May 01, 2008
May Day
May 1st has many meanings. For one thing, it is my mom's birthday, and she is fabulous and I am a horrible child who waits until the last minute to send anything and everything, and thus her gift should be arriving in the mail... shortly.
But hello and Happy Birthday!
Also May 1st in Los Angeles is very exciting because people who apparently do not do such things as "develop secretary spread in stale office air" such as myself take to the streets in the middle of the day and swarm the city with chaos and then people throw coke bottles at the police and then the police shoots them. I have never really understood the whole May Day Melee thing but then again I do not understand quantum physics and still I say things like "entanglement" on a regular basis.
People will hold placards and some will have bullhorns and there will be more sirens than usual and downtown will be a mess. Or not! Because you never know, people might just go get a plate of hotwings and a pitcher and call it a day. The buses may or may not run, the city may or may not perish, and either way... it's still May.
How on earth did we get to May so soon?
Posted by laurie at 08:36 AM | Comments (67)
April 29, 2008
Shake, rattle and roll
The midwest is normally safe from such left-coast craziness as houses being left on the freeway, people descending into hysteria at the sight of mist and of course, The Governator. But last week I got emails from several folks in the midwest who had experienced a crazyass midwestern EARTHQUAKE and wanted to know what us seasoned Californians do when the very ground beneath us is rollercoastering.
I'm not sure I'm a seasoned Californian, I've only been here... wait... THIRTEEN YEARS? It's true, then. By Los Angeles standards I'm practically a native, aside from the funny accent. I actually remember when this town had a football team! I can remember when a two-bedroom, one-bath house only cost $375,000!
Anyway, as a resident of this great city, let me assure you the best thing about earthquakes is that you don't know when they're coming. (This same thing could be said about tornadoes, which apparently rumbled all across Virginia yesterday, and I have no advice on tornadoes at all because they scare the beejezus out of me. Seriously.)
But while earthquakes may seem sneaky, it's a good thing. There's no "season" for earthquakes, so you don't start dreading June to October. Plus, you don't have weathercasters standing outside in yellow slickers waiting anxiously for rain to begin falling and 24 hour round-the-clock coverage of THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY. Hey, I lived in Florida (And Mississippi and Louisiana...) I know the cone of uncertainty. It is decidedly uncertain.
While earthquakes may seem like the earth's version of a Silent But Deadly fart, one which causes mass destruction and has no known warning signs, the upside to earthfarts is that no one is clearing the grocery store shelves of bread, milk and vodka two weeks ahead of time. No one has to buy lumber and board up their windows and fill sandbags and tie down the lawn furniture.
Although I personally have witnessed farts which could do such damage. I am just saying is all. A few years ago, I was on a red line train that experienced a Silent But Deadly and we all had to immediately evacuate the car at the next stop and get on another train car. It was almost lethal.
Where was I? Oh yes, earthquakes. So you build yourself a nice big earthquake kit that you have ready "just in case" and the rest of the time you live your life and forget all about earthquakes and hope for the best, which is a pretty good way to live in my opinion.
The earthquake kit is something I am famous for, because while on any given day my fridge may hold three limes and a packet of lunchmeat, my earthquake kit has all the good stuff I don't eat or drink on a regular basis. But earthquakes are special occasions, and in my opinion if you have just lived through a 7.0 and its aftershocks and there is no power and gangs of gun-toting women are perusing the neighborhood, you can have a packet of cheesy garlic powdered mashed potatoes if you want them and you can wash them down with bubble-wrapped vino.
The only thing that's different from my earthquake kit list of 2005 is the cigarettes, which are now gone as I smoked them up right before I paused smoking for good. I can't believe I haven't smoked in 16 months, that is nutty. What I think is so funny is how all these people who do not know me, really know me, were all so sure I'd change my mind about smoking again when I turned 60, because they just knew I'd come to my senses and see how AWFUL and GROSS smoking is. And to be honest with you there are entire days that go by that I think, "How many months until I turn 60 and can start smoking again?" When I turn 60, I am going to have a truckload of cigarettes delivered to me by a scandalously young male stripper, I tell you what. My sixties are going to ROCK.
But anyway, for now the ol' earthquake kit is devoid of the cigarettes. But it does have cheesy garlic mashed potatoes in powdered form.
I keep the disaster preparedness kit in my garage since there's less stuff there to fall on it and endanger the potatoes, plus my house is just too tiny for a big ol' Rubbermaid box of earthquake goodies. I do keep water in the cupboards and extra cat food in the house and so on, but the most important thing about being prepared for a quake is knowing where your eyeglasses are. Oh ye of perfect eyesight will not understand but I'm blind as a bat without my contacts or glasses, and if you place your glasses on the nightstand and the nightstand goes gyrating off into the mystic ... well, it might be a bit hard to find your eyeballs! So I used velcro to attach a small glasses case to the metal part of the bed frame. Now I know where my glasses are if the world starts moving in the middle of the night.
Listen, it is very important to see where you're going.
Also, it is not always bad when the earth moves in the middle of the night. It's just bad when you're alone and it's moving!
Also, how sexy will I be at 70 with my bottle-thick glasses and my chain-smoking? I might even get a little yappy dog to sit on my lap and nip at strangers. I will probably start dyeing my hair a color that does not occur in nature. Frankly, in my later years I plan to not give a damn, my dear. I will end sentences with prepositions and I will cut all the tags off my mattresses!!
So my advice to anyone living in earthquake country is this: Put together a nice big ol' earthquake kit and make sure it has water, food and first-aid supplies. Keep extra pet food and wine on hand at all times. And then forget all about it.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! You just can't predict an earthquake, so there's no use worrying about it. If only I could take that philosophy in all areas of my life...
Posted by laurie at 08:31 AM | Comments (76)
April 28, 2008
Wish it were Sunday 'cause that's my fun day...
Breaking News: It is Hot And I Need Coffee
There's one good thing about a despicably hot weekend in April: it gives you something to talk about pre-coffee Monday Morning when your interpersonal chitchat skills are at their lowest and you're standing there in the galley actually waiting for the coffee to finish brewing because it's too much exertion to do anything while it brews.
"So!" says cheerful freakish morning-loving co-worker. "How was your weekend?"
"Hot," you mumble.
"Oh my gosh I know, but it was breezy at least! Love that sunshine! Love that Vitamin D!" says Cheerful.
"Coffee," you grunt.
- - -
The Wrath Of Vinegar Man Has Not Subsided
One of the biggest downsides of commuting is that you cannot pick who you commute with. Why I do not commute alone in a darkened vehicle with Al Gore is beyond me, but alas. I commute with them. The masses.
My evil arch-nemesis is Vinegar Man, who smells like a rancid vinegar-sweaty pickle wrapped in dirty underpants. While I know I should be feeling kind and loving and also understanding toward the various issues that face my fellow commuters and humans etc. etc., Vinegar Man makes me physically ill and I want to kill him. But first let me get my HazMat suit because I am not killing him without some filtered oxygen. Lordy his stank is so powerful it can peel paint. There are other people on the bus who've noticed it and remarked on it as well, so at least I know it isn't just my over-active olfactory. I just groan when I see him coming, shirttails flapping, running toward the bus.
The worst part of all this is that Vinegar Man isn't consistent -- sometimes he takes the 6:45, sometimes the 7 a.m. bus and sometimes the 6:30 so on any given day I have to be holding a barfbag nearby just in case. I could move my schedule around if I just knew which bus he was taking but no. Pickledeedee is all over the map. I don't know how the man holds down a job, don't his co-workers suffer? Doesn't he have performance reviews? Don't they have NOSES??? Good grief.
I know I'm grumpy. Plus I forgot my earrings and my laptop. And my hair has static cling today.
But I do not smell like vinegar and that is something.
Posted by laurie at 08:02 AM | Comments (26)
April 23, 2008
Back to the future, please.
Have you seen these billboards all around town and on buses that are supposed to be promoting a movie:
That was taken through the plastic window of my Jeep, whoopsy. Anyway, you know what would really suck? It would REALLY suck if your real name were... Sarah Marshall.
Any you know what else would suck? If gas prices got so high that more people than ever started taking mass transit so the city decided that was a good time to begin not just ticketing people who are parked in adjacent lots BUT now they're towing cars! Fun! The city really knows how to make a buck in tight times, I tell you what.
The price has actually gone up since I took this picture.
And to be honest, it's fine ... I'm just getting up earlier and earlier so I can find parking in the currently-legal parking lot (who knows for how long! stay tuned!) but the real thing that irritates me, and I mean REALLY ANNOYS ME TO NO END is that I grew up my whole life thinking that by the time I was as ancient and decrepit as THIRTY, not to mention thirty-plus years old, I was just sure I wouldn't have to own a car at all because I would be going to and fro with my own personal jetpack.
I WANT MY JETPACK DAMMIT.
Posted by laurie at 08:41 AM | Comments (68)
April 17, 2008
Bumper philosophy in the city of angels
I take a lot of pictures of bumper stickers and general chitchat happening on the backsides of cars across this city. I'm not sure exactly why I'm so interested in them, but it definitely makes our painfully slow traffic more amusing. The bumper stickers and the nosepickers -- what would I do without them for laughs on the freeways?
I even stop in parking lots and take pictures of bumper stickers that strike me. Maybe it's because on a deeper level I am fascinated that someone would stick a slogan on such a large purchase. Cars typically cost more than a pair of shoes, and you won't catch me putting a sticker on my high heels. So I guess I think of bumper stickers as the car owners' personal philosophy, an expression (succinct and punch-liney as it may be) of that individual's view on life. And I'm fascinated that anyone can sum up their primary life's focus on a bumper sticker. Those license-plate holders with customized saying get me, too, especially because they seem like so much more work than a sticker.
This car caught my eye -- I was riding the bus one day and saw it out the window. It was a foggy, dreary, excruciatingly early morning commute and the Elvismobile got me to crack a smile:
I wonder if he or she has an Elvis Room at home? Or better yet -- a Jungle Room! I love crazed Elvis fans, they're always very nice people and they can usually appreciate a velvet painting. I love a good velvet painting.
Bumper talking amuses me to no end. You can tell the proud parents (and honor students) from the sports fans and political junkies. This one is a bit of a mouthful, though:
"My child is a winner at Westfield Ave. Elem/Westfield Computer Science Magnet." Maybe they should just say, "My kid's school has more words than your kid's school!"
And sometimes there are bumper stickers about your honor student that make me laugh out loud:
Then there are the peaceful commuters who want us to "Coexist!" or "Practice Random Acts of Kindness" and others who want us to Praise Jesus! Support the Troops! and Listen to Viva 107.5!
Lots of folks have opinions they want to share about this country:
I honestly tried to find a bumper sticker that said something pro-Bush just to be all fair and everything, but as it turns out I live in Southern California. Whoopsy. Although this might be pro-Bush:
What exactly does "GUEY" mean, anyway?
By the way, yes I know what guey means and I freely admit I was being somewhat sarcastic in the "this is a joking website" manner, which is funnier when you don't have to point it out.
I love that people stick bumper stickers on their cars. I like seeing if the message and the car align, or if the driver has a sense of humor and I like that some folks feel so strongly about a thing that they find a single, defining message and then they adhere it to their vehicle. I'm not sure the ONE thing I would feel most impassioned about, however, is telling people in traffic that I'm so awesome ... but sadly, I'm "taken":
This I don't understand. Do people just keep approaching you in your vehicle, asking you out on dates? So now we can only assume they REALLY want you but then they read your license plate holder and have to slowly back away, dejected, sad? And also ..in traffic?
And while I guess it's pretty darn cool to produce real twin human beings from your body, I think I would feel weird about letting people know my kids' names (especially in my neighborhood ... "Chester The Child Molester-ville"):
Close-up of her little window sticker:
Close-up of personalized plates:
(Sometimes folks want to know how I get such clear pictures of other cars on the road. Notice these cars are all in front of my Jeep. Notice that we are all not moving. That is how AWESOME traffic is in Los Angeles.)
So I take a lot of pictures of bumpers and rear-ends. I'm reading your messages, but I guess I haven't found my own defining message -- at least one that can be summed up in ten words or less. Sure, "I like wine" has a funny ring to it, but is that something you want to stick on your car? Not to mention I already get the crazies calling me an alkie on a regular basis through the mail ... I don't exactly want to deal with them rolling up alongside me to share their OH SO HELPFUL wisdom.
"Cat ladies are sexy" might work, but I am more than just a woman with some cats. Plus, I like dogs. And horses. And guys. All of which are nice animals, but then the bumper sticker gets too wordy and inclusive.
There are election-year bumper stickers EVERYWHERE, but I don't want to wear my political notions on my Jeep. That's just not my style. I don't have any honor students, or babies on board, and I'm no one's Best Mom, Best Grandma or Best Teacher.
"I like the nightlife, I like to boogie..." might make a catchy bumper slogan, honestly I only like to boogie and enjoy nightlife on weekends if I'm not driving and if we don't have to stand in line and if it's not at some lame pick-up joint or someplace where everyone is fresh out of college and looks like an extra from "The Real World" and only if it's not crowded because I hate crowds. In fact, I really don't like the nightlife in the traditional sense .... ah, perhaps all that is too wordy for the average bumper. And in the end it's still not my defining message.
Some bumper stickers are quotations, I like those a lot. I tried to think of a single quote I would want on my bumper ... my favorite quote of all time is by Dr. Wayne Dyer. He's always saying, "Your opinion about me is none of my business." I love that so much. YOUR OPINION OF ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS! It's the truest thing I have ever heard. But I keep that saying close to my heart and don't really need to force it on other people. Besides, do you think Dr. Dyer wants to be quoted on the back of a non-hybrid? Would that be insulting?
In the end, my vehicle remains unadorned. There may indeed be a defining pithy statement inside me somewhere but it's probably about 587 pages long and won't fit on a little square Jeep. Knowing me, my personal philosophy probably has footnotes.
So I'll just keep taking pictures of your bumpers. And your rear-ends, too.
Posted by laurie at 09:27 AM | Comments (149)
April 16, 2008
This explains why the Pope won't come to Los Angeles...
The Popemobile probably gets really poor gas mileage and you know, combine that with the worst traffic in the entire nation and a trip out here would probably break the papal bank. Plus he can't take public transportation because there's no security or parking -- I can't find space for my little red Jeep, nevermind a bigass Popemobile. The city just eliminated all the street parking near my park 'n ride lot, so when the lot fills up you have to try to find parking across the street and IF YOU'RE LUCKY and find a spot you then run across five lanes of traffic to get to the bus stop. Sometimes it's easier to drive to work than to spend 40 minutes looking for parking so you can take a bus that may or may not arrive on time. The buses get stuck in traffic, too you know ... there's no carpool lanes on the 101.
I love Los Angeles. But sometimes I want to kick it really hard in the shins.
Posted by laurie at 09:21 AM | Comments (51)
April 08, 2008
Ouch
There was no parking at the park 'n ride today. I even got there early, but the lot was full and all the street parking for three blocks was full. How is that possible?
Oh yeah, I forgot:
And it's only April.
Posted by laurie at 08:59 AM | Comments (75)
March 31, 2008
Parking is like, a talent, dude.
An early April fool,perhaps?
Posted by laurie at 12:06 PM | Comments (126)
February 26, 2008
I do believe I have an account here. And a savings account. And a certificate of deposit.
Maybe later I will make a withdrawal.
Posted by laurie at 08:23 AM | Comments (51)
February 07, 2008
They keep looking at you even when you try to move away....
Yesterday the building of my employment was without water. The whole building had no water, no running toilets or sinks in the offices of what appear to be something like 500,000 women all needing to pee at the same time.
Good times, I tell you what.
So on my lunch break I walked to Macy's to avail myself of their services, and that is when I discovered this:
What, people, is this a coordinated cruel joke or something?
Anyway, since I was not about to miss another opportunity to pee, I decided to wait it out while the restrooms got cleaned and that is how I found myself in the dressing room of said Macy's trying on what can only be described as another in a long line of really ill-fated blouse designs:
It's right up there with the "Nips On Fire" shirt of October 2007. I have finally decided that mass-market fashion is either drunk or crazy, or maybe both, but either way I was not it's tragic victim for one day, at least ... I walked out empty-handed. After I made use of the ladies room, of course.
But the shirt still haunts me...
The question for today is, "Will the water be back on when I arrive at work, and if not will I find myself in yet another dressing room trying on yet another shirt that is hilariously drunk and/or crazy and/or staring at me from the breastage area?"
Ah, my life. So very exciting.
- - -
Comments are closed, have a great day!
Posted by laurie at 07:07 AM | Comments (35)
January 04, 2008
StormWatch!!!! (with updates)
This past week has been crazy-busy, trying to cover all the bases at work with so many folks still on vacation and prepare for some tiny time off of my own. I don't think I have had real time off work (for non-working reasons) for something like two years, yikes. But Drew is coming to town! And so part of next week I'll be off shopping and eating In-n-Out cheeseburgers and oh yeah, trying furtively to build an ark so we can get around what with THE DEADLIEST STORM OF ALL TIME!!!! coming our way.
Last night I called Drew to tell him that on the local news I heard our government officials were cautioning people to stock up on provisions and stay indoors. Because of rain. So I needed to know if he had any provisions he especially needed me to stock up on.
"Um, wine, I guess?" he said.
"Yeah, have you met me?" I replied. "That's the only thing I'm stocked up on. Well, that and cats."
So his plane arrives tomorrow and I hope his flight isn't delayed from all the SPRINKLING. The news has been on StormWatch 2008 since yesterday morning but we still have yet to see a drop of water:
The only thing that can get the local news off the Big Rain Story is something really important, nationally breaking news:
Yeah. Not the results in Iowa or what's happening with the war or even if the el stupidos who taunted the tiger really had slingshots or not. No. It's Britney Spears news!
I kind of think if I were running for office and no one were paying attention to me, I'd just stop bothering with making TV ads and stuff and use all my money to pay Britney Spears to travel with me for one month. You would have more media coverage than any other story on the planet!
But the thing that really caught my eye about the Britney story was this:
Who is that lady? And why is she so... LIVE? hee.
Anyway, have a good weekend and if you see news of a little red jeep in Southern California being swept away on a torrential puddle ... well, wave and say hey because it's probably me.
- - - - - BREAKING NEWS !!!! - - - - -
Faith just called, she's at Pico and Roxbury and she is seeing evidence of what appears to be some sort of precipitation, mainly backed up by the factual HONKING which always precedes a storm.
Here in downtown, we have moved from partly cloudy to real cloudy:
This is Laurie, signing out from Los Angeles at 11 a.m. Pray for us.
- - - - - NOON UPDATE !!!! - - - - -
I did not see the actual sprinkling since I was working and had my back to the window, but it appears some actual water fell on the people of Los Angeles downtown. I also hear a lot of sirens, so it must already be affecting traffic. Awesome! I do see evidence in the form of slightly damp streets and people carrying umbrellas:
P.S. Faith thinks we should pick Drew up from the airport tomorrow and go directly to Cedars where Britney is being held and watch the vigil of crazy people, fans, and paparazzi in the rain thereby combining all forms of Los Angelesness into one outing....
- - - - - DEVELOPING STORY !!!! - - - - -
Mysterious drops of water have appeared on the windowsill of the building as the mist increases in both intensity and frequency:
And just in case it isn't abundantly clear, yes I am making jokes and yes, I understand the potential severity of the storm. I do live here, after all. In fact, I live practically on top of the flood basin. I'm not looking forward to the commute home or standing out in the rain waiting for the bus that will be an hour late because of traffic. Or trying to navigate the 405 to LAX - which always floods - but I can't control the weather. YET. So I make my jokes. It is what I do.
Posted by laurie at 09:01 AM | Comments (140)
December 18, 2007
The space-time continuum comes to a grinding halt because WATER falls from SKY makes PERIL. End transmission.
Dear normal humans who have things like "snow,"
Are you aware that I live in the WEIRDEST CITY on the ENTIRE PLANET of Earth? This is still Earth, yes? And not some weird parallel LosAngeleMars where people do things such as HONK because ... OH GOD IT IS RAINING NOW WE DIE.
Anyway, traffic. People running into the vehicles in front of them, people losing the ability to navigate under torrential sprinkling, WILL THE PAPARAZZI BE ABLE TO GET A CLEAR SHOT OF BRITNEY AT THE STARBUCKS WITH THIS AWFUL WEATHER?
The world stops spinning on its axis, welcome to Los Angeles in the rain. Later someone's house will be sitting on a canyon road somewhere.
Your friend,
Frizzy
- - - - -
Exhibit A: PUDDLE
Exhibit B: STORM DAMAGE
Posted by laurie at 09:51 AM | Comments (67)
December 05, 2007
Buyer beware...?
Posted by laurie at 09:20 AM | Comments (52)
October 22, 2007
Los Angeles is smokin'
Fire season freaks me out. The fact that I live in a part of the country that even has a "fire season" freaks me out. I love you little California, please stop burning.
I took that picture above from the Jeep of course, I was on my way to the mall to return something (I bought the best Ralph Lauren shirt with a surplice wrap bodice, perfect for speaking in front of a crowd because it is in pit-hiding all black and then when I packed it for the trip last week I discovered it had a hole in the back. Sad. Very sad.) and anyway, the mall in Northridge was rendered spooky and eerie by a fire sky.
Fire sky is one thing you start to recognize once you've lived here for a few years. We may talk a big talk about how we have no weather here in SoCal, but our dirty little secret is the wind. Santa Ana winds, more specifically, huge hurricane-strength gusts that come out of the dry deserts and sandblast the roads, pile leaves in your yard, knock over trees and fan the fires. The fires scare me.
The mall, usually my safe haven in times of sorrow, also scares me sometimes.
(Segue of the year award right there!!!!)
The mall sometimes lures me into its dressing rooms with its promise of cuteness and a vibrating Macy's return-credit card. (I love that Macy's has a 180 day return policy and they can look your purchase up without a receipt. I also love that the one in Sherman Oaks has the Marc Jacobs stuff right next to the Lucky Brand jeans. That's my kind of floor arrangement.)
But sometimes it all goes wrong, for example when you are trying to break out of all-black while still harnassing the powers of sweat-concealing design....
"I'm a designer! I have a great idea! Let's put flame thingies right on the nipplage! That way all signs will point to boobies!"
Yeah, I don't think so.
I may live in a city that is on fire, but I don't need my own nips to be pointed out with little red flames. Yeah. No thank you.
Posted by laurie at 09:31 AM | Comments (121)
September 26, 2007
People! Stop leaving your houses on the 101!
First it was the big house left stranded on the northbound 101 before Cahuenga Blvd. Some dumbaii and his Big Brain thought it would be an awesome idea to move a WHOLE HOUSE from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita right up the 101 freeway ... all by himself. He just loaded it up on a flatbed and away he went. Except (unlike most knitters, who are clearly more clever than your average human) he was apparently not armed with a mystical "measuring device" and so his house was too tall and started clipping the overpasses on the freeway. Then the wheels fell off the flatbed, so he abandoned said house, yes, a WHOLE HOUSE, on the 101 for over a week and traffic has been an everloving nightmare.
At first I felt bad for the dude because his house became a huge target for taggers and it was covered in graffiti after about 15 seconds alone on the spooky nighttime Ventura Highway, cue Tom Petty. But after spending almost three hours trapped on the bus on the 101 on Monday night because CalTrans had to block off lanes because OH YEAH THERE IS A HOUSE ON THE FREEWAY, I myself would have gladly picked up some spray paint and given him a piece of my mind.
I didn't of course, because that would have required me to drive back on the freeway.
Anyway, finally last night CalTrans removed the house. Yay! Except... when I got on the 101 this morning on the opposite side of the Valley I saw this:
People. Go back to leaving shoes, sofas and ladders on the freeway. This house littering trend is just excessive.
In other news...
It appears that even though I pleaded to The Powers Above about this whole 80s problem, no one was listening to my issues and felt it would be a fine idea to bring back all sorts of puff-sleeved tomfoolery. However, for those of you without tree-trunk legs, I thought you'd like to see this item:
Legwarmers, surreptitiously photographed at Target.
Yes, cable-knit legwarmers on the left, and a cute multicolored stockinette in the round pair on the right. Interestingly enough, neither pair had any shaping or ribbing at all on the edges, so maybe you would actually need tree trunks like mine to keep them up!
And finally:
Wonder what that is?
If I have learned anything in all my time commuting and complaining about traffic, it is that you should have a little portable knitting tucked in your bag at all times! You never know when you might be sitting on the freeway because someone left a HOUSE on it and you have hours at your disposal to dream up goofy items for Halloween....
Posted by laurie at 05:50 AM | Comments (120)
September 20, 2007
WILL WE PERISH? WILL MY HAIR FRIZZ?
Already the news stations are pre-tracking STORM WATCH 2007. If you thought the driving was bad yesterday, be sure to stay tuned tomorrow when the second largest city in the United States of America comes to a complete halt because of...
... drumroll please ...
WATER FALLING FROM THE SKY.
You folks who don't live here think I am making this up. Those of you who do live here are wondering, "Can I call in sick tomorrow?" I hope your survival gear is intact, your pantry is stocked with Frizz-ease products and your Starbucks card is at the ready.
I love this city. I can't help it. It's kind of like being trapped in a love affair with a gorgeous but certifiably crazy person who you want to leave but you just can't imagine your life without all the dramaticalness so you stay to see what will happen next. I hope I survive what can only be called The Impending Doom of Dampness. Stay tuned!
Posted by laurie at 09:37 AM | Comments (130)
September 19, 2007
Back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now again...
Another study was released recently proving once and for all again that Los Angeles has the worst traffic in America. It's so reassuring, in a crazy-making way, that you are not crazy and exaggerating but that you are merely observant. There's something about being number one, isn't there?
I wish I were a better person in so many ways and I'm trying to reach for all kinds of enlightened even though I still think cute shoes are a real priority (and recently I bought a book by the Dalai Lama
But anyway, the point of all this was to tell you one area where I am failing miserably on the enlightenment (aside from vegetarianism and cute shoes.) (And men selection.) (Wow, this could be a long list.) And that ONE area I want to share is my really unfortunate and awful driving hatefulness.
Some people call this "road rage" but I am not rageful. I am just downright hateful in traffic ... toward other people. BAD people. While I'm sure I am not the world's best driver I do try very hard not to piss people off in traffic. For example, I not only know where the blinkers are I EVEN USE THEM. This alone makes me a rarity in the Los Angeles car culture. In addition, I don't talk on the cell phone and drive at the same time, unless we are in stopped traffic and I'm just idling in first gear or neutral. But if real driving is happening, there is no phone talking -- another feature which makes me a rare species of vehicular operators in this city.
Finally, I am never a deliberate jerk in traffic. I don't cut people off, tailgate or leave too far of a gap between me and the person ahead of me (thereby ensuring the person behind me will need to swerve all around just to get ahead of me out of frustration.) In general, I watch the road and do the best I can.
But I am hateful mad at those who do not try to be decent drivers. Like this guy:
In this picture, you may notice he is not only cutting me off, he is also fully blocking the lane next to me. In morning rush-hour traffic, he decided he was better than the rest of us lame-o drivers who actually waited patiently in our lane to get on the freeway. So, using his powers of Dumbassery, he left the line of drivers turning onto the freeway and got into the main driving lanes then slammed on his brakes, jack-knifed ahead of me and almost caused the guy behind him to hit him and almost caused me to hit him. When there was honking, this fine individual FLIPPED US OFF.
So I extracted my revenge by uh, you know. Taking pictures of him. Perhaps not as satisfying as beating him soundly with my handbag, but still mildly satisfying in the "Well this will at least keep me out of prison" way.
I was REALLY mad about this guy. He almost caused two accidents and also was just being a real piece of work. Then I felt bad for being so hateful again in traffic. In other areas of my life I try to give folks the benefit of the doubt, but in traffic there is just not a nice sweet bone in my body. So I thought, "What would Deepak Chopra do? He's probably not hateful in traffic." And because I am full-up on my self-help, I knew Deepak would send the dude a little prayer.
So I tried. I tried, I really did. "Dear God, this ugly dude is pissing me off and I hate him and his banged up car ... gee no wonder his car is all smooshed, look how he drives!...oh crap this is so not how Deepak would do it. Let me try again..."
I sat there and tried to breathe. After all, traffic wasn't moving. It's not like we were going anywhere. I had time to get my Deepak on.
"OK, God, it's me again trying to be nicer. See, I am trying to pray for this HEY YOU SH*THEAD THE LIGHT IS GREEN YOU WANTED IN HERE THAT MEANS GO JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD oh crap!! God that was so not part of the prayer!! I am so sorry, let me try again. But seriously, the light was green. Also sorry about the Jesus part."
(Sitting at the red light. Waiting.)
"Ok, God, I am doing the best I can here. How about we just forget the green car guy and call it a day."
The light turned finally to a green arrow. Green car guy whipped illegally into the carpool on-ramp and vanished.
"Thanks, God. I appreciate it."
So, I guess getting my Deepak on helped a little. I tried to take back the prayer that came next but it was too late, it had already formed into consciousness.
"And if his penis falls off later that would be OK, too."
Whoopsy. Please don't tell Deepak.
Posted by laurie at 07:06 AM | Comments (152)
August 27, 2007
Burgers 'n Bikers
On Sunday I got invited to Faith's house for a cookout and birthday party for Michael, who shocked me by turning 40! He's far too babyfaced for 40.
Although ... I keep saying no one looks their age and I am starting to wonder what exactly does an age look like? Especially in Los Angeles where even your gardener gets a little work done. (Not that there's anything wrong with it! I'm totally getting my boobs done when they reach my waistband, so there.) Recently I was asked how old I am and I almost reverted back to the time between 2002-2004 when I lied about my age profusely to everyone, everywhere, all the time. I was maybe in denial of so many things such as "husband, not loving me" and "ass, getting larger" and also "me, so not 24 anymore." Anyway, I have grown so much since then and become very self-aware and enlightendish and so on and as God is my witness I did not REALLY lie about my age. I just whispered it. Very, very softly. Then I coughed. Then said, "Look! Fire engines!"
I am pathetic.
Motorcycles! And gosh. Burbank is GREEN.
"So, Faith, is anyone in this biking club cute?"
"Yes, they're all great guys!"
"Are they hot?"
"A lot of them."
I paused. "Nice, cute guys? They're all gay, aren't they?"
"Yup!"
Also, later I learned it is not called a "biking club" but instead referred to as a "motorcycle gang." Tomato, tomahto!
Faith did such a good job grilling that I made her an honorary Southerner.
Pretty Jane and her adorable kid, Emmett.
OK, I really did want to steal this guy's dog, it was this adorable little black friendly puppy and I am very sure he would have fit in my purse. I have a pretty big purse. But I think they were on to me after I announced I was stealing him. Next time I'll be quieter.
Me and Justin Angel ... Matchy!
I had such a good time just hanging out and chitchatting with total strangers even though I did that thing where I nervously twitter to much about... Lord only know what. But because I was at Faith's house and knew a few of the folks there it was still comfortable and fun and no one seemed to mind too much that I was nervous talking. Even just a few months ago I would have gone home and berated myself for what ever dumb thing had escaped from my mouth but now I just don't bother, it's too exhausting. Life is short. Talking happens!
I spend a lot of time alone (another thing I used to feel bad about, always wondering why I wasn't like other people, with packed schedules and lots of social engagements) and I think maybe I have finally accepted that this is who I am. I love being alone. I was always a weird child, off in my own world, able to amuse myself way out in the country with no one nearby but my brothers who at that point were allergic to annoying weirdo sisters. When I was married it was easier to be less social, people seemed to expect less of me (as if having a husband were some form of completion.)
When I first moved out on my own I worried about becoming a total hermit. But I needed that time, and as my life got better and I got less puddled up I began to feel embarrassed for being so socially awkward, so reclusive. Had I made aloneness habitual? Was there something wrong with me? Shouldn't I be filling my free time with people and events like everyone else does? My girlfriends were always going out to clubs or bars or dinners or little get-togethers or playing tennis or meeting for this and that. I guess that's just not my movie, and I've stopped trying to hide it. I'm apparently someone who works better with solitude for recharging, thinking, resting, typing, reading, whatevering.
And it's the time I spend alone that makes me enjoy other people's company so much when we do get together. I loved seeing Jane and her husband El Rabbi and their baby and catching up on our mutual friends and I was so happy that Charlie remembered me (I've met him like six times but somehow I always think people don't see me) and it was so much fun watching Faith master that big gas grill! Justin was a perfect host-helper, too, Lord that man ought to make a business out of being an event planner. And I got to see Michael blow out the candles on his 40th birthday cookie. It was awesome.
I'm really lucky to have friends who invite me to their birthdays and backyard get-togethers. I'm lucky to know people who don't seem to mind one bit that I just chatter on nervously sometimes or that I'm not the most social of butterflies.
I'm also lucky to have friends who just ignore me when I start telling the guests I'm meeting for the first time that I'm 28. Or was it 26? Tomato, tomahto!
Posted by laurie at 06:28 AM | Comments (91)
August 09, 2007
Shaken and not stirred at all, actually
Apparently we had an earthquake last night that rattled people awake all across the valley. I don't think I felt it. Well, to be more accurate, I might be immune to real earthquakes (at least those registering under a 5.0) because I usually think we're having an earthquake every single night and it ends up being nothing more than a Bobquake. The bed shimmies and shakes when he jumps on it, and everyone just shoots him a dirty look and goes back to sleep.
Bob doesn't miss a lot of meals.
In other news, no one at work believed me and my "I cannot go into the back-backyard anymore for fear of being kidnapped and eaten by giant mutant squash help me." They thought I was doing that thing where I'm just being all dramatic and they ignored me.
So this morning I carried an eleventy-eight pound example in to the office. I thought people would get scared and run. I totally underestimated the efficiency of my workplace! Even though budgets are tight, it appears he has been assimilated and is learning how to work the copy machine. Apparently he doesn't talk back as much as I do and he works for less money.
If I think he's starting to get cozy in my office, though, I will not hesitate to break out the salt, pepper and olive oil. Ambitious jerk won't even see it coming...
Posted by laurie at 09:49 AM | Comments (101)
May 09, 2007
The smoke gets in your eyes.
Yesterday on the bus ride home I got a few pictures of the backside of the Griffith Park fire:
As of this morning, the news was reporting that the fire might have been started by a fellow on the golf course who threw out a lit cigarette. After he threw it out, apparently he saw that a fire was starting so he tried to put it out and in doing so was burned severly and is now at the burn center in Sherman Oaks.
I'm not sure if this news report is accurate, but let's assume for a minute that it is.
Yes, of course it's a dumbass move to throw a cigarette out in nature here in Los Angeles when it is A) parched from the driest rainy season on record and B) close to 100 degrees outside and C) less than 7% humidity and D) very windy. But all dumbassery aside, don't you know that guy is in his hospital room watching this coverage of the giant blaze roaring toward the Griffith Observatory and encroaching upon the Los Angeles Zoo and threatening to incinerate homes in Los Feliz, and he's thinking, HOLY CRAP. I SHOULD HAVE QUIT AT NEW YEAR'S LIKE I PROMISED.
Also on the news last night they had a small interview with Mayor Villaraigosa, who had just returned from seeing the front lines of the fire. In this interview the Mayor was gesturing with his hands and I saw this:
Doesn't it look like our mayor is wearing one of those purple Complaint Free World bracelets?
Now ya'll know I am all about positivity and trying to use my mind to convince myself that I will not forever keep screwing up and end up in a corner trying to eat my own head. But complaining is my major cardio, I have always said it burns calories, and while I do not complain to excess in my daily life I don't know how one manages to get through traffic without doing so, vigorously.
Drew and I both saw the Oprah show that featured this Complaint Free bracelet thing, and he called me to see if I was going to get one.
Drew: So, are you going to order one of those bracelets?
Me: Well, as soon as I saw them I immediately thought of ten people who I should buy them for, but I myself wasn't on that list.
Drew: Why?
Me: Um. Well. I was already complaining about the color, and I thought perhaps that was a sign I was too far gone a case. I might need something stronger than a bracelet.
Drew: Indeed.
But anyway, it looks like our Mayor is doing his part to rid City Hall of whiners. I like that initiative, and I support anyone who is trying to make positive change. Besides he is already very thin and fit and probably doesn't need the metabolic boost I am sure, just completely sure, we get from complaining.
Indeed!
Posted by laurie at 08:53 AM | Comments (84)
February 22, 2007
I Need Wide Open Spaces (probably because of the restraining order, but anyway.)
I moved all over as a kid. People ask me all the time where I'm from, and they especially ask it when they hear the twang in my voice. Sometimes I say Mississippi, or Louisiana, or Tennessee, all of which are true. I lived a long while in all three of those states, moving from middle school (Louisiana) to teenage angst (Mississippi) to college (Tennessee) and back.
But I am and always will be from Texas, having been born there and hauled around from one South Texas town to another during most of my early childhood. Being born in Texas is like being born Catholic... you just are. When I think of that big, rambling state I think of Comfort, Texas, population 200. It is a town so small and perfect the way all small towns are, and I loved living there, I loved the school bus stop and the cows on the farm (Holstein, in case you wondered) and I also wanted desperately, terribly to leave it the way you do when you are young and want to know there is more to the world than chickens and cows and shoveling manure out of the barn.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I obsessively listened to the Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces" and as we drove up through Van Horn, Texas, the last outpost on the way to the west, I finally saw a sky so big I thought it would swallow me whole and I knew what wide-open spaces meant in the song and in Texas and in my life. And how I was moving to a city wide open to me, new, completely terrifying and exhilirating at the same time.
There would be no manure shoveling where I was going, unless it was metaphorical manure. (Of which there was suprisingly plenty!)
Anyway, you might be wondering what this has to do with restraining orders. Ya'll know how us Southerners are with the storytelling. All in good time! And it ain't a story if it doesn't end with the law being called!
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, in a high-rise fancypants building, working away on a design project and living about as far away from manure-shoveling in Comfort, Texas as possible when my phone rang. It was Jeff, the husband half of Jeff and Audrey, friends of mine I met through Stitch 'n Bitch. Now this was a rather strange occurrance seeing as I have met Jeff a sum total of three times and we don't phonecall each other on a regular basis or ever.
On the suggestion of Audrey, his amazing and also thoughtful and very much saintly wife who I will be thanking for years to come, also she has a great haircut, he had phoned to invite me to a special screening of "Shut Up & Sing," the documentary film made about the Dixie Chicks and the fallout from lead singer Natalie Maines' controversial comments at a London concert.
And normally I would say no to invitations or not show up because I am terribly socially awkward and talk too much and am shy, conversely, and also usually take the bus so I have a built-in reason to decline on the grounds of having no homeward-bound transport. But coincidentally, I missed the bus that morning by ONE DADGUM MINUTE and so I had driven in to work and arrived late and had not understood why the universe of traffic was punishing me so.
Apparently, traffic wanted me to see the Dixie Chicks movie. Also, apparently I am turning into my father because I just said DADGUM, a word I have never before uttered in my life on principle. Nice.
I was SO EXCITED to see this movie! Because I do not care what your politics are. I like people who reside in blue, red, and purple states. I even like people who reside in orange politics although that color is very unflattering on my skin tone. I like all ya'll as long as you are nice to animals and have good table manners. But more than all that, I LOVE ME SOME DIXIE CHICKS. They have been the soundtrack to my life. They mean something special to girls like me, girls who would totally bury an Earl if her best friend needed her to.
So even though I was wearing my schlumpiest clothes and Cardigan Of Constant Sorrow and my hair was a mess and I had a blemish sizably recognizant of the Lone Star State, I said yes to Jeff and Audrey's invitation. Because it is Year Of The Pig, and in the Year Of The Pig we do things we are afraid of like leave the comfort of our day-to-day lives and we take the opportunies life hands us because we are piggy! And hungry! And we want to eat life! In the good, polite southern way of course, with nice table manners.
From L-R: Me, Audrey and Jeff. My photography skills are so... unique.
This event took place at the Los Angeles Library, one of my favorite places in all of L.A., and was part of the Young Literati series (you can learn more about this cool organization at www.youngliterati.org). They host a series of events that you should attend if you live anywhere near the Los Angeles metro area, because you never know what can happen when you hang out where the books live!
I was excited enough just to see the film, but then I found out the filmmakers would be attending for a Q&A session afterward. Barbara Kopple, co-director of Shut Up & Sing, is a big-time filmmaking documentarian superstar and Cecilia Peck, the other co-director, is the daughter of Gregory Peck! I felt very Hollywood and smart attending such a thing, especially since ya'll know the extent of my personal glamour is usually evenings involving some combination of Tivo, wine and yarn while a cat sits on my foot. Sexy!
So this story could end right here and be perfect. The end.
Except... you will never guess who was at the screening and got up on stage for the Q & A session.
NATALIE MAINES, LEAD SINGER OF THE DIXIE CHICKS.
Hello, restraining order. You are beginning to make sense now. We are getting to you! And here are pictures and also some video I took of the Q&A session:
Video, crappy quality but it's from my little Kodak digital camera:
And this story could end RIGHT HERE now and be perfect, except it isn't a party until we get our stalker on, now is it? At the end of the Q&A session, I was about to fall over with excitement of having breathed the SAME AIR as a Dixie Chick, royalty to a countryass girl like myself, when Jeff suggested we make our way up and say hey.
Which I would NEVER do. Because already when he just mentioned it I started to shake a little with nervousness and stuttered. But then I remembered Year Of The Pig and said, "Hell. I have one chance in my lifetime to meet NATALIE FREAKING MAINES and I will take that chance and probably stutter! Here Goes!"
Ya'll, I am not a person who foists herself on others. I do not even foist when foisting is desired, say, with the cute UPS guy or the checkout eyecandy at Trader Joe's. I am not a foister. But I walked right up on that stage and made a big huge stalkery fool of myself and it all poured out in one huge run-on sentence, something twangy about Comfort, Texas and "Wide Open Spaces" and how much I loved that they were Texas gals made good, and thank you oh thank you, can I have a picture please? And also blah blah blah not a stalker but I love you! So much!
And Natalie Maines is likely having the FBI draw up some sort of profile of a crazy woman right now and calling up the law about that restraining order, but although I definitely made a fool ass of myself and I know I was shaking with nervousness, I could feel it, and I was sweating under one armpit, I still actually did it and I talked to her and I even got my picture taken with her:
Notice how BIG I am smiling. Notice Natalie Maines is... not so much. Heh.
Consider that one lesson firmly learned. If you get an opportunity, you should take it and say to hell with the foolass part of you that stutters and likely is on a Stalker Watch List somewhere. Even if you are dressed in your Cardigan of Constant Sorrow and are profusely sweating under one armpit, good things can happen if you just leave your dadgum house.
Posted by laurie at 09:45 AM | Comments (229)
November 10, 2006
Passion for Potholes
Zach at LAist understands me. He knows I am crazy, and that I have a herd of felines, and that sometimes I develop obsessive tics, like for example the way I spout off about traffic every two and a half minutes.
I do not know Zach, in the sense of "we have met and seen each other and are not just innernet weirdoes." I merely know that he is Perfect, because he does not Judge. He has a website, too. Stalk stalk.
Since it was election week, a lot of folks asked me how I felt about the outcome (The Governator: The Sequel) and the changes in Washington and so on. And I said pretty much the same thing, over and over again:
"I have potholes on my street that could swallow a school bus."
If asked in more detail what I thought about Democrats or Republicans or Congress, I said:
"And also, I hate the Orange Line. And why for the love of fat Elvis can't they time the FREAKING TRAFFIC LIGHTS ON WHITE OAK? WHY?"
People soon stopped asking me election-day questions.
I used to be very passionate about politics, I even worked on a Presidential campaign once in college as a volunteer. I'll admit that I had a madly inappropriate crush on Al Gore. He was a Tennessean, you know. And he looked really good in red plaid flannel shirts.
Maybe I lost my passionate fervor with politics around the same time people started getting really weird about the subject, like they would CUT YOU if you didn't like their candidate. You looked the wrong way at someone's White Guy In A Tie, and they would bust a fact up in yo ass! Yo yo!
Then I got divorced and I was like, "Politics? Are you kidding me? I AM CRYING HERE DO NOT BOTHER ME WITH YOUR SILLY VOTING." After I re-emerged from the fog of dissolution, it became very clear to me that there was one pressing political question, and that was: WHY CAN'T THIS CITY FIX THE DAMN POTHOLES AND TIME THE LIGHTS?
For the most part I like our Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. He seems like a nice guy and he's from the 'hood and all that. Except... he's not from the Valley Hood. In the mayoral primary, I voted for Bob Hertzberg because he was a nice Jewish boy from the Valley and I figured he might care deeply about the potholes plaguing the finest place on earth. He lost, but I held out hope for Antonio. I thought maybe he could help us all ... rich and poor, young and old, black, brown, white, botoxed beyond recognition. I thought he might actually pave something.
I have wishes, people. I have dreams. They may not be the passionate dreams of someone taking over the Senate, but they are my dreams all the same.
For example, I might out of sheer happiness molest the first road crew I see filling up the potholes on my street.
And I really do wish that Mayor Antonio would come to Encino and try to get on the 101 on-ramp at White Oak each morning during rush hour for one whole week. I think he would be interested in the half-hour he loses merely trying to turn left ... with the help of a left-turn arrow, even! He might wonder why the lights are so badly timed. He might honk, because that is what we do every morning. It's very exciting in the Valley, you could die of old age trying to merge on the freeway.
And I would like every person on the City Council and the Board of the MTA to ride the Orange Line each day during rush hour for one whole week. They might wonder at first why people are literally shoving them out of the way, trampling them to get on the bus. Shhhh! It's a secret! There just aren't enough buses! So people shove, kick and push you to get on the one overcrowded bus available and stand squeezed in like toothpicks for thirty minutes. And by the way, PEOPLE OFTEN SMELL BAD. Soap is not optional, folks.
I would like the Mayor to force his wife or daughter to ride the Red Line subway each night from downtown to North Hollywood at 7:45 p.m. each evening, just as I do when I work late. I think they would feel so safe, what with the complete absence of security. Then his daughter or wife would have to walk alone to her car through a parking lot that has three working bulbs. Try it! So much fun!
And then of course, they would drive home, through the Valley on darkened streets that are full of potholes and they would hit every single red light along the way.
I care, people. I care deeply. My passion is potholes. And traffic. And wine. And with those qualifications I should probably run for office ... except for the molesting of road crews part. Those darn sex scandals get you every time.
Posted by laurie at 09:25 AM | Comments (58)
November 09, 2006
In my defense, your honor, I am crazy, too.
I can't believe I'm going to tell ya'll this story.
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked at the Los Angeles Daily News. I wanted desperately to be an ace reporter, but instead I was pulling down a cool $7.15 an hour (part-time!) writing press releases in the PR department. Oh, the largesse.
(I did eventually migrate to the newsroom and I even got a front-page Travel section story once. But prior to that, I was a Public Relations hack.)
I was REALLY BAD at Public Relations. Not because I don't like the public or their relations, but because I was young and inexperienced and THERE ARE A LOT OF CRAZY PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES. And one thing about the newspaper industry is that it is a fertile breeding ground for nuts. Every two-bit fruitcake with access to any form of correspondence will eventually contact the local newspaper. And you know who gets the craziest ones? The low girl on the totem pole.
And that was me.
About three months after I had started working at the newspaper I started receiving calls from a man we'll call Mr. Smith. I do not know how Mr. Smith got my direct line, but I can only assume it was one of the charming front desk folks who loved the new kid in PR.
Mr. Smith called me every day to complain that the newspaper carrier in his neighborhood was beaming alien death rays into his home via the dispatch radio.
Mr Smith: He drives into the neighborhood in a truck with a large antenna...
Me: Yes?
Mr Smith: And that's when it starts.
Me: What starts? The newspaper delivery route starts?
Mr Smith: No. Well, yes. But most disturbingly ... that is when the alien beams start coming into my house.
Me: I see. That is disturbing.
Mr Smith: WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO ABOUT THIS?
This went on for months, because I think Mr. Smith was lonely and really just wanted someone to talk to and ya'll know. I was getting paid $7.15 an hour. I was kind of on the fast track to crazy myself, and he was the most amusing of all the regulars. There was the lady who called to complain about how the ink on her morning paper made her sneeze, the guy who threatened to sue us if we didn't start printing the daily comics in color again, and the woman who refused to get out of bed unless she could call the horroscope line, which we had discontinued. So guess who she called every morning promptly at 8:45 a.m. to read her that morning's newspaper horoscope? Three guesses!
And by now ya'll should know me well enough to know that not only am I a magnet for crazy, I myself am also interested in people and what makes them tick and so on, and also I am terribly Southern so I am polite and indulge people even when perhaps I should move on and change the locks. The crazies just became part of the job, and I felt like I was doing a public service in a way. Even if I kind of sucked at the job I was at least making thirty-seven certifiably insane Los Angelenos happy.
And hey, they were subscribers after all.
After a few months, Mr. Smith and I were on a friendly basis. He really was quite tormented by the alien rays, and I couldn't exactly tell the Daily News to stop delivering newspapers in the eight-mile radius of his Canoga Park residence as he requested. That is when I told him about the Southern Alien Death Ray Miracle Cure. It involved tin foil and duct tape.
I didn't hear from as regularly, so I thought my Alien Death Ray Miracle Cure had worked. Then one day I got a call.
Mr Smith: Laurie, I tell you, it was fine for a while but now the rays are getting worse and I can't sleep at night.
Me: Well, Mr. Smith, did you put the tin foil on top of the TV like I told you to?
Mr Smith: Yes, and it worked! But now I think the alien rays are back, and they're ... stronger!
Me: I see. Are you using the heavy duty freezer tin foil?
Mr Smith: Why do you call it 'tin foil'?
Me: Mr. Smith, I think what we have here are the, uh, the porous rays that can travel through, uh, ions. And so you're saying the tin foil worked when you put it on top of the TV set right?
Mr Smith: Yes, but then it...
Me: You need to take pieces of tin foil, the HEAVY DUTY kind, and tape it over all the unused electrical outlets. Don't stick your finger in a socket or anything, just tape in over them externally. That will do it.
Mr Smith: WHY didn't I think of that MYSELF! That's it! I knew it! I have to go!
And I never heard from him again.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to him, and if he's living in a house in Canoga Park covered from floor to ceiling in tin foil and if it's somehow my fault, or if I brought him peace from the alien death rays. I hope he didn't electrocute himself. He seemed like a really nice guy, aside from the psychosis.
So, as you can see, I never made it as an ace reporter. But damn I was good with the crazies.
And hey... they were subscribers, after all!
Posted by laurie at 09:47 AM | Comments (94)
October 31, 2006
The Real Scary
Today is Halloween. I guess you got the memo.
However, the kind folks at Macy's do not seem to be aware of this, it being October 31 and all. I know this because in my quest to bring sexy back, and also shopping as therapy, and also, listen, I have anxiety in my life right now, ok? So I know shopping isn't the best way to deal with it, perhaps, like I should maybe be off sponsoring a child in some corner of the world where Angelina and Madonna have yet to roam, but instead I wandered around Macy's trying to find a cardigan that doesn't do that gaping-button-thing on my boobs. Perhaps my priorities are askew, but SO NOT THE POINT.
The point in scary fact is that there are CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ALL OVER THE MACY'S. I am frightened of all the looming holidayness.
Also, the other point of horror. I was wandering around and in the Macy "Woman" section (please do NOT get me started) there were plenty of these:
Formal shorts. OH YEAH GOOD IDEA.
I believe I speak on behalf of all women-sized women when I say: Dear designers, we do not want formal shorts this winter. Take your formal shorts and shove them up your size double-zero backside.
How about a nice, simple cardigan in clean lines? Or, God forbid, how about one blouse JUST ONE, OKAY? that is well-cut, nicely fitted, in a quality fabric and doesn't have sparkles, glitter or some ass-o-riffic shiny applique on it? I know you think women-sized-women love freaking appliques and beads and printed fabric that looks like Carmen Miranda had a hallucinogenic episode and thew up on it.
But we do not. It's a fact. And you can put that in your formal shorts and smoke it.
Posted by laurie at 01:04 PM | Comments (174)
October 13, 2006
Sure, it fits.
Posted by laurie at 10:04 AM | Comments (98)
October 10, 2006
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
Ya'll, don't you sort of wonder what the people on the bus think of me when I whip out my camera and start taking moving pictures of... the sidewalk? Do ya'll think that living in this city with all the crazies and nutjobs and Paris Hiltons and scabies just makes one dorky little camera lady look ... not so scary? Perhaps?
Because that is my Basic Operating Theory, that if I stay below the crazy radar maybe I can continue about my happy way with my camera and my fixation on monkeys and gnomes and even if I do have a fine layer of cat hair on my trousers from knee to ankle, I still pale in comparison to the wackos in my midst. Right?
Just nod and smile. It's okay.
Hey, so not like there is any purpose AT ALL to this, but here is a video of my bus ride through Chinatown... we were going remarkably fast for afternoon drive. I think it was Yom Kippur, no traffic.
Smile! You're on dorko camera!
Posted by laurie at 11:28 AM | Comments (64)
September 22, 2006
Hello, forehead Friday!
Today we have Santa Anas in Los Angeles. Santa Ana winds are hot and dry and they blow all around the city and make us feel like we have real weather now and then. The excitement is disproportional to its real significance, but hey, we're the same people who forget how to drive when it rains. I think we get so excited by little atmospheric things like wind because we aren't privy to the tornadoes and hurricanes and violent thunderstorms that batter the rest of the country. We just sit here in a pile of our own pollution and expect every single day to be sunny and mid 70s. So when we get some strong winds we're just wacky, they even close freeways in the canyons. Los Angeles has wind! Film footage at eleven!
And aside from the whole little problem of "Oh yeah the whole city might burn to the ground" and "my eyes are red from the junk in the air" I do love the Santa Anas. Yesterday when I walked outside midday, the palm trees were rustling and it made me feel restless and happy all at the same time. Of course, that could have been because it was Tragic Laundry Thursday and I wasn't wearing pantyhose. Gives new meaning to "flapping in the breeze."
No reason for this picture, just wanted to say hi ya'll!
P.S. Um. Ok. The Blogads folks have been real good to me and keep sending advertisers my way and this is good and I love them! Love you Blogads peeps! But there is a new ad that is supposed to be up for a month and it is kind of about STDs. Ya'll, my webpage now has an STD. I am so sorry. But it's worth like, eighty dollars! I am such a ho ... and apparently a cheap one at that. But it's eighty dollars of pure love!
Pure love that, you know, kind of should wear a condom. I'm just suggesting is all.
Posted by laurie at 08:26 AM | Comments (94)
September 10, 2006
Oooh, let's talk about the weather.
It's happy-happy shiny smiley land here in the Valley, because it's morning and it's a lovely Sunday and OH MY GOD IT IS NOT HOT. Seriously. It's all people have talked about. I was at the 7-11 this morning for coffee, and then the gas station and then the grocery because I am somewhat certifiably insane and get up at 4:45 a.m. on Sunday mornings and WAIT for things to open (well, of course the 7-11 is open, but it's too weird to arrive there before 6 a.m. unless you're on a beer run for a party that is going VERY well, know what I mean?) and HOLY CRAP is this turning into one long sentence, but suffice it to say every place I visited this morning people have remarked upon how AWESOME the weather is because we are not being baked in the scorching armpit of hell.
Hi ya'll! I had a lot of coffee!
And really, the weather is so beautiful this morning. I have ancient windows on my house that you crank open with this handle and I am so technologically challenged that anything with moving parts is game for breakage, it's kind of a gift, really, I mean I am SO TALENTED in this way, and yet even the window in the office cranked open today without complaint which probably means I should go buy a lottery ticket right now. Because I am feeling LUCKY, darlin.
And I do thank ya'll for the kind words and wishes for my family! If I win the lottery I'm so taking all ya'll out for ribs and beer. And, well, probably truth be told we'll have to stop by the 7-11, too. Ya'll know.
Posted by laurie at 09:12 AM | Comments (49)
August 09, 2006
Better than watching paint dry. Just barely.
Do not ask me why on earth I thought these videos would be interesting to anyone, and also can I add that folks on the bus must have seen me do some mighty strange things in our time together because not one passenger batted an eye when I whipped out my camera and video captured the bus ... driving. In traffic. Really, when I told you it was boring I was kind of being generous in praise.
But this boringness is to offset the WHITE TRASH DRAMA MAGNET that is me, yours truly. Do you have time for the tee tiniest story before I show you the boringest videos?
Last night I went on a d-a-t-e and it was actually real nice, we had a nice time, he's got potential so ya'll don't ask me questions and jinx it because I will tell you nothing, nothing! Except that he opened doors for me and took me on a proper date so you know. It was nice. I came home pleased as pie.
So I am on the phone deconstructing said date and basking in ensuing nice happy warm feeling with one Jennifer, who I swear knows all my secrets and must never be allowed to fall into the hands of enemy bloggers. It would be bad. And we are chitchatting as we do (it sounds like this: Jen says, "And I can't believe how the Dyson really does pick up more than other vacuum cleaners, and I emptied the canister and now I realize why you vacuum so much..." and I say, "He's nice. Do you think I am too crazy and drive off nice men?" Jen: "You are not crazy, crazylady. Of course not. Then I vacuumed again, I think the level of clean is at an all-time high..." Me: "Thank God you finally bought a Dyson, oh I don't think he loves and adores cats. By the way, I kind of didn't let him on to the plural nature of the herd members..." Jen: "That's best for now." Unison: "Thank God for Dyson.")
And she and I are chitchatting in this manner, which is to say we have two different conversations happening at the same time, and then someone shuffles up to my front door AT MIDNIGHT. Drunker than a skunk. Smoking a Marlboro red with the ash about sixteen feet long. AT MIDNIGHT.
"Can you help me?" It's Julie, Crackhead Bob's girlfriend and cousin.
"Are you OK?" Me, and Jen is on the phone hearing it.
"Blur blurbuly slushher slur."
"Ah, Jen, can I call you right back?"
And of all the people in the nighborhood, I was the lucky one to be pulled into their vortex of crazy and I swear I do not know how I manged to get up this morning, seeing as I was up until two a.m. and we were thisclose to having to call the law. So, I will not go into long detail because really it is all sort of sad and unpleasant, but here is what I have discovered:
A: I always THINK I am crazy and eccentric and three and a half minutes from talking into my bra while directing traffic in my nightgown, but when you see real crazy it's kind of comforting. Because you realize that you, meaning me, maybe are a little off your rocker but hell. You are not standing at a stranger's door with your shorts half-unbuttoned and slurring into a can of Natural Light at midnight on a Tuesday.
B: Thank God.
C: And also maybe you realize that for all the California, wheatgrass, yoga, Starbucks and silicone of this city, THERE ARE REDNECKS EVERYWHERE. Next time someone wants to mock me for being a cracker, I plan to haul 'em over to Bob and Julie's house. COUSINS for chrissake. Makes me look practically genteel.
D: Friends like Jennifer are good to have in times of peril, and also of course in times of not-peril, but in this case we're in peril-ish, because she got on the horn and called 311 (the non-emergency 911) with something like, "Um, my friend? She had to go help this woman who was drunk and her boyfriend who is also her cousin set the house on fire once, have any 911 calls come in like that? From Encino? Because Laurie is not answering her cell!"
E: Isn't that the best friend EVER? I love you, Jen.
After this little story, you can see why the boringness of my early morning bus drive would appeal so to me. It may be the dullest damn thing on YouTube, but for that I am eternally grateful and even PROUD. It is not easy being a White Trash Drama Magnet. It does tax the strategic reserves.
Now for... TA DA!!! THE PROOF OF WHY TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET AND/OR BUS:
Morning drive on the 101 in Hollywood:
Morning drive past the Capitol Records building:
Morning drive past the Cathedral in downtown:
Posted by laurie at 11:10 AM | Comments (116)
July 27, 2006
Less Than Zero (miles per hour)
Public service announcement?
My favorite opening line from any book, well maybe aside from the opening paragraph of Lolita, is the first sentence from the Bret Easton Ellis book Less Than Zero:
Today I had to drive to downtown because I'm working late, later than the bus schedule runs, and I was settled in for my morning commute listening to a CD (you know it's going to be a good morning when you got some Usher to sing you to work) and drinking my coffee and the weather was hot but not too bad yet, kind of humid. But Usher likes it humid.
And I'm passing Laurel Canyon so it's time to get into the right two lanes, the Hollywood split is coming, and I look into the middle lane and I see only cars with out-of-state plates moving into it: Wisconsin, Kentucky, Maryland and I feel a little bad for them because they don't realize why everyone is merging either to the far left (the 134) or abandoning ship to the far right (the 101) and leaving this middle lane empty except for a few stragglers and 18-wheelers.
Then they discover why all at once. That stretch of freeway is Merge Hell, wherein people who did not manage to merge prior to the split now block the lane, anxiously hoping to nose in, but no one will let them in because having waited this long they have lost the right to merge, and often it's big trucks who nobody will let in so they have to take over with sheer force of will, and this whole dance can go on for quite some time. And the tourists are mad, and hate Los Angeles and some of them honk, while the person in the passenger seat holds a map and throws up their hands in disgust and really, you do feel a little bad for them.
I know I write about traffic a lot and it's probably as exciting to ya'll as watching grass grow unless you are one of the five readers who lives here, too. We take a perverse pleasure in our traffic, as if we have survived something every single day, and it truly is a huge topic of conversation.
Example A:
When Drew was here visiting last year, we were hanging out (in the car, on the freeway of course) with Faith, discussing Party Conversation Anxiety that can come from meeting lots of strangers at once. Faith and I assured Drew that if he ever got cornered with some folks he didn't know at a party anywhere in Los Angeles, all he had to do was ask how their drive was.
"Really," I told him, "All you do is say, 'Oh, so where do you live?' And they'll say 'On the Westside' or 'The Marina' or 'Van Nuys' and then you just ask, 'Oh! How was your drive over here?"
Drew looked at me skeptically.
"No, seriously, it's true," said Faith. "Just ask what freeway they took, or street, and they'll tell you for the next twenty minutes all about their drive."
"Yup," I said. "And then other folks will chime in, about their traffic, and how long it took to get to the party and how their commute is in the mornings and so on. It's great fun."
And we all had a big laugh about this and it was forgotten. Until the next night when we had a Los Angeles-type party at my house, and Drew was chatting with a bunch of folks and he told them this new strategy he'd learned, and was asking their opinion about it, was it true that all parties in Los Angeles begin with people discussing their traffic?
And everyone laughed, and agreed we're nutty here, and it was funny, hah hah.
And then everyone started discussing their traffic.
"You know, speaking of traffic, what was going on in the canyon? It's all blocked off for about a mile and is that mudslide/house/boulder/debris still blocking the road?"
"Well, why didn't you just take the 101?"
"Oh God! Hollywood Bowl tonight!"
"Oh! I forgot about that. We just came up the 405 to the 101 and took surface streets from there..."
I do not lie, people. I do not lie.
And Drew was tickled pink, because we were actually exhibiting crazy right in front of him. Personally, I love the way you can elicit sighs of deep, existential pain from folks just by mentioning "rush hour on the 405." I also love how traffic is a great excuse for just about anything, including my personal life. Which leads me to ...
Example B:
I was having lunch earlier in the week with a coworker, a nice married lady in my office. She wanted to know whatever happened to the 25-year-old Jamaican cricket player I had gone out with once.
"Oh, we went out once or twice, but it didn't really work out."
"Why not?" she asked. She likes to live vicariously through my little foibles. It's interesting the way dating always sounds like SO MUCH FUN when you aren't the one doing it.
"Oh, you know, he was 25. He used the word party as a verb. Which was kind of cute, but ... eh."
"Oh come on!" she said, "he sounds fun!"
Now, I could have tried to sit there over lunch and explain to this stable, nice, happily married lady and mother of two why I wasn't terribly taken with him, how it was like dating my little brother, how he could talk about his X-box for HOURS and still lived at home with his parents, and did I mention still lived at home with his parents? She would have thought this was "cute!" and "fun!" and "you single people really live it up!"
So I told her the one thing I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt would get her off the subject:
"Well, mainly it's just too hard, you know, he lives all the way out in Bellflower."
"Oooooh," she said, sighing. "God, it would be like, what? five hours just to get to Encino? Well, too bad, though, he sounded like fun."
People, I rest my case.
Posted by laurie at 11:28 AM | Comments (128)
July 25, 2006
Big bag of crazy bones
Perhaps its the heat.
Today is the 20th straight day of 100-degree-plus heat in the Valley, and I woke my sorry self up at 4 a.m. to do laundry because although it was EIGHTY FREAKING DEGREES at 4 a.m., it was still a marked improvement over the 104 degrees at 9:30 p.m. last night, which was when I gave up on laundry once and for all again because of the heat and decided if I ever wanted to have clean clothes I would have to A) do laundry at 4 a.m. or B) go shopping. And ya'll, it is a sad day when it is too hot to SHOP.
So this morning, I pulled myself out from the air-conditioned house and did laundry (the washer and dryer are in the garage. The hot garage.) and now I have clean clothes but need more caffeine, and also maybe a little something for the tension, you know what tension I mean, the kind where you yourself may be holding it all together JUST FINE THANKYOU but the people around you are wrapped up tight and ready to explode, you see it in their eyes in long meetings or when you ask them for a copy of the brochure that so-and-so approved, and they look at you with crazy eyes and want to eat your head.
So I maybe need some relief from the tension, like with a couple of olives in it.
Which begs the question, what the heck happened to the three-martini lunch? Why did those go away? And why did our parents get to go out and have wild liberated sex with no diseases and get to drink martinis at lunch time and smoke wherever they wanted and ALL WE GET TO DO NOW IS MAKE SILLY WEBSITES COMPLAINING ABOUT THE LACK OF MARTINIS.
It must be the heat.
Posted by laurie at 11:31 AM | Comments (99)
July 19, 2006
Scientific Theory # 371: Heat and its relationship to bleeping traffic
i. IT'S NOT DRY HEAT
When the humidity is 56%, ya'll lose the right to tell me and the rest of Meltangeles that "Oh, it's not as bad in L.A. as it is here in The Other Armpit Of Hell, USA, 'cause it's a dry heat!" A hunnerd degrees and 56% humidity is not dry in this armpit. No sir.
ii. Ok, maybe it is smoggy after all
This is a case of "I can talk bad about my mama but you can't talk bad about her..." because now you're hearing people complain about the stickiness of this air, combined with its radioactive qualities, and it's brownness. We're practically chewing the air. Wonder if it has calories?
iii. Which brings us to the weather and driving hypothesis
That perhaps, with the insane heat and bizarre weather (read: humidity) and brown air and general hair-trigger irritability of the city, our driving skills have reached a new low only rivaled by the following Major Traffic Events: Daylight Savings Time (people forget how to drive in the dark), Rain (people forget how to drive when water falls from the sky), Halloween (people forget how to drive when they smell carbs in the air) and Valentine's Day (see: carbs in the air, plus possible sex and/or sexual frustration).
iv. Solutions for lessening road rage
While just about everyone in this smelly city would benefit from staying indoors and lying beneath the ceiling fan half naked with a cold beer and several episodes of Northern Exposure on the Tivo, one cannot refute the scientific laws of "Must Go To Work So I Don't Live In A Storage Shed." Therefore, if ya'll have to venture out, please for the love of all that is holy stay off the 101 ('cause that's my road, that is how I roll.)
If this is not possible, move post-haste to Section V.
v. The Courtesy Wave
I have given up any chance of bringing back the side ponytail, and have now moved on to reviving The Courtesy Wave. What is the courtesy wave, you ask? It's a small sign of acknowledgement -- that slight wave of the hand -- which tells the kind driver who allowed you to merge or switch lanes or pull out in front of them, that you really, really appreciate their kindness in a Blanche DuBois way.
The courtesy wave is not to be confused with the more common driving hand signals involving the middle finger. It stands alone as one of the single most powerful elements of driving sign language, because it's pretty much the only nice gesture left in driving.
So please, ya'll, my brethren in the brown air and WHY DOES THIS CITY SMELL LIKE AN OUTDOOR CATBOX? WHY?, please begin using the courtesy wave. It assures the driver who made a road sacrifice for you that he or she has been acknowledged, which in turn makes that driver more likely to let someone else merge in, and that someone might just be me. So, as you can clearly see, the courtesy wave is one thing we can all do to stick together in this traffic-infested world. That, and lie under the fan half-nekkid with a beer, but as I am at work I can't implement this strategy as it could be poor for my career advancement as clearly detailed in Section iv.
Science, people. It's all in the science.
Posted by laurie at 10:17 AM | Comments (114)
July 15, 2006
Perspiration is the key to success.
There's Johnny Mountain!
I plan to stay indoors and drink iced tea until it's a proper hour to switch to an adult beverage and ... will someone remind me why I love the valley? Anyone?
Posted by laurie at 10:47 AM | Comments (95)
July 07, 2006
Por amarte así
In a city of eleventy million people it's easy to be anonymous. It is, in fact, one of the main draws of The Big City: you can leave behind the small town you grew up in ("population 200, including cows and chickens...") and live here with neighbors you never see or talk to, glide through the grocery store without having to chitchat with the person you sat next to in 4th grade and later dated his brother who went on to play ball at Auburn and then got a knee injury, and oh have you heard from the so-and-so boy lately?
You can be anonymous, can wear your oversized sunglasses and pretend to be a washed-up child star or a Very Important Businessman but I came here and somehow small-townified my life (you can take the girl out of the south, but not the south out of the girl... it's stuck to her permanently through all the fried foods of her youth) and I moved to a neighborhood where my neighbors are kissing cousins, literally, and I know the names and backstories of almost everyone I see regularly which of course includes the entire staff of both 7-11s in my sphere of influence.
(At the BBQ I hosted a few weeks ago, Karman was going to make a 7-11 run and was taking orders. "Amber," I said, "you want anything from the 7-11?" She laughed, "What would a party at your house be without a late-night trip to 7-11?")
This morning, I got in my Jeep and stopped at my "morning" 7-11 (Oh, ya'll, the more I change the more I stay the same, and so I still do a fair amount of my shopping at the corner convenience store, I cannot help myself.) Rajit, the friendly owner, greeted me with more enthusiasm than usual. The man was practically jumping up and down.
"OH! Misslaurie, I do not have your phone number but to call because we have very exciting news, flavor flavor!"
Obviously, I had not had my coffee yet, so who knows what I was hearing or he was saying, and I looked closely at the coffee pots to determine which new flavor flavor I was supposed to sample.
"Cinnamon...?" I asked, hoping I was right.
"Yes, very good, cinnamon is fresh but we have flavor flavor in here! Just last night! I show you!"
And he produced a strip of receipt paper, signed by one Flava Flav, proof positive of a star sighting in my very own 7-11, very exciting. And I left with my coffee and got in my Jeep and headed East into downtown (or "South" because sometimes the 101 signs say East, and sometimes they say "South" but you're all the same stuck in morning traffic and heading "over the hill.") The hills in question were barely visible in the morning amber air, bright and soft yet no matter how poetic you phrase it, still decidedly brownish. "It's not smog," just ask any Angeleno. They (we) are very defensive when asked. "It's not smog, it's haze."
In front of me is a guy in a battered Toyota truck with a bumper sticker that says, "Soy Chapin y que?" To my left is a Channel 7 news van, off to some exciting story or another and advertising the Doppler radar that never, ever shows smog, to my right a guy with an expensive haircut in a gorgeous black mercedes convertible (top down, but all the windows rolled up) talking on a cell phone, gesturing between takes of Starbucks.
And so it occurred to me that this is a very optimistic city, maybe the most optimistic city on earth. You can come here and make all your dreams come true. You can write a screenplay or work at 7-11 until you finally own three franchises of your own and send your daughter (age 18, very pretty with glossy black hair from the pictures he showed me) to USC to study engineering, or you can work at a high-powered law firm with glass hallways, or mow lawns for more money in one month than you might make in six months back home, or drive a Jeep into downtown with a sappy Spanish love song (Christian Castro) playing loudly enough for everyone to hear, but nobody pays you any attention because you could be anyone, anyone at all, and even Flava Flav shops where you shop.
And it's not smog, you know. It really is haze. It'll burn off later this afternoon.
Posted by laurie at 09:08 AM | Comments (75)
June 19, 2006
Operation Gratitude
On Sunday, Father's Day, I drove over to the National Guard Armory in Van Nuys to see for myself how one lady with a goal and a little determination can make a whole lot of good come about in this world. And of course, the very fact that she's from the Valley -- Encino! -- didn't hurt any.
Carolyn Blashek, founder of Operation Gratitude (and Valley Girl!!)
Carolyn Blashek is a fiftysomething mother of two from Encino (unlike me, one can assume she is not merely Encino-adjacent) and she created the nonprofit, all-volunteer movement called "Operation Gratitude." This past Sunday I saw with my very own eyes how one tiny woman with a personal mission could move mountains ... mountains of boxes!
Folks from all over come together to donate their time and money to build individual care packages for soldiers serving overseas. No matter what your politics are, the beauty of Operation Gratitude is that this is the sort of cause everyone can support. Those kids out in the desert are from my hometown and yours, and every morning they get up and wear some totally unflattering shade of camo and do a job a million miles away from home. A box with some girl scout cookies and a beanie baby and some snacks, magazines and DVDs could make someone's day, month, year. It's the very best of us, this desire to give to a complete stranger, the need to let someone know they aren't all alone in a desert while we go on about our day-to-day lives in relative safety and calm. This is the thing I love about people, the generosity of spirit that sometimes just needs an outlet. Carolyn created an outlet for giving right in her own living room, and now it's grown to take over the Armory!
Volunteers build a mountain of boxes waiting to be filled for soldiers overseas.
I got to meet Carolyn and ask her about the organization and her inspiration for Operation Gratitude. "Right after 9-11 happened," she said, "I wanted to join the military. I tried, but I was too old. So I started volunteering, and before long I met a soldier who was heading back into the war zone. His mother had just passed away, his wife had left him and his only child had died. He told me, 'I'm going back over there, I probably won't make it back. But it doesn't matter, because I don't have anyone anyway. There's no one.' "
And that was it. That was the moment she decided to make a difference, to let a soldier know that there are folks back home who care, and Operation Gratitude was born. That was over three years ago, and this past weekend, the group sealed up the 150,000th box! I was completely overwhelmed by what I saw, folks in every age range filling and stuffing and sealing and packing boxes.
[click for bigger images]
For the winter drive that starts in a few months, we'll have to figure out what we can collectively knit for the care packages. I know the power of knitters, ya'll ... we could have more handknit goods in Iraq than anywhere on earth if we put our minds (and Addis) to it. In the meantime, if you'd like to help, visit their website for a list of ways individuals can contribute.
Posted by laurie at 11:01 AM | Comments (84)
June 07, 2006
Hot town, summer in the city ...
This candle is an apt representation of how I felt all weekend, melting and finally falling over into a puddle on the patio.
I never cease to get a little thrill every time I see this sign. It's close to the four-level in downtown, where all the giant freeways converge and there is much merging and weaving in and out of lanes and carrying on.
In the summer, Los Angeles is filled with tourists, and since Jennifer lives in Hollywood very near some of the key tourist spots, I'll see tourists crossing Hollywood Boulevard every time I drive to her house. They carry their cameras and wear shorts and look at the people in the cars (Hollywood and Highland is a traffic nightmare, you can easily spend a day and a half at a red light as the world walks by at a faster pace than the cars.) Occassionally they get to see a real bonafide Hollyweird freak with a case of full-blown crazy, and you know the teenagers get a thrill and the parents think, "California!"
I imagine what they're thinking as they look into the cars at the stop lights, because I used to be a tourist here, too, and I fell in love with this city the first time I came here. I looked at the folks in cars and imagined myself right there, one of them, pictured myself living in this place. Tried it on for size in my mind, wondered if I could ever be one of those impossibly busy and rushed city folks who honk at green lights and talk on a cellphone. The whole city seemed so huge and fast and choked and impossibly glamorous.
And now I live here, and I'm still a tourist deep down inside (Jen and I were at Target in Sherman Oaks on Sunday and we saw Jenny Garth and her husband both wearing sunglasses indoors, I never quite get over the fact that I can be shopping for cat food and paper towels at Target and bump into KELLY FREAKING TAYLOR, especially because remember when she totally made out with Dylan while Brenda was in France, and we were like... How could she?? But sort of like... FINALLY! Because Brenda? SO not good enough for Dylan. But also weird that she ended up with Brandon, as that is one step removed from eeewwww, having totally DONE IT with Dylan after Brenda did. Oh, Kelly!)
The thrill of living in this town just sneaks up on you, even when it's a million degrees outside and traffic sucks and the city smells like an outdoor catbox and I'm greeted at the top of the subway entrance by a woman naked from the waist down (have you ever noticed that people who show up partially naked in public are almost always the people who should be wearing a lot of clothing?) And even though it's true that sometimes living in Los Angeles makes you want to curl up in the fetal position and cry, it's still the only place in the world where you can run into Kelly Taylor at Target, then go home and watch your patio candles melt while your neighbors have a pool party and play the soundtrack to Evita and then bust open a pinata.
I heart you, Los Angeles.
Posted by laurie at 10:12 AM | Comments (126)
June 05, 2006
Attack of the summer freckles!
Hi! It was eleventeen thousand degrees in the Valley this weekend and all growing things are dead, except the ants, because the valley is really just the depression in the mound of Southern California's ant farm underpinnings. Forget tectonic plates, we ride on the backs of a bazillion little black ants. Earthquakes probably come from territory disputes in the ant colony.
You can also tell it’s summer because now showing on cheekbones near you, it’s THE ATTACK OF THE SUMMER FRECKLES! starring yours truly. The evil villian Skin J. Cancer stalks her every summer, and every year our heroine breaks out the SPF 35 only to be foiled once again by the diminishing ozone layer and the reflective properties of smog.
Many summers ago back when I could still utter the words "bathing suit" without breaking out into hives, I let a girlfriend talk me into buying one of those Tan-Thru swimsuits that are supposedly engineered so that solar rays can pass through and tan your whitest, pastiest parts without you having to run buck naked down Zuma beach. The swimsuit was a one-piece multicolored monstrosity that had an odd lace texture to it. It was also obscenely transparent when wet, so I simply avoided the water on my first Tan-Thru day at the beach. I got what might be the worst sunburn of my life in that swimsuit. The fabric was indeed Tan-Thru -- I had the lacy pattern etched in sunburn on my behind for weeks.
Times have changed, though, I'm now a thoroughly glow-in-the-dark sunless mole. I do sometimes get basted like a Thanksgiving Turkey at those spray-tan places, and I walk out feeling like a golden goddess for about a day and a half, then it starts rubbing off. Sexy! Epecially when it's hot like this, there is the sweat factor. And ya'll, MY FACE SWEATS. Seriously. It's gross, and also terribly unladylike and it's best if I just do not continue talking about it.
And what do you knit when it's this hot? Really? I have not been knitting long enough to know how it goes, this switch from cozy winter knitting by the light of a gentle cabernet to I CAN'T TOUCH FABRIC I AM SWEATING.
Please. Tell me how you do it.
And now that it's summer, people are all out and about and feeling sporty and healthy and so on, and while I am seriously pondering what to knit in a darkened air-conditioned room while bonding with TV, there are folks out there who need to experience nature and actually go out in it. Personally, I get plenty of nature in my back yard plus it's close enough to the fridge so that when the beer gets tepid I can refresh accordingly. Also, let us not forget that nature does not so much love me and is maybe trying to kill me.
Yet! Even though I am the epitome of sloth, I have a friend who is threatening to take me hiking. OUTDOORS. There are many issues here:
A: I have no shoes suitable for hiking.
B: My idea of taking a hike is the walk from the parking lot to the Beverly Center.
C: I like the idea of sportiness, but I’m rather vague on the details. For example, I hate to sweat. Perspire. Ya'll, why we can put a man on the moon but we cannot eliminate perspiration? Sweating is fine in the gym and in other certain indoor activities, but aside from that I’m wholly against it.
D: Don't forget who we're talking about here. My only fitness goal is that my ass stays smaller than my chair. I'm no one's role model.
I must find a way to get out of this whole hiking business. Please, help me. Tell me what to knit in the summertime. Everyone knows you can't knit and hike at the same time, and since knitting came first, it takes precedence over walking uphill both ways on some dirt path with a bunch of flies and worrying about my freckle/face sweat problem. Really people! I do have my priorities!
Mondays. And also, Tuesday-Sunday. Love L.A.!
The backyard dried to a crisp, and then Francisco finally came to fix the sprinklers, but he took everything apart, and kind of... had more parts left over when he was done fixing it. Perhaps he is building a rocket ship. I do not know.
Posted by laurie at 12:28 PM | Comments (119)
June 02, 2006
Does Prada do a cement overcoat? What about just a cement Juicy Couture tracksuit?
I love the San Fernando Valley. Even though right now as you read this, the potted tomato plant that I forgot to water this morning is being baked and scorched into a small pile of expensive hay, I do still love my Valley. It's been so hot that fire season will probably start this afternoon at 2 p.m., but I have a moat in my backyard so I'm cool. Also, don't ya'll think it is rather crazy and also DRAMA QUEENY to live in a place where there is a "fire season"? There's also "mudslide season" and "earthquake weather" (I have no idea, either) and "Oh my God, what is that weird wet stuff on my car? Did I park in front of sprinklers? I just got my car washed! Oh, holy crap, I think it's rain!"
But if it weren't enough that the valley is overrun by thousand-degree temperatures and spontaneous wildfires and cholos and bad drivers and soccer moms, we now apparently have a "MOB BASE IN THE VALLEY." So says some article I read on the bus this morning.
But ... the mob? Luca Brasi Swims With The Fishes? Kiss my ring, don't insult me on the day my daughter is married, pass the spaghetti? Welcome to the Valley?
Why is it that my beloved valley has to be the seat of all that is seedy and unholy in this world? Not only are we the porn capital and the carjacking capital and the bank robbery capital of the world, but hey, add to the list "Carpooling mafia crime ringleaders from Sherman Oaks" capital of the world. I'd prefer, perhaps, an influx of hot Portuguese soccer stars. Or maybe we could be known as The Valley of Southern Expatriates. Remember when it was cool in the '80s to go to Prague and be all freedom-y and Euro? Can't we make the Valley like that? We do not so much love our role as Los Angeles' redheaded stepchild.
And why select the Valley to set up a mafia base? Didn't they, like, see Nicholas Cage and Deborah Foreman in "Valley Girl" and, like, gag me with a spoon, we're all the complete opposite of ya know, dark and intense and heavy sauces and all? I mean, we don't even eat pasta in the Valley, it just has way too many carbs. Totally.
Bu I figure our new mafia neighbors should be easy enough to spot. For one thing, they won't have a tan. And real-life gangsters never look like Ray Liotta did in "Goodfellas." I have yet to see a Jimmy The Fish or a Mikey The Bird who even vaguely resemble the supremely hunkalicious Liotta. If they're going to succeed on L.A.'s Valley turf, especially in the porn capital of the world, these people will have to cut down on the cannoli.
The made-for-TV-movie version of mob life in Los Angeles practically writes itself. Most of the main scenes will be filmed on the freeway, because the real impediment to knocking off your enemies is, of course, traffic. Those sig alerts are murder. There will be a whole murky subplot about the lack of parking at Trader Joe's. The final operatic crescendo of mob warfare will take place at The Galleria and the ringleader of the whole organization will be a bikini waxer at Pink Cheeks on the boulevard. It could be called "Godfather Gets Liposuction." Or maybe "Godfather Goes Shopping" (I could be the technical advisor on that one). And after the premiere, the party will be held at Sportsmen's Lodge. Catering provided by Art's Deli, or maybe Jerry's Deli.
Ya'll really. I do amuse myself. It's hot and it's summer and I'm working on about three hours of sleep here, and I know this made no sense whatsoever, but I am still cracking myself up thinking about some gangsters working on their Valley tans and having to skip the cannoli. Forgeddabouddit. For sure!
Posted by laurie at 09:31 AM | Comments (61)
April 30, 2006
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