Napa
01 July 2008 at 1:53 pm

The universe and I had a long chat on the way up to Napa. I left at 8am, having gone to bed at 5am, listening to a playlist featuring primarily Joy Division, The Strokes, Interpol, and some fantastic soul covers, and asked politely for a little direction in between stretches of screaming along with Ian Curtis. See, I've been asking the universe to help me figure out what it is I want nowadays, what I could be working towards. Today, it sent me this.

I left Napa this morning at 4am to make it to work by noon and missed rush hour traffic perfectly. Deliriously tired, the drive was one of my more entertaining experiences on the 101, with dance parties, little adventures to roadside fruit stands, and one vague attempt to order coffee without really being able to count correctly. I got a little lost in Buellton trying to find Solvang and ended up taking the 154 home, which features the San Marcos Pass, my absolute favorite stretch of road to drive. Coming down the hill, you're surrounded by forest and then you're hit with this panoramic view of the ocean after one turn, and you keep getting more and more glimpses of the entire town of Santa Barbara, and then you're there twenty minutes later. Also, do they do this in other countries, put up a little sign that says "Vista Point" to let you know that there's a nice view, if you feel like stopping, here's something pretty to look at? Because it tickles whenever I see that, and I try to stop just to appreciate the beauty of universal beauty.

In Napa, I have never felt more out of place, and I kind of make my living being a little bit off, yes? During our fancy dinner, the bartender sent me -- and only me -- a shot, when I think the management knew it was a bachelorette party and I was clearly not the lucky girl (she was sitting at the head of the table). "He just liked your hair," said the server.

At the bar afterwards, a random girl came up to me, waved her fingers in front of my face, and said, "The green hair. The green dress. I love it," and flounced away. I was just standing on the side watching a pool game, total wallflower style. One of the girls I was with said quietly, "Do you always get so much attention?" I nodded yes, slowly, just then realizing it's not all that common. Walking down the street with Kristie (whose latest beau asked her during their first hang out session, "So what's it like to be a hot chick?"), we stop traffic. I am used to the attention, and while I certainly seek it out -- the green hair looks awesome on me, but not as great as pedestrians coming up to you to flip out about how much they love it, because I seek approval from strangers -- I also think I handle it pretty well. Which is to say, I took my shot of Jameson, sipped on my Guinness, and kept my mouth shut almost the entire weekend, because I was there for Katie. Which is why I was the one in the parking lot hanging out with her as she threw up, and down there is what I painstakingly gathered after it was determined some of us were too hungover to taste any wine whatsoever. Sometimes I'm the girl you want to get the hangover with; this weekend, I was the girl you want the next day.

Nevertheless, and this could totally just be my paranoid, addled brain, but I felt badly that I couldn't blend in more, that I couldn't make those girls my new buddies, that I live so much in my own world I can't quite remember how to act when I'm in somebody else's, and I hadn't adequately prepared for the reality of spending a weekend with ten girls and knowing only one of them, and that one whose attention would be on demand the most. So I kept my mouth shut as best I could, which isn't very well, to be honest, and listened to the lives of people who really have it together, with jobs and boyfriends and weddings and buying houses, and now I am home, and now I am home, and now I am home.

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About me
Hi. Morgan, 27, of Santa Barbara, CA. I am a hypocritical admirer of rhetoric (when it is my own) and an observer of literary trends. A secret: I don't take anything very seriously, and that includes myself.