Another Day in the Car

This past Tuesday was a rough day for me. I was released from the vast majority of my work day to attend the funeral of someone I knew, whom I worked with. They took their own life, and we're all trying to work through to the other side of the darkness in these moments. I've thrown myself into my Immolation Productions projects, whatever that means (Keep an eye out for Phase 2!).

I'm involved with many groups as part of my job, and one of them, as a support, sent a swag package that I didn't get until after we returned from Texas. Inside was a book:

Tucked inside Emergent Strategy was a bookmark for reparations.club, a book store/lounge that branded itself black-owned/woman-owned here in LA somewhere. After checking out their website, I found a book I wanted to purchase, and in lieu of a shipping charge, I realized I could go pick it up, and when I realized that I was going to have a day without work or kids in the car, I thought I would add picking up the new book to the list of errands I was going to do by car that specific Tuesday.

My errands were boring, for sure, and had me travelling from Long Beach to Redondo Beach (the funeral) back to the RPV peninsula (the burial), then back to North Redondo (to pick up a birthday present), then up to the Reparations Club to get my recent purchase (if you know: Crenshaw and I-10), and then down to Anaheim (for special comics).

If you know driving in LA, you're probably saying: LB to Redondo to RPV to Redondo to the 10 to Anaheim...EFF THAT! And you'd be right.

But, on the way to get the book I was listening to NPR. There was a pre=recorded interview with Louis Gates, the Black intellectual, author, and host of the "Finding your Roots" show on PBS. But before they returned to their talk after a station break, they mentioned that afterward the conversation would continue with a discussion of the just-released new "classic," The Final Revival of Opal and Nev.

In my car, in LA traffic, I perked up. What? 

That was the book I was going to pick up right then:

The description reminded me of Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives, which was enough. Written by a Black lady, rad. I'm about 60 pages in, and am always curious when I can carve out some time to drop everything and chip away at it...it's so good.

After three days of driving, I spent another day in the car. That part was a bummer, but only in the context of a world when you're not headed to a funeral for someone you cared about.