5.0

Here I am! Officially a habitant of the City of Angels. And boy, so much has happened, and it's not even my first whole day!

The whole trip went off without a hitch - I flew into Atlanta, caught up on all the awesome messages you guys sent me, then set off for Los Angeles. The flight there was wonderful. Not one baby cried, I had a great lunch, and the plane was decked out with stuff to do. You have to pay for most of it, of course, but I was impressed all the same.

There was complimentary cable television, so I caught some Daily Show and Colbert Report as well as cruising A&E, Food Network and the 12 music channels they supplied. There was even HBO! No True Blood though, but enough Big Love and The Wire to choke a person. There was even games to play, the only free one being a trivia game you played with other passengers on the plane. That was hard, but funnnn. Nothing like beating the pants off people and taking note of their seat on the screen to make sure they can't give you the evil eye.

They offered movies to watch too which I was tempted to do since it was a 5 hour flight, but I refuse to pay 6 bucks to watch either something I have no desire to see or something I already seen and/or own. But dude. They had Tropic Thunder. It was difficult to pass up my boy RDJ rockin' it like it ain't nothin' but a thang.

The crew was awesome and even made some pretty funny jokes on that flight and besides the nosy, squirmy, worrywort of a woman I sat next to it couldn't have been better.

Actually, I am now remembering a few things that went awry - one of my bags was 6 pounds overweight so rather than paying 90 bucks (yes, 90 bucks for 6 pounds,) I pulled out my tote I brought for just an emergency. But I already had the max of carryons, so I stuffed my backpack with my purse in it into the thing as well. As I tried to stuff it all in I succeeded in bending my nail back under the quick, which is still covered in a bloody bandage and hurts like hell. I then spent the rest of the day sweating and lugging this overly huge bag around while having to avoid anything that involved my left index finger. That encompasses WAY more than you think.

After going 3 times through the security x-rays due to my laptop and bag, I was the last one on the plane in Columbus and had to watch as people putzed and dawdled, holding up the dozen of us who still needed to stow and get seated. Why it pushed my patience was because a soldier in front of my with a broken leg was crutchless and having to stand there on one leg and balancing while these idiots stared and blinked at the overhead compartments like a monkey doing a math problem. The guy just wants to sit down and go home to NC. Put your bag down and sit your ass in the seat, already. His foot looked like Frankenstein's foot. I was aching for him.

Anyway, that was the trip. All in all good, wouldn't you say? When I got off the plane the sky was overcast and a little chilly, but just about perfect for me. Kind of like fall. The air smelled like water, clean, which is SO weird considering this is LA, and I will officially state for the record that LA smells 100 times better than NY on a good day. My friend Alex picked me up and we set out to try and get me to AMDA to try and drop off the bulk of my stuff, but after 3 hours in LA traffic and missing exits we said fuck it and headed for her place. She lives near LA in Long Beach, and her apartment is adorable, as is her boyfriend. It was a nice, quiet evening filled with searches for chinese deliverymen and the knowledge that the ocean is 10 minutes away from me.

Except for the earthquake.

Yeah, you heard me, the earthquake. In the middle of dinner there was a BOOM!, followed by the apartment feeling like it jumped over a few feet and Alex's cockatoo busting out of her cage in fear. I had NO idea what had happened and must have looked the perfect sight of shock, confusion and amusement. Jim looked at me, picked up the bird and smiled.

"Congratulations, that was your first earthquake. Welcome to LA."

It never occured to me I'd be feeling earthquakes. I've had so much on my mind just getting here that it completely slipped my mind that the state is more or less a fault line. My adrenaline took a long time to subside, let me tell you. But it was extremely thrilling, at least since no one got hurt.

I guess the highest it went was a 5.0 in San Bernadino, which I guess is decently far away. No one was hurt. The news was all over it though, zooming in on a tipped over salsa bottle in a grocery store and a fallen can of Pringles. Alex assures me this is a relatively rare occurence, so I guess it was just LA welcoming me to it's playground.

I'm now stretched out on a particularly comfy hide-a-bed, half-dead but amazingly very conscious. Alex and her boy are in bed and their cats are checking me out with caution. It's not much different from life in Ohio today. Tomorrow we're meeting up with a friend of Alex's we call Xee, (cuz her name is Alex too,) and mayhaps indulge in a bit of drunken Wii.

I've cried and missed you all before I even left the ground in Ohio, and please don't hesitate to call. I will be keeping up as best I can. Life is nowhere near close to slowing down, but I am thinking of every single one of you and hope to talk to you soon.

Love and Blessings, all. Viva Los Angeles!!!