countessian

“i’m NEVER going back to Yucca Valley in my life”

OK, let’s backtrack to what I wrote last Sunday night [I keep telling the same days over and over in different words]:

So, we’re back in Echo Park but 24 hours ago I was laying on my back in a car seat watching the stars out the window, [mush]ruminating on the 24 before that and where I’d start writing. I didn’t pick the movie. I haven’t watched it for years but that one scene, oh God, I dreamt it with different people cast and it won’t stop replaying, but I didn’t pick the movie, I swear. There’s something about motels I can’t get out of my system.

Anyway, everyone keeps picking movies and books and topics of conversation that’ve been swimming through my dreams for weeks. Why? It’s one of those “wow, what a coincidence” times in which I pay far too much attention. Of course I’m seeing the things on my mind everywhere, they’re on my mind. Wait, though: there are so many this time. The movie’s one thing, other people’s mescaline trips are something else entirely.

“I drive cars that shift themselves.”

Friday was a frantic mess of finishing a story that may well be the worst thing ever written. They should fire me for this one. Anyway, off we headed, liquor and all (no food) to the Hi-Desert, California. I lost my sunglasses in Calimesa or somewhere nearish. On arrival in Yucca Valley we queued to check in and were approached by the obviously plastered middle-aged blonde with suitcases and two pillows blocking the path to the sofa.

“Are you heading up to Pappy & Harriet’s?” she said. We all paused for a min.

“Yes?” said Sally Fay.

‘”Can I get a ride with you? I’m staying here tonight. I was there last night. I have a broken heart. My heart is broken. I’m sleeping in a hotel! Oh my God. Tomorrow, I’m getting a UHaul and getting my stuff out of here. Tomorrow! I’m getting a UHaul and driving my stuff back home to San Francisco, and I’m NEVER coming back to Yucca Valley in my life. I’m NEVER falling in love again. Well … … … … no.”

Sally Fay said “uh, sure”. The woman wandered off. We made it to the front of the queue and the motel woman said “excuse me” to me before answering the phone.

“You’ll be late? How late’s late? Oh, that’s not too late. That’ll be fine. What name’s your reservation under? How do you spell that? R – E – I – H – E – L.” (Sally Fay and I start laughing, “Hi Michelle!”) “Sounds like you’ve got some friends here, waiting for you.” We didn’t ask how late’s late, but we took our keys and drove around to 164. It took a while to get the liquor out the boot, and then the keys didn’t work. We sent SF back to check and thanked whatever makes the sunshine shiney for keeping it down to 101 just for us. We were in 162, somehow.

[At this point I should allude to my previous time in Yucca Valley, which was New Year’s Day and technically a third date. I was 22. It was my first desert trip and it felt like cracking open a treasure chest. We shopped. I still have my purchase. By the time we were back in Los Angeles, we were done dating.]

London dresses look good in the desert. You better like sand if you going to wear dirty silver ballet shoes, though. I had cat ears perched on my head but was the only person sober. I ran around a lot trying to find a place that wouldn’t irritate me like the sand through the holes in my flats, but the lack of tolerable company was second only to my lack of appropriate footwear.

Girls giggling as they tried to suck the mushrooms from between their teeth grated every nerve in mine (it seemed funny enough by Saturday, but Friday was a bust) and I wandered antsy and purposeless until my synapses pricked up their ears and sent me beelining for the last person I should target, but I could feel him adrift and suddenly felt like the world’s strongest swimmer. The desert scares me like the forest, almost (though my city-girl-sucker tide wanes a little more with every quiet moment), so managing someone else’s paranoia felt something like pleasant for a while. It got tiresome, of course, but to be frank it probably kept me out of trouble.

At some point I was standing under the lit-up motel sign by the road with my minidress whipped up frothy with dust for cinnamon sprinkles feeling tired and very old and firmly rooted to the earth when suddenly Von No ran out of his own paranoia and gleefully began rifling through mine, to my astonishment. He started with the basics, like what’s the good being the fancy rock photographer girl if when you’re standing in a whirlwind in the desert dirty kneed and tangle haired with cat ears by the roadside if no one’s there to take the picture? I can handle that one, it’s bunny-slope stuff, you just say “it’d never turn out as good as you think it would” and move on.

Then it started getting weird, what with quoting stories written by entirely unconnected third parties and having quite reasonable explanations for why I surely must’ve written them when I know for a fact that I didn’t but of course don’t have any proof tucked up my sleeve because my sleeves blew away hours ago and all, and I ended up in sober tears of astonishment that stung all the more because up until thirty seconds ago I was supposed to be the sane one.

[At Little Radio Summer Camp, back in this sprawl that I vaguely call “home?” for the moment, I walked over to Heather and she said “I saw you over there, but I didn’t come over. I just told all the boys I was with that you were amazing, instead.”]

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm. It is filed under documentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.