Clarissa Explains it All

The past few days have been awesome and hilarious and weird. I hung out w/ my friend on Friday and we meandered down to Redondo where we got stuck in this carnival-esque arcade. Everyone looked like a member of hell’s angels. It was odd. I felt like we were the two stand-out hillbillies from Tennessee and we were going to get scalped any second.

We crashed a beach party at Dockweiler with a bunch of Mexican kids on Friday night. They were so nice. They acted like Southern folks. They let us bum around their fire and shoot the bull about nothing. I enjoyed it. We went for a drive around Mulholland and looked at L.A. at night. This is one of my favorite past times. Looking out and seeing all of those lights excites me. I get this glimpse of opportunity. I feel like one of those Oregon Trail people who finally made it to their final destination (after half of their party died of yellow fever and they lost all of their crap because they forded the 3 ft. river, of course). Something about overlooking the city and those lights stretching as far as I can see makes me realize how fortunate I am and how amazing it is to have my whole life ahead of me.

On Saturday, I did homework by my pool and saw about 7 hunky guys hanging out in the hot tub. I wasn’t sure if they were all gay or if they were all just trying to relax. I talked to a few of them and found out that some of them were from Alabama. I am not trying to stereotype here, but 7 hunky guys from Alabama all hanging out in a hot tub meant they were NOT gay. All of a sudden, my apartment complex felt like home. It was nice to engage in some down-home trash talking about Nick Saban.

I called my grandfather as I laid out. I heard my grandmother yell out, “Ask her how her boyfriend is doing!” PawPaw said, “Boyfriend? I didn’t know you had a boyfriend!” I said, “I don’t. I just told Miss Ruth last time I talked to her that I was about to go out with a boy who is my friend.” PawPaw yells back to Miss Ruth, “Ruth! She ain’t gotta boyfriend. She’s just hangin’ out with some boy that she’s havin’ a fling with.” Not exactly what I said, but priceless, nonetheless.

On Saturday night, I went to a comedy show. The last time I went to a comedy show, I was in New York with a few friends and my sisters, and we saw Tracey Morgan’s stand up, and he totally sucked, so my expectations were low. One of the best comedy shows I ever went to was when my buddy from L.A. did a stand up show in Memphis at some white trash ghetto establishment. The line up was great. Anyway, I went to this show with low expectations, but was blown away by the hilarity of the whole ordeal. There were a bunch of ridiculous sketches and a few improve slots (the improv sucked). I don’t want to spend much time on this because I want to get to yesterday.

Ok, yesterday, my friend and I went to church, and it was wooooonddddddderful. What I like about my church is that our pastor talks about real issues, real concerns, real doubt. He makes the messages applicable and talks about struggles. Of course, like I said in my last entry, we’re in Psalms, and a lot of those passages are pretty dark, so I’m not sure that the level of depth at my church is always so paramount, but anyway, I really felt connected yesterday. Post church was a super bowl party (sorry for not capitalizing. The thought of pressing the shift key right now exhausts me). I have never really done the whole super bowl thing. I don’t follow pro sports. I rarely pass up an opportunity to meet new folks, though, so I went to this shindig in Brentwood (where OJ Simpson used to live before he went to the pen).

My friend and I go to this party with folks who are all in their 30’s and 40’s. Everyone has a significant other except for me and my friend. We were the two young chicks. It was nice to be around an older crowd, because nobody was wasted or talking all drunk in my face, and though most of my conversation revolved around issues that had absolutely no substance, it was nice to talk to people who maintained direct eye contact and could form proper sentences. My friend and I are there for about 10 minutes when I finally figure out who this girl is that I keep trying to place. I saw this blonde haired girl who looked like your typical, middle class, American young mom- not necessarily homely, but not one of those chic Manhattan moms, either. Just a regular girl. I kept trying to figure out if I knew her from Memphis. All of a sudden it clicked. Melissa Joan Hart. Anybody remember watching “Clarissa Explains it All?” Or “Sabrina the Teenage Witch?” I was sitting on the couch next to her husband, Mark Wilkerson, who is apparently the lead singer of some band called “Course of Nature,” which I’ve never heard of, but he introduced himself to me, and couldn’t have been nicer. Here was this couple I’ve seen on the cover of magazines at the grocery store check out, and they are feeding their babies with bottles, their little boy is passed out in a stroller, and they look tired. It’s weird. I watched countless episodes of “Clarissa” growing up, and sixteen years later, I’m shooing people out of the way so I can help this mom get to her diaper bag and I’m looking at this girl’s booty crack as she digs through her purse to find baby toys. Weird, weird, weird.

I come home from the party and a few of the hunks are in the pool again. I find out that a few of them go to my church. Southerners are taking over. I have to go mentor now. More later.