I Love Junk!

So we are driving down PCH in Redondo Beach, me and Stacy.  We are looking for a local coffee shop that looks interesting, tasty and, well, you know, has a vibe...anyway, on our way there, we stop at a light and on the corner, there is a very large junk store.  I mean they have antique scuba diving equipment, glass floaters, old wooden desks, old signs, the whole fucking works.  There is everything right there out my window.  I am mesmerized instantly, I love going to these places, it transports me in time and takes me to, perhaps lives I have lived before, or ones that I miss currently, or I don’t know, I just love antique stores, vintage stores, flea markets and shit like that.  I just do.

So I am a little consumed with my own thoughts...Stacy is on the look out for just the right coffee shop and I am fantasizing about all the treasures I could find in this bizarre cornucopia of junk.

It was at this time that I blurted out...

‘I LOVE JUNK!”

Which then prompted me to start singing, in full Oscar the Grouch voice...

‘I LOVE TRASH”

Which then, of course, made me make a disparaging remark about my dating choices...hahaha!  Well, not ALL of my dating choices were trash, but well, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

Anyway, I do love junk and trash...well not ACTUAL trash but other people’s junk...aka treasures.  

I am channeling my dad.  AA conference.  Junking.  Coffee.  I feel him present.  Hiya Daddio!  Miss you and love you! MUAH!

Anyway, back to me and Stacy and the coffee.  We found this absolutely cool place, La Terrazza.  Go there.  Get the Vegan Morning Glory muffin, fuck it is good and a Lavender Iced Matcha, you will NOT be disappointed.  And if you get there, sit outside and relish in your fucking life.  I mean, the junk, the trash, the ups and downs, the musical score that is the soundtrack of your life.  I mean, today, my soundtrack is playing an interesting mix of Oscar the Grouch and Ella Fitzgerald.  Don’t ask me, I have no idea.  I am just here, showing up, living the fucking dream.

And I am overcome with joy for all the trash and junk in my life, well the stuff you might call “trash” and “junk” or perhaps you just think I am fucking weird.  I am glad that I have this love for things ancient and decrepit.  For all of the hours I have spent meandering through antique stores, being transported back to times long gone, but for me, in that moment, are alive again.  I can’t explain the love I feel for old wooden spoons, and fishing nets, and tall glass bottles.  I just know that they anchor me in place in this life that is better than anything I could have ever dreamed up.

All those years ago, sitting on that fucking barstool, talking shit about all the stuff I was going to do, but instead of actually doing any of it, I just kept showing up at that same shitty, dive bar day after day wasting my life away.  And today, I am here with my bestie, we played walking poker today (a first), walked 6 miles on Hermosa and Redondo Beach in the beautiful morning sunshine, I got a contact high from the junk corner store and now we sit at La Terrazza drinking coffee and enjoying the shit out of this most amazing sober life.

I love junk, but just like every piece of junk is another person’s treasure, so is our darkest most hurtful past.  This thing that almost killed us is now the resounding touchstone for an amazing, in service, full throttle kind of life...that today has the theme song, “I LOVE TRASH!" I  just might have to get a shirt that says that.  And then chuckle to myself when you all try to decipher just exactly what the fuck I mean...

Again, still...