Escape to L.A.
Saturday, January 29, 2005 2:00 PM
So I spent this past week in Los Angeles visiting the great mass of my friends who live down there. It was a whirlwind of catching up, going out, and the magic that is daytime TV. I also was reacquainted with Los Angeles "news" and remembered again why I hated to watch it—I swear they don't even try.

Sunday: I arrived at 12:04 a.m. after trying to find the right address on the wrong, but similarly named street. I was only off by two words! Thank goodness I had Microsoft Streets and Trips.

Monday: Because people had work and school, I spent my mornings and afternoons just hanging out alone in my brother's apartment. In between all the judge shows I had almost forgotten (ah, Divorce Court); Ambush Makeover (which is just . . . no); Ricky Martin on Oprah (I respect his effort, helping tsunami orphans, but it was hard to watch those two people talking so pretentiously); Oprah telling her audience to learn about the Rwandan genocide by watching Hotel Rwanda (while I've heard it's a fine film and all, how about suggesting a broader non-fiction account and shouldn't they already have known about it?); watching The View (only because Robert Downey, Jr., whose work I've always liked, was on) and understanding the Elisabeth Hasselback hate—girl's a terribly unnatural interviewer and really rubbed me the wrong way; and wishing that as cute and charming as Downey was he maybe shouldn't sing because that didn't work out so well, though I'm sure the studio album is lovely because they have lots of knobs on the mixing board to make people sound very pretty, I also managed to finally finish an issue of Entertainment Weekly and finish reading The Best American Short Stories 2003. I also learned that even on a low strength open wireless network connection you can surf pretty adequately.

I capped off the evening with a friend, telling stories of work and being grown-up and it was great. Also we ordered up fancier sushi than I previously have had, including yellow tail. Mmm.

Returning back to my brother's place, I also remembered that parking in the neighborhood near The Grove makes parking in Noe Valley seem like a breeze. Which makes no sense in that L.A. is such a car dependent place, but the problem is that all these buildings have been subdivided into quarters and more (as reflected by addresses like 355½ and 534¾) so there are probably enough parking spaces for the density if it was all single-family homes or the buildings were only subdivided into two units not four or six.

In a typically L.A. fashion, while I was searching for parking one of these days, there was a police helicopter shining its spotlight down in the neighborhood and a cop car driving around the alleys. It was surreal because everyone was just going about as if nothing was happening, and when I finally parked my car, the cops were still driving around and actually kind of slowed down when they passed me walking, as if they were sizing me up. I presume my skirt quickly told them I probably wasn't who they were looking for, but the fact that they were still looking made me wonder if I shouldn't walk just a little faster.

In another one of those is-this-just-L.A. moments, when I finished parking I got a call and was sitting in my car talking on my cell phone with my dome light on and this kid in like a little Jetta or something came and parked in front of me and even though I was very good about leaving a decent space in front of me, he totally bumped my car when backing up, which is something we all do, but try to avoid when there's someone sitting in the car we might bump, right? When he got out of his car he gave me a little acknowledging wave, that cure-all, apologetic wave that is part of driving, but is kind of hollow when someone has just hit your car.

Tuesday: At Westside Pavilion, I wandered into a Robinsons-May sale as I waited for one of my friends I was meeting for a movie. I forgot how much I liked Robinsons-May even though it's basically Macy*s. It's a good thing I'm on a clothes-buying moratorium—there's no room in my closet—and I successfully bought nothing. I saw Sideways, which was cute, funny, not quite Best Picture material, and made me want to be a wine connoisseur. I also realized I need to see at least 5 more movies to give myself a fighting chance in the Oscar pool at work—heck I need to see them so I won't be totally embarrassed. The night was capped off with a delicious and overflowing meal at Sisley—the Sisley chicken—delish!

Wednesday: Lunch at Morels in The Grove, probably not the best lunch: coldish fries, a not entirely tasty chicken baguette sandwich, a tasteless soufflé for my friend, and a waitress who never quite remembered to bring me a napkin (here's a hint: even though this is what you're doing until you get discovered, treating people like you don't expect to get a good tip from them kind of sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy). It was nice anyway to walk around The Grove and Beverly and La Brea, Melrose and Fairfax, seeing Cantor's Deli, The Largo, and the rest. Walking down Melrose, seeing all the cool little boutiques, I realized that if I lived in L.A. (again) I'd probably be idiot poor from patronizing those shops—I was student poor and unadventurous before.

The Grove itself is funny with its midday population of young apparently non-working wives with babies, impossibly well-dressed young people who don't seem to have jobs but can afford expensive couture, and Midwestern families fresh from a Price-Is-Right taping. And ambitiously good-looking waitstaff who move heat lamps away from you and forget to bring you napkins or warm food (as noted above) because presumably, you cannot make their Hollywood dreams come true. Kind of makes you want to be a powerful producer or somebody with the ability to wield your awesome power on those who would dare to screw with you. Maybe L.A. makes me a little too competitive and a tad self-important.

It's kind of funny though that even with all the thin and perfect all over the place, San Francisco beat out L.A. on the fittest city survey. Must be all the plastic surgery—I heard an ad on the radio for a deal where if you get one procedure done by January 31 gets you the second procedure half off.

Thursday: I visited Woodland Hills for the first time, though really just Ventura Boulevard, seeing my friends who've opened up their own spiffy law practice, whose furniture I genuinely envy. I had a Spicy Chipotle Chicken Pasta thing at The Cheesecake Factory that was in no way actually spicy. And, um, it's kind of wrong that they make the (friendly, nice) waitresses wear all-white, and even more wrong that it's really easy to get white tops in thin, crappy fabrics such that if you're wearing the wrong color bra underneath, we all know about it.

After lunch I said my good-byes to Los Angeles, which took a really long time to get out of because of, you know, the ever-present traffic on the blessed 101 and 405 freeways. When I finally got about 150 miles away, I thought I might as well get my dinner as well as fuel, so I stopped at Carl's Jr, a fast food restaurant which I'm not totally sick of yet (I can rarely bring myself to eat fast food). The cashier was about 16, with his shaggy hair undeterred by his cap, and when he asked if my order for a bacon Swiss crispy chicken sandwich was “for here or to go,” his voice actually cracked, which was cute adorable (as opposed to “cute hot,” of course, he was a kid!), and he was embarrassed which was even cuter. My sandwich made me realize that I finally need to swear off iceberg lettuce, which is pretty useless, because there was so much and it was warm and soggy and slathered in mayo—so not necessary in my life. And my 20 oz Coke from the Mobil mini-mart down the street at the gas station was $1.93, which was so hilarious I couldn't be ticked that I was getting ripped off.