The Train in Cali Stays Mainly on the Plain

Over the weekend I took the train down the coast to Oceanside, CA where I saw a friend in a play.

This train ride made me realize something about myself. I observe things. ALL THE TIME. I love watching people. I like to see their idiosyncrasies and quickly make a story up in my head about them and why they are who they are.

I realized this when the Metro train (missed the Amtrak route) passed by the fifth backyard party. We went for miles and miles and miles out of the city, through an industrial area, huge fields full of old train tracks and warehouses with bright graffiti peppering the rusted walls, and the LA river - murky, dirty, yet still full of animals, birds, life. Once we left the steel and clammer of the city, our route took us through suburbia - or at least a type of suburbia.

I can't imagine living right next to the train tracks - where dozens of speeding tubes whisk by every day, their choo-choo's blaring every minute or two.

But apparently a large part of Southern California lives fifty yards away from these said tracks.

And that's when I counted the fifth backyard party and I realized that I had made up a story quickly in my head for all of them. I don't remember the first four, but the last one stuck with me. I guess it's because I stopped to think about it more.

It was a birthday party - I'm assuming a boy's because the sign was blue and the barbeque was going. Made me think that a bunch of mother's were huddling around a newly brought home baby boy and the father's were huddling around a barbeque, burning burgers and drinking too many beers. I also thought - I wonder if every time a train goes by and wales the whistle - does the mom shake her head and wish that she had married the other boy she fooled around with in high school instead of the one she ended up with.

Basically, I started wondering how much of my day I spend coming up with these quick little thoughts - where I could be sending my brain waves to do a better good. Like actually writing these little stories out. Or working on another story that I've come up with. Or plucking my eyebrows. Or dusting my room. Or laundry. Or taking that online photoshop class. Or learning French or Italian.

I guess this is where I get my "creative energy." But... it made me think I need to use my creative energy to not just come up with thoughts in my head, but to actually get them out... ON PAPER and not the neurons in my little noggin'!