Greetings Earthlings! wow. How do you begin a narrative about a trip that has no end in sight?  I’ll start with the important facts. 

Ursus californicus was designated California’s official state animal in 1953. I am pretty fond of the (Oregon) beaver, but I love the California state flag, which for those of you who don’t know features a bear and a star. 

I am the new proud owner of two bus passes and a library card. 

I receive official work memos that make reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Rarely a day goes by that someone doesn’t explain to me that I am currently standing in a “microclimate.”

So far, this state has not disappointed. Things are burning, literally. I’ve yet to receive a paycheck, but have already been furloughed. Already a reference to Black Delilah in the papers. Already I’ve seen a one man show on Buckminster Fuller! In all seriousness, there is something comforting about moving to a place in turmoil because you feel that your own inner turmoil is not out of place. 

It occurred to me shortly after we moved here that I’ve been studying this state my whole life. I think it is entirely likely that I’ve voluntarily read or seen more histories of California than of any other place, beginning in high school with Helter Skelter. And since then, Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon, Mike Davis, City of Quartz, Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, Rebecca Solnit’s River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power, Nicolas Sammond, Babes in Tomorrowland: Disney and the Making of the American Child.  And that’s not even counting movies or Vanity Fair!

Every U.S. state has a brand and the first time you visit a state, you realize that you were already familiar with its brand even though you’d never been there (I know you think Arkansas doesn’t have a brand, but if you actually went there, you would realize that it does and that somehow it has already imprinted itself on your brain). But my knowledge of California goes well beyond brand recognition. I’m not saying that’s exceptional. It actually makes a lot of sense given the amount of entertainment this state produces. But it is strange to realize. It’s like, analyzing California is what we do to make sense of anything. Like, if we could make sense of California, we could understand the significance of this particular moment in human history. Or is that just me?

Don’t get me wrong! I appreciate the hubris. I’m only trying to figure out why I would already know so much about a state that I’d never even been to until this year (if you don’t count the time I went to Disneyland when I was three). 

Reading back over this post, it sounds so star struck! There is one odd thing, though. For all I knew about California, I never knew there was a Tomb of the Unknown Surfer in Santa Cruz. Amazing.