Wednesday never ended

I know it's Sunday. It's been exactly one week since Redondo, only with a few altercations. But despite the day, this is about Wednesday. I was tempted to write on Wednesday, then again on its tail end of which I wasn't sure what day it was. Then again on what I came to know as Friday, and again yesterday...but now I have bearings and conclusive thoughts. So this is not about all that was missed when I was dormant. This is about some possibly psycho neurotic trip without the aid of foreign substance. It's about a time where there was no real differentiation. This is about Wednesday.


There was something in this Wednesday that made everyone feel a little bit better about everything. Truth be told, it ended on a rough note, but nevertheless it was enjoyable. Enjoyable isn't always the word we'd like to use when describing Wednesday, especially on the newspaper staff. Interesting, maybe, but not enjoyable. That was the first bit of forshadowing that I was in for something. It was nice to see everyone look more animated and in full-color as opposed to ready to drop. Maybe it was John making pencils penetrate the ceiling or maybe it was just that we were all on a roll with our humor that day, but we were happy. Yes, happy. The simplest of all defining terms of euphoria, but it was just that. It was almost as if we were young again. Everything was funny, everyone had something random to say or do, time went by almost too fast and we were all pleased just to have the company. In the end, the paper looked pretty good and we were off at 9:30 p.m., the earliest I've ever seen and it wasn't so bad. Of course, we were all tired. That's always a given, even if there's an element of fun. After turning myself around dropping off Cristian and Robert at Cristian's car, I had fun curving around Prairie Avenue to get myself on the right path home. I considered taking a drive through the PV hills before making my way back, but I decided against it after realizing how late I'd get home and my slight uncertainty of where the exact route I wanted to take was. In addition, I wanted to get home as early as possible (as far as Wednesday nights go) so to ensure my last night with tia Ney was a great one. And what of my sour note on production night? It was nothing so great that it could've created a significant imbalance in me, but it was quite the irritation (and sometimes still is, but not so much now). I got talked down that ledge by two good people. While it is in my guilt to say they became unwittingly involved (and I was unwitting myself as I got the news that someone believed them to be proprieters of whatever misery they claim to have experienced). I ended my night earlier than I wished as I was preparing to get up at 4 a.m. the next morning.

The night came and showed no mercy on me until 2 a.m. leaving me only two hours to compose myself and get ready for tia Ney's take-off.

It was in those two hours where something interconnected. I woke up at 4 a.m. and realized it was still Wednesday. Crazy? No, it was exactly right. Everything from earlier was so clear as if there was no pause between them. I don't necessarily believe there was. We left when it was still dark, but for some reason it's always brighter at LAX. There were still some clouds of indigo blue as we got there and unloaded the suitcases and began descending upon what appeared to be the right section of the Tom Bradley Terminal. For those of you not from L.A., first thing, I feel sorry for you, and secondly, the Tom Bradley Terminal is exclusively for international flights and is perhaps one of the better terminals at LAX with its giant schedule board with extravagant names on them rooting from both the coutries and the airlines. After looking around the initial level for the Mexicana ticketing counter only to find gray and lonely terminals, we were about to step outside and hope for the best when we ran into a single woman vacuuming the mats in front of the doorway.

"Esta alla abajo. Puedes usar las escaleras."
What does that mean, you ask? "It's downstairs. You can use the stairs."
So that's exactly what we did. We dragged the suitcases all the way downstairs and all the way to the very end of the terminal. After that it was mostly quiet and I felt my eyes begin to drag a bit. At about 5 a.m., we decided to see if the McDonald's above Tom Bradley's initial floor was open as we didn't check in the midst of our search. Of course, like I said, everything was open. It was dim and we even mentioned the minimal lights to one another, but I liked it. I stared out the window and watched the planes land in the distance as they belted through the indigo sky made all the more epic by the enormous windows that touch from top to bottom, with each panel perhaps the size of a standard window, on either end of the top floor. Until about 6:15, we talked about the newspaper and exchanged last minute information until I finally had to let her go. We walked her down to her gate and in a matter of seconds, it was as if she was already back in Mexico.


We stepped back outside and the sky was almost as blue as it usually was. But it was that beautiful blue that's a bit on the periwinkle side. It was the kind of blue that comes just before the sun breaks away. It's the kind of blue that's under the complete control of the sky--no sun, no other element except the sky and its own accord. There's something in a sunrise that makes someone see and feel so much, and there's even more to a sunrise at LAX. It may seem as if the modernization may be a damper, but the only real damper is knowing someone, or perhaps yourself, is leaving. While I'm not particularly upset when I take off for somewhere else, I do think of everyone else who is leaving behind someone for a good while. I'm one for travel, but the airport isn't always designed for that. The airport is just that--an airport. It has planes to take people to other destinations, but nowhere in its description does it say it has to be amusing. So it was that Wednesday continuation (that I couldn't necessarily call Thursday because it just didn't feel like the past had fully ended) that made me feel for everyone leaving their own ground into some place full of life, but not their own. But taking a moment to stop in front of the terminal gates and look up into the sky, there's a calm demeanor to it, even more so than when looking out the window in one's own house. It's inexplicable, but somehow in a place catering to voyages to new and familiar places give its own unique sunrise as if the sun it presents is one completely different from that of which we see every day.

I passed El Camino on the way back. I didn't pass it directly because we were on the freeway, but I knew in a few hours I was to go back the way I just came, only this time, I wouldn't get to go by LAX. Tia Ney wasn't coming back. It was an okay day when I got there a few hours later. I couldn't fall asleep in English because we were prepping for debates and by the time Verge's class rolled around, I was suddenly wide awake. I was getting hungry around 9 a.m. because I ate at 5, but after forgetting about it, I suddenly wasn't hungry. Even when faced with food directly, I was suddenly "too full" to eat it. I did manage to meet Deborah Chesher, a rock n roll photographer in the 70's and she was outstanding. I came home expecting to tumble down, but I just couldn't do it until 6 p.m. I even got hungry before I got tired again and I felt like perhaps I was in some sort of realistic Twilight Zone. Perhaps I was caught in two realms and suddenly Wednesday was finally becoming Thursday. I haven't the least of what I was feeling, but now I know for sure the day would be so much more interesting with just a few more hours added on. I napped until 8 p.m. and found I couldn't get to sleep by the time night rolled around, so I stayed up for a shorter time than I imagined. Tia Ney was home safe by then and I was star gazing as usual.








The night was mine.