Dear Los Angeles

Ten years ago, when I learned I was going to be moving from my childhood home in Minneapolis to a new home in Kansas, I was slightly stunned. I was a bright child, but for one reason or another it had never quite struck me that Kansas was a real state. It's like when you're a child it's easy to accept that animals can talk, even though you know somewhere in the back of your mind that they can't really talk, but they do in the animated movies so you just accept it without a second thought. I was 13 at the time and it never came up in my daydreams, so the idea was never addressed with proper reasoning. It was one of those things I had accepted as reality, but accepted it didn't exist in my reality. Then I was moving there. Oz or Kansas it didn't matter; somewhere sepia toned with tornadoes and little green men and fucking rainbows. After all those geography tests and memorized state capitals, Kansas never felt real to me until I lived there.

A decade later, I sit here counting down the days I have left living in a place that truly never existed. Maybe at one time it did. But like I originally assumed about Kansas, Los Angeles is truly a creation of the cinematic world. It isn't real. The people who walk the streets here aren't real. They are a composite of scenes and poses and scripted dialogue. The lives they lead are make-believe, the truths they promise usually prove false. They're rockstars with drug addictions, soccer mom's with politically destructive secret lives, teenage girls with huge vaginas and too many boyfriends, and little boys who drink too much cognac on a good day. It's a beautiful dreamland in which nobody ever wakes up. And it's nice, until you reach out to touch someone and your hand goes straight through them. They push strollers and worship aliens and celebrate every holiday the world could come up with. They've got the longing glances and the memorable monologues down pat. The people here are everybody and nobody all at once.

In a city on the beach, all the shells live in houses and drive top-down on Sunset.

They tell you stories about how the West was won, but nobody ever talks about how we lost it again. Self entitlement is the root of all evil.

And don't even get me started on the traffic.

LA, you were beautiful when you were black and white. A city shrouded in glowing lost souls; spirits looking to make a life in the bright lights a and on the silver screens. Fur coats and cigarettes and champagne and falling in love a million times with fake names and scripted soliloquies. LA, you used to be about entertaining the masses. Filling a solemn people with hope for a better life, or at least a true romance. Now, now it's just about profit. Who's tits and ass are worth more on an insurance check. Who's Jag compensates for their lack of genitals better.

Oh, but it hasn't all been bad. I don't mean to be a cynic. I did meet some fascinating people during my stay here. Most of them were the equivalent to the picture that comes with the frame. They look and act like somebody you could know. Somebody you do know. But it's all appearances. Deep down, everybody is exactly what you already knew they were. They're readable. They're all books. Just educated guesses and research, no experience. But some of them were beautiful. I mean really. Some of them showed me a brilliant world outside my own, some even showed me a world inside myself I wasn't sure really existed.

I guess there were plenty of people like me, too. People who came out here looking for something new, some escape from a world that closes in on you too fast. A place big enough to get lost in. A place where nobody knows your name. A place to prove yourself. The non-natives from New York and Ohio and Pennsylvania. I talked with some of them and, like me, they all smile politely and say, "It's taken some getting used to, but it's nice..." And we're all lying. Most of us. Some of them found a place outside the people. I never found that. I don't think I ever looked.

Most of the people out here, most of them have lived here their whole lives. And, these people, when they leave the rest of the city says, "They'll be back. You can leave L.A., but L.A. never leaves you." And I feel bad for them because it's true. In other cities, assholes are assholes, not softies pretending to play hardball. In other cities, nobody's trying to impress an invisible casting director- just the girl at the end of the bar, or the guy holding that girl's hand. In other cities, people come out of character. In other cities, when you crack the shell, or open the book, there's someone inside.

Oh L.A. I used you. I took advantage of you and your numbingly warm latitude and I used you to prove to myself that I didn't need anybody, and I was proved wrong. Without people there is no story line. Constant quiet kills the muse, and while they've said happiness writes white, boredom doesn't write at all. I need to witness life happening in the mirror and in the streets and in the alleys and between the rows at the grocery store. Real life. Real beautiful life. But not to the point where it's overwhelming and I shut down and loose it all. Too many people. Too much nothing happening all the time. Everyone's just waiting for their turn to talk. They watch you constantly. They aren't judging, they just want to see how they measure up. Now I'm growing backwards and into myself. I'm tired. I've shut up a lot since leaving. Maybe I'm just an outsider, but I can't live in an overcrowded city where everybody is alone.

It's bittersweet. There are a few things I wish I didn't have to leave behind. Things I won't say...
But I think, for the most part, the only thing I'll miss when I finally depart is how wonderful it felt to deeply miss home.

Goodbye L.A.

Love,

Carrot

Single Black Wine Rack: Likes Long Walks On Beachs And Cozying Up To The Fire

I'm getting ready to move into a beautiful loft in downtown Kansas City here in about a week, and I'm absolutely thrilled. For the first time in my life I'm going to be living completely on my own, especially given my growing disgust for the human population in general. I think this is the best situation for my health and wellbeing, and that of those around me. I've known for about a month or two now that I'd soon be moving out of my dad's place, since he recently lost his job at Mattel and is going to be moving soon as well. With this knowledge, I began to stock up on basic essentials like things I can use to store and display my wine. After spending an entire work shift digging through the various ads on Craigslist offering multitudes of useless shit people have left out on the curb, I came upon an ad offering a lovely mod-looking hanging wine holder. The hanging display dangles from the ceiling and comes down in various spiraling tendrils which hold the wine bottles. I had to have it. After noticing that the ad had been running for a couple days, I called the woman up and offered her half her asking price. Sold.

Now, I'm especially excited because the loft I have waiting for me back in K.C. has cement floors, raised cement ceilings, and partial walls which give it a very industrial feel that will be easy to decorate in a very clean but cozy style. If I've ever wanted to achieve anything in my life, this is it. Learning shit, living in a badass loft, and laying in the middle of the floor drinking a glass of Reisling and listening to my Sinatra records. You people don't understand how huge this is for me. Unfortunately, cement ceilings means my funky wine rack will be entirely useless, as I am only one woman and cannot fathom any possible way of drilling something into concrete. Especially since the thing I would be hanging would be holding my precious bottles of wine, and I don't see any of my handywork being stable enough to risk using it to dangle glass bottles over a cement floor.

About a week ago I went and put an ad on Craigslist offering the wine rack at the same price the woman I bought it from had originally offered it. I can't use it, so I figured I might as well attempt to make a profit. Given the current status of the economy I'm sure boxed wines are probably selling a bit better than the glass bottles I typically buy, and they tend to stack just fine in the fridge without needing a fancy piece of art to display them in. Needless to say, I haven't received any responses for the holder.

Still, I have received two emails requesting dates and one requesting a "casual encounter". At first I couldn't imagine why I was getting these emails. I had shown a coworker the joys and entertainment of perusing the Craigslist Personals, and thought maybe she had used my email to post a prank ad, but she would never have been able to log into my email and complete the confirmation required in order to post an ad, so I decided that couldn't be the case. Besides, nothing these men were requesting was too out of the ordinary. A simple dinner with a good bottle of wine, or a good fuck with wine as a parting gift. Nobody was asking I show up with midgets and a cattle prod, or wear a strap-on and bring a female ostrich who prefers swiss cheese to cheddar. So, if it were a prank it would have been poorly executed. All three of these gentlemen had somehow found me on the For Sale section of the site though the listing I had created to rid myself of this useless wine thing. Apparently men like a women who drinks.

I know what you're thinking, but I had simply posted the picture shown at the beginning of this post, very clean and non-sexual, and said "Perfect Condition. Holds 6 Bottles. Hangs From Ceiling. Black. $25 OBO". I wasn't straddling the wine rack in fishnets with my tits falling out everywhere. I wasn't sucking on a lollipop in lingerie while holding the thing up or licking the metal curls in a seductive manner while pouring bottles of Chardonnay or Merlot all over my white t-shirt, no bra. Sex sells, but not that well.

Apparently my wrought iron curves, thin appendages, ability to hang from the ceiling, and fact that I can hold 6 bottles of wine without breaking a sweat, are simply traits that single men find very appealing.

Good to know.

X

A Day In The Life...

I'm not a demanding person by any means, but I don't understand how the general population of greater Los Angeles can't find a way to merge into traffic without causing a two mile back up. And to be honest, traffic wouldn't be quite as unbearable as it is if the morons in SUVs didn't decide that they own the square footage immediately in front of my vehicle and then decide act on this notion. Don't pull into my lane and expect me to stop. If I'm not texting or PMSing, and you're not an asshole, I might slow down and allow you to creep in, but don't ever just expect this of me. I don't think I'm being unreasonable.

Okay, so maybe it was out of line to play Pacman with the on ramp so as to prevent people from driving up a couple car lengths then causing even more of a back up by trying to merge at the last minute in front of a bunch of people who are too stubborn to allow it to go smoothly. Maybe I did deserve the barrage of horn honking from angry little fat people in their angry little clown cars, but at 6 o'clock in the afternoon my stomach was grumbling and it was beginning to look like a scene from The Incredible Hulk. It was too much to handle, all this confined rage, so I resigned from the freeway and pulled off the next exit looking for a quick appetite fix. As anti-fast food as I tend to be, when I haven't eaten since the previous night Taco Bell begins to appeal to my senses much like gourmet pasta w/foie gras in a truffle Marsala sauce might. Unfortunately, the only things available off that exit at that time were a Von's and Burger King, and while I used to be a fan of the Whopper, the thought of being the victim of one of "The King's" televised hijinks didn't sit well.

I had plenty of time to kill, since traffic wouldn't be dying down until at least next week, so I took my time wandering up and down the aisles of my least favorite grocery store, scanning for a quick meal and a couple attractive men to sexually abuse in the meat cooler. Long story. Anyway, apparently when there's traffic on the 10, only elderly women go grocery shopping. Prospects for male suitors were looking thin, and my stress levels had dropped taking my appetite with it, so I decided to head over to the frozen foods section and pick up a bag of cheese Pizza Rolls as it's been almost 6 months since the last time I enjoyed the greasy succulence of my ultimate in edible vices and I figured I could avoid starvation at least until I got home and could cook them. I grabbed the frosty bag, adjusted my cleavage, and headed to the cashier to sweet talk my way out of having to sign up for a Von's Club card in order to get the discount I felt entitled to. I didn't care so much about saving the fifty cents, so much as successfully getting what I wanted the wrong way.

Once back in my car, emotionally stabilized and secure in the company of frozen pizza snacks, I approached the on ramp, sped to the very end of the merge lane, and slipped right in front of some guy talking on his cell phone. He was visibly upset, but it served him right as far as I was concerned. I remained calm for the first couple minutes, determined to maintain control over my road rage and not go Chuck Norris on some bitch's minivan. Things were moving pretty slow, at a rate of about 20-25 miles per hour, but at least they were moving. I couldn't really complain. This is Los Angeles, after all; the world headquarters for idiots in Beemers. Then suddenly everyone in front of me hit their brakes at once. And I hit mine. And the asshole on his cell phone behind me who had been riding my ass the whole time hit his. I could hear his tires squeal and I squeezed my eyes closed and braced for impact, reaching across the seat and holding the Pizza Rolls to prevent them from shattering against the dashboard upon impact.

Nothing.

He managed to miss me by what I imagined to be millimeters. In my mind I cursed loudly and stabbed him with an ink pen in his penisular region for driving so unsafely as to endanger my life, and the lives of the uncooked Pizza Rolls in the seat next to me. Ho ho, nobody is safe from my pretend wrath.

Traffic. Again. It's about 7 now, and I'm hungrier than ever. It's stress. Emotional eating. I'm not really starving at this point, not even hungry, although I probably should be. The pizza rolls are beginning to thaw in the seat next to me despite the fact that it's about 60 degrees below zero outside, in Californian terms. I'm cold and I reach out and turn the nob on my dash until hot air is shooting from my air vents. And then I get an idea. A brilliant, brilliant idea.

I'm moving back to Kansas City in a week, and I've got my car pretty packed with a portion of my belongings already. There was a bag of silverware in the back seat and with my knee wedged against the wheel, my foot on the break, I reached back and pulled a fork out of the plastic bag that holds my utensils. Still parked on the freeway between a flat bed Chevy and some sporty silver thing, I grab the bag of processed pizza goodies and tear open the plastic, then jam a fork into one of the cheesy rolls. This is my first attempt at cooking frozen Pizza Rolls using the heat from my vents, but already I feel like a pro. The air from my car's conditioning system is probably not of the best quality, but I'm hungry and the air was really hot so I figured this approach just might work well enough to hold me over until I get home.

The lane I'm in starts to inch forward slowly, and I hold my speared snack up to the vent and turn the heat full blast. I can feel the fork warm, and my fingers start to sting, but I'm hungry now and I don't let it affect me.

I managed to cook about 4 pizza rolls in the span of something like 40 minutes. I mean, it worked, but they lacked the crispiness you would achieve if you chose to use an oven instead, and they were still a little slushy on the inside, which is never good when dealing with a cheesy product. Furthermore, it should be noted to any novice cook that the cook time is outrageous. It's something like 10-15 minutes per roll, depending on your patience and attention span, and unless you have a really big fork the turn out rate is pretty low. On the bright side I'm sure I managed to burn a few calories by sweating because the car gets really hot in this sort of situation, but I worried that if I rolled down the windows it might ruin the convection effect and negatively impact the already obscene cooking time.

On an unrelated note, at one point while driving I happened to look over and notice a black kid about my age eating a banana and found myself a bit surprised. Of course, if he looked over and saw me roasting Pizza Rolls over my air conditioning vent, he might have felt a similar sense of surprise, but I guess given the stereotypes I would have perhaps expected the banana he was eating to be deep fried? I suppose that's a good indicator of how racist I am.

You learn something new everyday...

Sharing Is Not Optional

Sometimes I just want the whole fucking world to myself.

Five hours north of Los Angeles and I'm sitting shotgun in the front seat of a Lexus next to anybody. A million trees jut up from the side of the road spotted with crisp autumn leaves clinging to near-barren branches, their trunks encompassed by weak shades of green and orange weeds and bushes. It's like the northern countryside, and the air smells like pine when we roll down the windows and pretend to choke on the fresh air as though our bodies aren't used to taking in anything pure. We're headed to Yosemite National Park and I'm still under the impression that I'm going to get to see Ol' Faithful, the geyser that I later find out is at Yellowstone, somewhere in Wyoming. It also later dawns on me that the reason Yosemite sounds so familiar is because it's the name of the cartoon midget cowboy who always tried to kill Bugs Bunny. I should have paid better attention in geography class.

The park itself made me homesick for my childhood. It felt, for a while, like I was back in Minnesota; a little freckle faced five year old girl buried under a pile of leaves with an orange face from a Flintstone's push-pop. Back in the days where you could smell the snow weeks before it fell, and people didn't bitch about it when it finally did. I missed the lakes and the pine trees, the cabins, the cold air and bonfires. In California people wear mittens and scarves and big puffy jackets with earmuffs because it's winter, not because it's cold. It's was November and there was no snow on the mountains yet and there was a vague scent of smokiness in the air. Beautiful streams of what remained of the summer waterfalls were still flowing down the steep cliffs that lined the park, and in some places even the grass was still green. A couple times throughout the day the temperature would drop a couple degrees and for a couple of moments I would be able to see my breathe and feel real again, somewhere between lost and at peace.

I miss this place. I miss the fragrant bountiful wilderness where things were spectacular and nothing had meaning or method. This place isn't a piece of art or a product of somebody's creativity and inspiration. There's no retail value or translation to it. No critic would dare dispute the texture of the leaves, or the hue of the clouds just before sunset. It just is what it is. And if you want to learn a lesson from it than it's this; accept natural things as they are because they're good that way. But learning a lesson out here isn't required for the experience to be breathtaking and worth the drive, for at least the first half hour.

And then there are people. Everywhere. Crowds on the bridges, people outside of their Camrys and Yukons with their digital cameras and sandwiches. Gift shops, quaint restaurants, tourist information.

In front of us there's a caravan of Middle Eastern tourists backing up and turning around, creating a sort of gridlock you'd find in the busy cities. Four or five of them do this in front of our car, and a couple people start trying to U-turn out of line behind us. Reverse, turn, back up, inch forward, reverse, turn, drive. Behind us somewhere somebody honks. We're in the middle of the forest, and people are yelling out their cars. And I turn to him and say, "Don't you just love California?" And we force a laugh, because it isn't true. What's funny is people settle for this cramped campground as the great outdoors. This is what they call "getting back to nature," this line of RV's and vans making U-turns next to rows of large heated cabins and novelty shops that sell fresh brewed coffee and maps in the middle of a national park. And then I tell him sometimes I hate people, and I'd probably make a good lawyer except I'm a hypocrite and can't listen to petty people bitch about each other for a living. "I'd rather just do what I do." I say. "I'm perfectly content being the deviant who gives people the karmic ass-kicking they deserve. I'd rather just methodically persuade bad people into being good, and convince good people to be a little bit bad once in a while. Maybe I've just lost faith."

We're backing up and following the caravan, and, looking straight ahead he says, "You know, if you're looking for perfection in people, you're never going to find it."

"I'm not looking for perfection," I tell him, "I'm looking for people who don't cheat on their girlfriends, sleep with my boyfriends, use me for sex, manipulate the public, or lie to my face. But... apparently my standards are unrealistic." The conversation ends and I'm a cynic again and there are too many people and I can't get away from any of them. They're in the cars in front and behind me, in the cabins and the diners and on the picnic benches. They're on the bridges, the sidewalks, the trees, the leaves, the weeds, the wind, and underneath the dirt. They're everywhere. Honking. And I'm just want to be alone with my world.

Craigslist

Sometimes I'm lost in my head and find myself standing in a parking lot in downtown LA twenty miles from where I had been headed wondering how I got there. The thing about routine is you don't have time to detour, and maybe I didn't have time to detour, but I went with it. Life is a discovery, a blank page, not a to-do list. Six o'clock shower. Eight o'clock 2nd coffee. Noon meeting. Three o'clock dry-cleaning. Five o'clock dinner. I was born 2 weeks late. I've never been on time to anything in my entire life.

There was a quiet little cafe across the street and I found myself inside after spending a few moments on the hood of my Camry, sprawled out and conflicted.

Me: Quizzical look. I was impressed by the selection of scones but questioned the integrity of some squishy looking muffins. I was hungry, but I settled for hot tea.

You: Sexually confused brute in a purple apron. You were frustrated by my indecisive tendencies and desperately needed to get a hold of some Neutrogena acne cleanser. Your whiteheads could have produced enough milky goo to substitute as creamer had I ordered coffee. Still, you smiled politely like we all expect you to.

I'm not a difficult person, but if I find myself in a state of confusion as to how I got where I currently am, I tend to exude an air of resistance towards anything with lips stuck in the ongoing process of pulling words from a corroded mind. Forgive me if I come off as arrogant, but I'm desperately trying to make sure the next few decisions, however minuet they may be in the grand scheme of things, are correct ones in the hopes that I might realign myself with the cobblestone path of fate I should have been following. I'm not where I should be and I don't have time to waste being unpleasant, so can the remarks about how I look lost. The career negligence that has placed you into the title of "barista" is not my fault, though I humbly salute your service, so keep your roach-like attitude to yourself evil apron-man. Now, pour the hot water into that recyclable cardboard cup so my Hoo Ha Peppermint Dragon Bitch Citrus Tea can steep, you commiserable social peon. Thanks.

Me: Tousled hair, drunk on caffeinated tea and in an obvious hurry to get nowhere. I was wearing mismatched socks and a black t-shirt with a few contrasting deodorant stains.

You: Middle-aged, sitting at the table outside reading the Wall Street journal. We didn't make eye contact, but you looked at me like I was a mess. You were obviously jealous.

And you should be. I'm resilient. Fresh. I can fall apart with the stock market a million times without loosing track. I'm not worried about being overqualified for a job at Borders in case my company tanks and my corporate ass can't find a job I would be qualified for because the economy has left the conglomerates of the world in a hiring freeze. I can live in an apartment comfortably and eat a box of single serving Pizza Rolls in the break room without feeling like my professional integrity has been compromised. I don't have another heart or career to consider if I want to jump across a few states and set up shop. I don't have to pimp my psychological well-being out to the communal heap in order to pay my mortgage, or my auto lease. I'm not yet concerned about funding my spoiled and inconsiderate offspring's college education. I can still wake up late on Saturday mornings and watch cartoon with a bowl of Fruit Loops and feed my poor decrepit snob of a cat without feeling like a failure. You have a newspaper telling you to buy or sell and a triple latte that will help you stay awake during the next soul-sucking meeting with HR. I have the whole world in front of me. I can be lost. I don't have to be found.

I'd be jealous too.

Ok, Dante

What am I doing here, when you're all the way up there? I should be in town cutting through the dark knight with stilettos and swaying hips that together could crack cement. (With flashes of lightening and thunder and such and so-forth.) But we both know, Romeo, if I ever came back I'd be in the girl in black in the far corner of the bar with a vodka tonic as I watch for you and wonder why you won't look at me like you did that one night when you were drunk and I was in love. I should be prepared next time. I should attend your bed with a blunt object in hand so I can put you out of your misery because goddamn this must be so hard on you. Bravo, you fool. What a pity to have me like this, falling all over myself with broken stilts and a mutilated mind. I know what this looks like. We both know I'm wearing the cone in this classroom. I wilt and whither and babble like a desperate drying brook. How elegant! What class! But, Casanova, come on! It's not like this is about appreciating admiration or even following through. It's about turn the lights back on and say something you mute fuck. The only reason I'm the fool here is because I opened my mouth. I'm sorry, I thought that's what we were there for. Just so you know, this is your fault. I never took the blame, but I gladly accept the consequences. Thank you sir, may I have another? MMmm yes. It's about how I can spend 8 months and only remember an orgasm and Beefaroni, but two nights with you and I can remember every single moment that you attempted to sleep through. Jesus, it's like I just fucked the monster under the bed and now I'm begging for him to not spit me out.

Closure means don't bite me to begin with.

This will require years of therapy.

I'll be sending you the bill.

Flight 5194 To Memphis

Flight 5194 to Memphis, scheduled to depart at 2:30, and I'm 30000 feet in the air, floating through in a new idea of reality. From this altitude, the world looks entirely fragile, made of tiny bits and pieces rolling lightly along without rhythm or form. From this perspective, it's no wonder the planet is falling apart at the seams, no wonder our little webs and complex skeletal structures of parliment and society crumble under something so simple as words, breaths, changes in the air waves. Parts of the world, at this height, resemble the internal workings of a computer, viruses and infostructures, wires and chips, metal and plastic. The rest of the planet looks like a collage of first grade art projects, some parts filled with blotches and blobs of color, greens blues, burnt reds, vibrant oranges. Other parts geometric, with varying shades of brown and green, some with the trails of fingertips, raked across the paint. The trees and the utility poles and the cars look breakable, much less real, as though they should exist behind plexiglass in the middle of a mall; thepint size plans for a new real estate development to be approved by voters. Roller coasters and shopping centers and parking lots and little ant cars. Things that are vaguely recognizable, but not possibly functioning. All these things, so familiar, become impossible to imagine as lifesize. You imagine yourself standing next to a giant plastic house, with a painted-on door and plastic pole people standing outside for good measure. The grass feels like turf, the trees are dried foam. Seran wrapped lakes. It's like having your nose pressed to a snowglobe, except you get to worry about how it would feel to bob around in the middle of the ocean with your seat cushion, should the situation arise. For a moment, outside the bubble, you are bigger than everything. Power. Control. Simplicity. 

This must be how God feels. 

And then the plane lands, and suddenly you are swallowed by everything that was, only moments before, to small to touch. Insignificant, now prominent. Same objects, greater impacts, different perspectives. 

This is your reality check. 
Just another proof positive that nothing is anything more than how you see it.