I live in a one bedroom apartment in Los Hideous. I was born in Southern California and, except for a year and a half when I was very little and lived in Japan, lived here all my life. My best fiend lives in a two bedroom house in Northern Washington. Another friend lives in a two bedroom house on the Olympic Peninsula. My cousin lives on a lake. My apartment has sheetrock walls on the inside and stucco on the outside. Their houses have sheetrock walls on the inside and the outside is wooden. When I go outside, it’s often hot here. It’s often muggy. Not New Orleans muggy, but noticable. In Washington it’s cold and damp. Personally, I prefer cold and damp. It’s bracing to go outside when it’s 40º. The dew and the dripping plants are beautiful. The trees everywhere I look are lovely. Here, all I get to see is concrete. Up north, everything is green. Here, everything is brown. I don’t much care for brown.
People tell me I’ll hate it in Washington. “It rains all the time.” Well, yeah. That’s why it’s green. I like rain. I like cold. I remember when I was a kid in San Diego. I remember how hot it would get, and how I hated it. Ironically, I didn’t mind the heat when I lived in Lancaster. But then, the place was wide open and I’d ride my Enduro all over the place or tool around in the Willys. And I still prefered the winter, when the temperature would get into the low teens.
I liked riding my motorcycle. I liked visiting my grandparents in Oregon and exploring the logging roads. I like camping. I like getting on a ferry and riding it as it winds its way through tree-covered islands. I like being warm in my pea-coat while the cold wind bites my face. I like freshly smoked salmon.
California is about 900 miles long, from end to end. A long drive will get me to Mexico or Nevada. I have no desire to go to Mexico, and I’ve been to Las Vegas more times than I can remember. Washington is only about 250 miles long. A driver there will take me to Oregon or Canada. Portland, Vancouver (B.C.), Victoria, Lake Okanagan… Ah, these places interest me.
Los Hideous has beaches. Mountains and deserts are “nearby”. But “nearby” is relative. Why would I want to drive two hours or more to go to The Mountains when I can have a whole state that is green? And I have no need for a beach. “Catching rays” is boring. Just lie there? Uh-uh. Not for me. Give me a chilly morning and some bacon sizzling on the stove outside of the tent, with the espresso pot hissing on the old brass Svea 123.
I have a river just a block away. It’s a river of concrete that stretches from Santa Monica to Florida. But the sound of traffic is not what I want. I remember spending a night with a girl in New Orleans in her apartment near the river. Fog horns was what I heard there. I can’t tell you how much better that sound is than an unmuffled Harley. At my friends’ houses in Washington nights are quiet. Very quiet. And dark. Turn off the light and you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Nothing but the glow of the numerals on my watch. Quiet. Still. Dark. How do I sleep in the racket that permeates L.A.?
Friends are important. I get up and fight the freeway and go to work. Then I fight the hot, sweaty freeway home again. And I’m in my apartment. My friends are 1,200 miles away. People in L.A. aren’t friendly. You can’t just go up and talk to someone because everyone thinks you want something from them. In New Orleans, you can chat with a stranger and pass the time of day. People aren’t that friendly in Washington, at least in my experience. But better than here.
And now the house my sister and I inherited in Westminster is sold, or nearly so. My half will be about $125,000 after fees. The Trust will pay the taxes out of our halves of the sale. (Taxes should be on the difference between the selling price of the house and the value of the house when dad died, minus expenses. So the tax should be on about $30,000.) The remainder will be enough to live on for three or four years. But I want to invest it. I want to have a good job in Washington so that I don’t have to spend my inheritance.
And then there’s my job. I’m a respected part of the department. I like writing Easytrieve Plus programs. I like finding solutions to problems with the data. I like hearing, “That looks good! Thanks!” We have an office in Bothel, WA, but they won’t let me work remotely. Too bad. It’s a good job, and I hate to leave it.
But I’ve wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest since I was about 12 years old. Los Hideous is killing me. I take antacids every night when I’m here. Post-nasal drip drowns me. No drip and no need for antacids when I’m up north. Must be the clean air washed by the frequent rains, and just being somewhere I like. No vast seas of concrete and asphalt.
People think I’m mad to like rain and cold weather. People say that I’m living in Paradise and I’d be crazy to move. They say I’ll get tired of the rain and the cold. Maybe. But it’s sunny and warm more often in Western Washington more often than it’s rainy and cold down here. So it’s a better “mix”. It’s said that without evil, good has no meaning. Without rain, what use the sun?
My temperament is suited to the Pacific Northwest. It’s not suited to hot sunny days. Weather is interesting, and we don’t have a great enough variety here.
I must leave here as soon as I can. Now where’s my kayak…?
(Oh, I heard the “peso” joke from a Canadian – in Canada.)