I have a love/hate relationship with my area of California. On the one hand, this is definitely not a haven for young quasi-intelligentsia. Non-Starbucks coffee shops are few and far between, and more likely to be patronized by tired construction workers than apple laptop using hipsters. I recently discovered the only used bookstore in a fifteen mile radius. It isn't a particularly good bookstore...the prices are a bit high, the selection a bit low. My joy at the mere fact of its existence, though, was enough for me to start a gushing five minute conversation with the bookstore owner (he probably thought I was a crazzzy lady with an Asian cook book fetish). The movie theaters hereabouts are huge and well maintained, the libraries non-existent.

On the whole, this city is a bit of a cultural wasteland. And yet...the gentle ocean breezes and cloud formations and lush coastal vegetation really resonate somewhere in my soul. It's as if a whole tribe of mall-infatuated, tee-vee-watching, suv-driving troglodytes decided, on a whim, to set up shop in the garden of Eden.