Taking time off

It's been over a month since I decided to take this semester off. My weather widget says 56 degrees. I hear the birds singing, a distant siren and car horns.

Los Angeles, Los Angeles, I am so in love with you.

Yesterday, we made love. I woke up early and ate breakfast with the rents. A mushroom omelet. A friend showed up and we walked to Nick's (Pico/La Cienega-- my favorite neighborhood coffee shop) for grapefruit juice and coffee. I watched the fruit man set up his stand outside of Bank of America. A middle-aged woman of unknown foreign origin asked me for a Marlboro. When my friend offered her a Davidoff, she continued on her way. Only American cigarettes? I took the 728 bus downtown, got off at Figueroa and Olympic, walked up to Figueroa and 9th, and waited for the 66 while watching an elderly man approach ever so slowly with his walker.

Men in suits, women in slacks and blouses chattering and walking to grab lunch. The 66 went down 9th into the Fashion District, a sudden explosion of colorful bolts of fabric, every different kind of person imaginable carrying garbage bags of textiles.

I interviewed for a strange and endearing job in a huge loft. Colors everywhere, walls draped in velvet. The sun shone through matte glass windows.

Walked back to Figueroa and Olympic through the Fashion District, this time past t-shirt peddlers, tiny party dresses, Spiderman costumes, big white wedding dresses that looked like big white wedding cakes. Hispanic families with crying children who'd rather be on the playground than trying on communion dresses, young Korean women with big sunglasses and tight jeans, husky Persian men smoking cigarettes and arguing for a bargain. My eyes wide, my ears and nostrils open. I took it all in as I walked and walked, a serene smile on my face.

Waiting for the bus, a group of Hispanic boys (I'd say they were 13?) trying to do skateboard tricks. The city sounds of traffic, the hum of ubiquitous motion, punctuated by the hard clatter of the boards crashing to the ground. "You can't skate with those shoes, man! They'll tear! Kingflip!"

Onto the 28 heading West, I squeeze my way past the crowd near the exit to a seat in the back. By the time we reach Koreatown, the front of the bus is completely packed. The driver turns off the ignition. "MOVE BACK" An elderly Korean woman sits across from me and smiles. She is extremely beautiful, perfectly coiffed with round lips painted purple. Her eyes still sparkle with youthful friendliness.

"MOVE BACK"

The congestion is not improved.

"THIS BUS AINT GOIN ANYWHERE UNTIL YOU MOVE BACK"

I hear groans and mutters.

"OK, GET OFF OF MY BUS."

"I'M SERIOUS, YOU HEARD ME, IF YOU CAN'T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, GET OFF OF MY BUS!"

"GET OFF!"

And half of us do. A large group hurries to the rapid that has stopped behind us. I circle back to the entrance.

"Can I get back on your bus?"

He smiles, "Sure." His voice has softened. I step inside.

"Do I have to pay again?"

A chorus of chuckles from the remaining passengers. He smiles again.

"Nope."

I start to giggle as I move back to where I had been sitting. My giggle turns into a loud, belly laugh. They look at me like I'm a lunatic. It takes me a moment to realize that I am the only white person on the bus.

Later, I accompany a friend to pick up his suit from a Rodeo Drive boutique...

(to be continued)

"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?"

I watched Ed Wood last night. Every time I see that movie, I get so moved and inspired.

It always makes me feel nostalgic. I remember renting it from Movies and More-- I must have been about 9. Movies and More was a video store around the corner from my house when I was growing up. When they went out of business, I bought their copy on VHS.

Pretty soon, a new video store opened up in the same strip mall: the Beverly Hills Videocentre. That place was really great-- a tiny store on the second floor packed from top to bottom with movies. When I was 12 and 13, that place was my safe haven. I doubt I would have survived puberty without it. The guys who worked there, Rick and Lon, were amazing. Somehow, they didn't mind the fact that an annoying pre-teen girl was always hanging around, eating their free cookies and demanding conversation and recommendations. Those guys made me the person I am today. They showed me Repo Man, True Stories, Forbidden Zone, (the original) Bedazzled, Female Trouble (who gives that to a 12 year old girl? No matter, I am eternally grateful) and so many more. Lon showed me some really bizarre movies from the 80's, like Liquid Sky and Starstruck. Rick told me about Belle & Sebastian and "El Presidente," which is still my favorite Thom Yorke song.

I rented Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space from them, and was so confused that Plan 9 is considered to be the classic. I remember my conversation with Rick about it. He said that I liked Glen or Glenda better because it was something that Wood really cared about, no matter how shitty the movie happened to be. He was absolutely right. Good and bad are completely subjective. Quality doesn't really matter to me-- for me to enjoy art, there just needs to be passion behind it. There is no worse crime than mediocrity.

They went out of business five years ago-- I'd made real friends by then and didn't depend on them for company anymore. It was still devastating. I cried and hugged them, which probably made them kind of uncomfortable. I wonder if they know how much they did for me. I wonder if they know how much it meant for me to have a place to go where people were nice to me and listened to what I had to say. I wonder what they're doing now. I wonder if they remember me.

I still dream about it sometimes. That they got their space back and are moving back in, even though I'm on the other side of the country now. In my dreams, they never recognize me.

What was I supposed to be writing about? Ed Wood, right. Bad movies made with passion. I wonder why I like them so much. Maybe because I find them reassuring. They soothe me in a way.

I guess it's because they remind me that greatness can be achieved on so many different levels, and that gives me hope.