bad botanists

you don’t know bougainvillea and you don’t know jacaranda. you know frizzle sizzle but the jury is still out on whether that’s a real plant. we are the world’s worst botanists on our walk, going south through your neighborhood but quickly turning north when you say, we can go to my coffee shop! and i say, ok, let’s go. and you say, they just learned my name the other day, so don’t embarrass me. embarrass you? i ask. how? like, by doing this? and i take my shirt off and put it on my head and put my hat over my shirt so it hangs out the sides and back like a makeshift safari hat. what are you doing? you ask. and a guy in a hardhat wonders the same thing as i walk by him. he is looking at me and i nod to him like nothing is out of the ordinary but so much is out of the ordinary…the most notable being that i am walking with a girl i want to make laugh so bad that i take my shirt off and put it under my hat. and it works but not as well as i’d like. we continue like a horseshoe, making the long horizontal turn east to north, where i point out several palms as a bad botanist does, saying, this is my favorite kind of palm, the very tall ones that bend in the breeze. and you say, oh, nice. and i say, i think that kind over there is called a royal palm, and you say, ahh, nice. and then i realize two landscapers are sitting on the lawn watching me point to palm trees saying i like that one, and i like this one, and even though i was just walking around in my makeshift safari hat with no shirt on, this is somehow far more embarrassing. i shut my mouth until we make the turn, where i notice a tiny hummingbird perched on the telephone wire and i have never seen a hummingbird perched on a telephone wire and now i’m looking at it like the construction worker was looking at me. i think it’s an Anna’s hummingbird according to the internet searches i used to do at Lyndsay’s, where we’d sit on the patio and debate which hummingbird was at her feeder. i think that’s an Anna’s i’d say, and she’d disagree because of the wing pattern but also because that’s what lawyers do. and then Chirpy was a Rufous hummingbird. he bullied all the other hummingbirds, and i tell you, do you know that hummingbirds have to eat every 15 min to survive? and you say, no kidding. yeah, i say, it must be so much energy to move those little helicopter wings so fast, and beat that little machine gun heart so quick that they have to eat nonstop, and do you know their food is just like, one part sugar and three parts water? oh really? yeah, i say, it’s no wonder they are the way they are, it’s an animal just constantly on a sugar high. and you say, do you think that’s your spirit animal? and i grab you and poke you affectionately and say, what are you trying to say?! and you say, i think that’s your spirit animal. and i laugh and scamper to the coffee shop, i beat my machine gun heart. we can see the coffee shop now but we have to wait at a light to cross. and i hit the walk button, the cars are flying east to west, it’s six lanes. we wait for them to slow down and they finally come to a stop. cars from north and south are turning to go east and west. and we wait for the walking man to show on the traffic light. we wait and we wait and then the lights turn and the cars fire east and west again. what the hell! i say. and you go, did you even hit it? i DID! i say, and we watch the six lanes heave and rush and fire through, the pickups and sports cars and vans and busses. the motorcycles, coupes and luxury crossovers. the colors and lines in psychic automatism paint an uninterpretable dream, and i am Miro and i see horses. i always see horses in six lanes of Los Angeles traffic. how could you not? and finally they slow to a stop and finally we see the walking man, and we walk, and in the coffee shop i ask you, do you like kombucha and you say i have ten grand in stocks and it’s like a beautiful Zen poem from Big Sur. we get our coffee and sit out front and share family photos and i ask you about which one are you more like, your mother or father? you say it used to be your father but now you think you’re a mix of the two. sarcastically i say, no kidding… you think you’re a mix of both? you roll your eyes and smile and show me a photo of your brother and you’re right about looking like twins with short hair. after we discuss dating and body shaming and whether doctors should be nicer (they shouldn’t) we get up to go west. a woman with wild eyes and rough skin passes us and we make eye contact and i say, how ya doin the way i greet everyone and she says, me? oh i’m great. i’m going to Mexico. yep. yes i’m going to Mexico she says, her voice trailing off as she speedwalks away. oh yeah…don’t worry about me i’m going to Mexico. i look at you and you say, i think she’s going the wrong way if she’s going to Mexico. i say to be honest i don’t think she cares. and we walk west down Washington, the bad botanists, me saying a line from a poem i wrote when i got to San Diego — about Southern California being the first place i’ve ever lived where the plants didn’t just sit in the background. they’re impossible not to notice. and we notice another as we walk under it…these big strange buds dangling and i say, what are these, tree testicles? i shake the tree and one falls off. treesticles. i say, and you pick it up off the sidewalk and bring it close to your face. i bring my face close to the treesticle and your face. you say, what do you think is in it? we both picture some hollow orb with treasure inside. i don’t know, i say, only one way to find out. and you start trying to open it with your thumbs like you might an orange. you’re struggling and nothing’s happening and so you stop trying and i take it and you go, hey! i wanted to try to open it! i give it back to you and you try again at ⅔ effort and give up, then give it back to me. and i try with my thumbs and we’re making some headway, i can see the inside but it’s not hollow. i’ve only dug in a little with my thumbs. chipped away some of the skin and hard guts of the inside. and i’m not getting any further so i throw the thing on the cement to try and break it open. nothing happens and so i step on it and finally it splits. i pick it up and hold it out for us. our faces are both real close in anticipation and when i pull it open, the inside is like a less juicy green tomato. there’s seeds and everything, and i am not impressed but you like it. you go ooooooo…and i so i give it to you, and you say, it’s like…fruit? do you think it’s edible? you ask looking at me. i make a face and shrug. you bring the fruit closer to your mouth and stick out your tongue a little. you bring it closer and closer and i make a horrified face as it gets closer and closer and…