Month: November 2014

     Last Spring I enjoyed lunch in Santa Cruz with an learned, conscientious relative of mine, who is an uncomfortable transplant from the East Coast into Northern California, and who occasionally feels compelled to justify herself before a kindred spirit. Since I was myself a transplant from Southern California onto the stones of New England–a metaphorical reversal of her journey–, she sometimes has this idea that I possess a native understanding of her shame: she actually likes California, with its eternal sunshine, its sensual beaches, the endless mild summer days, and vineyards everywhere. Everyone is mellow, or tempted to be, which she instinctively mistrusts as a shallow, unconsidered, inadequate response to the dire state of the world–which everybody on the Northeastern Seaboard knows is better served by angry competitive sarcasm, and a sort of crowbar analysis that pries into every aspect of daily life. There are too many dudes in California. Continue reading “Thresholds”