Sal Lucero lives with his mom in a Mexican American working-class suburb of Los Angeles where he's always lived. Working as a busboy, and struggling against economic pressures, it's not a holiday he longs for, but "a permanent vacation from complacency." Through a minimalist episodic narrative, we follow Sal through his ups and downs, as he chides his friends for moments of stupidity, pushes his broken down car down the street, admires his mother for her ambition, avoids going to church, and contemplates his burgeoning desire to become a writer. His ideas, written on note cards pinned to a bulletin board, veer from the philosophical to family history and form the backbone of this intimate neorealist film.