It’s Been A Bad Day, Please Don’t Take My Picture

(to borrow from R.E.M)

Bad days should be uncommon here in San Diego. It’s sunny most of the time, the ocean is, for many of us, a hop-skip away and hey, it’s California. So when things go sour, it feels almost like an insult. Why, amidst all the palm trees and jasmine-scented sidewalks, blue skies and salt-tinged air, must it all go so horribly wrong?

But rough times are hard to weather anywhere, I suppose. There’s just something about all this beauty that makes it seem even more wrong. In a tangle of East Coast gloom, under clouds and in rainy streets, a lousy mood is easy to nurture. Here, with the sweet-smelling breezes blowing your way, cheer just around the corner, it just makes you seem like a bad person, that your misery should just melt away when, in fact, it cannot.

The upside is, however, San Diego is a great place to hunker down and wait for everything to get better.