Body High 30: The auslander of self

Here is where the story of my country as a place of unlimited possibility was sold.

The wide-open spaces of California’s Canyon Country formed the backdrop of early 20th century American Westerns. Eminently watchable propaganda that solidified the concept of Manifest Destiny, and at remarkable profit.

The whole world bought into my most recent former home, and to live and breathe it as an American pedestrian was the creative X factor for more than eight months. A privilege. This land of The West insists that anything is possible, from the minute one exits their front door. Depicted above is my customary walk to Albertsons.

I built out my historical epic screenplay where they shot Back to the Future. And Joya showed me how to float. Finally.

In late September my trips through the canyons of Santa Clarita—LA County’s northernmost suburb—were gorgeously unsustainable. The crispy heat would build to over 110 degrees Farenehit, and I was putting in six mile days, striding down from the hillside residence to Bouquet Canyon Boulevard, my conduit to an eventual connection in nearby Newhall with a Glendale-bound train.

The sun shone so bright last fall that my eyes lost a layer of brown in their irises.

Unsustainable because my body could not stay this lean and live to tell. Only so much more stress would be absorbed without my self crossing over from this realm and into the spiritual.

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It was an attractive nuisance, this calling to flirt with the edge. In a defensive crouch on that Glendale elementary school asphalt, I played with the urge in a one-on-two scrimmage against two beneficiaries of my wisdom. Pushing them, poking at them. Moving laterally—deep in my crouch—swiping at their shitty, elementary school dribbling, and teaching an indelible lesson, with my heart beating fast in my ears.

I would count off how close to a stroke I imagined myself getting, conservatively of course.

Forever memories.

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After the season of unsustainability came a near shutdown of the physical self. Overweight and overwalking the start of 2025, I hurt my knee. It felt like the end of the world, my mobility was so limited. Using a cane came so unnaturally to me that I simply stayed upstairs rather than negotiate the stairs that lay between my room and the kitchen.

Thus began the new period of Light and Doughy Donnell. If this journey’s new to you, feel free to revisit the early days of this Substack feature.

In the early 2024 days of Body High I was lean, and in near-constant pain. My upper body was as strong as ever and the recovery from gym workouts days in the making. An article about what men my age should actually be doing passed before my eyes. It was then that I a chance on low-resistance workouts, via the public machines in Echo Park.

When my great urban housing situation went up in smoke last August, the aforementioned elementary school playground supervisor workout came to the fore. That on-the-job workout was great, pure utility—like chasing public transit to stay rock-and-roll ready.

Then came the winter knee injury, followed by Covid. I leaned into my film script and all of the impulses toward eating less—downstairs in the fridge and in my bank account—and I just sorta became less. My primary exercise were isometric, my main thing stretching. And the realization came that my taut and mobile self of September and October was a lie, a dishonest perspective on my physical abilities facilitated by Advil and topically-applied cannabis balms.

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Some nights in the rain I’d still dance on a canyon boulevard corner, but mostly I struggled and coped. Toward winter’s end, my walks to Albertson’s became labored. And when my lower-body aches and pains ratcheted up and even screamed, I would focus on lessons learned:

That time the Antifa guys abruptly fired me in Orange County? It’s part of a pattern, I figured while luxuriating in a sensation of sting, not far from Magic Mountain. You’re kind of a dick.

It was an uphill walk to get home, there in the land of unlimited possibility. I would tell myself at the close of various outings that as long as I was heading home on an incline things could only be so bad. They don’t put gutters up on hilltops.

In the opening video I tell a story about 1 am conflict on the Central Coast campus of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. My flashpoint revealed itself not too long before this picture was taken. In Emeryville I hopped the Coast Starlight train that deposited me in Portland on Monday afternoon.

(God, this town has a drug problem)

The reason behind telling that story—about confronting a midnight meth head and superficially saving the day—plays different a day after recording it and five days after the incident. It feels like I left something behind. Or maybe I hope I left something behind?

Since 1994 I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Southern California: Skipping off to NYC in 98. Taking shelter in South Pasadena after 9.1101. Doing the Oregon thing after my 2009 breakup.

When Altadena and Palisades burned, I had been spending the holidays with my family in Oregon. Being based in Santa Clarita, my return felt like… nothing. Los Angeles proper felt distant and sad to me, and not just because of fire damage that would be compounded by DC hostility.

This feels like the most meh separation yet. But I technically went out with a bang.