I have BBQ and Blue Moon in my stomach. All is well; I'm just a creature sitting happily sedated amidst the Orange County trench in this windy sea.
A plane drones overhead. A spider scurries over glistening tiles. Dogs bark, children laugh, crows call in the distance. It feels good to just experience for once. I've spent so much time analyzing, buckling under the sorrowful data.
Two hours earlier we were walking a trail in the Yorba Linda hills, treated to a view of Carbon Canyon. There's beauty in the landscape, and then my wandering, rapturous gaze meets the affluent housing strips.
Manufactured mansion after manufactured mansion, all painted and shaped slightly differently to feign diversity. Some are slapped with halfhearted attempts at ornamentation, such as Greek columns and Spanish shingles. Beveled glass and water fountains greet sloppily parked Hummers and Mercedes cars, and starkly conformed backyards contain basketball and tennis courts, cabanas, mounted TVs (as if this is necessary), and statue-lined swimming pools. I realize this is the manufactured American Dream. This is the manufactured high rollers' paradise for sale to whoever can afford to live the dreams they've seen on MTV.
Endless loops, spiraling upwards, propel the wealth ever higher. As the mansion becomes mass manufactured, the truly opulent must concentrate even more wealth into outperforming the newly rich buyers. It is in this way that more and more wealth is concentrated upwards, into further absurdly cosmetic excesses.
Meanwhile, the poor lay piled in the valley in trailer homes, the windows facing each other, blinds drawn for lack of a view. The gutters route the dog and horse manure to the cesspool below.
I try to be friendly on the trail. With these thoughts swirling in my head, I would be a direct enemy of all the uniformly white people I pass. My hair is long and my sunglasses and hat speak of me as some sort of deviant. I smile and say "good morning," and they strain smiles back, understandably. My mother, who is with me, eases them with her white suburban appearance. She smiles and laughs and greets them and talks about dogs. Thank goodness for that. I couldn't shake the feeling that I simply wasn't supposed to be there. Which is sad.
Oh well. You could go mad following these thoughts down their dimly lit avenues. It is impossible to tell what went on in these people's minds for sure. I could read the houses, the accumulations of mass produced cosmetic wealth, and come up with reasonable conclusions based on the state of the economy. But it is impossible to tell what these people are thinking. How they would justify themselves.
Best to stick to my Blue Moon, my BBQ, my softly sedated sway. Stop thinking so much. Just continue to do what I think I should be doing.
