Ugh, Southern California traffic...

I took my brother to Union Station in LA this morning. It took me over two hours to get there, and I made it back in about 55 minutes (not even speeding). Every time I drive into L.A. I remember why I hate doing so.

I'm kidding myself if I think I could ever be happy living there in the hypothetical.... I think it would take one damn fantastic job to ever make me live in Los Angeles. I'm in Orange Country right now and I don't even care for it, but at least it's not as busy, choked, stifling, polluted, and colorless as L.A. The air is gray, and the sky is gray-brown, and everything is loud, and the stop lights never give you a left-turn signal so you just have to yeild and hope for the best.

I know that all cities are crowded and polluted and noisy-- I grew up in San Jose, so I'm intimately acquainted with cities. There is simply something about L.A. that puts me off. Of all the enormous, intense cities I've been to-- San Jose, San Francisco, Vancouver, Denver, New Orleans, D.C., San Diego, Salt Lake City, even Des Moines... Los Angeles puts me off the most. I just have to drive into the area and I'm overcome with a general sense of irritation, nerves, and apt-to-bite-someone's-head-off urges.

This could be because of the traffic. Maybe I'd like the city better if I never drove anywhere? But it feels deeper than that. My happiest moments in L.A. have been in art museums, where I couldn't see the city anyway. ((And one rather hilarious and fun evening a few years ago with jaina walking around what I think in retrospect might have been West Hollywood... but I thank the company, not the location.))

Guardian of the Sacred Spirit (Seirei no Moribito), episdoe 1-8 [no spoilers]

rasielle recommended this series, and I'm enjoying it immensely. It feels like Blade of the Immortal met Mushishi and had a child series, and that progeny then hooked up with The Twelve Kingdoms...resuling in Seirei no Moribito.

It's methodical and almost paced... but not slow. Simply more careful and thorough than a lot of anime series take the time to be. Like 12Kingdoms, this reminds me of the experience of reading a novel, although 12K was much too slow at points. Seirei no Moribito feels like an epic series in gradual advancement. My interest in the plot is high, the world of the characters is new but familiar enough not to be a big issue, and the characters are already strong and three-dimensional.

I'm most impressed by the choice of protagonist... a stoic, conservative female warrior on the brink of turning 30, repenting through past evils and seeking a higher way of life without needless killing. Not only is it unusual for anime to take what would normally be a stock "male" role and make the character female instead, but it's unusual for any anime to have a female protagonist whose older than 25. And now this woman, who has been a drifter for her whole life, is suddenly saddled with a child... a self-conscious, spoiled boy of about 10-11 years. He's not a bad kid-- in fact he seems to take it to heart how much other people have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for him--but he's immature and unsure of himself, and has practically no useful skills.

The eclesiastical character--Shuga-- I also find him interesting, and I look forward to the future events that make his plotline overlap with Balsa's. I can't help but feel that the whole empire is going to go through some significant changes before the end of this show... we see little hints of conflict in the clergy, in the royal family, and in the spy network connecting everyone to everyone else. I just know the camera doesn't pause on the covered faces of the servants so often for nothing.