Monthly Archives: August 2004

I left my office at 6:30pm tonight to go to my adopted aunt’s birthday dinner. Which started to wind down around 9pm, and by which time, my adopted cousin and I were ready to escape and hit a bar. So we figured we’d check out the tail end of a mixer that was supposedly happening in the ‘hood at Canal Club. I rounded up my friend D and off we went.

Canal Club had people – but they were all far older than we were. And James’ Beach, across the street, was dead. As was the Whaler, Venice’s traditional surfer bar. So we checked out Hermanos, a really neat, cheap, dive bar – and then my cousin and D were nice enough to agree that karaoke at Liquid Kitty in Santa Monica was probably the answer.

We got there just in time to mock people. Like the group of girls getting up and pouring their hearts out at karaoke. Karaoke isn’t about pouring your heart out – it’s about having fun! I don’t get up and force people to sit through my emotional spewage. Besides, if I did, I’d be singing Tori Amos from my diaphragm, and not Evanescence through my nose. Few things are more painful than listening to a heartfelt cover of “Bring Me To Life”, knowing there is not a trace of irony – and having your ears pierced in the process. Ditto the guy singing “Found Out About You”. He was a terrible singer, and a total loser, and one could just tell he meant every word.

D, in a rare spell of cattiness exclaimed, “there’s a lot of dorks here!”. Usually, she sees the good in everyone, but really, after the second Fiona Apple song, yeah, that was the problem. And it got worse when I went to get water at the bar, and started getting hit on by an overly intellectual guy. Intellectual is fine when you do it by choice, and this was the type of intellectual where it was what he used to justify being, well, Not With It. He might have had weird hair and bad fashion sense, but it was OK because he was an intellectual.

One of my cousin’s friends showed up about now, and the Intellectual joined our party, and immediately started talking shop with them about computers. And not in a good way, but in the way that showed he wasn’t really doing anything but code jockeying. Meanwhile, I went up and sang a New Order song (“Bizarre Love Triangle”), using my usual karaoke philosophy: if you can’t sing it good, sing it with attitude.

And then D had to go home, and my cousin took her, and immediately, the Intellectual slid onto the bench beside me, and said, “I’m going to make time with you now.” I likely had a thought bubble at this point: GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF. My cousin’s friend K was chuckling away. He thought it was funny. I just thought it was awkward, and hoped that the strange guy would get the hint and wander off. No such luck. He insisted he wasn’t hitting on me, but told K in the guys’ washroom that he was pouring his soul out to me. Which he was, talking about his acting career. My reaction was to smile and nod politely. I kept thinking, maybe if I acted shallow enough, he’d go away.

Despite this setback, there were many highlights to the night. One girl, in a dress and urban style hat, got up and rapped. She did “Bust A Move”, and two guys got up and danced all old-skool while she was doing it. Another guy did the best Springsteen, headband and all, I’ve ever seen. His buddy did a fabulous Violent Femmes song. Nothing is going to top the wannabe Jim Carrey who did a full-on physical rendition of the B-52s “Rock Lobster” last time I was there, but hey, Modest Mouse karaoke is pretty cool.

I eventually got to do “Kiss Them For Me”, because it is my favorite song, and I love being up on stage singing it. (I’ve changed my user info this week to those lyrics, because I think that they are apt for my life in L.A.). And K got up and sang “Devil Went Down To Georgia”. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. Despite his whole evening of self-deprecation (“I want to follow this guy. He’s terrible. It’ll make me look better”).

I’m realizing now that getting home at 2am on a Monday is not that smart. I have to be up in…five hours! Slightly less! But I actually ate sugar at dinner – cheesecake at dessert, and oh, have I missed cheesecake. I had energy to burn off. I think it’s burned now. I’m going to go collapse on my unmade bed and snuggle into the pile of laundry there.

It’ll be three months tomorrow since I drove down I-5 into Los Angeles. Three months and a lifetime. When I first got here, I wanted it to be three months in the future so I’d be settled, know my way around the city, and have made friends. And it turns out, life is better than I could have expected it to be, three months in. I’m starting to feel like I have enough time in the city to justify saying, I belong here.

another weekend in los angeles: from santee alley to slashers

i love my city, but sometimes i have to leave it

25 year old guys are idiots. There’s a good reason I don’t take them seriously. Especially scruffy twenty-five year old musicians. Next time I start seeing a guy on a more than one time basis, can someone PLEASE remind me of that? Because I hate finding out that I’ve made errors in judgement. The only thing salvaging my pride is that I’d already pretty much fired him as a boy toy anyways.

And other lesson learned? It is just as stupid to date from within my friend pool as it was in Vancouver. Because then, when you realize it isn’t working, and you don’t have anything in common, and the chemistry pretty much is over because it isn’t working, you still get dragged out to parties at their houses. And you also see them turn up at parties you’re at back in West Hollywood because they’ve tagged along with the mutual friend who told you where said party was.

So. That’s over. Back to square one! Not that, for any point over the last four weeks, I’ve been less than single, just that sometimes, like two weeks ago at the PRESSFIRE! party, having a date around got in the way (link goes to newly unlocked, hilarious anecdote entry). It certainly never stopped me from flirting at my own BBBQ, or celebrating my birthday by making out with a ridiculously hot Welsh rugby player at James’ Beach. But, as one of my guy friends here says, I apply double standards to these situations. When I do it, it’s being an empowered female – when he does it, it’s being an immature guy. And so, I am reminded – twenty-five year old guys are idiots.

Tonight we were at Molly Malone’s to see live music. We just got home. “We” being me, violentmedusa and her boyfriend, the always wonderful Owen. I dragged them with me to see All Star Local 2, an evening of local rock independent rock bands. Paper Sun put it together, but they were backed by AM and Jay Nash. AM is friends with Deena, and she and Kelly have been recommending his live performance to me for weeks, and Jay Nash, of course, I’ve seen a few times this month due to my association with his bassist.

The problem was that Molly Malones is a 21+ venue. It’s a bar. This was going to require some sort of ruse on our part to get Paige in. But then again, we created ruses for a year at UBC. How hard could it be to create one more?

My plan was to go in without purses – both of us – and tell the gatekeeper that my car had been broken into, and our purses and IDs had been stolen. If I, clearly well over 21, didn’t have ID either, it would make it more believable that my younger friend didn’t, either. And I got lucky, because there was a list at the door. I was able to start the conversation by saying, “I’m supposed to be on the list? My friend and I had our purses stolen out of my car in Venice today, and my friends in the band said they would put us on the list so we could get in without IDs.”

I knew we weren’t anywhere near that list. But it made it a lot more believable – and it worked. The bouncer couldn’t give us handstamps, but he could indeed let us in after all. But first, he askedviolentmedusa what her sign was, and what year she was born. I was afraid that was going to be it – but she correctly answered. “Scorpio, 1980.” And, with that, we were in.

Hooray for ruses! Because the talent really was amazing. I’d heard friends rave about Paper Sun, and they were amazingly good. I was glad I got to go. Plus, even though things are pretty much over with the Scruffy Musician, I still like watching him rock out on stage. It was a good night, with friends, and a lot of really cool music. This is one of the things I like about life in L.A.

I just talked to my mom about coming home for Labour Day.

She said Dad’s fine right now – and that I should wait until his next round of tests. It might be more important for me to save the money for airfare another weekend when I’m needed more, if he takes another turn for the worse.

I think she’s right. As much as I want to see my friends, it’s better I wait until Thanksgiving in October – and put the money away for a weekend when my family REALLY needs me.

Sigh. Also, better this than I break the patterns i have in L.A. and find it hard to get back into it on the Monday I come home. I’d hate to lose my connection to this city.

I get to see violentmedusa and her boyfriend in just four more hours!

I fit into a smaller size of jeans tonight than I ever have before. I’m not sure how. Perhaps America got fatter and upsized jeans again. I have birthday weight gain still on my ass, and can’t figure out how I keep fitting into smaller sizes – yet seem to see the same amount of squishy rolls of fat and cellulite when I wriggle into said jeans that I did last year.

(No, really, it is weird. I’m just about a size 10 now, yet don’t seem to look much different than I did at a size 14. Except that my size 14 jeans have to be held up with a belt)