Any Port In A Storm

Some two months ago, my roommate and I parted ways, he moving into an apartment closer to work by himself, and me then moving in with another friend elsewhere. I gather my former roommate has been quite content with his lot, and I can't complain too badly myself, but stability has not been my bag of late. The place I moved into then was temporary, and I am now easing out of there not into the permanent place as I hoped but into an even more temporary situation. That permanent place is for sure and I will have something to say about that, but today I contemplate the here and now. I've been going from one pop culture reference to another in an effort to adequately describe the nature of my recent living situation. I thought of Bruce Banner in 'The Incredible Hulk', Caine in 'Kung Fu', and Richard Kimble in 'The Fugitive'. All men on the move, constantly helping others in each new place, but never able to end their travails and settle down to find some peace.

I suppose it's not really so dramatic. Since I've come to LA, I was in a hostel for a month before living in my first real place for a year. I left there to live in the next place for two years, and now have moved for the second time in the last two months. I hadn't enough time to fully figure out the place I was just in, so there's little hope I'll be able to do that here in some ten days, but it's interesting anyway to make even a cursory examination of this place and neighborhood I'm in now. I haven't since college in Chicago lived in or near a city center, and while one could argue that downtown Burbank isn't exactly Downtown in the context of the greater metropolitan Los Angeles, it's a downtown. Just blocks south, there's a tremendous amount going on. Downtown Glendale could be a modestly-sized city center anywhere in the country, but Burbank's is slightly more reflective of the region. There are plenty of nice retail operations and restaurants. It seems to me the grocery stores are a bit distant for my liking, but one is an upscale one, so that's a reasonable trade-off. The library is pretty close, so that balances things out fairly nicely.

Pax Domi

I have developed socially quite a bit, and as a result am often either out and about with people or doing about the same at home. Each person has their public image and persona. My guess is that I project an image of a loud, animated joker always up for some good boisterous fun. That's substantially true, I suppose, but does not paint the entire picture. As is the case for many, there is the person I am while with people and under observation, and then there is the person I am when alone and left entirely to my own devices.

I would put it like this: I enjoy the thrill that comes from pitching and rolling on the open seas, but have no desire to live on a boat. No matter how much I break out of anti-social isolation in life, I will always crave the security and regularity of a quiet and still home which itself yields no excitement or surprises of any kind. I'm partly something like Roderick Usher, and so am perhaps unusually sensitive. This is surely shocking to people who have repeatedly found it necessary to chasten me for my own voluminous histrionics away from my home.