It is time I tapped out another blog entry.
(Not "penned," as I am actually tapping on a keyboard. It's not even Clickety-click-click-click-clickety, like Hemingway's typewriter because I have one of those "chicklet" keyboards because it's the only bluetooth keyboard I could find--as I got tired of all those wires snaking across my computer table--and it has those little square slightly raised, flat-topped pads with the rounded corners--like a chicklet!--and with each keystroke makes a little dull tapping sound accompanied by the slightest bit of tactile feedback, a little tactile *pop* for my fingers to tell my brain that, yes, I believe that letter has been sent on to the highly technical, silently whirring guts of the computer at my feet.)
I have been in California for awhile now. Weeks, not months, having just recently completed the move, and at some unidentified point, really, became a California resident. Again. I'm being careful, because I have just a few days to get my driver's license and register my car, once I am a resident, even if it is difficult to do in one quantum step and imagine that you could point to the calendar and say, here, here is where I became a Californian. And of course as we all know, it is more a state of mind, and so a kind of sloppy, analog process accompanied by an imperceptible but relentless shift of perspective.
I have been thinking about the cultural differences between the Midwest and the West Coast, between Mizzerruh and NorCal. There are some. For example, the downtown hipster haven of River Market in Kansas City is probably more liberal than the agricultural parts of the central valley in California. This sort of surprised me, sort of didn't. I'm in a college town now, still, so I don't feel much difference anyway.
There are greater differences in the way people drive. Since I'm not in a big metro area, really, I guess people here can afford the luxury of being courteous. They are. It's kind of strange, but for the most part, the Californians I have seen are more courteous, less aggressive and competitive than drivers in Kansas City. That may just be the difference between city (Kansas City) and rural (Butte County, CA) but I think it has to do with the heightened awareness of the pedestrian and the bicyclist. As a pedestrian a lot of the time, I have had to adjust to this. I'm used to standing on a street corner in Kansas City with one foot on the roadway, waiting for a break in traffic so I can cross as drivers, you know, whooosh by either not looking at me at all, or throwing me withering glances, if not the universal phalangial salute. Here, in California, if I get within a couple feet of the curb, drivers from all directions may (may) slam on the brakes so as to let me safely cross in front of them. And as for driving, I've always been pretty courteous but I worry that my normal idea of yielding to pedestrians is more like, I see you're in the crosswalk but you won't get over to MY side of the street for several seconds, giving me plenty of time to make my right turn (or whatever,) and yet I think that is seen as being rude and reckless around here. So, I am adapting slowly.
The other weird thing, I have found, is the pace and rhythm of speech. I never thought this before--didn't notice it when I moved from California to Missouri--but people talk faster in California. Just a little. Enough to throw me off as I listen and try to track what people are saying. I'm older, and my hearing is truly shitty, so that has a lot to do with it, and when you add that to the unexpected speech pattern, I'm not tracking. I'm adapting to that, also, though. I mean, I have. It took several days of talking to people--clerks, food servers, etc. but I'm past that. Good thing I didn't move to Brooklyn.
(Edit: just re-read that last paragraph--don't want you to think I was absolutely dumb-struck and just stood in front of people with my head tilted in befuddlement, just that I noticed that lag, in my own head, while listening to people talk. OK.)
I need to go get some breakfast, so even though I'm not finished here, I'm done. (Or is that the other way 'round?) I will say the weather here is beautiful. I missed out on the super hot summer, though I caught of bit of it, just not the 105 degree stuff, but so far I've seen seven weeks of perfect, warm, sunny weather. It rained a couple days ago, and now it's back to super nice.
