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.
For those who aren’t quite as familiar with my mythology, when I was in Amarillo, I was one of a tight knit group of four girl friends: myself, Tonya, Shelly and Shawna. I worked with Shelly back then, and she knew Tonya (yes, sammynella) from college, and Tonya knew Shawna…well, actually, I’m not sure how they did. But the two of them were best friends, as were Shelly and I. Shawna and Tonya have the matching tattoo to mine on their lower backs. Back then, I was still stupid enough to think that four months of friendship meant a lifetime.
I found out that wasn’t true in October of 1999, when Shawna went white-trash psycho on me, and I recognized her for what she was: the kind of “ho-beast” you see on Jerry Springer. I was so naive at twenty that I’d had no idea how to recognize white trash at the time. Thanks to that summer with Shawna, I can teach a college course on what makes those people white trash, and how they choose to stay that way.
Of course, I also found out the same thing about Shelly, who, while she was the most sophisticated girl in Amarillo, failed to be able to carry any sort of real class or loyalty over when I let her out of the Panhandle to visit the West Coast. What makes white trash is the fact that they will sacrifice anything, anytime, for their own needs. They have no real feelings or bonds with other humans, be it their family or their friends – and Shelly demonstrated that when she came to visit me, and then started a relationship with my best friend Neil. Neil, who I’d had something resembling a crush on for years. Exit Shelly.
And it is due to those bad experiences in Texas, with those two girls (who will both die loveless and alone, because they have no hearts, and can’t stop their own selfish desires long enough to forge the bonds with other humans) , that I believed that my social life in L.A. was just temporary. I kept expecting a guy, gossip, some sort of petty girl backstabbing to take place, and for things to blow up. Four months in, not only am I starting to really believe in my friendships, but I’m also connecting with so many more people beyond my core group that my social life sits on a wide enough base as to be fairly stable.
Three months ago, I wrote that I wished it was months in the future so I would have forged bonds with more people in L.A.. Well, now it is, and I have. I wrote that I couldn’t leave until I could call Los Angeles home – and I do. I wrote that I wanted friends to go to the beach with, instead of going on my own with nothing but a book to keep me company – and now every time I go, it’s with a group of three, four, seven friends, two days a weekend. I said that, if the patterns I saw emerging in July held, I would love Los Angeles like I did Vancouver in a few months time. They did, and I do.
Now, if I put the energy into my job that I do into my social life, I’d be running the Agency by now.
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