SAN DIEGO, CA-

The Nervous Breakdown’s new car smell is almost overpowering—hold on a minute while I wait for the nausea to pass.

Ahem.

Well.

San Diego has gone crazy this week, and it’s not just because of the ComiCon wreaking havoc on traffic and the greater Gaslamp area. For whatever reason there has been a plethora of oddities, an embarrassment of riches in absurdities, sights that, when I try to explain them, are just too out there.

Ordinarily, I’d photograph them for proof. Alas, Michael has the camera in South Carolina.

Here’s what you’re missing:

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

When I found out there is a place where you can cut your own Christmas tree AND hand-feed kangaroos and wallabies, I forced my parents and husband to go.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

Time to pay.

That’s right. Time to pay for holiday gifts. (Or rather, time to buy
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SAN DIEGO, CA-

The fires are mostly out, the air has mostly cleared, the city of San Diego is returning to a new normal.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

The sun sets over Lindbergh Field on Oct. 23, 2007.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

Those few little fires I wrote about on Sunday night have multiplied and grown and ravaged somewhere over 300 square miles of land and over 1000 homes throughout Southern California.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

This was the view out my window Sunday:

The Coronado Bridge, rising from the two towers to the new Hard Rock Café Hotel Condo building, usually sits in the middle of that image.

The bridge is still there, I just couldn’t see it through smoke thick enough to make my eyes burn and my throat raw.

That’s right, Southern California is burning again. (more…)

SAN DIEGO, CA-

Leroy Groves, 16, a reader of lurid literature, during night stabbed to death his sister Ida, aged 2, and (more…)

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA-

You may recall, if you have a long memory, that I was coming down with a cold just before we made the jump from New Zealand to Australia.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

The strangest thing someone said to me on Thursday was, “Excuse me, can you hand me a bacon?”

I did, in fact, hand her a bacon.

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NEW ZEALAND-

“This would be a great place to hunt Hobbits,” I said to Michael as we walked down a woodsy path at the Auckland Domain.

“Not Hobbits,” he said. “Ewoks.”

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

In the interest of pairing down on the amount of junk I carry with me through life, I recently came upon a box I hadn’t opened in years.

My letter box.

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WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND-

New Zealanders, who refer to themselves as “Kiwis” without giggling, speak with perfect diction.

They enunciate clearly.

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MAUI, HI-

About three weeks before our Grand Adventure, Michael decided to become a certified diver.

And so, now he is.

I am not.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

About a month ago I was casting about the ocean in my mind for my next Nervous Breakdown.

I thought it might be fun to revisit some of the topics I had posted over the last half-year-plus.

The idea quickly struck me as gimmicky but I didn’t give up until I tried really hard to make it work.

Nope.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

All you need to know before you read on:

The summer I graduated from high school I played Grace Farrell in a Bellevue Youth Theater production of Annie.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

Following our trek to the beach (by now stale news) I took Martyn to Shakespeare Pub & Grill.

There’s some question as to whether there’s an “apostrophe s” at the end of Shakespeare and the web page has it both ways.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

I know Martyn.

Martyn knows me.

And because of writing deadlines met, emails to Agent D sent, other projects that will actually pay me money not quite contracted and the absence of any real need to pass my time doing laundry or cleaning the apartment or listening to the construction noise that wafts through the skylight (weirdly, but truly), I picked him up on a Thursday afternoon.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

On Friday morning, January 21, 2007, my friend Giavanna died.

Perhaps you can imagine how horrible I find that.

How incomprehensible.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

Money

To Visa: 0

To Mastercard: 0

To American Express: 0

To Mitsubishi Motor Corporation: 0

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