A bunch of random thoughts collected over the course of my first days in the San Diego area.

I count 57 teenagers here at Starbucks in Solana Beach, which has pushed the din up to steal any idea of concentration. It’s almost comical how many older people who had been working quietly got up and left as the kids started hitting a crescendo of noise. School obviously just got out for the day, but what’s peculiar about this crowd is that it must be about 90% girls. This begs the question as to why there are so few boys traveling with them. Also of note, there are two African American girls, two Indians, and three Asians, which means the racial divide stands at 88% Caucasians, which, when one considers the wealth required to live here, becomes a sad statement about an area that is 32% Hispanic but they appear to not be represented at all.

The continual utterance of the word “like” is popping up ad nauseam. While it’s no longer spoken with the Valley Girl intonation that was popular in the late 1970s, it is still in use or, should I say, abuse. Caroline and I recently became more aware of it in our own speech and are trying to nudge one another when it starts to infiltrate our vocabulary inappropriately.

Seven Chinese men are sitting in front of another Starbucks; they are playing a card game. Each man is holding about a dozen cards. An old Chinese lady squints to read the paper, two Hindu men are busy pointing to some paperwork they are going through, a couple of Native Americans watch videos on their phones while a parade of nationalities passes through the drive-thru, serviced by a diverse staff mostly in their young twenties. The losing man of the card game leaves the table, and someone else takes his place.

Lunch at Manna Korean BBQ was an all-you-can-eat, cook-at-your-table affair. While sitting here it dawned on me that I only search for Korean Restaurants in Phoenix, not Korean BBQ. It turns out that a different search term presents different results. One might think that Korean BBQ is Korean food, but you’d be wrong, just as I was. My search results let me know that Manna BBQ has a few locations in Phoenix, and Gen Korean BBQ, where I ate in Huntington Beach after dropping Dion and Ylva at LAX, has a presence in the Phoenix area as well. I also learned that the menus are slightly different, as California diners want a more authentic Korean meal while Arizonans are sadly looking for a blander offering.

I wonder what’s preoccupying me or distracting me that I’m finding the process of writing difficult. If I were at an emotional degree left or right, I could slip into the fear of this being a more serious affliction, and that my words are entangled somewhere I cannot find them. Maybe it’s too easy to get caught up in observing the positives of what’s going on around me. There are people on vacation, playing chess or cards, working crossword puzzles, and talking about business ideas. I’m distracted by the diversity that is non-hostile. Nobody is out by themselves; they are with others. In a sense, I’m taken by the positivity, and so there’s a thought that I’ve simply not adapted to the climate around me yet and how different it is from the unhappiness I see in Arizona.

San Diego has Zonies, which are the Arizona equivalent of Snowbirds. Over the summer, the influx of vacationers from Arizona is so apparent that they are considered a summer phenomenon and are met with a certain amount of disdain. Just as the Snowbirds contribute to heavier traffic and busier restaurants, those who escape the desert heat are a large part of the congestion that occurs here along the coast from June through the end of August. Funny how the quality of life can feel intruded upon when the returning presence of a particular demographic becomes obvious within one’s community. This is happening more and more as humanity achieves greater mobility and funds to transplant themselves to more desirable places.

I’m bored as I sit here in San Diego on my fourth full-day house-sitting. It’s Sunday morning, and although it’s beautiful outside the idea of heading to the beach for a walk is met with the resistance I feel in having to deal with parking. Then there’s the food along the shore that’s generic fare that best satisfies the palates of visitors on vacation and is priced accordingly. More interesting eats are found south of me and inland, where diversity has taken up residence. The economic conformity that attracts ethnic isolation makes for a giant plate of boring. After sitting here in my nearest Starbucks, as there are no other coffee shops, I have nothing besides more frustration at how little my immediate environment offers me.

I’m at Szechuan Chef and the place is packed mostly with Chinese people and three white people, of which I’m one. Being a creature of some habit, I ordered spicy cabbage, Szechuan water-boiled fish, and some shrimp dumplings. If you are wondering if I’m anticipating leftovers, I am. A couple with a newborn baby is dining next to me; I wish they weren’t. The lady is watching a soap opera on her phone, and while it’s certainly loud in here, the tinny sound of her phone speakers is cutting through the noise and into my desire to be civil. Watching this couple shovel their food as though they were at a trough is unsettling, so I’ll try to focus on something, anything else. I’m noticing that even the couples have far too much food for two people to eat, so I shouldn’t feel out of place having ordered so many dishes. I’m hoping to be impressed with the food, and if how crowded the place is is an indicator, I should be fine.

Lunch was spectacular, with every part of my meal hitting almost every mark. The water-boiled fish could have benefited from a lot more Szechuan pepper, also known as mala, but other than that, I gladly took home my leftovers.

Something else came along with lunch I didn’t expect, and for a moment, it lifted my funk. This could have easily been attributed to my finding comfort in eating, but I think it was something different. That difference is that I was among a bunch of people noisily enjoying each other’s company while sharing a meal. Not just any meal either but a sumptuous spread where every table had far too much food on it. Maybe part of the charm is that I couldn’t eavesdrop on anyone complaining because they were speaking Chinese, but if they were lamenting their routine, they were doing so with an abundance of laughter.

This brings me to the question, why am I in a funk in San Diego by myself while when I was in Germany just a few months ago on my own too, I was never at a loss of what to do with my time? I’m going to go out on a limb and blame it on an underlying sense of unhappiness I believe I’m picking up on from white Americans. There is nothing to work on, no dream, and no aspiration. There is only toil, systemic unfairness, violence, along with economic and career uncertainty. If you are Chinese or Hindu in America, you are likely pretty certain that your opportunities are great, while if you are Hispanic and legal, you too have a certain amount of confidence that your situation will only get better or stay the same.

If you are a white American, you are either still angry at Obama and Hillary, or now you are angry with Trump and what you could perceive as rising fascism. You might be angry about the cost of your health care or in fear of losing it or never being able to afford it. Maybe you are angry that your savings are non-existent and there is no safety net for you like there is for banks, automobile manufacturers, large corporations, or minority communities that help each other. Could it be guns that make you angry or the anger that arises from your fear that someone might want to take them away?

Anger seems rife in America among the majority population, or at least it feels that way to me. I’m not happy to be around those with the same skin color as me unless I’m in Europe. Europeans are at least building Europe and trying to figure out what that is; we, on the other hand, have lost what it is to be American besides being pissed off. Our President is the perfect exemplar of this as he shows us that he’s mad about everything, including the fake media, an untrustworthy intelligence community, lying Hillary, a federal reserve that won’t bend to his will, anti-fascists attacking some good people, companies acting as traitors by laying people off, trading partners ripping us off, and starving people escaping violence in their communities by supplying us with the illegal drugs we need.

With all the pain, we are committing suicide at the rate of 123 people per day, or more per month than died on 9/11. Then, another 130 people per day are dying from opioid overdoses. Forty million American adults are taking anti-depressants, with a handful of those overdosing on their prescription drugs. Almost 14 million Americans have a drinking problem, with 8 million of those being alcoholics. Why are we so unhappy?

We have no certainty about staying on the treadmill of prosperity. If we get sick, we could be bankrupted; if we send our kids to school or we attend a concert, someone we love might die. Some of us are so frightened by a coup or insane government we feel that armed resistance or at least being prepared for it is our best bet for surviving the zombie apocalypse.

Awake is not what we are. Sports trivia is not family. Game of Thrones is not socializing. Fast food is not health care. A Costco card is not retirement savings. Your car is not a hobby, your continuing education, or a real example of how amazing you want others to believe you to be. But you cannot reconcile any of this because, as an American, you are a composite of shallow nothings that you have come to believe give you character and identity.