Monthly Archives: September 2004

I downloaded the video for “Strange Days” to show friends here, and I still cry at the end of it.

I’m putting together a CD of late-90s BC-based grunge for a friend. Anyone want to FTP me some Rymes with Orange?

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still preparing for camp

I have so many things to do, that there is no way I should be sitting at my computer. We seem to have stabilized at seventeen people this weekend, sixteen of us departing on Friday night. I faxed out a campsite diagram as a joke today to D, after modifying it slightly with labels. Somehow, my Unit Guider training materials seem far, far more amusing when you visualize rock stars trying to tie knots.

the Los Angeles area code class system.

I came to this city with prejudices about Vancouver suburbs firmly in place – but Vancouver is maybe one-tenth the size of Los Angeles. And has ONE area code. There are area codes in this city that I didn’t even know existed.

ADOPTED COUSIN: I met a girl at that party – but she’s a 714
ME: Damn. I won’t even date 818.

67 hours until we leave for Camp Lollapalooza. We’re now up to a count of 18 confirmed people. Of which, I think maybe four have any serious camping experience.

I suddenly find myself coordinating meals, sites, carpooling, tents and the Hearst Castle field trip for eighteen people. Oh well. It’s still easier than my Brownie troop – twentysomething rock stars don’t require permission slips, health forms and the dreaded Safe Guide.

Now I know what this reminds me of! BUGS POTTER LIVE AT NICKANINNY. That’s it! Rock stars in the woods? Am I the only one who sees the resemblance?

Or this could be a bad TV movie:

LIFETIME, 8PM, MOVIE OF THE WEEK, “A Canadian Girl In Los Angeles” (PG)
When Jillian decided to go camping with her friends in Los Angeles, she had no idea what she was getting into. Suddenly, eigheen people – including rock stars, hippies and a slew of city girls – are heading out to the woods with her. Can Jillian teach this crew how to camp without electricity? And, more importantly, can she teach them how to love the wilderness and open their hearts to nature. And can they pull off the benefit concert to save the town of Morro Bay from an evil nuclear weapons plant owner who is dumping waste into the river?

I did nothing particularly L.A. related today. Well, I went to a mixer for the commercial industry. Commercials, short films, and music videos. But only because it was at Canal Club, which is close to home (it’s one of my favorite happy hour destinations in Venice) and because one of my favorite guy friends was going.

And after we got tired of networking (OK, he networked for work, I networked to flirt), we went for a walk down to the beach for a few minutes. It was just enough time for me to recognize that it’s actually fall in Los Angeles. I was wearing a knit top with sleeves today, along with a miniskirt, and was slightly cold. That, and fall is actually, finally in the air – it smells a bit different, down by the ocean, and reminded me of the way the wind comes in off the Straits in late August when the temperatures start to drop back home, a month before they start to drop in L.A.

And then D came over so we could watch Mean Girls, which, while it didn’t contain as many one liners as Jawbreaker, was quite a bit better.

“Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen.”

And now it’s time for sleep. I have to start kicking ass at work again this week, and plan a camping trip, and all kinds of other stuff. I’m hoping time flies between now and home.

I can’t sleep, and am therefore posting until I can.

I suggested a few days ago that we have a Sunday night BBBQ at my house this week, primarily for those people going camping. After all, it would be a great way to get some things discussed and organized: equipment lists, carpooling, food sharing. And the Abbot Kinney festival was happening this week

Of course, just like this camping trip was originally six or eight people, the BBBQ turned from that many into fifteen or so. I hooked my laptop into the stereo, cranked the volume, set out coleslaw, spinach dip and corn chips, and let the party more or less run itself. Unfortunately, being a sloppy hostess at best, I’d forgotten to buy paper plates or disposable glasses, and we had to use household dishes, but at least I did remember to eat at this party. That’s important. On my birthday, I was too busy hostessing to eat, and ended up very, very sick after a friend showed up with sugarfree birthday Jello shots she’d made for me.

I’m getting to the point in Los Angeles where I’m confident that my social life is not going to up and disappear. I keep waiting for a falling out with my core group of friends. I never expected that in BC because my core group there were my tribe – they were like family – and I always knew that from the start. Here, it’s adult relationships, without Arts County and Whistler and Fairview to pressure-seal those bonds. And the last time I had a “real world” group of friends was in Amarillo, Texas – and look how wrong that went with two of the three of them.

backstory on that last remark

I’m slightly amused by the fact that the actress who played Hedy King on Road to Avonlea also appears in Further Tales of the City as a ninety-year-old madam from Winnemucca.

I was woken up this morning by the shrill of my cell phone. I started up to get it, and realized that I was using my bathrobe for a blanket, with a sheet on top of that, to ward off the recent nighttime temperature drops. I must have come in, kicked off my shoes, stripped off my Miss Sixty jeans and Arden B top, and fallen into the pile of clean laundry on my bed.

The caller was one of the girls who I was out with last night. “Oh my God, did I wake you?” she exclaimed.
“No, no, I should be up,” I said, while trying to pry off the Le Chateau beaded choker I apparently couldn’t get off when I arrived home at 3am. “If we’re going to have beach time, I need to get down there. I want to check out pickup Ultimate at 3:30.”
“Oh, good,” she replied. “How’s your head?”

Now that she mentioned it, my head was bad. I’d been drinking red wine all night, and I switched to vodka and sodas when we went to the Gaylord Hotel bar, the HMS Bounty, on a field trip back to the fifties towards the end of the evening. I wanted scenes from film noir movies to be happening in the dark corners, I wanted intrigue served instead of pretzels.

“Are we still doing the beach today then?” she asked. “I tried calling the other girls, but there’s no answer”
“Of course! They’re probably still asleep. We were at that party pretty late.”

The party last night was fantastic, just a gathering of people on the roof of a classic Los Angeles apartment building not far from downtown. It seemed to be one of the few buildings from the 20s not done in Spanish style, with an atrium that went up through all five stories, and walkways on either side, and an old gated elevator. The rooftop was amazing because it was balanced between the 70s skyscrapers on one side, and the old, 1920s-through-40s buildings on the other. The old Hotel Normandie was across the street, on Wilshire, and the Gaylord was a few blocks down, and those used to be some of the more wealthy hotels of Los Angeles.

The crowd were also fascinating: everyone had unique, brilliant careers. I talked to a PEI expatriate who’s here to work for NASA, and the host was a world traveller -slash- photographer. There were artists and musicians and writers. Very Los Angeles, big city jobs – but different than the very L.A. jobs I run into at most parties. I also met the author of Vagabonding, and talked to him for an extended period of time, because that’s a philosophy and modus operandi that fits right in with my own philosophy of nomadism.

Actually, “met” isn’t quite the term. I think I do remember kissing him at some point. For an author, he was cute. We’d already invited him to Camp Lollapalooza anyways – a true vagabond should really appreciate the nomadic aspects of camping – although this one cheerfully agrees with me that Camp Lollapalooza is really car camping and tent drinking.

Now I’m off to fix the headache – I’m out of drinking water, and have been drinking LA city tap water, which is probably making things worse. Drinking water and breakfast and I should be fine – but really, I have to get in gear. I have to get to the beach. I think my tan is fading slightly.

I am wearing a strapless bra for two reasons:

1. because I am wearing a light yellow tank top that I don’t like showing bra straps with
2. because I am out of clean strapped bras because I haven’t been home to do laundry during Laundry Hours

Driving across Los Angeles tonight, on my four monthiversary here, I realized that I still really like it here. I can still get that flash of “oh my god, I live in LOS FUCKING ANGELES” when I’m out on my own, out of West L.A. But on to my busy social calendar…

vitamin social is a daily requirement for me

I came up with the bright idea that we should all go camping at Montana de Oro after I camped there on Labor Day and just fell in love with it. I mean, how could you not?

click here for pictures of montana de oro state park (dawn’s early light mix)