Monthly Archives: November 2004

There is an EIGHT FOOT TALL INFLATABLE PENGUIN on our front lawn. It is wearing green earmuffs and a red toque. It’s the kind that requires a constantly whirring air pump to keep it “alive”, and it has lights inside so it REALLY shows up at night. It’s just part of my roomate’s Holiday Fun display. Remind me to post photos.

I’m back in Los Angeles today, after travelling for far too long last night. After the wonderful nafspeak dropped me back off at YVR, I found out my flight home had been delayed. By an hour.

Then two.

Then three.

I got into L.A. FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATE.

I saw “Terminal” on Friday night, on DVD, with Mom, so I have some perspective on the situation. However, at least Tom Hanks was in an airport where the food stands didn’t close at 8pm on a Monday. I would have liked to have used the $5 food court voucher I received as part of the “we forgot to bring the plane on time” package from Alaska Airlines.

Today I’m learning that while my new BlackBerry gets FAR better reception than my old Ericsson phone, its less-than-legit status means that I can’t use it for anything BUT phone calls. No Internet, no e-mail, certainly none of the new gmail POP functionality. It can’t access the Internet, and that is that. And nerd status doesn’t count if you can’t MapQuest the next party on your PDA. Sigh.

I’m also learning that, just as one has to fight back blackberry tangles in Seattle, or kudzu in the South, I have to fight back my room’s tendency to fill up with clothes, books and magazines as soon as I put everything away. There are stacks of books on the desk and on my bed, books I won’t have time to read because I’m going to Las Vegas for the weekend – and who would read books on the History of the American West (two on Los Angeles, two on the West in general) while in Vegas?

(Probably the same girl who is not going to a boxing match because she can’t stomach the thought of it, that’s who.)

Sigh. Sleep. I have to go say a tearful goodbye to my roomate – she’s leaving for six weeks in Africa in four hours – and then call it a night.

I’m writing this at my friend F’s computer, about eight blocks up the hill from where I used to live in Vancouver. Yes, I’m back in the old ‘hood. I’m also TRYING TO LOCATE YOU PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO GO FOR SUSHI IN 45 MINUTES.

I’m even back in my old hangouts. I went to Fiction, briefly last night – the tapas and wine bar where I went most Tuesdays to see F spin. It was within “stumblin’ distance” of my home (one of the many things I loved about my house at Tenth And Alma – proximity to much loved bars & hangouts). But I caught up briefly with sharolyn before I went to the Wolf & Hound for drinks with monkeybutlers – an Irish pub a half-block from my old house.

(Rememembering how much stuff there was on Broadway, and how much I loved walking down it to shop on Saturdays, does make me moderately nostalgic for Vancouver. Abbot-Kinney is close – but it’s not RIGHT BY MY BACK DOOR.)

I’ll have to post separately about the party we went to – but I’m off to sushi with the crew. And I hope to catch the rest of you over the next 24h before I head to Seattle.

I’ve uploaded a whole slew of photos from home to http://photos.yahoo.com/canadiangirlinlosangeles. They’re under “2004-11-25: At the End of the World”, because that’s what it feels like out here.

(As I explained to a friend last night – I’m not homesick because I miss my family, or even the house. I’m homesick because I spent too much of my life in a part of the world that is unrealistically beautiful, that feels like it’s at some mythological end of the earth)

Oh, and and another predictable quiz:
which american city am i?

a miracle on bay street – the update on my father

Being a HUGE NERD, I check the official Wizard of Earthsea site and the One Ring team’s Narnia site almost daily.

Less than three weeks until Earthsea is on SciFi! There are actually billboards for it in Los Angeles – one in Culver City, not far from home, and another I saw in Los Feliz last Friday.

I’m slightly better than I was during yesterday’s crash. Thanks to everyone who posted to that particularly panicked entry. I promise to stop doing that and return to posting about, y’know, more entertaining stuff. I’m not totally recovered, and I haven’t stopped panicking – but I might soon.

I’ve been so depressed lately that I didn’t even post about karaoke on Monday. I went to Liquid Kitty with a pack of girlfriends. We were celebrating a friend’s successful breast reduction last week. Said friend was wearing, in celebration, a T-shirt with the “Slinky” logo. We all carefully semi-hugged her, and squealed at her new physique.

We also all realized that most of us at the table – there were eight of us to start with – were all amateur to professional singers. But the professional singers were the ones I wanted to hear the most – my classically trained friend Kat, who sang, as a finale, Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”, and another friend who sang Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man”, a song that showcases the best voices who take it on. And, of course, my roomate, who does a remarkable Annie Lennox imitation.

The night wouldn’t have been so disturbing had it not been for the karaoke hostess, who was wearing some sort of tube top made out of pink marabou. This caused me to wince in fashion pain. She also had very large breasts, and I always imagine, when I see her at that karaoke night, she was one of the girls who moved here because of her Looks And Talent, and then ended up hostessing cheap karaoke in dark bars. But not only did the top resemble a pink marabou lampshade, it actually fell down several times when she was singing, revealing a white satin bra. And rather than panic and pull the top up, she actually kept singing in oblivion, which made the rest of us cringe in embarassment FOR her, and debate what she was on. We figured it was probably something prescription.

Someone at Liquid Kitty always does a great comic performance at some point. One of the best examples I’ve ever seen was a guy who performed “Rock Lobster”, getting right down on the floor and writhing around. Monday’s was a couple guys who couldn’t sing, but still performed a cheesy early 80s movie song – the one with the chorus of “never gonna dance again”, the name of which I can’t remember. We deemed them awesome. And we’re going to go to karaoke with them again in a couple weeks.

trekking home from Los Angeles

My journal is called in circles, the live version because my old website & blog was called “in circles” after the Sunny Day Real Estate song, and it wasn’t as active as this version.
My subtitle is the glitter and the gleam because it’s a reference to “Kiss Them For Me”, which is also my userinfo.
My friends page is called the happy gang because I was reading “Cat’s Eye” that week and Margaret Atwood made references to the old 1930s radio program called same.
My username is sockgirl because my old website was sockgirl.com, back when it started as a platform to rant about how Ed the Sock should be Prime Minister.
My default userpic is Leela from Futurama because I’m a Huge. Frickin’. Nerd, and I identify with that particular cartoon character.

Well, it seems that I WILL be spending Xmas in Texmas after all. Or similar. Let’s hope it went better than the Last Time I Went to West Texas, which was three years ago, in December, 2001. THAT was a Gong Show And A Half.

actually, everything’s kind of a gong show right now…

Six months in, this is how I understand L.A.

Hollywood (and surrounding trendy zones) is the lungs of L.A., drawing in new life.
Downtown is still the heart of the city, with the recent coronary of revitalization.
The soul is out here, at the beach, the extended vacation and California lifestyle that every citizen shares in – even those that have to drive to get here.
And the spine of Los Angeles, the source of its every move, is the river. It’s flanked by the oldest residential and commercial districts in the city, the vertebrae that, before freeways, made up the normal, everyday, all-American history of a city built around streetcars and trains. Those riverside communities represent a city that, like San Francisco, didn’t know what “sprawl” was.

we went to a new part of the city today :: reflections on the los angeles river

There’s a WestJet fare for $200 roundtrip, tax included, LAX to YVR nonstop. With availability at Christmas.

i would rather spend christmas in texas, but it looks like its time to go home