I have felt very dull for the past few days. I think that I might be on the verge of catching a cold. I have that sort of numb-faced feeling, like I'm not very alert or on my game. I don't feel sick- I just feel sluggish. Maybe it's because I ate a lot of junk over the weekend (I'm normally a pretty healthy eater) and I partied like a rock star.
Before I get into the weekend, I want to touch on the nice people out here. I bought this ridiculously awesome/tacky cow print chair off of craigslist the other day. I went to this lady's house in Santa Monica to buy it. She told me that she works in the TV business and that this chair was used on the set of "Spin City." I've never seen that show, but I still think it's neat that my chair was on TV. This lady was so mothering towards me. I sort of wanted to tie her up and bring her home so she could tell me nice mom things every time I miss little Carol. She gave me some advice about L.A. and told me to guard my heart and not "let people in too much" because people are so "fair-weather" out here. I thought about that verse in Proverbs-- "guard your heart; for it is the wellspring of life." There must be something to this. I used to be entirely too open with people. Then somewhere in high school I became very platonic and never got close to anyone. I'd say now I'm 50/50. So anyway, people are always talking about the pretentious L.A. folk, but this nice lady took the time to speak with me for a good 15 minutes about the city. This was one nice lady that I met.
I also met a nice man at my gym. I was recovering from the adventures of Friday night while working out next to this guy on Saturday morning. We rode our little bikes together while watching "The Daily Show." This guy was awesome. He told me he used to listen to XM radio all the time and tune into George Klein. What a cool cat. He was a hunk, too, but then he told me he has a THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD daughter, so apparently he's one of those L.A. guys who looks super young/fit but he's actually a boomer. Keely and I talked about this yesterday. You have to watch it with the men out here. They're all really old but they are so into personal maintenance that they all look 28. Creepy. Another nice guy that I met helped wave my SUV into the gas station. It was super crowded and I couldn't tell how much room I had to get the gas pump. He got out of his Porsche and directed me to the pump. Now, I'm sure he was probably just making sure that I didn't cream his billion dolla baby, but the point is, he went out of his way to show me how much room I had, and I thought that was incredibly nice.
The point of these first few paragraphs is that there are LOTS of friendly and thoughtful people in L.A., but you have to pay attention to them when you actually interact with them. It'd be easy for me to blow off the chair lady or the gas pump man or my gym neighbor, but if you take the time to pay attention, you can always find kindness.
On Friday I went to "the hottest bar in Hollywood," according to my friends. I think we got in because some people are, at times, a little bit intrigued by my black-and-white sense of frankness and complete sense of "F-everyone else, I do what I want"-ness. We walked around this rich-people party and I felt like I was at a party on the Titanic. People drinking champagne and waltzing around in their fancy-pants clothes. Me walking around with my bronze cowboy boots and jeans and big sparkly pageant earrings. Haha. I am ridiculous. I think there's something fun about my complete inability to blend in. Maybe it isn't inability. I just don't care.
We lasted maybe twenty minutes before ditching this stuffy place (it was pretty, but a little too wedding-reception-esque for us) and heading down to Saddle Ranch, where I met all kinds of nice people FROM TENNESSEE (one from Germantown!), and we went buck wild all night. Riding mechanical bulls, eating inordinate amounts of Mentos from the little Mentos promotional girl, hanging out and meeting people... I had a blast with my new friends. Eventually we left and ate tacos in the hood somewhere. I attempted to teach a bunch of Mexicans Spanish. I told them I thought that they were all fakers so I tested them and made them translate my Southern-drawl-Spanish. It was a good time.
On Saturday I took it easy until Jesse & Andy picked me up and we watched the LSU game at Pocket's in Manhattan Beach. What a blast. We recanted the night before and Chris showed up after taking a 100$ taxi ride. I'm going to miss these kids when they go back home. Chris had us all in tears while telling us some story about getting back to his hotel blitzed and stuffing his face full of $5 hotel kit-kats. We went to Hermosa and had a "bomb tour" evening. I've never had so much fun. I stole my friend Carly's idea and went tearing down the streets yelling, "FREE HI-5's!!!" like I do best when I'm feeling especially outgoing. Most folks aren't receptive to this gift, but occasionally it gets some laughs. We came back to my place eventually for a wine and target-brand cheese get together, where we attempted to play truth-or-dare, but I'm pretty sure that it got watered down to a bunch of truth-oriented questions about wild relations/drugs/whatever people don't normally openly discuss.
On Sunday I went to church with Keely and came home and slept off the weekend. I was zonked. I went back to her place and we had wonderful beach pizza and watched the SpaceX rocket launch. I am excited about meeting new scientist friends. I actually got fired from one of my clients today because I couldn't help him with his science homework. I mean, really. WTF is a hectometer? We don't even use that stupid crap over here. Unless this kid wanted to be a drug dealer, he would never have to know how to convert grams, so I say screw it. Anyway, maybe my new scientist friends will rub off on me so I can be a more competent metric system converter.
I tried to get fingerprinted today but could never get remotely coherent directions from the man on the phone. His accent was too thick. Eventually I just got tired and went to the dollar store instead. I needed to buy chalk. The lady there had no idea what chalk was. I kept saying,
"You can write on a chalk board with it. You can write on the street with it. You know. CHALK."
The look on her face definitely said no comprendo.
I might have to take a nap. I really do feel rough today, despite my work out session and hot shower. Blah. I think it's because I had some cheese fries on Saturday. I'm just going to start eating lettuce.
No comments:
Post a Comment