Part 4
The meeting when it had finally happened was somewhat of a disappointment/anticlimax. It wasn't just that Lisa turned out different from how she came across as over the e-mail, but also how I must have come across as to her well. Rather than face up to overcoming our awkwardness with each other, we withdrew into the realm of the TV. I had a gut instinct she really was the intriguing person she made out to be, and I had hoped that she might just come alive. To be fair, her car wasn't in too good shape and thanks to LA's low-density population; there was nothing worth doing in the area (that I knew of). However, on the way to the bus stop, the conversation did spark up and I thought it was a pity I had to go.

I came to the conclusion that both of us had been overcome by our shyness. We had agreed that if we could manage it I could try and see her again. I suggested that we go out and do something and not get stuck in front of the TV. I thought that being away from her sanctuary might prevent us from becoming too laid back about getting to know each other. Who knows? This just might have been the breakthrough we needed to kick things off. Even if it was not to search for the spark, it was something not just as a mark of courtesy, but also my indomitable spirit. I thought this was a good occasion to show her this.

The day after the meeting (Monday), I headed off to Las Vegas. On the bus to Las Vegas, I researched the possibility of another meeting with Lisa. After diving into the Amtrak schedules, I discovered an itinerary that would take me to Las Vegas and the surroundings and the Grand Canyon before arriving back in LA on the Saturday morning of the coming weekend. This route was also convenient as returning to LA enabled me to then Visit San Diego and possibly Tijuana (in Mexico) as well, and if I was daring enough, I'd take the plunge and experience a Greyhound bus-journey that would take me from San Diego to Palm Springs where I could see the town and the nearby Joshua Tree National Park before I made the journey back East again on the eve of Christmas Day. If I decided not to risk Greyhound, I could always do a similar journey via LA but not have enough time to stop at Palm Springs. To make things even handier, I discovered that the train to San Diego also stopped at the nearest station to Lisa's place.

In Las Vegas, I mailed her to tell her about the route. It was one of those rare e-mails that got through and generated a response - even if it just said "Call me when you get into town". She had told me earlier that she was going to her office's Christmas party (on the Friday before the weekend) and may need some time to recover. As it got closer to the weekend, I tried phoning her about a day before the office party. Both numbers had no response but the answering machine. My text messages also weren't getting a response.

On Friday during the day, I was at the Grand Canyon where my phone was out of range of a transmitter. By the time I finally got back to the nearest station (within transmitter range), she would have been at the party.

On Saturday morning, I arrived back in LA as planned. I decided to give her some time to recover from her company's Xmas do/party but still, left a message on her answering machine. Not being sure if she'd accommodate me for the night, I decided to postpone booking myself a place in the Hostel. I spent some time in a Cyber cafe in Hollywood to pass the time and catch up on the write-ups of my travels (at that time, I had only written as far as Memphis, TN), plan the rest of the trip, and just generally browse other websites. I looked at how the field of work where I worked was doing. It was a complete mess - the usual cynicism was out and about, only this time, the cynics had much more to be right about than they usually did.

At about one o'clock, I tried to phone again. No response. I also tried again after I had given up cyber cafe-ing at three thirty. This time she answered. She told me she wasn't feeling well, but could perhaps manage the next day. She hadn't even bothered to respond to my answering-machine messages - it had been up to me to call her again. At least I knew I had to stay in the Youth Hostel again. I decided to do a bit of shopping before I got there, but it turned out to be a mistake, as by the time I got to the hostel, it was full. Thankfully, I called another Youth Hostel in the area and they had a place for me, but it meant I had a bus-journey of two busses to take (by LA standards, a two-bus bus-journey is "in the area"). This hostel was located in the Melrose District (in Hollywood).

It was Sunday morning. I left the door of the youth hostel and still had not decided what I was going to do next. I phoned Lisa and got through. She was still not feeling well, but told me I could come over on Christmas (mid-week). I didn't quite catch if she wanted me over on the eve or the day. The phone call had given me enough information to make me decisively take the bus into Downtown LA and get a train to San Diego. Had I known I couldn't visit that weekend, I would have gone straight to San Diego and gained an extra day and a few hours. But still, I got to surf the big '@' and see the Melrose Avenue area, even if it wasn't exactly a highlight. This meant that I was going back via LA and was no longer going to ride a Greyhound to Palm-Springs.

San Diego was a blast. It was one of the highlights of the trip, and I was having a whale of a time. At first, I just concentrated on enjoying, but as it got closer to Xmas, my need to get through to Lisa was increasing. Not only did I want to know if I should be there on the Eve or Day of Xmas, but I wanted to be sure whether or not she still felt like I should come over. During the middle of my stay, the pace of events at the Hostel slowed down and still I couldn't get through. However, after the last meeting, I realised that I should just do what I was doing right now, and not chase after something else, so I decided to stay at the Hostel on Christmas Eve as well (my 3rd night there). After spending the day of Xmas Eve at the San Diego Zoo, I got back to the hostel and called Lisa again. I got through. She had had to go to hospital again. I told her I was still in San Diego and was staying the night there. Despite not having responded to my answering-machine messages, she thought I might be in LA that eve (wasn't quite sure if she was disappointed), but we agreed I could come for a few hours before my train outta here was due. Even if I could have come on that evening, things had been picking up at the Hostel, and was glad I was spending X-mas eve there.

Following an exciting night which I think involved me getting a death-threat from one of the receptionists there, I had a breakfast and got the bus to San Diego station, and from there, the train to Lisa's place. Once there, I called Lisa to pick me up. Even though the train-tracks intercepted the street near her flat close to where I was, explaining how to get to the Station proved harder than it seemed (although in hindsight, I discovered that the tracks were halfway through a north-south wiggle at the point of the station). It was Christmas day, so the station building was closed and I couldn't find anyone who was likely to know additional directions for driving there.

For a fairly long time, I just waited there. I looked around me. The immediate surroundings were mostly flat with a mixture of wasteland and low-density suburbs. In the distance, I could see mountains in at least two directions. Eventually, Lisa finally arrived. She told me she wasn't feeling well, and was still having trouble getting her car repaired, so she just told me we were going to her place. Lisa only had a small car with just two seats and there was nowhere for my rucksack to go. Getting the two of us in the car involved an exercise in different ways to fit my rucksack in the car. The final solution had my rucksack (with it's sleeping-bag detached and placed on my knees) placed between the two of us. For a while, I was even worried if the squashed rucksack would burst through the windshield. Not only would it add a broken windshield to her car-troubles, but then it would really make us feel awkward. It was a big rucksack that blocked any line of sight between the two of us, and acted as a barrier between our communication. Perhaps it was metaphor - a physical manifestation of the mental barrier that was preventing free-flowing communication between us. And so began the awkwardness again.

After a silent car-ride interspersed with the occasional bit of commentary from Lisa about the state of her car, we got to her flat. For the first time, I saw it from the outside in daylight. She also told me a bit more about her not-feeling-well-ness. She said she had suffered a panic attack and had to spend another day in hospital. All I could think of saying to her was that she didn't look very well, and wished her a recovery. I couldn't help wonder if my frenzied attempts to meet up with her and how neither of us came across as being the people we made ourselves out to be the previous time combined with her recent kidney-problems and car-problems helped contribute to this.

When the door to her flat was opened, I noticed that this time, it smelled stuffy with cigarette-smoke thrown in - like I expect it would smell if someone lies on the couch all day. The last time I was there, I did not notice any smells, so I just suspect there was no ventilation. Once inside her flat, Lisa told me once again as she wasn't feeling well, and would have to lie down on the couch, meaning there was no room for me, so I had to lie down on the floor along with the cats. Just before we settled into our inevitable routine of silence, I asked her if she would feel well enough to drop me off at the station. I tried to do it without sounding like I was desperate to leave, but had I missed that train; I would have missed the train to Texas, which would not run again for another two days. She assured me she'd be able to drop me off. Lisa apologised for not being livelier or being able to show me around the area a bit more. I told her it was all right, as I had had quite an exhausting 3 days in San Diego previously. I decided not to zealously force out the best in me but just be relaxed and chill out.

And so, the gargantuan television that had dominated the previous encounter sprang to life. The TV content was the same, except that they were showing Christmas versions of all the programs. And so began the long silence. I felt surprisingly comfy on the floor, which helped me relax, but I still felt a bit too ill at ease to say much.

Soon, I was asked if I wanted to order some Pizza. I was glad that I was not going to starve myself, and agreed to pay for both our pizzas (she told me her hospital visit had drained her pizza-funds). Ordering the pizza did not turn out to be the straightforward experience I would have assumed it to be, and after the phone went down, she muttered that the person at the other end was a jerk. At one point while waiting for the pizza, both of us heard a knocking at the door and she asked me to check the door. Nobody was there. Lisa told me that the medication she was taking for the panic attacks sometimes made her trip out and imagine things, but I assured her that I had heard the knocking too. Soon afterwards, there was a knock on the door and I answered it. This time, it was a real pizza deliveryman with real pizzas. I paid for the pizzas and took them inside. Both of us ordered the same pizza - pepperoni with peppers, but for some reason, the peppers came as a side dish instead of being baked on the pizza. Perhaps this was in some way connected to the not-so-straightforward ordering experience that Lisa had had when ordering.

The afternoon and early evening were mostly spent in silence. Even though the TV was on, the silence between me and Lisa overcame the volume of the TV. Every so often, there was a small sprinkling of discussion-lettes. Sometimes, she'd start one, and sometimes, I'd start one. There was something on the TV that made her tell me that she had trouble sitting on toilet after jogging. I can't remember what made her say that, but I suspect it was an advert. At one point, I was lying flat on my back and one of her cats rested itself on my chest. Lisa asked if this was bothering me. I like cats and I liked having the company of the cat, but because I was just wearing a thin t-shirt, it's claws penetrated the t-shirt and I could feel them dig into my stomach. I found it hard to answer, as I liked the cat's company, but did not like it's claws. The cat then moved off solving my mini-dilemma of answering Lisa's question.

Once again, it was time to leave. By then, it was already pretty dark outside, but there were still some hints of daylight. The rucksack was stuffed between the two of us, and we drove off to the station. Like the previous time, we were more chatty on the way back. I don't know what causes this. Perhaps it's when we're leaving that we realise that we won't be seeing each other for a while, and that gives us some urgency to talk to each other. We talked about where I would be off to next, which was Austin, Texas. Lisa seemed to have an irrational dislike of Texas. I also told her that I was thinking of either visiting Savannah, Georgia or Charleston, South Carolina, but was unsure of which of the two to go to. All the guidebooks gave praise to Savannah, but like all the real-people I had spoken to, Lisa recommended Charleston, so I decided to go there after Florida.

The conversation lasted until well after we arrived at the station. As the train was approaching, like the previous time, she suggested I give her a hug and a kiss which I did. For most of the second meeting, I had been thinking about doing that without her asking, but as the conversation was lingering and about to end, she asked me before I could do it myself. I thanked her for making the effort to see me despite being sick. I had consciously remembered to say that since I got to her place. I told her she was welcome to meet up with me in the UK, and that I would make sure we'd be going out and about, and not stay in front of the TV. She told me she was feeling too sick even to come to the UK in the summer. I wished her a recovery and once again told her how I appreciated us meeting. The train was here so we had to depart.

The Train took me to Union Station in Downtown LA, and after an hour's wait, got on to the Texas Eagle which finally took me well away from the west coast ending a chapter in the trip leaving me feeling ready to take in whatever the epic two-day train-journey to Austin, Texas had to offer.

While a bit disappointed in the lack of spark that occurred between me and Lisa, I was glad to have met her. The aim at this stage was just to 'get on with each other', or click. Both of us either felt too awkward, or too laid back to reach the critical mass required for stimulating and riveting conversation. There was not much hospitality on the part of Lisa, but being sick, suffering from exploding kidneys, panic attacks, and broken cars does not lead to much room for hospitality. I'm just worried if my frantic attempts to over-come her flaky e-mail system and her perceived lack of response from me on the e-mail helped contribute to her panicked state - not to mention that she failed to come across as the person she wanted to be, and that she might have worried that I was thinking I had wasted my time seeing her (I had not). She seemed to be going through a phase of low self-esteem. It was as if there was a cloud hanging over her, which was not part of the personality, but I did get the impression she was going downhill. I just hope I did not contribute to her downhill slide. I hope I've also not scared her with my enthusiasm to meet her or make her think I'm stalking her. I tried to be as non-pushy as possible, and this might have contributed to me being quiet when we met. I might have appeared over-eager, but this was the only chance I'd get to visit that area - it's just a pity I met her during a 'down', but all of us have our 'down's. When we first exchanged e-mails one and a half years previously, she seemed like a fellow merry prankster (or as she put it, an office clown), and felt glad to have met a kindred spirit. I recon she just needs to be placed in an environment where she can be herself.

As for the future, we decided to still keep in touch, but what would happen next would be up to her - The ball was in her court.


The end.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 30 Jun 2008, 16:34, Reply)