Go fuck yourself, San Diego

Six months ago I left "America's finest city" for the big bad city.  New York has slugged me over the head with clenched fists on several occasions.  I've bared the winter, the prices, the cruelty, the infuriating rat race.  I've managed to come out alive, boastful.  I've even put myself in the line of fire on several occasions, by taking rides from pirate taxis at JFK, walking home alone at 5 am, falling asleep on the subway and drunkenly riding the train for hours.  Somehow I was always lucky.  There comes a time when you've tempted fate too much, I suppose.  I've probably reached that point.

I came back to San Diego for several reasons but mainly it was for some respite from the hustle and bustle.  I was anxious to see my friends, to feel familiar with my surroundings again, to relax and enjoy a little vacation.  I anticipated this trip to be something like chicken soup for my teenage soul.  So how is it that I was robbed not even an hour into my arrival, on my first trip back home?  Oh the irony.

There was an issue over who would pick me up at the airport.  My best friend Carissa is always my first choice, but she had an interview in L.A. that afternoon, so I didn't want to chance it.  Not having Carissa pick me up threw everything off.  I'm not all that superstitious, but I firmly believe this.  I hadn't heard from my cousin for days, so I decided to "punish" her by not giving her the satisfaction of picking me up.  Ha.  Perhaps I was robbed because I was punished for being entirely up my own ass.  In any case, I turned to my friend Motos to pick me up.  He happily agreed, but at the last moment I changed plans.  A couple friends of mine who lived closer to the airport offered .  Also, one of them was to attend a music festival with me and my group the following day.  I figured it was a good idea to make introductions and figure out a game plan for attending the sold out festival, as we were ticketless.  

Mama's home, I smugly thought to myself as soon as I stepped off the plane and walked toward the baggage claim.  I sent out a mass text announcing my arrival, calling the cavalry to meet me for a drink at one of my favorite watering holes.  We parked just down the street from Nunu's cocktail lounge and I pulled my wallet and cell phone out of my carry on bag.  I turned to step out of the vehicle and paused.  Looking back at the bag I wondered, should I really leave that there?  The bag contained plenty of valuables; my laptop, ipod, journal, house keys, makeup bag, 10 vinyl records (some of which I had proudly won on Ebay because they were rare or out of print), a USB zip drive containing several documents of importance and other assorted items.  Being that the bag was so heavy, I decided against lugging it into the bar.  It'll be fine, I thought.  I pushed the bag deeper underneath the driver seat.  We would just be right inside the bar.

We head in and slowly the group arrives.  My minions were just waiting in the wings, waiting for a signal from me.  It was great to see everyone again, although some reactions to seeing me upon the first time in 5 months were mixed.  Some were elated.  Others regarded my presence with wariness and hesitation.  People have their own ways of dealing with separation I guess.  

One hour later, the friends who picked me up decided it was time to depart.  I accompanied them to the car to retrieve my luggage and transfer it to my cousin's car.  I pulled my suitcase out of the back and my friend helped me load it.  Yet when I went to get my carry on bag out of the back seat, I didn't see it.  I looked under the seat.  Baffled, I asked my friends if they had seen my other bag.  

"What bag?"

"My carry on bag.  The purple tote bag."

"I didn't see a carry on bag.  You only had the suitcase."

"NO, I had a purple bag too."

"Oh, you must have left it in the bar.  I bet it's in the bar."

"NO, I DIDN'T LEAVE IT IN THE BAR I SPECIFICALLY REMEMBER LEAVING THE FUCKING BAG IN THE CAR!"

Everyone just stood around in awe and silence, not knowing what to say or do.  There were absolutely no signs of forced entry to the vehicle, but a large bag does not just disappear into thin air.  I asked my friend if he was missing anything from the car.  He just stared at me in amazement. 

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, aside from my missing bag.  So I just told him to go home and we would figure this out later.  Stupefied, I turned to get into my cousin's car.  A catalogue of all the items in my carry on started to flash before my eyes.  Each item potentially missing from that bag, in all it's importance, glory and net value, would be a very big hit to my person if it were gone forever.  Of utmost concern was the laptop, what with all the files and pictures saved in it.  The files, pictures and programs that I didn't have backed up.  Did this mean that my entire iTunes library was gone?  Wiped out?  Years and years of music compiled and filtered to my 7000 song liking snatched away?  I guess that meant all those unfinished short stories were gone too, as well as my resumes, pictures of my last vacation in Thailand.  And the fact that all my email passwords were auto saved, that I did online banking and wasn't sure if I had deleted bank information with my account number from my desktop, left something to be desired.

Then I thought about my journal.  All those "dear diary" moments I had on paper.  I thought about how my name was engraved onto the front cover, how anonymity was out the window.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this was bad indeed.  There was some sliver of hope that my bag was hiding somewhere in the back of Pete's Jeep Cherokee, but I knew that was just a bullshit pipe dream.  Inside my very being, I knew I'd just gotten royally fucked.  Right in the baby maker.

Defeated, I returned back to the bar to break the news.  It's funny how people's first reaction is usually denial.  

Noooo, they all said.  That doesn't make any sense.  It's impossible.  Your bag is there.  Are you sure you didn't bring it in with you?  Are you sure it's not lying around somewhere?  Why would your luggage be in the car and not your purse?  It doesn't make any sense.  Why wouldn't anything else be missing?

Oh but something else was missing.  Not long after did I receive a text verifying we had in fact been jacked.  Someone had also stolen my friend's ipod, adapter, half smoked joint and a bag of almond cluster snacks from out of the car.  We'd been had by a crack head.

I skipped denial altogether.  I hung out in shock for a while.  I was too shocked this would happen on my very first night back to my hometown, within the first hour of my arrival.  It didn't set a very good precedence for the trip.  No it did not.

Then you ask yourself why.  What is the point of this?  As a masochist I always assume it's punishment for something.  But what?  I would never dream of breaking into someones vehicle and stealing their possessions.  Outrageous!  And sooo rude.  Never in a million years.  I suppose I could not begin to understand the dynamics of a crack head's mind, nor would I wish it.  But for christ's sakes, stealing some munchies  and a half smoked joint out of a car?  C'mon!  Is there no dignity left in the world?  Then again as Rick James brilliantly put it, cocaine is a hell of a drug.

So I was still grappling with the idea of this being my welcome wagon.  This guy went straight for the jugular.  I hadn't had a loss this big since I'd lost my wallet 8 years prior.  It wasn't the money in the wallet that was the loss, it was the credit card and identification information that was a motherfucker to deal with.  Have you ever stood in line at the DMV on a Saturday afternoon?  Or at the Social Security office?  How about being on hold with your bank for hours?  These are some of the tedious life tasks I loathe the most.  More than anything.  I find them soul crushing.  It's like being branded and tagged on a cattle ranch.  So when I realized I'd lost my wallet while at work and my employer didn't let me take time off to call my credit card companies to inform them because Home Depot SUCKS ASS, I went into my car on my 15 minute break to wail and scream like a wild, wounded animal, complete with pounding on the steering wheel and all other sorts of hysterics.  Of course, I was only 21 and life only just begun to reveal itself to me.  That wouldn't be the last time I'd get fucked over.

I realize this also won't be the last time I get fucked over, but at least I didn't wail and scream like a wild wounded animal this go round.  I just continued to ask myself why.  I felt disappointed and dismayed.  How could life throw such a curve ball?  Talk about being caught off guard.  The universe had really let me down.  San Diego really let me down.

Then I got drunk.  That helped.

The next day I shot up out of bed like lightening at 6 am, as if emerging from a bad dream.  Did last night really happen?  As a person who likes to dwell obsessively on the past, I continued to beat myself up over what happened.  It was all my fault.  My instincts told me not to leave the bag in the car, but I did anyway.  I should have just let Motos pick me up from the airport.  Perhaps this would have all been avoided if I had not changed the plan, etc.  I thought of a million different things I could've done to make the situation turn out differently.  But it was all useless.  What was done was done.  Then I started to obsess over what I'd lost and it pained me to think about the slow difficult recovery.

Not exactly in the best spirits for a music festival, we got a late start to leaving for the desert that day.  Coachella and all it's delightful musical offerings only served as a painful reminder to what I'd lost the previous evening.  I thought of the MF Doom Special Herbs Vol.1 LP I found in a record store in Brooklyn and how amazed I was that I'd actually gotten my hands on it.  I became furious at the prospect of some rogue tossing my out of print Peaches Fatherfucker LP into a dumpster after I 'd won it on an Ebay auction, fair and square.  Listening to music on the car ride over became the twisted knife in my heart, because I no longer owned the vast musical catalogue that was a routine and necessary part of my life.  This may all sound dramatic, but music is one of my greatest passions.  It's not to be messed with.

We were relatively unsuccessful in getting into Coachella the first night.  It took us 4 hours to get there due to traffic, as opposed to the standard 2.5 hours and we waited in a queue to park for FOUR hours.  I decided that God really hated me.  It was quite unbelievable.  The concert was sold out and arriving at 9 pm left us little chance to get in.  We contemplated jumping over the gate and rushing the venue, but my gate jumping days ended in my early 20's.  This ole hose hound doesn't play those haggard reindeer games anymore.  We cut our losses and went to the hotel to get some rest and regroup for the next day. 

Saturday morning began with a great omen.  I had a text from SDPD officer Sgt. Dale Flammand that said:  "Cynthia.  I have recovered your macbook.  Please call me asap."

I was astounded.  Praise Allah!  I called the officer and he informed me that he found a transient on University Ave. in Hillcrest and after searching him they'd found my laptop in his possession.  He claimed he'd found it in the dumpster, but fortunately they didn't believe him and arrested him for misappropriation, since they couldn't get a hold of me and confirm it was stolen property.  The one item I would have wished for was being returned to me!  This was truly a miracle.  I am a very lucky person.  Someone out there is looking out for me.

And we managed to get 3 ticketless people into Coachella for the remainder of the weekend, for $200.  Mind you, festival passes were $300 a pop.  Not bad at all, I do say.

In retrospect, I still don't know why this happened, but I believe it was necessary.  I'm sure the reasons for this happening will reveal themselves in due time.  In better news, I learned a little lesson on attachment to 'things'.  Many of those records I purchased were hastily obtained on a whim.  I haven't been the best example of exercise of restraint, given that being alone in a big city is a large temptation.  We all have our way of filling a void in our lives, and buying cool shit is mine.  I had been battling with an ominous feeling of guilt for my overindulgent ways weeks before I flew to San Diego.  Despite my instinctual realization that I'd been living somewhat irresponsibly for my means, I continued to consume.  I bought many of those records because I wanted to feel validated when I played x song at my DJ gig in San Diego.  I wanted to appear a certain way with the help of my material goods, which I felt defined me.  And when those material goods were stripped away, it broke me a little.  I didn't have my "cool cloak" to hide behind.  In the end, it's just stuff.  It goes away.  It doesn't make me.  Those things are inside me and losing them in material form does not change who I really am, or make me any more or less desirable.  Now I will think twice before indulging my desires, because desires should be earned.  Obtaining unearned desires devalues our appreciation of them.  New York had not slapped me upside the head with this reality, but San Diego sure did.  Then again, this could be interpreted into a push/pull between my place in two cities.  It's like my good friend Pat brilliantly put it after I told him what happened, "That's because San Diego ditched you.  New York is your baby now."  He may be on to something...

And the crack head who stole from me and my friend turned out to be a 50 year old ex gang member from L.A.  He's a heavy drug user/burglar/transient who's been terrorizing the greater San Diego area for some time now.  That's what he does.  Aside from that, what's HIS purpose in life?  To teach us lessons?  Perhaps.  So what was the lesson?  It depends on how you handle it.  What you take away from a dire situation, or how you deal with it, that's the lesson.  The fact that I didn't fly into hysterics and wail while pounding on my steering wheel could be indicative of a decent take on the situation.  And as my other friend Kimberly also brilliantly put it, if New York hadn't already snatched my panties off and shoved them down my throat, I could easily take another junior varsity ass pounding from lil' ol' sun shiny, small town San Diego.