USA Email Series 14: Midnight bloodlust, broken glass, a ray of sunshine and alphabet bile‏

(First sent: 18th September 2009)

Good mornin' y'all,

Sometimes, when meeting new people, we look for common ground to establish a friendship. Perhaps a similar age, interests, sense of humour, midnight bloodlust - you know, the regular stuff. It's comforting to chat to a new acquaintance in terms you can both understand to get you both through the prickly issue of not actually caring one solitary toss about each other.

So it stands to reason that while travelling these skills, normally reserved for the odd party or evening out with an old friend and their new mates, become finely tuned. What with all the people I have met on my journey, I've become quite adept at picking up (and sometimes discarding) people along the way. It's a pretty big problem for me, especially as I hate everyone in the world (present company... actually on second thoughts, forget it) and would happily leave most people to burn to death if they were trapped in a house fire, only stopping what I was doing for long enough to reload my stick with another marshmallow.

So this week has been a haze of being super perky for the guests despite their irritating and down right disgusting habits, that I am forced to clean from the wall of the bathroom, whilst at the same time wishing them a lifetime trapped in a lift with Ulrika Johnson, Ed Gein and Joe Pasquale. Actually, I think that could have been the line up from an especially strong episode of Come Dine With Me.

I have to make sure that I run at least one event per week for the guests, so when I break out my Butlins Holiday Camp style cheese and premium game show host quips, they make me feel like the life and soul of the party. Little do they know, I secretly despise their cheery faces and am only able to keep myself entertained by secretly imagining the $10 or so I get for each event. Imagine that? $10. I bet your tiny mind can't even comprehend that kind of wealth. Ha ha ha, money, power, fortune, mine all MINE.

Oops. Sorry. I turned into a James Bond villain for a second there. Be still my beating heart.

Anyways, it stands to reason that after the four billionth conversation consisting of "where have you been? Where are you going next? What are you doing next? Blah blah blah zzzzzzzzzz", things might become a little tedious. Especially as it's always the same thing - down here, everyone has either come from LA or are going there next. It makes me howl, hearing people ask things like "what's vegas like?" As if anyone is going to say "well, you know, the weathers nice, but there's nothing to do.." JUST GO! As if anything I say about it will make a difference anyway. Feel free to drive there but don't wear your seat belt, and with any luck the brake cables that I have severed will cause you some "issues".

I've not just been a little ray of sunshine for this week, I'm like this all the time. For me, everyday is a new series of people trying to tempt me towards the idea of adding broken glass to the pancake mixture. My mood was not improved by a slight cold, of the type that makes you feel like poo for the first three hours of the day, then improves in the evening to the extent that you think it's all over. Then the next day, BIGGITYBAM, it's back, giving you the finger and yelling at you from the window of the snot truck. I very rarely feel poorly, and there was no way I was missing a shift, so I had to man up and deal with it. (I can't believe I just wrote "man up".)

However, generally, life is good and it's great to be living in California. Wait. Just a sec. I need a moment just to check outside the window to make sure that's true. Yes, I appear to be living in Califuckingfornia. Yay! My hair is even starting to get very light, as well as long, so it's surely it's only a matter of time before I turn into an official beach bum. If any of you catch me wearing white socks pulled up above my Converse All Stars and long board shorts, droning on and on about "hanging 10", etc, you have my permission to bottle me - or at least get me freakin' beer, dude. Sweet.

As for this weeks list of what I've been up to, here's some choice nuggets for you to chew over while looking outside YOUR window to see the same old dump. Ho ho ho. Go on, take a look... oh dear. Go on, you can cry. Let it all out. Now be quiet.

1. Got to know all the staff members on a trip to the water park which is on the boarder with Mexico. I wondered if anyone wanting to enter illegally might try their luck by sticking on a bikini, pole vaulting the fence and crashing down on the pile of inflatable rubber rings, before walking slowly away, a proud citizen of the US of A. Could happen. Beware!
2. Hung my Jolly Roger in the staff quarters to literally no response. Arrrrr.
3. Actually referred to a coke as "soda". Damn you America.
4. Visited the Midway aircraft carrier again. Still grey.
5. Had a charming afternoon sauntering the streets of San Diego. With the sun on your face and a nice breeze, there isn't much better.
6. Visited the 'living artist' museum in Balboa park. On entering, there were two old women manning the till who appeared to be old hippies who spent too long 'experimenting' in the sixties. But, when they looked me over and announced "it's free for English people today", I was fully delighted. The accent finally pays off, and it's with two ancient hags. Never mind.
7. Re-read Lonesome Traveller and, thus inspired, made an attempt at some Kerouacian prose/poetry myself. The results were at best disappointing, at worse, alphabet bile.
8. Lost my key to the staff room within ten minutes of receipt. Idiothole.
9. Led my first bar crawl around the happy hours of San Diego, after which, the blokes from Wigan decided I was their god and spent the remainder of their stay trying to make me their official events organiser. Good in a bad way.
10. Made some lovely meals - steak and homemade chips, stir fry, chicken. It's been a festival for the taste buds. It's very nice finally being able to do a 'big shop' and get stuff to last me longer than 24 hours. I am a sad man, but I love it.

OK, so that's it. You've made my life complete by your being here, although I have no knowledge of you doing so. More ramblings next week for lady and gent alike.

Thanks for stopping by San Diego.

Byeloveyoubye. xx

...Good to see that I wasn't getting cynical during my stay in San Diego. Actually, it was all a big smokescreen because I was having a whale of a time. The conjuring of elaborate metaphors for hatred were just a way to pass the time and amuse myself. Apart from the people who made a mess in the showers. Those complete gaping holes of people only inspire me to seek out their homes and nail dead animals to their garage doors and wait for the army of ants to devour their sad little hovels and stand at the roadside laughing at their confused, idiot faces when they wake the next morning to find their bedroom had developed sunroof technology overnight. Hmmm. It can't be healthy, all this, can it?...