Lifestyles of the Incandescent The place is beautiful, as if carved out of a Bob Ross painting. On every corner there looms palm trees, lazy in their grace, or graceful in their laziness. These plentiful and picturesque palm trees associate with postcards and vacations in my mind, as they clearly carry warm weather and sea breezes with them. That's what it has felt like thus far, like I am living in a postcard. Also adding to the beauty of Pacific Beach, S.D., are the sunsets. I have been watching them now for two weeks and while my camera has finally slowed down, my love for them (like frozen yogurt) is unrelenting.

My oh my these sunsets down here are something to write home about. Right around 630pm at this time of the year, all you have to do is look into what was a flawless blue sky and notice a soft golden curtain creeping up from the horizon. At that point look westward and there it shall be found. Locals flock to the beach or at least a vantage point to behold the feat of incandescence. The sphere of brilliant, retina scalding yellow light slowly descends. As it does, the surrounding sky gets painted with a soft amber, the kinda soft you would liken your pillow to. Attempting to describe the color of the sunsets down here is an exercise in futility, as the colors you see simply surpass ROYGBIV. When the sun finally touches the Pacific, it becomes the scepter of some celestial Creator, and from it spews the waning purity of the day. As in Pacific Beach, with the darkness comes impurity and the freaks come out at night just like Whodini sang.

Thats what I wanted to focus on in this entry, the feel of the people in Pacific Beach, because they have a special feel all their own. The town itself is a complete microcosm to the rest of San Diego, as there are roughly 44,000 people in PB to the estimated 3.3 million in the San Diego county. I have marked PB's location on the map with a small red star below. The median age in PB is right around 30, yet congregating closer to the beach and the main drag of Garnett avenue is a reverberating animal of youth and energy that is several years younger. This crowd of physically beautiful and raucous young people no doubt shaped the nature of Garnett avenue, which is made up almost completely of bars (with personality), tattoo parlors, smoke shops, trendy eating joints, and Halloween costume boutiques. (I am fairly certain they remain costume shops year round). There is even a hookah bar, which I cannot wait to lend my business. However also shaping the feel and the nature of the people here is without a doubt the beach itself. There are never ending waves to be ridden, endless amounts of sunscreen to rub in, UV rays to soak up, and sun kissed beach bodies to rubberneck.

As beautiful as this lifestyle is that I have just described, it is just a little one dimensional. In between the waves, the sun, the sand and the cerveza fria, there isn't much room for any other culture, or cultural awareness. Perhaps it is just that...employing a beach lifestyle and the myriad of activities that it provides just doesn't leave space for more scholarly activity, more depth of thought, mind and emotion. What I do know is that the people here are definitely rock stars in their own rights, living loud and in my face with their thirst for life and extroversion. There is a healthy dose of energy down here, and I am ecstatic to have placed myself in the center of it. This is the segment of my life where I explore domestically in search of the answers to what it all means. Joey G. is out.  ¶ 11:23 PM