Nora

In many ways San Francisco was an extension of my life in Sacramento. It was when I left, making a miserable stop in San Jose and then heading to LA that I really escaped my life.

Of course, I found a woman to center my life around almost immediately. I was on the street flyering, my first night in town when I met Nora, a petite girl with wavy brown hair and baggy old man clothes. I gave her a flyer and we started talking about the comic book Tank Girl, which had not yet become a crappy movie. She hung out with me and the rest of the crew for a few hours and then we said goodnight. I wanted to see more of her and I was excited when she asked if I'd go see a double feature at The New Art with her the next day.

I worked the following morning and then called Nora to come pick me up. She laughed at how I mispronounced Sepulveda, the street where our apartment was. The New Art was showing King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. We brought our own pillows for the long stretch of film watching. I took her hand in mind and she rested her head on my shoulder. It had been a long time since I'd enjoyed such pleasures without a world of complications swirling about. I enjoyed my time with Nora and that was a good thing, simple.

After the film we drove to the beach, found a spot of privacy, something I didn't think existed on an LA beach, and had our first kiss. Nora told me all about herself. She was working as security guard in an art museum. Articstically/creatively, Nora was ambitious but unsure of exactly where to put her efforts. Mostly her creative energy found an outlet in her sense of humor. She was a prankster, often going on missions with the LA Cacaphony society.

Nora and I spent as much time together as we could. Drinking coffee, drinking beer, running around the city. She knew which neighborhood was best for finding a cheap boom box, and good falafel. The neighborhood in question was in Hollywood where the old landmarks were being moved to Universal's nice safe mall. It amazed her that Hollywood could be enjoyed by tourists without them having to actually brave a trip to Hollywood.

She took me to a Cacophony Society stunt at The Griffith Observatory where they or rather we staged a re-enactment of the first moon landing on it's anniversary. There was much aluminum foil and we handed out Tang and Moon Pies. It was an amazing evening. The staff at the observatory didn't chase us away. They loved what we were doing and invited us to fill the VIP seats at the Lazer Show. Afterwards we all went to a Denny's type place to swap stories and ideas for the next stunt.

The complications came when I started to like it too much. I was falling for her and for LA; an amazing girl in an amazing city. I could tell Nora was developing strong feelings for me, and I talked about staying, or coming back at least.

Pete had been hired by the Animation Festival as well, and he seemed to know me better than I knew myself. He knew that I'd move on, and that the strong feelings I had would fade quickly. I didn't believe him. I couldn't imagine such a thing, after all, that wasn't how I generally operated. Pete thought I was a player and he resented me getting together with girl's that he would have liked to see himself with.

Of course Pete, my dear old roommate, had slept with Monica when he knew she was the love of my life. I didn't feel this was wrong of him, given the situation, but it established an ettiquette that he would just have to live with.

On our last night in town we stayed at a Youth Hostel in LA. The rules would not allow Nora to stay since she was an LA resident. We fell asleep holding each other and we got bitched out in the morning. It was worth it. We exchanged I love yous and I climbed in Pete's bus to leave town. We had a few weeks off and were heading to Nashville Tennessee to visit Eve.

As Pete predicted, my feelings for Nora faded. It was a much needed time of self centeredness for me. My life had evolved around my obsession and/or love for various women for far too long. I needed to figure out who the hell I was and what I wanted.

I recieved a couple of letter's from Nora, return address listed as Montel Williams, but we didn't see much of each other after that. She visited Sacramento briefly and I got the feeling she had decided I was an asshole, though it may have been my own guilty conscience projecting itself.

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