On the flight to Den­ver, I sat next to a cou­ple of dudes with buzz cuts and dig­i­tal cam­ou­flage back­packs. The talk­a­tive one informed me that they were trav­el­ing to Twen­ty­nine Palms.
“You must be a Marine.”
“Yes, sir.”
He was read­ing a book about the siege of Fal­lu­jah, fre­quently return­ing from the text to a map page, which he stud­ied intensely.
“What are you read­ing?” he asked.
“I’m fin­ish­ing this stu­pid book by Dave Eggers. It’s about two guys who travel around the world.”
“Huh.”
—It’s a book about out-of-place sen­tences that begin with dashes, inter­min­gled with dia­logue.
—My Marine seat­mate was set to begin a month of desert train­ing prior to a March deploy­ment to Iraq.
“So what’s your spe­cialty?”
“I’m a machine gun­ner.”
—He’s a reservist. Civil­ian job: rural well-driller.
“Cool.”
—It’s a book about a man who dies young, and the friends who mourn his loss.
“So you’re the guy who rides with his head pok­ing out the top of the Humvee?”
“Yep.”
—You’re going to get killed doing that. You’re far too young.
“Are you ner­vous about Iraq?”
“No, but my wife is.”

On the flight to Santa Bar­bara, I sat next to a man with a Ger­man accent. Tightly clasped in his hands was a PDA-cellphone with a color screen. He flipped it and twisted it ner­vously in his hands. We hadn’t even left the gate yet.
“What time do we land?”
I told him.
“Thank you.”
I watched as he entered the pre­cise depar­ture and arrival times of our flight into his cal­en­dar. I won­der if his PDA also logs his trips to the gro­cery store.

At the hotel, I was instantly over­come with rest­less­ness. I checked the Web for sug­ges­tions for run­ning paths. Only in Cal­i­for­nia, I sur­mise, would jog­ging direc­tions begin “Exit the free­way at Gar­den Street and turn toward the ocean… You’ll see a park­ing lot on your left.” Fuck the pathetic car-culture! I put on my run­ning shoes, stretched, and ran out the front door of the hotel, head­long into a bewil­dered group of club-goers. I sniffed for the ocean, and headed toward it at 10:30 PM. A few miles later, I was run­ning along an empty beach­side path beneath a full moon, count­ing the plen­ti­ful stars, fish­ing boats, and ancient but ser­vice­able Win­neba­gos that call this place home. I strug­gled to over­come my dis­like of sprin­klers and the putrid stink of palm trees. I heard the roar of the surf, and it occurred to me that I have never before seen the Pacific Ocean before. Off came the shoes, and across the empty stretch of cold night­time sand and into the chilly water I went.

Where is every­body? I’m on a beach by myself.

Oh well. I own this town now.