maxi-post

At the urging of friends and relatives I left the apartment today. I'm really doing okay and enjoying the weather in Los Angeles a lot, but don't feel like doing anything much. So maybe I'm not doing okay. I've been worse-- let's put it that way.
So, I decided to take in a movie at the Egyptian theater-- Drew Barrymore suggested it on Ellen. They play old movies. I bought the ticket but never made it there. Has anyone ever noticed how driving in LA is crazy? Has anyone commented on that before? Well let me be the first to tell you. It's pretty crazy. I got stuck on some side street for like forty five minutes for no apparent reason. By the time I parked at the Hollywood and Highland complex I was ready to go back to my apartment.

I had to park 5 stories underground. As I drove, around and around deeper and deeper into the earth, i was positive there would be an earthquake. I was driving into my grave in a Hertz rental car. I emerged from the elevator in the Kodak theatre where hundreds of cheerleaders were applying their blue eyeshadows. Went out onto Hollywood Blvd -- a mix of tourists and costumed people handing out maps to the stars homes. Darth Vader, Cinderella, a creepy dragon man with wings and fangs, gold contacts. I walked around Graumann's Chinese theater and stared unmoved at the footprints in cement trying to feel something. "These are Bette Davis' footprints, These are Bette Davis' footprints-- this should mean something to you."

I went to McDonalds. Again with the waiting forever in Hollywood. I waited 20 minutes for my NEW Angus Bacon and Cheese Hamburger with no pickles. There was a tiny old lady with a velvet hat attached to her hair with bobby pins, waiting for one hamburger. I imagined that she was once a B-List actress who had lived in the same apartment since the forties.

"I guess that's what happens when you live in this town too long," came from a lesbian trapped in the body of a married suburban woman. I didn't catch what she was referring to.

You never feel like you're the tourist. In LA and New York, in tourist heavy areas I have felt so superior. Somehow, I am above it all. I have the edge, the inside scoop, I see how it all works. I feel like this at parties too.

My days in LA start at a crisp 6:30. The alarm waking me-- which is very unusual. I think because I have been sleeping a lot. This creative, tortured brain needs A LOT of rest. The pot of coffee prepared the night before, cleverly. No I do not shower in the morning, this goes for LA and Chicago. I prefer a slightly ripe and oiled coat. A cup of coffee, a generous intake of nicotine and the days blog headlines- Yahoo! news, Fleshbot, WOW report, etc.

I'm off after that in my black KIA Optima, scooting down Barham Blvd. Headed to the studio, I struggle with internal conflicts: relationships concerns (familial, friendly and romantic), finances, career, spirituality, sex, food. I stop at the McDonald's for a bacon, egg and cheese McGriddle that I have no interest in eating and never enjoy. The small diet coke is delicious. "Do you want the value meal?" and a "No senor, I do not." I can barely choke down the McGriddle, how do you think I'm gonna handle that hash brown.

A right turn into the studio, "Good Morning" to the lady who makes the gate go up by pressing my ID to the sensor. Up four flights of parking-- again certain that an earthquake will cause this parking structure to collapse. An elevator down to ground level.

On Friday, a carpenter taking the elevator with me. "I'm only in the elevator and I already want to go home." Over enthusiastic laugh from me.

I walk down "Gunsmoke Blvd" past writers bungalows and into my classroom that is (I can't stress how chilling this is for me) feet away from the Big Brother house. Bette Davis' shoeprints again.

So, wherever you go there you are. YOU being the operative word. Wherever I go there I AM AGAIN! With all my crap-- my smoking and my anxiety and my blue eyes and sense of humor. Here I go again on my own. But, I am not a drifter, and as much as I think I was born to walk alone-- I was not.