Just Labor.

I have to work. On Labor Day weekend.

In case you didn't get it, I'll repeat: I have to work. On Labor Day weekend.

Some really intelligent person at my company thought it would be a fabulous idea to have a major, expensive, time consuming project implemented over Labor Day weekend. And they thought it a good idea to interrupt fifty plus people's vacations.

Grrrr.

(Still looking forward to the weekend, though!)

Arizona Bound

Barely scrimping by this week. Work is busy. I am back to drinking coffee (hazelnut, of course) after three straight weeks of nothing but hot green tea in my belly.

Last night I went to dinner in the DC neighborhood of Los Angeles: Downtown Culver City. It was my first time out down there but we were pleased. Lots of wine bars and sidewalk cafes. After much deliberation we ended up at Cafe Ugo for a carbo-load of an Italian meal.

Arizona is my next pit stop on my Tour de US. From Arizona I trek to DC for a week. Arizona will be the Water Boy to my traveling. I'll be able to relax. Word on the street my mom is baking. I'll spend some time with my feisty grandmother. Drinks with friends. Get laundry done. That sort of thing.

*Yawn*

Think I am still recovering from Vegas.

Now that I'm home and showered...

I'm not sure where to start with this past weekend in Vegas. I survived, how about that? It was the drunken whirlwind people in their 20s expect it to be.

Friday night we arrived - and like any classy broads would do, we proceeded to mix vodka drinks in water bottles and munch on peanuts while we got ready in our hotel room. We then dashed to the Rio, already late, to meet our friend who does advertising in the Vegas area. This is a chick I haven't seen in 8-years. So what do we do? We end up at a Chippendales show at the Rio (comped tickets, we couldn't turn them down!) and three drinks later we're best friends again. This is the point I thought it was a fabulous idea to text my father to tell him that "Hey, Dad! I'm at a Chippendales Show!" Yeah, no response. The show? It was raunchy and extremely corny, as expected.

Moving on. We then went to Pure nightclub where we seamlessly cut the entire ladies line and squeezed our way in to a VIP table with bottle service. We danced on top of white couches and when I needed water I got charged $8 for four Fiji ounces. Thanks, Vegas!

And did I mention how much it hurts to be a woman!? Heels. Hurt.

Our days were boring compared to our nights, so I'll just skip Saturday day. Saturday night we dined at Spago (I would go back, again and again, just for the heirloom tomato soup). Throughout dinner we gawked at a table of greasy middle aged men with girls that looked like they were barely 18. Why don't they think escort service is embarrassing? After, we saw Zumanity at New York-New York (amazing!) and then went to the piano bar in our hotel where we sang like we were actually good at it.

Four in the morning brought us to the classic Vegas breakfast joint where we had the most intelligent conversation. My friend gave me a very serious face.

"Jo. See those guys over there?"

"Yup."

"Well, Jo. There are three of them. And...there are THREE of us."

I just gave her a look of deep appreciation and thought. My lightbulb, it was trotting along on the back-up generator at this point.

"Well," she continued. "How about we send them something."

"A note!" I declared.

See evidence. How to Pick Up on a Guy in Vegas at a Cheap Breakfast Buffet 101:

If you can't make it out our brilliant words:

Did you know it's National Friendship Week!?! We will buy you a round of O.J. (if you are having breakfast).

We are serious.

Sunday my friend and I gave our last hour in Vegas a toast as we shared a bottle of chianti at the Venetian. She was feeling so great that on the way back to our hotel she thought our revolving door was done revolving and ran at the glass trying to get out. And I was feeling so great that I didn't even notice, aside from the "UGH!" and the loud smacking of skin against glass.

Viva Las Vegas!

Sin City...and other updates

Tonight I attended a fabulous happy hour at one of Los Angeles' undiscovered treasures: a cool Italian joint tucked off a side street in West LA called Il Moro. Yummy happy hour with a disgustingly huge buffet of small bites and live jazz...

And now I am at home, happy as a bug. Will have a glass of wine, some good stuff from up north, and pack for a girls weekend in Las Vegas while I wash my sheets squeaky clean. Ahhh...the smell of lavender!

Vegas with my best friends. This is a rare occurrence. Coming from corners of LA, Chicago and Phoenix, we're still one man (er, Wo-Man) down but will make up for her absence with raunchy jokes and champagne. Plus, to get extra cheeseball about it, it's National Friendship Week! Har har. But seriously, these friends are truly my sisters, and my love for them spills over and I will know them forever and ever. This I know.

This past week or so I have been so busy and happy that I haven't had time to think of wandering and performing my typical over-analysis of life. I can truly say I've lived in the present. I've kicked ass and taken names at my job; gone on two really great dates; drank some smooth and velvety wines; and I am back into a workout routine, morning pilates sessions and jogging in that California sunshine.

More to come post-Weekend fun.

Cheers,
Jo

Santa Monica's Finest

Friday night, out in Los Angeles’ West side, in a crammed bar called South off of Wilshire in Santa Monica. My friend and I are at sitting side by side at the bar. She’s sipping on a Stella and I’ve got a vodka-7 in hand when behind her I see a guy approaching with dark hair, olive skin and the widest smile, a smile so wide his mouth becomes a crescent moon, radiating against that olive skin.

He’s smiling in a goofball way, in a stupid, silly way. An “I-just-won-the-lottery” way. His smile becomes even wider as he comes to stand in between my friend and I, that crazy moon! He nearly sits on my lap as he sloshes his drink to and fro.

He only has eyes for Sammi.

He leans in to her, that clown, spilling his coke-and-whatever down my thigh as he attempts to charm her. He slurs a few compliments, “You sloook schnice tonight” and “Gawd, you’re cute!” and as each phrase flies out his mouth, so does his coke-and-whatever. Into my lap.

He comes around to my other side now and I’m rolling my eyes and scooting away. He gives me a huge grin as he reaches his grubby hand into the bartender’s supply of cherries. He starts popping them into his mouth, like a little kid slurping icing off a cake.

And then he tops the cake.

He leans into Sammi one more time. “And I just love the Jewishness,” he says, eyeing her curly dark black hair.

“But…” Sammi seems to grasp for air. “I’m not JEWISH!”

I can’t hear what he says but he sort of slithers a bit off to the side, snake-like, into the dark of the bar.

“I can’t tell you how often I get that,” Sammi says. “And I am pretty sure he just stuffed those extra cherries into his pocket!”

Balance

Today, as though in respect for my confusion and anxiousness over life these days, Los Angeles was in a bit of a funk. The sky held gray; the sun shooo’d and snoozed the afternoon away, and when I went to pick up my salad for lunch at the bakery down the corner I walked with an umbrella of clouds above my endlessly thoughtful brain.

I’m craving a good rain; a soothing pelting of water hitting pavement. The rhythmic swoosh of tires in puddles, of the city receiving its bath. I’m craving the brightness that occurs after the rain, how colors pop and the earth does its wet dog shake. Renewal and peace.

After work I went for an evening walk around Brentwood. I walked with the phone glued to my ear, a long conversation with Mom. Bottle of water and keys in hand, passing other sweaty shiny-faced walkers and joggers, the occasional biker. My feet hit the dirt path, kicking up dust as I trudged on. The magic hour of dusk arrived when the lighting is soft and sweet and kind, and when a friend of a friend tapped my shoulder to say hello as he jogged by, I was happy to see him.

I went to Blockbuster on San Vicente after to rent a few movies and then I treated myself to some PinkBerry across the street. Standing in line in front of me was a handsome young man. He wore faded ripped jeans and a white t-shirt and walked with a severe limp. It wasn’t until I turned to go pick up my yogurt that I saw he was missing his left arm.

My stomach dropped. My heart ached with such a feeling of sadness and helplessness. Of course I didn’t know what happened to him, but I imagined him a soldier. Ever curious, I wondered the details of what he had endured.

He limped past me after he picked up his yogurt and gave me a smile. I smiled back and said, “Hi!” and out he went. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. I saw a woman in the store look at him with a look of honest disgust and I wanted to run my nails through her skin for being so cruel.

Seeing him centered me. Reminded me that I am frivolous for frowning. I looked for him after I left the store, but he had been swept up in the clusters of walkers and diners in the night.

I returned to my empty apartment. Took out the garbage. Threw open the patio door and kitchen window to let that wonderful Mediterranean breeze filter through. I took a hot rinse and put on my softest pair of PJs. Grabbed my yogurt and snuggled on the couch to watch my movie. When it was through I turned off the television and just listened to the sounds of Brentwood: the garble of the washing machine down the hall; the soft wave of conversation; the clap-clap of my blinds and the sudden bang of a door slam.

I stared at my candle, flickering on, enduring in my dim living room, ensnared within my little pocket of silence. And then I felt it. A flutter of peace.

Life confusion be damned!

A Los Angeles weekend

My parents made the trek out to Los Angeles this past weekend and somewhere amongst the drinks and traffic crawls and city lights my Dad spoke of the past. Of when his grandmother lived out in green and sunny California, back when milk was still delivered to the front door and people believed what newspapers printed. I thought about what California must have been like back then. I thought of black and white photographs and drive-in movie theatres. Of ferris wheels and hot dogs and cars with curves and class. Of a time when the beaches weren’t so crowded with bodies fighting to get past other bodies; when the farmers markets didn’t even know what the word organic meant; before the 405 became one of the most congested freeways in the United States.

We met up with some old family friends and the Mom of the group asked me if I would be here long term. I shrugged and shook my head, “no,” and she pointed out, “It’s hard to go back home after you’ve left. You realize how much more there is out there.” And I suppose that’s my problem these days. Her thoughts gave me something to chew on.

Equally chewable (and shocking) was my Dad’s comment that he made as we stood on top of Griffith Park in the hum of the night, just outside the Observatory, underneath a sky of twinkling light. Looking down, the city looked like a sparking jewel…or like the most tangled mess of Christmas lights you ever saw. You pick. Out to our right the famous white Hollywood sign sat in the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, as though sleeping, while the rest of Los Angeles kept moving and partying. “You know…I think it’d be pretty cool to live here!” my Dad exclaimed. “I never thought I’d say it!” (Neither did I, Dad!)

Beyond Griffith Observatory, we hit up a farmers market where my brother picked out a mini cactus and my dad devoured an organic peach. We cruised through Malibu on the PCH, so far up that we hit rural agriculture country, then took back roads, winding roads, through the mountains until we got dumped out in Ventura County. We ate at a beachside pancake house; flashed by the UCLA campus; draped ourselves on the railing at the Brentwood Getty like hungry vines, admiring the gardens and the light.

I wonder what my great-grandmother would have thought of the beautiful conundrum that is Los Angeles, oh, this fickle city! The cacophony of the cars; the magic that gushes forth from the beach. The constant buzz and spill of people, the light, even in the darkest night. The winding-ness of it all.

A Del Taco Junkie took my credit card

I lost my credit card. I think I left it at Costco. I'm an idiot. I took out my credit card when I was shopping last week and was probably waving that thing around in a frantic panic attack because at the time I thought I had lost my debit card. So I called the bank last Thursday night, after Costco, and made a big to-do about my debit card (the wrong card!) and in the process basically gave some asshole my credit card by leaving it at Costco. And then I didn't realize all this until a few days later.

Whoever took it did not go out and buy a car or a boat. They did not go on a shopping spree at Banana Republic. They did not eat anywhere that offers actual silverware versus plastic and ketchup packets. They didn't get a massage or buy some cool new plasma TV.

They went to Del Taco three times to stuff their fat face and then dropped $270 at Target.

I'm not dumping on Target. I like Target. It's a happy place and I appreciate going there since it's a big deal to get to a Target in Los Angeles (this ain't the sticks!) But who goes to Target with a stolen credit card? Couldn't they have done better?

If I had a stolen credit card, I would have loaded up on a ton of gas. I would have bought so much gas I would have to keep in my pantry. Inside my apartment. Just loads of gas. I would have gone on a shopping spree at Sur La Table and Williams Sonoma...all sorts of kitchen goodies!

I would have bought the pony that wants to be a Clydesdale but isn't big enough. I saw it this past weekend at Sea World and it was so cute as it was munching on the grass. So tiny.