Laurie Perry's Blog, page 15

Midnight in Paris, jackhammers in Los Angeles

Ah, the pleasures of city living. Monday morning the jackhammers across the street started just before 8 a.m. and continued along with screaming concrete cutters and backhoes until almost 7 p.m. I wore earplugs and headphones on top of my earplugs and still by about noon I was ready to murder anyone who looked at me. I like to be deep inside the cone of silence to work -- I don't even write with music on -- and that was not happening. I vacuumed a lot on Monday and showered until I pruned up.

Tuesday when the jackhammers started bright and early I took it as a sign from the Universe to abandon work for the day and get out of my apartment and explore the garden of urban delights available outside the front door and noise radius. I'm pretty sure the Universe said, "Go to the movies!" It was hard to hear. I guessed.

First I made a little detour at the library to drop off some books:

Come to Hollywood, where our public libraries look like maximum security detention centers!

Since I was a little early for the movies I killed some time browsing the racks at Amoeba Records (6400 West Sunset Blvd., open daily 10:30 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.) where you can find records, CDs, posters, DVDs and lots of guys with suspect hygiene wearing black T-shirts. I like looking at the foreign language DVDs upstairs and doing some people-watching on the sly.

I used my Arclight points for a free movie ticket. LOVE you, Arclight! The one at the Cinerama Dome (6360 W Sunset Blvd.) always has unusual art or photo displays in the lobby, this month's selection is a great collection of portraits called MUGSHOTS:

Then it was showtime. One of the things I love most about Los Angeles is that this is a movie town, which means even on a Monday morning at 11 a.m. there's a crowd in the theater (but not too crowded, we all had our spacer seats!) The lights went down and Midnight In Paris started.

You guys! I LOVED THIS MOVIE! Halfway through the picture I had three concurrent thoughts: "I'm so glad I am seeing this today, take that jackhammers!" and "What awesome timing for this movie to be released just after I finished Gatsby!" and "I don't want this movie to end!" I've never been an over-the-moon Woody Allen fan but since he started making movies set in Europe I think they've gotten better (I know lots of people disagree, whatever) but this was by far my all-time favorite Woody Allen flick. And it goes on my list as one of my top all-time favorite Paris movies.

The timing couldn't be better for us bookclubbers either since the whole movie seems lifted off the pages of A Moveable Feast. The actress who plays Zelda was exactly as I imagined her in my head. The music, the shots of Paris, the whole film was a little love letter to my other favorite city on the planet. Maybe more favorite right now what with the local jackhammering and all. And everyone in the darkened movie theater laughed and laughed and loved this movie. It was excellent escapism. Two thumbs up! Movies are such a happy invention.

Later in the day I was hoofing down Hollywood Blvd. and I saw the TMZ tour bus!!

I have been trying to get my friend Christine to agree to go on the TMZ Hollywood tour with me, I think it would be HIGH-larious fun to pretend to be tourists and look at the empty parking lots of Beso and Katsuya and hear the running commentary but she hasn't fallen in love with the idea. YET. Give me time.

Finally I'd dawdled and strolled long enough that it was time to return home and resume the earplugging. Bob was so over it:

The construction dudes are at it again this morning so I am off like a dirty shirt. I figure when the Universe tells me to get out and go walking I should just lace up my shoes and get a move on.

Book Club: The Great Gatsby

The first time I read The Great Gatsby was in high school. The next time I picked up my worn paperback copy was probably sometime in the pretentious college years when I read classics to look smart and literary but really would have preferred to be reading a grocery store paperback.

I was surprised then how little of this book I remembered when I dusted it off this go around and read it. I felt so much more connected to the story this time. Maybe it was a side effect of reading A Moveable Feast so recently, Hemingway's chapters about his relationship with Scott Fitzgerald were fascinating and after I finished that book I got caught up in a wikipedia loop reading about his life and his marriage to crazy Zelda and her life.

Jay Gatsby doesn't seem that far off to me, he's the Jazz Age precursor to the Kardashians. Or maybe it's more accurate to portray him like any number of wealthy, self-made powerful men who fall from grace in a spectacular burnout (the recent news about the IMF chief come to mind for anyone else?) I thought this novel would read like a relic but has much changed, really? Rich, bored people are the stuff of TV these days. The Real Housewives might as well be a Hamptons garden party .. OH WAIT. It kind of is one.

What stood out to me most on my re-read of this book is the way the author sculpts a scene out of words. You can feel the place. I think this is one of those books that was wasted on me as a young reader, I just didn't have the appreciation for it the first go round but I'm so happy I re-read it. It's a version of the American dream in its own underbelly kind of way.

So what did you think? Had you read the book in high school, too, and what was your impression while re-reading it? What did you think of Jay and Daisy -- sympathetic or vapid? Did the inside peek into Fitzgerald's life from A Moveable Feast enhance your impression of the story? Did you have a moment where you wished you'd been alive in the 1920s? What did you think of Nick?

And finally, did you enjoy the book? Or did it leave you feeling a little sad at the end?

Day before the world ends, again.

Just in case the world ends tomorrow I'm not bothering with laundry. I'm eating chocolate for lunch and painting my nails and watching Cat TV, this particularly gripping episode features THE CASE OF THE PINK RIBBON:

Don't forget to finish The Great Gatsby for Monday's book club chitchat! You'll be all ready for the remake of the movie, which is slated for release next summer. Carey Mulligan as Daisy (brilliant) but Leo DiCaprio as Jay? I'm not sold.

Ribbon chasing is so exhausting.

We're going downtown

Earlier this week I took the subway to meet up with my friend Corey. It was a rainy day and that is the perfect time to visit downtown. The area's olfactary offerings get softened after some rain. After a short subway ride ($1.50, one way, metro.net) we met at Grand Central Market:

317 South Broadway, Los Angeles. Nearest metro stop: Pershing Square

I love Grand Central, it's a huge open marketplace full of just about every food and spice and edible under the sun:

We decided on tacos, Corey got the chicken and carnitas while I went with the tried and true carne asada:

Lunch for around four dollars. Not bad.

Everyone likes Grand Central Market.

After our lunch break together I walked back along the damp streets and I saw a little still life that felt like L.A. to me, a little gritty, a little pretty. These white flowers bloom in the wildest places, you'll see them in freeway medians and along alleyways and they're so beautiful, the blossoms are quite large (sometimes six or seven inches across):

Here's the wide shot:

Flowers among the refuse.

You've made it to the big time.

When I see this hotel on Ventura Boulevard I think about the song Screenwriter's Blues:

And the radio is on, and the radioman is speaking, and the radioman says, "Women were a curse, so men built Paramount studios, and men built Columbia studios, and men built Los Angeles."

Ah, the SHOWTIME MOTEL. Good name for a script, no?

So I have excellent news. And of course being like I am I see it as a sign, a turnaround, relief. You know that as a Southerner by birth I am predisposed to believing that the mysterious ebbs and flows of the universe conform to my superstitions. We're like that down South. It's such a charming quality and it's probably one of the reasons I have settled so well in Los Angeles -- this may be the only huge city in the U.S. (well, perhaps along with San Francisco) populated by hippydippy superstitions, though out here it's about "energy" and "vibration" and "flow" and "karma." No matter what you call it, it's still the same old bone-deep belief that there's a mystery behind living.

Which is to say that after I stood up and declared I am not taking any more crap, Universe! almost immediately my insurance stopped yanking me around and not only are they restoring my Jeep to its 1995 grandeur, they are resolving the whole mess in my favor. Read: paying the deductible. AMEN, people. The tide has turned.

It's like the good Reverend Dr. Michael says, "The universe will correspond to the nature of your song." I guess you should take care about your song. My song is apparently a nonsensical pop tune about gurls in Jeeps in California.

The car was imminently fixable all along, for one thing it is a tank of solid steel and for another I have kept that machine in perfect running condition. It's never lacked for anything, getting every new radiator, the latest in catalytic converters, the differential of its dreams. But of course insurance companies are like banks which is to say they don't understand four by four drop top love. They're all about numbers on an excel spreadsheet. Thus, there was limbo.

As I have been waiting the past week for a resolution on all this, I realized I needed to look at the whole situation in a different light. Not the accident itself -- that was immediate, I knew it could have gone a very different way and I could be lying unclaimed in the L.A. County morgue right now instead of having coffee and typing this ditty. I had that on lock right away. GRATITUDE, check! Why you think I've been walking so much? The simple movement alone became ridiculously pleasing.

What I needed was after, I needed a new way to look at the logistics of the aftermath. (The shrink says that in some areas of the also-mysterious psychology world some see the car as an extension of self. INNERESTING.) I'm not that far gone, but I do think of my Jeep as the one object that has endured the test of time in my life and of course it has a storied history. I don't need to defend my decision here. Pure and simple it's a cool machine and I like it. I hate to see it mangled and scratched up and dented.

So I decided to view this chapter of my Jeep in Los Angeles terms. After all, while still a beauty and still remarkably healthy there comes a time in every aging actor's life when he or she needs a nip, a tuck, a minor facelift. So what if the Jeep needs some re-bar restalyne and bumper botox? It happens even to the most seductive redheads.

When I think of it as an aging B-movie actress everything seems to make sense. After a few weeks and some cosmetic surgery she'll look brighter and younger and ready for a closeup. And it will not cost one everloving dime.

We so crazy.

I have a thing about moody motel pictures.

A pretty start to the day OR an extremely boring beginning, depending on your opinion of foliage.

Many people mistakenly believe Los Angeles has no weather. This is not true. We have wind, we have fire season, and during the winter we have mist (it's THE BIGGEST NEWS STORY EVER). This is May, which brings my favorite Los Angeles weather -- May Gray. The marine layer comes in low off the ocean and blankets the coast with clouds and fog. The clouds even creep inland and the weather is perfect and cool during the day but still temperate at night.

June brings the exact same weather except for obvious reasons it is then re-named June Gloom instead of May Gray. We are really very snappy around here with the catchy titles. Right now we're in the middle of a stretch of May Gray days and tonight it might even MIST, which is extra exciting since it's not our rainy season. I like our gray/gloom weather days best because you know it won't last and soon summer will be here baking the asphalt off the roads and turning the bougainvillea into dry paper lanterns.

Reader Sandee G. emailed me to say the white roses I saw on my weekend walk are called "Iceberg Roses." I love that name! It somehow perfectly describes the flower:

You know, I've never really been a person who takes many flower pictures. Until recently, anyway. Maybe it's because now I have no garden or patio or terrace so all of Los Angeles has become my garden. Everything is incredibly vibrant right now and colorful and blooming. When it's cold outside in the mornings (read: 56 degrees) I can wear my hoodie on my walks and bring my camera in my pocket. I probably look like a goofnut taking pictures of shrubbery. Last week I passed a sidewalk full of guys practicing monologues for some acting workshop and when I stopped to take a picture of a flower I was the weirdo in that scenario. Go figure.

These are the flowers I stopped to photograph:

They're all over L.A. and they come in so many different colors. Is this Lantana? My flower knowledge is pretty sparse. I can name every herb in the book but when it comes to flowers I'm not much help. I love the way the tiny flowers cluster together to form a single flower and the colors are wild, proving once again that nature was the first great graphic designer.

Here is one of my all time favorite things about the flora and fauna of this sprawling urban mess I call home:

See that lush green shrub at the far right side of the frame? It's ROSEMARY, a big dense pile of herby rosemary growing right there in a cruddy alleyway in Hollyweird. Rosemary grows everywhere around here hardy and thick as a weed, and when you run your hands through it it smells delicious. Another favorite is lavender, also a weed in this climate. Here is a giant lavender and a giant rosemary sprawling together:

That picture above is the hedge on someone's beautiful yard. I snapped the picture just before heading up this hill for a walk:

Notice the house at the very tippy top? I walked almost all the way up there. I would have made it to the top if it weren't for the big gate and armed guard and surveillance cameras and large dogs and so on.

Here's a view from the hills on a cloudy morning:

Who says we have no weather? We have May Gray!

One last flower picture on my way home:

Pink flowers are my favorite. While I suspect this is a hibiscus I prefer to call it Shocking Pink O'Keefelike Lady Flower!

A New Day

After my proclamation freeing myself, I woke up this morning feeling physically lighter. Which is not usually how I feel after a dinner of all tater tots. Lighter! Free!

Then I walked 6.94 miles this morning or so says the shoe sensor. It's all May grey and cloudy so the weather is cool and I feel like I could walk forever. While out and about I took this picture for you:

The whole block of this sidewalk is covered in beautiful blooming bougainvillea. Before coming to Los Angeles I'd never seen this kind of flower and I still think it's one of the prettiest things about L.A.

Here is a home up in the hills with two colors of bougainvillea covering the gate:

This morning on my walk I was thinking maybe all those people who say getting older has its benefits are right after all. Oprah says turning 40 is the best ever and all this time I suspected she was smoking a bowl or just rolling around naked in a pile of money every night. But now I see she was on to something. Perhaps this is the part of life where you decide once and for all to let your freak flag fly and you don't give a damn because you just spent 40 years playing nice and being a good girl and now you're done. DONE, I tell you.

It is so liberating! I even feel taller, people. Maybe later today I will take over a small country! I hope they have watermelon.

As promised comments will re-open in a while, probably next week (definitely for Gatsby) but with a big change, which is that we have all made a solemn pact not to tell each other how to live, who to love, where to worship, what to drive or how to be a "better" human being. There is a whole world of awesome commentation that can go on instead in that space. I am up to this challenge, I hope you are, too.

If this is any indication turning 40 is going to be EPIC. Is this what happens to women when we get older? If so I am totally into it. We will discuss this in the future, I am very interested to hear if you also just woke up one morning and discovered you'd had it up to here with being a good girl who lets people say any old thing they want at any old time. Especially Southern girls, which is a whole special flavor of repressed crazypants. Then we will write a book about it and make ONE MAGILLION DOLLARS.

Now, cat picture:

I was born being over it, lady.

And one last flower picture. This is a rather scrummy and sketchy portion of the city and smack in the middle of it there is a wall tumbling over full of pure white roses that smell like rosewater and rain:

I love city life.

The art project has ended. Officially.

The first online diary I started was in 1998. It was bright pink. Back then I wrote my daily essays using a pseudonym. It was a character I played, no one knew my real name. There were forums and tons of people posted messages but message boards are not quite as personal and direct as blog comments. Here there is no pseudonym, no buffer. The stuff I write on this site is personal. My name is on it. You know what I look like. The comments feel more like a conversation.

Most of the time I love that conversation. I love reading about your lives and kids and dogs and cats and shoes and what you're eating. I adore those comments because they make me feel like I have a social life! Through the blog comments I have learned about all kinds of great products and recipes and websites. I appreciate it and it makes me feel good about life and about writing. I like the way you see the world.

Then there are all the shoulds. You should do this, no you should do that, no you shouldn't clean your house so much, you have OCD and should be on medication, you're an alcoholic and should be at a meeting, you should find Christ, you should buy a new car, you should have a baby, you should leave L.A., you should you should blah blah blah.

It makes me insane. Some folks thrive on that kind of feedback. I do not. It makes me want to stab someone with a knitting needle. It makes me want to end this website and start a new website but with a fake name where I can be free to be myself and not have strangers pee on my cornflakes.

And that is absurd because I already have a great website. And most people who comment are fantastic and I love them. Why should I leave my own house because one or two or 200 people have no filter? This is nuts! So things are changing. Today. Now.

While the rational portion of my brain reminds me people are just trying to be helpful in their own way, and while I constantly remind myself not to be sensitive it isn't working. I am sensitive. The louder part of my brain says SHUT IT DOWN. It's changing the way I write and not in a good way. I self-edit in anticipation of what the naysayers and pickers and pedants will say, sometimes to the point that I give up altogether on a topic and just post a cat picture.

No more. I need to be still and quiet and real and I need to write. That's how I stay sane. In the past month and a half I lost a home, a friend, a lot of money, and now my car. That is a lot of fucking turmoil. It's perfectly normal and natural to be a little fragile when your whole life goes berserk. So listen, I have not handled the recent shoulds all that well. I'm sorry I snapped at people. I know I have been touchy. It's not your fault. This is my responsibility. I made the mistake of letting the comments stand, thinking I could will myself to be a different person that I am. And I didn't set any clear ground rules.

Most days I feel like running off to Mexico to join a cartel and wear billowly MC Hammer Pants and call myself Senorita Gatita. This is a sign that I need to settle down and clear my head. I need time spent in the pure pleasure of writing -- not worrying or defending myself or explaining myself or carefully wording things so that people don't peck at them.

I know other people are awesome at accepting all the advice of the internet. It's just not my strength. That's never going to be my movie. Let's accept it for what it is and move on.

I am no longer going to be the world's largest ongoing communal art project. It isn't working. What does work is this: you share your life, I'll share mine and let's make a pact not to tell each other what kind of car to drive or who to love or where to live or how to worship or where to volunteer. Also, let's all recognize that it's just rude to tell a woman she needs to be medicated because she likes a clean house. That is mad ridiculous, ya'll! Cleaning is great cardio!

The should chapter of this diary is officially over and done. Comments that should me will be deleted and IP addresses will be filtered. I don't need everyone to love me or agree with me or even like what I like. I do need to stop allowing crazyass finger-wagging from people I would not even ask for directions to the store. Like they say, good fences make good neighbors and this is my fence. I'm going to be in a whole new age bracket soon, this is as fine a time as any to start drawing big lines on how I allow people to talk to me.

Wow, I kind of sounded like a badass there. Go me.

And sometimes I may just want to write and not have chitchat, like now, and comments will be closed. That is not a bad thing. Not everything in life has to be a committee vote. Toni Morrison is right, she says each of us needs a place to breathe, a sacred space to cultivate and grow exactly as we wish. This is mine. I want to keep it and not have to run off and join a Mexican drug cartel and assume a new identity. Even though I do secretly think I would look awesome in some MC Hammer pants.

One dollar and ninety-nine cents makes MAGIC

Listen up local folks! Smart & Final grocery store has whole seedless watermelons (the regular sized melons, not the mini melons) on sale for $1.99 each! If you are not familiar with the vagaries of watermelon pricing, let me assure you this is a crazy low price. A similar sized watermelon at Ralph's right now will cost you about $10.

You have probably guessed by now that one of my all-time top favorite foods on the planet is watermelon. I could eat it for every single meal and this week I probably will.

This has nothing to do with melons, but thought you should see this:

Since it's Friday the 13th and I'm no dummy I am not leaving the house today. Of course if you hear about a meteor or UFO or similar crash landing in an apartment in Los Angeles you know who will be on the evening news. It's gotten to the point now where it's just funny, which means I'm nearing the end of the clump. You see, in my life bad luck seems to happen in clumps. It's preferable this way. I'd rather get it all out of the way and be clear for a good long stretch. The year I started this website was a doozy but then it passed and life got good as it does. A bad luck clump involves a triad of major upheaval -- home life, personal life and transportation. Curiously, the trifecta of suck was completed this week (involves Jeep, don't ask, don't want to talk about it) and now it's got me thinking in deep philosophical terms. HEAR ME OUT.

Let's say for the purposes of this hypothesis that the bad luck clump rolls around every six or seven years or so. What would happen if in the future, let's say in six years, I moved to Paris and gave up driving altogether? Would the transportation sector of the bad luck triad switch over into failures of the mass transit system? I am actually very willing to test this theory. My apologies in advance to all the future commuters with the misfortune to be on the same train as future me, though. Tough break! Hope you enjoy the big metro strike/alien abduction/power failure that lasts six days. The good news is we all get out alive! But we need therapy.

Anyway, I have at least learned something from previous spurts of crapticular rearrangement: bad luck is just like good luck, it runs out. Life perks up and something good will happen. It's true! Trust me. I learned that six years ago. What I learned from this current clump is that when the good stuff comes in I'm not going to diminish it or make light of it or try to keep my voice down so as not to provoke the doomy gloomy proclamations of the Debbie Downers of this world. NO MORE, my friends! When the good stuff happens I am going to buy a billboard or similar and shout that news from the mountaintops. I support you doing the same in your own life. I refuse to be one of those people who spends more time bitching about the woes than whooping up the good times.

Good times, I am ready for you. This is what I am saying. Also that I will totally move to Paris if you'd like me to test my theory scientifically.

So that's what I got today, a pocketful of hope. I'm staying home and knitting on my red scarf and having watermelon for dinner. Dollar ninety-nine! What a deal.

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P.S. Don't forget we're chatting up The Great Gatsby in just over a week on Monday, MAY 23 (sorry about not adding the date and freaking you out thinking it was in two days, OOPS!!!) You can join in the book club from the comfort of your own hermit home. Have a good weekend!

8.72 miles

Yesterday I walked 8.72 miles. I got in a little over five miles in the morning and the rest last night. It wasn't a personal best (that happened on Sunday when I got in just over nine miles) but it's memorable because yesterday afternoon I went for a walk when what I wanted to do was melt into a wineglass. And I even broke into a little jog, which may tell you about the energy I am trying to burn off over here. Later I got to pet a big furry dog on the walk back to my apartment.

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Oh! A few days ago reader Lisa T. asked:

Since you mainly walk for fitness, have you tried any of the new toning kind of sneakers? I got a pair and love them. My legs are getting a work-out and they are really comfy (tho they take getting used to.) My daughter asked for a pair and she likes them too. There are a couple of places online that have them at pretty good discounts too.

Hi Lisa!

I've seen those commercials for the toning sneakers and they look so interesting. But I haven't tried them, actually when it comes to walking/running I go the opposite direction -- I wear the Nike Free Run, which is about as close as you can get to a barefoot running shoe without going all the way into Vibram five-finger territory. I am VERY happy with the Nike Free Run shoes, they give me just the right amount of structure but without the bulk of a traditional trainer. I made this switch back several months ago after I injured my ankle (at that time I was still wearing the more traditional Nike Air Max sneaker which has a thick, ultra-stable base).

My acupuncture doctor was the one who turned me on to the Nike Free shoes. I'm paraphrasing here but the theory is that a shoe with less heft and structure can work your foot in a more natural way and strengthen your ankles and tendons and stuff. I figured it was worth a try.

I can't verify scientifically that any of this is true and of course everyone has different feet and a different life and disclaimer disclaimer, but the Nike Free shoes have absolutely worked for me! My ankle is stronger and my feet are stronger. My whole stride has changed and evened out and the shoes are so LIGHT it's crazy. They weigh practically nothing. I LOVE THEM.

Another big and surprising benefit of switching to these shoes has been the total disappearance of all blisters. I used to get a weird blister right in the pad of my foot below my big toe anytime I walked over four miles at one time. I just assumed it was because my feet had to get used to walking that much but when I changed shoes all my blisters disappeared. And my feet don't get tired so quickly, I think it might be because the shoes are so light.

They take a little getting used to but now I am a total convert to the Nike Free thing. Since I do almost all my walking on uneven city streets they offer just enough protection from the road and rocks but still give the kind of workout you'd get from being (almost) barefoot. And of course I get to use my Nike+ Sport Band because I am a nerd and love to know my mileage, time and calories burned and I like to see it uploaded in a neat graph format. Honestly that sportband was the best fifty bucks I ever spent. I've had it for two years now and boy has it held up. One day when I am flush again (Dear Universe, soon, please) I might ante up and get the newer fancier GPS version (nerd alert! I love to map my walks!) but for now I am quite happy with what I have.

Also, apparently I am very passionate about my shoes. Sorry for the Novella of Nike. Thanks for the note!! I'm glad you like your shoes, too!

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Yesterday Frankie found The Spider. The Spider was in a box that I unpacked and when I got it out I thought, "Do I need to keep this? Do they even want to play with this weird toy anymore?" The Spider is a big uglyass Halloween decoration with long legs that you can pose. I've had it for a few years. It was in a closet at my other apartment and I kind of forgot about it.

But I guess we're keeping The Spider. Frankie was all over it yesterday, she was killing it:

Then she got some help:

But she vanquished him and later fell asleep still hugging that spider. Until I woke her up for the picture:

Cats!