subarbis.

warm evenings have become a thing of the past, and as i step out momentarily onto the balcony to escape the ennui indoors, i shiver in the quiet autumn starlight. a light fog has rolled in from the coast and small amber triangles form under the street lamps, spotlighting glowing circles onto a sleepy street beneath. every once in a while, a car streams by, sending a drawn-out woosh through the air, crescendoing and fading like a crashing wave. my escape from ennui is shot-lived. this is irvine, and breaking out of the bubble of my room only leads into the bubble of my apartment, the bubble of the neighborhood, the bubble of the university, the bubble of the city, and the bubble of the county - orange and dim like the street lights. i am stuck in the smallest of a nest of boxes, and trying to escape from the inside out only leads to a bigger box and a slurry of identical packaging peanuts in between.

it is friday night, and i am stuck in my room. it is a travesty, and those who know me know just how much of a travesty that truly is. most of it is my fault, and i have yet to establish the social base i can turn to in times like these, or more specifically, to prevent times like these. nevertheless, this is the heart of suburbia, and my questions of "where do people go for nightlife?" usually results in replies like "the gym" or "they don't." my cities are in the distance, out of reach, and from my stoop, i can't even see their glows in the sky. i have yet to find the bars, the promenades, the hangouts, and the people, but in this suburban maze, getting lost among cul-de-sacs within cul-de-sacs leaves me with the eerie feeling that i might even be safer within the darkest parts of a city.

despite the occasional car, or howls from coyotes, it is quiet, a little too quiet, and while it seems sudden chaos usually follows whenever someone dares to utter that phrase, here, it remains "a little too quiet," and i am left floating in the limbo between too-quietness and an unforeseen pandemonium - the suspense is unnerving. "where are all the people?" i once asked, when first visiting this suburbialand and realized there are really only two answers: "they're all out," or "they're all home." it is clear to me now that people really are all home, because if they were all out, i would see them, unless the entire city has successfully been able to see me coming and hide from my view every time i passed. i am not used to this place, and miss the comfort in seeing people use sidewalks, loiter to smoke and chat outside buildings, and cause ruckuses at bus stops - jane jacobs would agree with me. here in suburbialand, society festers like gangrene. happy anniversary, levittown. sixty years ago, hell was whitewashed, homogenized, and mass-produced.

alas, i am dying beyond my means.
: wilde.