A Return

So as most of you know, I spent the last week traveling through the Pacific Northwest.  It was an amazing trip, and I'm sure I'll be droning on and on about it ad nauseum in subsequent posts, but for now, I'd like to relay one little tidbit of information I gleaned during my adventure: the salmon run.

The salmon run occurs every year when salmon return from the ocean to swim upstream to the upper reaches of the rivers where they'll spawn.  But not just to any patch of river--the exact location where they themselves were spawned.  After four years swimming about happily in the ocean, these fish can recall with uncanny precision where they need to go when the time comes (an incredible feat considering I can barely recall where I was two Mondays ago).  If that's not amazing in and of itself, the salmon run is fraught with lethal peril.  In addition to the strong current are bears, eagles, and human beings who'd love nothing better than a delicious salmon snack.  In fact, most of the salmon won't make the journey to the spawning ground.  On some level the salmon run is depressing as all get out, but on another level, it highlights the supernatural magnetism of Home.

I thought about those salmon yesterday as I was moving into my new apartment in the San Fernando Valley.  Truth be told, I'd started growing apprehensive about the move from Long Beach to the Valley.  By any objective measure, beach living is superior to valley living--cleaner air, cooler temperatures, more outdoor activities. . . it's the beach, for Pete's sake!  And yet, the Valley is where I grew up; my own little suburban wonderland in the 818.  I can't describe exactly why, but just being here makes me feel comfortable in a way I haven't felt in a very long time.  Like I'm finally able to exhale after holding my breath for so long.

Anyway, it feels good to be back--the smog-filled air, the triple-digit heat--all of it feels right; like all the pieces are in order.  Everything is as it should be.  I guess unbeknownst to me I've been subconsciously drawn to the Valley all these years (perhaps even searching for it).  I'm hoping that this stop in my adventure lasts a while because I'm certainly looking forward to getting off the Road for a bit.  After all, what is it they say?  Ah yes, there's no place like Home.

--KM

"With so much drama in the L-B-C, it's kinda hard bein' Snoop D-O-double-G."

They Do

When I first met E, it was through the Dog Doc, as the two had become close friends while in school. At the time they didn't know it, but they were destined to fall madly in love with each other. As the universe moves in mysterious ways, it took a little bit of time for their friendship to blossom into something more. But it did.

Yesterday I had the privilege and pleasure of joining the Dog Doc and E as they celebrated their wedding. It was a simple affair without all the unnecessary trappings of your typical wedding. And yet, simple is not plain. Simple is elegant, thoughtful, and warm. Simple is spectacular. For the more you subtract that which is superfluous, the more you gain in intimacy. And of course, in the process, you allow the core of the moment--love--to shine through unencumbered; a pure white light of beauty, grace, and possibility.

The ceremony itself kept with the theme of intimacy. The bride and groom stood on the beach with their toes in the sand, encircled by family and friends in a ring of love. After some sage words from the Man of the Cloth, vows were spoken, rings exchanged, and then their first act as husband and wife--a kiss. Cheers went up from the crowd seconded by the roar of the ocean. When the two emerged from the circle, it was as something more than when they entered. And THAT is something truly worth celebrating.

Congratulations to two amazing friends as they embark on a wonderful adventure. May their true love illuminate the path forward.

-KM

"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."

Shy Guy Makes A Move

The Girl and I are at Seventy7, a dimly lit bar in Culver City.  As it's a Monday night, the place is very sparsely populated.  We're situated in one corner and in another sits a guy and a girl.  They're sitting somewhat upright and at a distance from each other with no physical contact.  Even from across the bar I feel the nervous energy radiating from their corner.  I can only assume that they're on a first date.

The guy is very physically fit.  You can tell he hits the gym on a regular basis, his muscles prominent beneath his blindingly-white polo shirt.  He's bald (head shaved clean), but not so that it's a detriment to his attractiveness.  You can tell that he's a very confident and successful person . . . but maybe not with the fairer sex.  On this particular evening he looks a bit out of his element.  Like the guy, the girl is also very physically fit--perhaps the two met at the gym?  She is dressed to impress.  A bit overdressed for this particular bar, but not for the moment.

Despite his impressive physique, the guy is a Shy Guy (I can spot my brethren from a mile away). Now, as a fellow Shy Guy, I am very concerned for his success and start to fret over whether his date is going well.  Having been in his position before, I can tell they're at the stage of the evening in which romantic fortune favors the bold.  Stage 1 of the date has gone well--a delightful meal and witty banter--and now the two find themselves at Stage 2, which in this particular instance consists of post-meal drinks at a bar.  I don't mean to put pressure on this guy, but this is the critical moment in their budding romance--where the girl is going to decide whether to keep Shy Guy in the pool of potential romantic interests or relegate him to the black hole from which there is no escape--The Friend Zone.  Knowing that Shy Guy is in peril, I channel all of my mental energy toward him; a laser beam of pure will--"Show her you're interested--DO SOMETHING!!!"

But Shy Guy does not stir.  Instead, it's the girl who makes a move (it would seem as though my aim could use some work).  She removes her jacket to uncover a very revealing top--a red sleeveless number with a low-cut neckline.  It is by no means slutty--not at all--but sends a very clear and very strong signal--"Hey, Shy Guy.  It's ok--I like you."  Now that the girl has broken convention and made the first move, Shy Guy has no choice but to act if he hopes to maintain this girl's interest.  And so he digs deep into the Shy Guy Playbook and . . . takes out his phone to show the girl something.  Now, for the un-Shy, this maneuver may seem somewhat strange, but it's actually quite clever in that it necessitates coming into close contact without being too forward or obvious about the whole thing.  Anyway, the girl accepts Shy Guy's invitation and, cheek to cheek, the two enter the wonderful world of cell phone YouTube videos (Chris De Burgh would've been proud).

Seeing that some type of move had been made, I turned my attention back to The Girl and lost track of Shy Guy and his date.  However, later in the evening I did notice that when they got up to leave they were leaving together.  Whatever videos were shown on that tiny cell phone screen had made this girl swoon.  Perhaps the two of them were now moving to a location with a bigger screen for more videos (at least that's what I would've suggested).  In any case, I was glad to see that this member of my Shy Guy fraternity had survived Stage 2 and would now be moving on to the next stage--"watching videos."  And by that I mean "dropping the girl off at her apartment, politely wishing her a lovely evening and then maybe--MAYBE--going in for a kiss on the cheek."

--KM

"I've never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight; I've never seen you shine so bright."

Blood, Sweat, and Yoga

So Day 1 brought with it an introduction to yoga.  And not just any ol' kind of yoga, but hot yoga.  The Girl and I went for an early-morning session in Santa Monica.  I won't lie; I was a little nervous about the whole thing.  I'm not the most physically fit individual on the planet, and everything I'd read and heard about hot yoga seemed to indicate that first-timers are guaranteed to pass out or, if they're lucky, simply vomit. 

Now, in the past I would've made up some kind of excuse to avoid putting myself in that type of situation--"I have to wash my hair" or "I have to sit around my apartment with the blinds shuttered and mediate on my navel." But something about The Girl inspires me to push the boundaries of my comfort zone, especially when it comes to things that challenge my body.  And so I stepped up to the plate for some hot, hot yoga action.

If you've never done hot yoga, it takes place inside a room that's heated to somewhere around a jillion degrees.  The stated purpose of the heat is to promote sweating (which serves to detoxify the body) and to allow for increased flexibility in joints and muscles.  However, when you add intense heat to an already intense experience--twisting and contorting the body in new and unusual ways--a natural and collateral effect is nausea and dizziness.  For me, everything came to a head at around the halfway mark of the session.  Suddenly the heat became overwhelming and my body wanted to throw up the white flag. 

But I couldn't leave the room.  Not that participants are prohibited from leaving, but I'd promised myself that I'd stay the whole session to maximize my first yoga experience (plus I wanted to earn brownie points with The Girl--hashtag egotastic!).  So after taking a knee through one set of poses, I took a deep breath and let mind overcome matter. 

I'd read somewhere that the power of yoga lies in its ability to let you to focus your mind in a way that allows your body to do amazing things.  And with that in mind, I turned my focus from the outer to the inner, disengaging my mind from the physical discomfort of the whole experience and focusing instead on the restorative process occurring to my body in invisible ways.  I won't be so bold as to say that I've unlocked the secret of thousands of years of Eastern thought (not even close), but my refocusing was able to prevent me from passing out or throwing up--no small victory.

Today, I'm sore as all get out in areas and muscle groups that I didn't even realize I had, but it's a good kind of sore.  It's amazing that the body can be so taxed by an endeavor that is so peaceful. A far cry from what is traditionally considered exercise in the Western world, activities based on aggression and the volatile explosive potential of the human body.  In retrospect, I think I've never been a very active person because those types of activities don't really suit my personality (plus I'm probably the least-coordinated person on the entire planet).  However, with yoga, I think I've found something active that I can enjoy without feeling like I'm completing a distasteful chore.  More than anything, I love the mind-body-spirit element to it.  Namaste, everyone.

--KM

"Honor your edge."

The End Is The Beginning

Today was my last day of work at the firm I'd been with since the conclusion of the bar exam four long years ago.  To be honest, it felt like any other Friday except that most Fridays I'm not cleaning out my desk and attending a farewell dinner.  I thought I'd be a bit more emotional about the whole thing--four years is a long time to be tied to anything--but I didn't get any pangs of sadness or anything as I shut down my computer and turned out the lights in my office for the last time.  

I suppose that says something about the job.  Or, at the very least, the state of my life the past four years.  Certainly a lot has changed during that time, but fundamentally I feel like I've been running in place that whole time.  You remember that scene in Garden State where Zach Braff is sitting still on the couch while the whole party is moving around him at a frenetic pace?  I feel like that.  Well, I felt like that.  Leaving work today left me feeling lighter--unshackled--and able to once again move at the proper pace.

I think a convenient way to look at life is as a book, and so it's safe to say that the end of this job signals the end of another chapter in my life.  A chapter burdened by the weight of circumstance and in which nothing of consequence happened to the protagonist.  My new job starts at the end of next month, so I'll have 30 days to . . . I'm not sure.  Part of that time will be spent moving and another part will be spent traveling.  The rest?  I suppose I'll spend it rediscovering some of the things that went abandoned these last four years.  In any case, it always feels good to turn the page; to start a new chapter.

--KM

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

The Kettle Makes A Wager

It's said that a kettle that's quick to heat up is also quick to cool down.  I don't know if there's any literal truth to this saying, but I do know that the tale of the quick-heating kettle describes a bad habit of mine.  I can be scattered at times and tend to move from one thing to the next pretty quickly.  I will focus all of my attention on something with laser-like intensity only to lose interest a short while later (it's a miracle this blog has lasted as long as it has).  This tendency is most pervasive when it comes to hobbies, but unfortunately it's crept into my romantic life as well.

There have been several girls who I was absolutely positively 100% sure was the girl with whom I'd spend the rest of my life.  I felt it with the burning certainty of Truth pretty soon into the relationship and would express this to the girl shortly thereafter.  I'd bare my soul to her and sell our relationship as a mighty redwood, destined for eternity.  The sale would work, and things would progress smoothly for a while.  Until that inevitable moment when the internal switch would turn to "off," and the passion would evaporate very, very quickly from the relationship.  And at that moment it became clear to both of us that I was no better than a used car salesman, the mighty redwood turning out to be nothing more than a feeble sapling.  A dud.  A lemon.  Of course, this was not my intention, but intentions are hardly relevant at that point.  

I've been thinking a lot recently about the quick-heating kettle.  As you know, I've met a wonderful girl with who I absolutely enjoy spending time.  It's only been several weeks, but it feels like we've known each other much longer than that.  There's a "click" between she and I, like two interlocking Lego pieces.  In the past, this is exactly the point where I would start "The Big Sale" to convince this girl that there exists something that doesn't (at least not yet).  I'm mature/smart enough now to refrain from that and have actually been trying to take the opposite tack here, focusing on just letting things develop organically without any unnatural interference from me.  And yet, organic has still resulted in a rather accelerated pace.  

Accelerated is not bad per se, but with my history, I worry.  Statistics and probability tell me that in all likelihood this relationship will end in failure.  History tells me that this relationship, organic or otherwise, is moving down the same ol' path of "hot-->cold-->fail-->solitude."  It's only a matter of time until I lose interest.  Again.  Tick-tock.  Tick-tock.  Tick-tock.  I'm just waiting for the clock to strike midnight and the bells to toll--FAIL!  FAIL!  FAIL!  

These are the thoughts that drifted through my mind while with The Girl yesterday evening, forming a dark cloud over our heads.  As the evening progressed, the cloud seemed to grow bigger and bigger, fueled by my negativity and doubt, threatening to unleash its chaos down upon us.  But while I was busy concerning myself with the cloud, The Girl had brought us to a bowling alley arcade for a nightcap of Street Fighter II.  As the quarters were deposited and the machine pleasantly "blip-blip'd" to acknowledged being fed, the cloud seemed to recoil and shrink a bit.  She selected Chun-Li and I Ryu.  The cloud recoiled and shrank again.  As the rounds progressed, as the two of us mashed on buttons and directed our avatars in spirited combat, the cloud kept shrinking and shrinking until it dissipated itself right back to where it belonged.  To nothing.

In our final match, as Ryu is getting his ass handed to him via helicopter kick, I look over to see The Girl's victorious expression matching that of her avatar on screen.  And at that moment another saying popped into my head:  

"Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being.  If not, leave this gathering.  Halfheartedness does not reach into majesty." --Rumi

That's not to say I'm about to revert to my old ways and declare, "THIS IS IT!"  No, nothing like that.  It's just . . . I won't be a prisoner to the past.  I think I've paid the penalty several times over for past transgressions (unintentional or otherwise) and have come a long way since those early days.  And I won't let fear of failure become a self-fulfilling prophecy either.  Of course, with that said, I realize that the outcome of this situation is far from certain and the odds remain stacked against me.  Failure is still definitely a very real possibility here.  But, so is true love.  And for that, I am willing to make a wager.

--KM

p.s.  Thanks to Double D for that Rumi quote.

"Luck be a lady tonight."

I'll Catch the Next One

Those who know me in the slightest know that I really really really really really like the Dodgers.  If "fan" is short for "fanatic," it's because of people like me.  I support the team through thick and thin, and take personal offense when others besmirch the Dodgers' good name (I'm looking at you, Giants fans!!!).  The team and I are joined at the hip in an awkwardly symbiotic relationship.  And it's for this reason that I try really hard to consume all 162 (that's right--one hundred and sixty-friggin'-two) games in the season.  Most of the time that means watching at home with only Vin Scully to keep me company.  In the off chance that I can't be in front of a television, I listen to the game on the radio or track the play-by-play on my phone.  Some would call this level of devotion unhealthy.  And normally I would agree but for the fact that without my attention to each and every game, the team's performance would suffer.  Clayton Kershaw wouldn't have won the Cy Young award, and Matt Kemp wouldn't have come oh-so-tantalizingly close to winning the MVP award.  And so, I considered it my duty to watch.

A strange thing happened yesterday, though.  The Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres by a score of 4 to 3, and I know this not because I watched the game, but because I checked the score the following day.  Truth is, I didn't watch or listen to one moment of the game.  Nor did I have any urge to check the score while the game was in progress.  I didn't forget there was a game, and nothing happened to make me forsake the Boys in Blue.  No, it's just that I had a more pressing engagement.

Last night The Girl and I met up to try our hand at homemade pizzas using store-bought dough and toppings with our own handmade sauces.  Hers was a delightful combination of pesto, prosciutto, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella that she conjured up out of her imagination (left); mine a bit more on the traditional side-- a "classic" margherita.  Going into the evening, I had a gut feeling that things would go smoothly, despite both of us lacking any pizza-making experience.  But upon consulting friends and the Internets, trepidation started to creep into my mind--"What's a pizza stone and do I need one?  What the heck is 'parchment paper,' and why does everyone say I will need one?  Will the oven get hot enough, and what if it doesn't?"  By the time we were fully entrenched in dough-kneading and sauce-making, trepidation had grown into anxiety--"the dough is oddly misshapen. . . the sauce doesn't look the right color . . . um, how are we gonna get the pies into the oven?"  Yikes!

But of course, as with many things in life, your gut feeling deserves your trust when it comes to new adventures, be they culinary or romantic.  That became clear upon taking out the first pizza, the margherita (right).  Not only did it look and smell fabulous (my crap picture doesn't do it justice), but in the process of baking it morphed into a shape that is suspiciously heart-like in character.  After that it was smooth sailing as unnecessary anxiety quickly melted away, and we enjoyed a lovely dinner of pizza, kale salad, and wine followed by some delightful conversation.  It was an evening filled with learning and discovery.  I learned that a hot surface in the oven for the pizza to rest is the key to a delicious crust and that a pizza peel is pretty key if you're thinking of scaling Mount Pizza.  And, I discovered that although I really really really really really like the Dodgers, there is something that I like even more.

--KM

"C'est si bon.  Lovers say that in France when they thrill to romance.  It means that it's so good."