mutiny at the bounty in the form of vodka and soda

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.