having myself a lovely glass of wine. Let me tell you, World Market is sympathetic to singles: they sell ideally-sized bottles of wine! (And never mind the fact that this is not fancy-pants wine).