20 May

The rearview mirrors gave perfect postcard presentations of the receeding senery. I peaked over and around Tasik's broad shoulders in effort to watch the road that was approaching, but that proved a more difficult task than watching the mirrors. As the familiar road flowed by I couldn't help but reflect on all of the times I had driven that road over the past four years. Watching the seasons change, the course of the stream and the road itself. It seemed fitting in a way that the road is finally open and unhindered by lights or extra stop signs, just in time for us to leave. But leave the way we found it - for the most part. As we passed other bikes most gave us the ubiquitous, knee-level, two fingered wave. I had to smile as we gave the correstoponding countersign. I'd passed countless bikers on that highway, always watched for the sign. Now on my last day as a resident of SoCal I am the one on the bike.

It's hot...much warmer than it should be in early May. The classical music playing behind me is being mixed with the sound of the fan that is trying to move the warm air around the small apt. The room is filled with late afternoon light, gradually becoming dimmer as the sun sets below the rooftops of the nearby buildings. I'm typing on a stolen computer and trying to argue the humor of Flannery O'Connor. This is proving rather more difficult than I would like - perhaps if I finish my glass of wine it will come more easily...

"I'll fight you on whether those stories are actually funny."
"They are actually funny."
"Are they actually funny or is it just the way you look at them?"

I was trying to say that she portrays the human condition - the humor of it along with its tragedy, patheticness, and pathos. I want to argue that she seems to say that humor is essentially part of life, whereas my friend says that the human condition has nothing funny about it, but the humor comes from the way you look at it.
Now granted there are somethings that are just not funny any way you look at them... but this is something different. I just can't quite put my finger on how...