4 posts tagged “los angeles”

I love L.A.

I'm fascinated by the looks people give me when I say this. Something like disbelief, sometimes even a little pity, as if they suddenly realize I must not have traveled outside of Southern California in my life. I smile back, sometimes a little vapidly, just for the hell of it. I don't care. I love L.A.

I'm about as L.A. as you can get, which we all know  means I'm a hypocrite. I'm against gas-guzzling SUVs, but nothing smells like home more than the smog coming in over LAX. I gaze out through watering eyes at those dreamy purple sunsets knowing exactly where they come from and I still adore them. I try not to be flakey, but I'm sure I am sometimes. Who isn't these days, when the lure of killing an hour on Facebook with a homemade mojito in hand is more appealing than having to dig out something trendy to wear and hit the be-seen eateries on Hollywood.

I like driving in L.A. I love the freeways, the way they wind about, the pace of traffic like a stretched-out heartbeat. It's my river. I slid on in from the edge and float across the lanes to find the right current, the one that's going to send me flying across the cities, little neighborhoods smooshed together like a handful of marshmallows in a toddler's sticky hand. In twenty-eight minutes, I've cruised over hills faded brown and green from summer and through several clustered highrise downtowns of puffed-up cities. Every city in L.A. has it's own downtown.

I had one of  those days today. I thought about calling up my best friend that I haven't talked to in a year and tried calling her old number, but she wasn't home. I drove by my father's old house, the house I grew up with, just to see if anything had changed, which it hadn't. I had left a DHL box I'd meant to mail at home and a store I'd wanted to check out was closed. I came home four hours later feeling as if I'd just taken an aimless drive on a Monday afternoon.. oh, wait, that's exactly what I did do.

But at least this was all here. People are so beautiful in L.A. Hell, I don't care if it comes across as shallow, I love beautiful people and to me, they're everywhere here. The most gorgeous latina girl served me up a burrito bol at Chipotle last week and it was all I could do to keep from leaning across the sneezebar, smiling shyly and asking her if she'd take her clothes off for me, her skin was such that perfect creamy porcelain kind. That's the funny thing, though, you can't just get away with being ethnic and beautiful here to stand out. You have to be African and American and you'd better be able to flip between the two in talk, dress, culture and aspirations on the flip of a dime. Flaky, plastic Tinseltown demands nothing less than the most perfect sacrifice for her hellish flames, you know.

The spouse-unit and I went out for lunch on Friday. I had a craving for healthy real food, so we tried out M Cafe on Melrose. It was really, really good: everything was fresh and tasty and it felt good to be out in the world. I had the spicy peanut kale salad, which was delish, of course. They also have a nice mint barley iced tea and  vegan gelato!

BTW, it's amazing how nothing seems to change on Melrose. There was still the massive line up the street for Pink's, and the same stores, and the typically surprising number of people lounging around at 2pm on what would be a workday anywhere else in the world. :-) Ahh.. L.A.

This fire is raging on the next hill over from us. :-(

For those of you wondering, this is taken out the window of our house, around Gower, looking east towards the Observatory. (We're just southeast of the Hollywood sign.) For most of the evening, we could only see the ominous red glow and lots of smoke, but it started to pick up and come over the hill.

I really need to get on the disaster preparedness. We have the basics of flashlights, candles, emergency rations, first aid, etc., but we need to get rolling on the document prep, emergency supplies for the pets, etc.  I've been meaning to follow through on an idea I heard somewhere, to scan all the important documents and put them on a pen drive and stash that in a firebox, or where ever you keep your emergency stuff.

If you live in Los Angeles and are a registered voter, I highly encourage you to go vote. It may seem like a small election, but good things can start small. For all the skinny, including video statements from the candidates and audio analysis of the amendments, check out smartvoter.org.