Sometimes, you have story ideas while you’re lounging in the party pavilion. Sometimes, you may have had more than one but less than three gin and tonics that night. Because you’re old enough to know that you will not, in fact, remember that idea later, you make a note. More specifically, you e-mail yourself the note.
Most of the time, you include enough detail in the e-mail to make it clear what the hell you were talking about the next morning. Sometimes, sadly, you do not. Sometimes you only get as far as the subject line, which reads, “the California visit",” and for the life of you, you cannot remember what the hell this means.
Really. This is all I have.
You try to re-construct the meaning from the note you sent yourself just before that, which reads, “a musician or another artist thinking about the great distance from capitalism and the centers of the world.” Right. How did that lead to a California visit?
You go back to the book you were reading that night. A murder mystery set in the 40s at a circus. Does that have anything to do with California?
You spend many idle minutes for the next two days trying to uncover the kernel of the California visit from the ruins that is the inside your brain. If you had the idea once, you can have it again, right?
But, no, sadly, not. The California visit is destined to die on the heap of ideas that were lost and never recovered. That’s how it goes.
Unless you can save me, dear friends. What do you think? What exactly was the California visit about?
A Midwest girl longs for the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, desperate to flee her slow, boring town in Flyover Country.
She does a tour of several colleges in California to find it to be beautiful, yes, but largely just a louder, busier version of everywhere else she’s been. Turns out, being able to do whatever you want whenever you want isn’t as enticing as it sounds after a while. She didn’t think about the trash or the traffic or the ludicrous cost of living.
After realizing she get a decent bowl of ramen in Louisville, or Columbus, OH, or any other mid-sized city she ditches the California dream and goes to somewhere that isn’t literally on fire and focuses on being part of the community.
I am feeling this post very much. Zach and I have learned the art of writing our genius ideas and conversations down. Also, my notes app is full of random goodness I need to remember like a note to myself from 2014 that says “Keep in mind: always be that girl that Jack White wants to marry”
That is the best quote! When I was in college I would make lists after heavy drinking nights. Once I wrote, “Need to leave Millsaps.” Still don’t know what that note was about, but no one’s found a body yet!
A Midwest girl longs for the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, desperate to flee her slow, boring town in Flyover Country.
She does a tour of several colleges in California to find it to be beautiful, yes, but largely just a louder, busier version of everywhere else she’s been. Turns out, being able to do whatever you want whenever you want isn’t as enticing as it sounds after a while. She didn’t think about the trash or the traffic or the ludicrous cost of living.
After realizing she get a decent bowl of ramen in Louisville, or Columbus, OH, or any other mid-sized city she ditches the California dream and goes to somewhere that isn’t literally on fire and focuses on being part of the community.
I should write a Lifetime movie...
This is definitely Lifetime movie material, though you need to throw some romance in there. It's always pretty on-brand for me.
I am feeling this post very much. Zach and I have learned the art of writing our genius ideas and conversations down. Also, my notes app is full of random goodness I need to remember like a note to myself from 2014 that says “Keep in mind: always be that girl that Jack White wants to marry”
That is the best quote! When I was in college I would make lists after heavy drinking nights. Once I wrote, “Need to leave Millsaps.” Still don’t know what that note was about, but no one’s found a body yet!
To be absolutely sure, I think a fun trip to San Francisco or Sonoma wine country is needed.
That sure would be nice.