It's here

Hardly any time at all to pour out a blog post, yet I have an urge to write.

Tonight it was deja vu. I sat in the upscale Italian restaurant near my office and sipped wine with friends in the dim yellow-orange light of the jazz bar, and it was just like all the times before and all the times that haven't happened yet. We are like a record that turns and changes and morphs, yet, at the end of the night, it's still the same song title, just a fusion-esque version.

And last night there I was, sitting next to a bright yellow wall of a divey sushi joint on Santa Monica and Barrington, munching and chatting with a favorite friend. I wore my flip flops and ripped jeans and Jesus!--when did LA happen to me? The check took too long and we sipped plum wine (far too sweet) and I felt as though I had just seen her and have hardly seen her at all.

Everything that has happened is happening again and it's better the second time around. In a nostalgic way, in a way that oozes reflections and thoughts. Think: leftovers. Ratatouille, so much better after the juices have sat a while.

And tonight, it's again, it's happening. The Maryland Kids have rung and right now they are on Wilshire, driving east, back to Brentwood. In just 10 minutes I'll be at their place and I'll have a glass of cheap wine with Aubrey and perhaps Matt will want to play a card game. We'll open the windows like we did last summer, like we did last spring, like we did last fall. I'll wear pajamas because I don't know how to arrive at their doorstep any other way.

And on Saturday morning, I'll be hitting that soiled and toiled wine trail of California's shining Central Coast once again. Is this the fifth time? Sixth? I can't keep count. I will wake up and there will be the gentlest of fogs hovering outside my bedroom window. My neighbors will be snoozing, most of them, and Infatuation and I will grab the best coffee in Brentwood, to go, and hit the road. We'll start on the 405, dip into the Valley and the weave in and out of green mountains and hills, vines as far as I can see.

Here we are again. It's spring time in Los Angeles.