Even Now - Nina .

Even now when there's someone else who cares
When there's someone home who's waiting just for me
Even now I think about you as I'm climbing up the stairs
And I wonder what to do so she won't see
That even now when I know it wasn't right
And I found a better life than what we had
Even now I wakeup crying in the middle of the night
And I can't believe it still could hurt so bad

Chorus:

Even now when I have come so far
I wonder where you are
I wonder why it's still so hard without you
Even now when I come shining through
I swear I think of you
And how I wish you knew
Even now

Even now when I never hear your name
And the world has changed so much since you been gone
Even now I still remember and the feeling's still the same
And this pain inside of me goes on and on
Even now

Even now when I have come so far
I wonder where you are
I wonder why it's still so hard without you
Even now when I come shining through
I swear I think of you
And God I wish you knew
Some how
Even now


--

Miss you, Eric.
You're never forgotten.

Continuing California .

DAYS 3,4, and 5: SAN JOSE, SAN FRANCISCO, and MONTEREY BAY/CARMEL .

My memory's going to have to serve me the further and further away I get from the actual days of my Californian adventure. I'm 'behind' on my blogging, I suppose, but it's okay. The trip still had its noteworthy moments!

Let's see... after the MJ day of LA and resting, we left for the 5 hour drive (estimated time) from Los Angeles/Northridge area to San Jose (an hour away from San Fran).

After this past week of so, I've grown a great tolerance for really long car rides. I'll explain later. (I've never spent sooo many hours in a car before... driving to Canada doesn't come close).

Back to Cali. Being in a car, staring out into the desert/farmland that IS the majority of California... I realized how HUGE Cali is... and how NOT urban it is. Besides the major cities, it's all rolling hills, brown and deserted, horse-and-cow covered, full of cherries, strawberries, garlic and wine.

The car ride = downtime to think, to be introspective. My thoughts floated to friends and work back home...floated to Kentucky where my soldier was. Floated to Canada where my dad and brother are... both of whom I haven't seen since January. Floated to heaven, to another world, to a future life.

I passed by signs for a town called Hollister and laughed; stopped by a cherry stand in the middle of nowhere, reached the suburbia that is San Jose, and enjoyed the company of cousins who greeted me on my first night with some chocolate martinis and downtime.

The weekend was busy: San Francisco on Saturday, and Monterey Bay/Carmel the next.

I made many observations when around these areas, which were both about an hour away from San Jose.

SF:
- Beautiful. The BAY. A stretch of piers and events. Definitely need a car to get around to everything. The weather was chilly, and the place was CROWDED.

- Tourism included: Fisherman's Wharf; the Golden Gate; a tower to see the city from above; the world's crookedest road; and some gigantic palace thing (the name of which slips my mind, but I think I remember a planetarium being there or something).

- That palace was PHOTOSHOOT-filled. People were getting their wedding/engagement shots down left and right; actual wedding parties and sweet 16's were around, taking group shots. The best part was the shooting of a Bollywood film in front of the palace. Heard 'ACTION' and wondered if I was a tiny blurred dot in the background of the filming.

- The gay parade was going on during that weekend; I didn't get to see the festivities (must've been at another part of town).

- The roads there ARE of course insane; I'd LOVE to drive a manual there, just to see how I could handle it. I would not want to live there though... sorry, the idea of killing my brakes on the downhills and getting around in heels during driving rain/any weather for that matter... no thanks. Earthquakes? Definitely a turnoff. I felt very sad for this city - its fate will be decided by mother nature's wrath/natural occurrences.

- Had dinner in South SF - a part all on its own - at a cousin's house. A little more suburban for me, which I liked.

MONTEREY BAY:

- Very nice. This is THE place I want to take tourists if ever I go back there with friends/people who've never been around Cali. Seafood restaurants abound, an art festival going on, the water nearby... calming, charming, small-town feel. The sun was out for a hot 95, weather the locals at church said was unusually gorgeous and warm. Clam chowder vendors tried to lure people into their restaurants with their samples. I got a tattoo there - oh but don't worry, it's a henna of a dolphin made by a nice Indian lady who I found out grew up in Jersey. What a small world.

CARMEL:

- A small, rich community which was only a few miles from Monterey... a place where I experienced the odd phenomenon that is FOG. That's right, fog. What WAS 95 degrees and sunny in Monterey soon became 60 and foggy, cold and windy. And to think, these places were only a few miles away from each other... but the hilly community, once blanketed in fog, made the beautiful beach in Carmel a freeze fest. The many many people who were there - no doubt to soak up the sun - soon began to leave. A man flying a kite had some difficulty. That was highly amusing. My nieces buried my foot in the sand. The sand was cold. I was cold. My nephew and I discovered a creature which looked like a mutated squirrel.

- Nevertheless the community was nice, highlighted by its beach and small-town expensive shopping district. Drive a benz here and you'll fit in. A nice weekend escape town.

- Apparently this is the hood of Clint Eastwood. He was once the mayor here. [I watched Gran Torino when I got back to the LA area.]

- Went back to San Jose and ate at a Japanese restaurant with a real SUSHI TRAIN - that was awesome. Played some bball (though lazily) til the sun went down with my nieces, nephew, and cousin. Rested for the drive back to the LA area.

- We were going to take the coastal route instead, which would take longer, but would be more scenic than the inland route we took on the way up to San Jose. Plans were to stay in a sleepy coastal town called Morrow Bay, then finally make it down to the LA area.


Segway into the "to-be-continued" section.


To be continued.

Yours truly,
AB.

California, continued .

I had been meaning to blog nearly every day about my daily encounters in California, but I didn't have internet at my base in San Jose (where I stayed while in NorCal). On top of that, I was WAY too busy to actually have time to blog.

It's not going to be as detailed, but let me try my best to recall what I've done for the past week.

DAY 2: DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES.

It was a sunny Thursday, and I was ready to drive once again. This time, my destination was Los Angeles - the Hollywood stars and the fancy homes. I was under the weather, and so felt hindered; nevertheless, I made the relatively easy drive down to LA. The sun was out. Part of the street in front of the Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater were closed - the premiere of 'Bruno' was being set up.

After some walking and picture taking, I joined the LACityTours bus tour of Hollywood homes.
My tour time was scheduled for 1130AM, but it left around 12PM. After driving past many famous people's homes, seeing the Hollywood sign from a vantage point, the tour made its way down to Bel Air and that area.

ENTER THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY TRIP - seeing fire trucks and personnel outside of Michael Jackson's home. We didn't see much, and I certainly didn't expect much of it - at the time, I only thought it was a fire alarm issue or something... but there was a man who appeared to be a security guard shooing away a new set of paparazzi that had just arrived. Other cars drove in and stopped and looked; beyond the gate was an ambulance. Two asian onlookers peered in. Pro photogs tried to snap pictures. A 'really tall transvestite' (quoting my tour guide) appeared on the street. A woman left from the house and walked across the street.

I managed to get 4, not-so-impressive pictures. The rest, as described above, came from memory.

Later, after the tour, I really felt like crap, and so went back to my LA base in San Marino. My friend texted me in uppercase letters: MICHAEL JACKSON JUST DIED... to which I replied: Really? I was just at his house!

And thus began the onslaught of media that I STILL see today. My thoughts first flew to work, and how they probably went nuts over this. I wanted to call and tell them what I had seen, to forward them my 4 mediocre photos of fire trucks and his street's sign. I tried to send some, but the photos/email got bounced back. I realized I was 1. lucky to have been there but 2. probably wouldn't be the only one with first-hand photos. I later saw amateur video of what I had seen - someone sent it in as an iReporter thing - and I realized I was just ONE person with a camera at that moment.

I still wanted to feel a little like a reporter - and figured that it might not have hurt to try sending some photos. In the end, I figured it was my journalistic instinct and joy over being at MJ's house during such a momentous / memorable moment that caused me to NOT want to mix my experience with WORK. Some said, "sell the photos!" but I just wanted to tip off my company, my network.

In the end, I was just happy that 'coverage found ME' as a friend put it... and it was an experience I will never forget.

If I really wanted to go nuts, I would've asked to get off the tour bus, walk up to the house with my d90, shoot photos like crazy, and call it into my work. But I didn't - I didn't think much of it at the time - and I'm perfectly okay with that.

Ahh. That's all I thought about afterwards.. my journalistic instincts clashing with my feeling ill and the thoughts of MJ as marathons of his music played throughout the radio stations.

I laid down for the rest of the evening, tylenol'd and fighting illness (praying to God it wasn't swine flu)... and concluding day 2 with a nice italian dinner - salmon and spinach ... one of my favorites.

--

As usual, more to follow.