Well I screwed this all up. I tried to gaze at sunrise but there was a thick dark grey helmet of fog like I’ve never seen before at the top of the mountain on my usual grassy mound. I think the clouds had gathered forces after a weather pattern from Hoboken read my blog and told them I’ve been talking smack about clouds. The sky was literally smirking and telling me to fuck off! Well, you’re not so smart you wise ass little gigantic fog storm. I can just check the weather report on my handy dandy phone right here and see that, oh yup, it’s going to be sunny tonight over West Hollywood for the sunset. So in your face you puffy little gang of collected moisture, why don’t you go rain on somebody else’s parade. I turned around, drove back down the mountain in a huff, and vowed to see the sunset tonight, so all was well. This was not to be so.
I was planning to sip some sun real quick at 6:55 and then head to the airport at 7:00 to catch a red eye to New York city to see a few friends and then head to my final destination in Connecticut to see my 8-month pregnant sister and her husband. As I was heading out I got absorbed in conversation with my ride to the airport and forgot all about the sun until we were cruising down La Cienega, top down, and the sun starts casting the deep orange glow that hits me like an alarm clock every day at sunrise and sunset now. I threw an “oh fuck” out there into the universe and thought okay I’ll do it at a red light. But it’s 2 minutes and thirty seconds, what red light is that freaking long (well there is actually this one light at six am that skips you sometimes and you have to wait forever, but that’s not the point.) The point is I was cruising to the airport to catch a flight and the sun was sinking lower every second. I managed to get 40 seconds of on the fly gazing in at the longest red light we encountered until a mini van pulled up beside us, between me and the sun. By the next light, poof, the sun was gone.
Night fell upon me quickly. I popped a marijuana candy into my mouth at security that I’d been saving for the flight, and forty five minutes later I was in dream land. I started this blog entry when I woke up and was interrupted by the busy-body flight attendant telling me to stow my gear for landing. Stow my gear. Fuck her. I was on fire here. But alas TSA flight regulations and my eagerness to get off the plane forced my hand. So I am finishing up this entry now as I sit in my pajamas (which I wore on the plane) on a bench in Brighton Beach Brooklyn waiting for the sun to rise because I am not going to miss it again! For the first time since my quest began I will be gazing on the East coast over the Atlantic Ocean. In my pajamas on a beach in Brooklyn. Freezing my ass off.
SIDE EFFECTS: Travel schedules must be planned around the sun’s schedule, because despite how much calm and tranquility she instills in me, she is completely inflexible when it comes to her sunrise and sunset appointments.
BENEFITS: I discovered one useful thing about red lights. Finally red lights have shown their usefulness for something.