I felt really bad about Yona not being able to hang with us on Sunday. And since the two salespeople I work for were in Hawaii for a week, I decided to take Thursday off from work because Yona said she'd be in the LA area staying with some friends of hers from school who live here. As JB and Maelstrom were the only ones available to go out on Thursday, we all made plans to meet Yona at her friend Jim's house around noon or twelve-thirty.
Considering that the last time I got directions from Yona, we ended up driving up and down Frank Sinatra Blvd. for at least half an hour, I was a bit leery of the directions she gave this time around. I would be going in on this alone, too, because I had to go to work and get my paycheck before trekking out to LA and every other SubConner had school or work. However, it seemed fairly simple: take the 405 North until you get to the exit, make some turns and voila! you're there. So I did. It was a very long drive, longer than I thought, and then all of a sudden, the scenery started to look very familiar. "This is Santa Monica!" I cried out in the car. This was quite the revelation for me, as Damon and I go out to Chinatown and Santa Monica at least once every two months for our siaopao and Third Street Promenade run. I slapped myself in the forehead when I realized that I knew how to get here all along. Unfortunately, this did not stop me from getting lost.
I finally found the house and Yona, who was in the kitchen with her two friends Jim and Ruthemma. They were making crepes for breakfast, and while Ruthemma made the crepes, Jim grilled me in the nicest way possible about how Yona and I knew each other. The look on his face when we told him that we knew each other through just the internet was priceless. For the rest of the afternoon, he'd give us this funny look and call us "internet geeks". I redeemed myself when I mentioned KROQ's two morning DJ's, Kevin and Bean. It turns out that he's a transplanted Californian living in Massachussets, and he really misses his Kevin and Bean. Yona and I talked some more about Subrealizens while waiting for JB and Maelstrom to show up.
They were really late. We'd gotten so tired of waiting, that Yona decided to hop onto #subcafe (earning yet another "look" from Jim) and we chatted with whoever was in channel that morning until JB showed up. It appears as if she got lost, too. But, according to JB, that's just normal for her. We decided to go to Venice Beach, which was very close by. The four of us took JB's car and Jim was supposed to lead us in his. But, just like Sunday, he zoomed off ahead of us, leaving us a bit clueless about where to go (I'd only heard of Venice Beach; how was I to know it was IN Santa Monica?). Luckily, he stopped by the side of the road for us and led us to his super secret parking spot.
When they speak of the Boardwalk, or you see crazy things happening near a beach in California, they speak of Venice Beach. It was immortalized in the movie "L. A. Story" as a place where you can get a high colonic. Yona didn't want a high colonic, but she was in search of a certain type of product you can find only on the Boardwalk. We passed by tatoo parlor stalls, tight clothing stalls, a bookstore, some 99¢ pizza stalls.... Yona and I got these very cute sarongs for about ten bucks. Mine is purple; anyone who comes to Subrealicon 2000 will probably see me wearing it poolside. It was in the bookstore where we found the cutest notebooks with the Wonder Woman and Batman logos on them and where JB told us a really raunchy joke that she heard from Maelstrom. Do not click on this link if you're not allowed to read or hear dirty jokes. We also saw some really cute clothes, but as we left Jim's house at two, JB didn't have time to stay at the boardwalk long. We said goodbye, Jim gave her the directions back to the car, and we set off again on the Boardwalk.
After some more shopping, including getting a surprise for Acetal and Mitai, we went back to the car to find that JB and Maelstrom hadn't left because they'd gotten lost on the way to the car. We went back to Jim's house, said our goodbyes (for real this time!) and JB and Maelstrom left, followed by me.

Onto Day Three!


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