Tag Archives: Vacations

Non-fiction

At Avila Beach

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Here I am, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to think about. It’s only a few days here. No big deal. I’ll survive.

I’m at a coffee shop, drinking an iced espresso because they don’t serve a cold brew in this small town. I’m in San Luis Obispo because the little town where my parents talked me into staying doesn’t have a coffee shop for miles, and it pisses me off why they would want to stay here. It doesn’t make sense why they would want to stay somewhere far away from civilization like this in California. But, like I said, it’s for a few days. I can live.

But anyway, I’m wearing my gray woolen coat because it’s cold out here in June. It’s sixty degrees, and my feet are freezing inside my deck shoes. But I’m not complaining, just a little bit.

I had a dream last night when my old friend, whom I don’t talk to anymore, gave a speech in a full auditorium about himself. And I sat in the back row. Don’t ask why I was there. I can’t control my dreams. But he was there to promote his book of poetry. I didn’t even know he wrote poetry. But it was a slap in the face to me. All I know is he talks on podcasts, performs music, and produces movies. Now, he wrote a book of poems, something I’d dreamt about doing.

I never went up to him and congratulated him because he doesn’t talk to me anymore, and it would’ve been super awkward to begin the conversation. And that was how the dream ended. He finished his speech about himself, and I woke up in the hotel room I was staying in.

It’s not really a hotel—it’s an inn. I could tell by the state of its closet, in which the walls are torn, but I’m not one to judge that the old inn needs renovation.

I left my keycards inside this morning. What do I tell the inn staff? I’ve done it before. I imagine I just tell them what happened, and they open the room for me. They’ll probably have to check my driver’s license.

So what am I going to do today? My mother said that I could maybe hit the tennis ball machine at the tennis courts they have in this little village, but there are no guarantees. Other than that, what else is there to do but write? I can’t find anything else here with my time. I’m turning forty-seven on Sunday. What does a forty-six-year-old do? I’ll just sit in here until they kick me out, which won’t happen.

I’m in a coffee shop in a shopping center. It has Wifi, which is all I need to save my material to a cloud in case I lose my computer. That’s what the cloud is for. I have my whole manuscript in there, so everything is where it’s supposed to be.

I ate so much yesterday. I began the day with an iced Americano, a cheese Danish that they never warmed up, and a peanut butter milkshake for lunch. I waited until dinner to have a cup of clam chowder and an order of fish and chips on the boardwalk. The clam chowder was creamy with lots of clams but mostly potatoes. My parents ordered a basket of sourdough bread, so I would dip the bread in the chowder as if it came in a bread bowl. And then I ate a small order of fish and chips. Small, as in, they gave me only two strips of fish with an entire basket of fries. The fries were battered, just like the fish, and I could barely stomach them. They gave me so many of them because it’s cheaper to serve fries than it is to serve fish. It would’ve been a whole hell of a lot nicer to serve a bunch of fish and only a few fries, but, like I said, they were cheap. That’s why when I go to an Indian restaurant and order chicken tikka masala, they give me two pieces of chicken and a pound of rice, or the same thing happens when I order orange chicken at a Chinese restaurant. Restaurants have to be cheap.

Anyway, I complain a lot. It’s why I write. Get used to it.

Non-fiction

In Goleta

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I arrived in Goleta last night at about six o’clock. The waves were crawling along the ocean as I drove by with the sun beating my face from the west on the 101. I’d driven four hours from the heat of Palm Springs to the cool of Santa Barbara County. The hotel room was waiting for me.

I checked in with a kid named Chuck, who was probably close to twenty-three. The lobby smelled like peanuts and beer. (It was next to a lounge where folks were laughing and chatting.) Chuck was a nice kid.

He said, “How’s’ your day going so far? It’s hot. At least it’s cool in here.”

It was seventy-two degrees in Goleta. I’d just driven from the hottest part of California, arguably.

“I live in Palm Springs,” I said.

His smile changed. “Oh. Okay. Are you parking here?”

What an odd question. Where was I supposed to park?

“Yes, I am.”

He handed me an air refresher in the shape of an old-fashioned Woody car that I could hang on my mirror. “This will allow you to park here,” he said.

I’d never been given one before, but I took it.

“Thanks, Chuck,” I said.

Chuck told me where to park. Like hotel staff people do, he showed me a map of the complex by drawing a curve to the right building. I thanked him and drove there.

I rolled my suitcase to the second level, which smelled like sanitizer. It was outdoors. My room was 270. It was above the pool.

I saw a few scantily clad women in bikinis at half past six. It was cool outside, and they were lying to get a suntan.

When I entered the room, I noticed the shade was transparent. Everyone could see me in there, but then I saw another shade that was made of bamboo. I rolled that one down so no one could see me.

I dropped everything off before I went to get my favorite pizza in town. Rusty’s Pizza Parlor brought me back to my youth when I used to eat the same pizza up north. I used to drive for them as a delivery boy in college. It’s some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. I ordered it with pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom, the standard pizza I always eat.

And then I took a shower. Whoever designed it needed their head checked. It didn’t have a shower door. When I went to turn it on, the water blasted out and doused my head before I could take my clothes off, so my shirt got wet. What a folly that shower was. At least the shampoo was peppermint, and the soap had the aroma of rum, of all scents.

Anyway, I went to bed at around 9:30 p.m., which is the standard time I go to bed, and I kept waking up in the middle of the night. I’m a bad sleeper.

I awoke to the smell of a dusty air conditioner before the sun rose and brushed my teeth in the shower. I wash myself at night and brush my teeth in the morning—that’s two showers a day. I also shave in the shower. It gets things done quicker and easier.

Then, I drove to my favorite coffee shop, the Old Town Coffee Shop, where the coffee beans lured me in with their distinct smell.

I ordered the iced Americano. The lady behind the counter told me to use a password on the receipt that was case-sensitive to use the internet. I waited about ten minutes for the one guy who was making the drinks.

The iced Americano didn’t taste like espresso. It tasted sour, and I didn’t like it. But I love this place not for its coffee but for its ambiance.

It’s huge, with a large back patio with orange canopies, a wooden fence surrounding it, and violets growing over it.

The white brick wall of the building next to it has a painting of two brown hands holding each other and swirls of green, dark blue, and light blue. It’s ugly, but most paintings these days are ugly anyway. I go to a museum and leave unimpressed. People just don’t have the time to make a good painting anymore.

But anyway, what am I going to do today? Eat. That’s what vacations are all about—nothing else. It doesn’t matter where I vacation—Switzerland.

“What did you do in Switzerland?”

“I ate.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t go on any tours?”

“Nope.”

I’m not the average tourist. I spend my time eating. Eating and writing. What else is there to do in Switzerland, Morocco, or Brussels? What else is there to do domestically in New York, in Key West, in Seattle? To me, that’s what vacations are all about. I’ll spend my time this week just eating, looking forward to the next glutinous meal.