L.A. Anatomía

During the fires this year, my local city hall sent updates via text messages to let residents know what roads were closed, the status of all the blazes and other fire-related information. Imagine my surprise when just three days earlier, I started getting local government messages about all the snow clogging up the 14 Freeway and the Antelope Valley. I also knew of several people who were snowed in. They couldn’t leave their homes and drive into LA proper for work.

To play with a well-known movie quote, Is this really the desert of the real?

Well, I guess not that strange, but the truth is that I never really knew where Pacific Palisades was before. What is Pacific Palisades? Of course, I knew the name. My friends and I knew it existed. But we guessed in other areas and not exactly where it actually was — north of Los Angeles proper, along the coast and just west of Malibu.

We went hiking in Temescal Canyon. While the trail was quintessential California wilderness–dry, desertlike and etc, the view from the trail was something out of the tropics. Up on the peak of the trail, we looked over Los Angeles proper and the green, verdant cliffsides of Pacific Palisades.

(The following post has been sitting around in the draftbox for awhile, so why not put it up even if incomplete? The ending: We hiked. It was fun. The scenery made Los Angeles seem like a landscape from Laos–mists rolled below hilltops that were green, green and green. Wait. I remember Laoitian mountains as purple. Scratch that and substitute Thai hills instead. )

Whew! I was wondering what to write about when I suddenly realized that the perfect story had fallen into my hands. How could I not have known? Am I such a self-involved Angeleno that I missed what was right in front of my face?

Speaking of what’s in front of your face, what is up with all the vampire love? Why are people so in love with the idea of vampires as lovers? Yeah, they have that whole “I’m a child of the night, immortal, pretty and pale” but what about the downside to dating the pointy-teethed suckers? First of all, they will always have cold feet and hands, which has got to make cuddling a bit annoying. Then, there’s that whole bloodsucking thing; I mean really? How are you going to build a life around those eating habits? Third, they live for freaking ever so this means that the vamp’s got to be broody like Angel or foolhardy like Lestat. What I mean is that they’re going to have ISSUES piled up like a Shel Silverstein garbage pile. You think you’ve got issues being an attractive teen or 20 something? Just check out the mess stewing behind your vampire lover’s pretty 100-year plus facade. Fourth, they’re demons. Don’t care how you coat it, twist it or magic it away; there’s a reason vampires stalk the night. Sure, they could be badboys with sweet hearts, but in the end, the majority of them probably would just want to rip out yours.

Have you figured out that I’m talking about Twilight?

Yesterday, while I wandered through Westwood al lado de UCLA, I discovered that the movie premiere of Twilight was in full swing. The tweens had come out in full force. A bus pulled over and let out a horde with signs! There was a girl wearing a cheerleader uniform with a “Team Jacob” embroidered on front. They were all pressed up at the edge of the sidewalk, squealing for “Edward! Edward!” Or whoever the actor who plays Edward is.

A girl and her boyfriend, who were not tweens or teens, walked by with vampire teeth.

A parking garage–for you must pay for parking in Westwood–had jacked up their price from $5 to $25 for the night.

Twilight has come to the city of angels!

So what does this have to do with the whole Los Angeles anatomy crap that AH and I like to post in this little blogspace? Well, I’ll tell you. As I mentioned, sometimes Angelenos are self-involved. We live in a very big, spaced out city full of spacy people who are running from point A to point B via a traffic-congested highway with ash in the air (or at least this week) and smog. We are hooked up to our GPS, blackberries and laptops, communicating a zillion things to a zillion different people. We may not walk but we move fast. Take for instance, a friend who’s just moved in to town from the Midwest. It’s only been a week and she feels run over by the fast pace that we drive at, talk at and think at.

So anyway, Angelenos move so fast that we miss things like Cordelia Chase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer once did when she went to visit a famous Hollywood director in Los Angeles. Even though she was a native of Sunnydale and personally knew the Slayer, Cordelia missed all the alarms that pointed out her “in” to Hollywood was actually a way to check “out” of life. And that’s kind of how I felt when I walked smack into the tweeny crowds at the Twilight premiere. I’ve lived in LA how many years? And how many times have I come across the whole 9-yards movie premiere?

Zero?

But why should I be surprised? Of course, it’s Westwood! Of course, it’s the perfect place for a premiere! And of course vampire love stories will always have a place in the hearts of Angelenos because this is LA. Where else could they hide so well?

Monday evening, the intersection in question was complete engulfed by No on Prop 8 supporters. Tuesday morning, the day before the election, I drove into that intersection and a triumphant horde of Yes on 8 peeps. They screamed, shouted and waved their signs victoriously, as if to reclaim the intersection from enemy hands. A few No supporters stood forlornly among the Yes men. They held their signs and tongues.

As I drove back from work, the intersection was surging with even more people, but this time I’d say it was an even match up between Yes and No. They ran back and forth between corners. They demanded that cars honk. They screamed at each other. No one, either on the sidewalk, in the crowd or in their car could possibly tell who was supporting who. When cars honked, the protesters all cheered, believing it was a high-5 for their side.

Election tomorrow. Wish America luck.

Even though I like to think I have a taste that craves only the finer and more rarefied creations of mankind, I still love the show Gossip Girl. Or rather, I love how all the critics rave about Gossip Girl, critique it and pull forth the most amazing motifs, themes and other literary morsels that take the soap drama from, well, soap drama, to high art. My most favorite dissection of the show happens here, if you need a good read.

But anyway, the lives of the characters in the UES are much to be envied: They’re filled with fabulous clothes, people and fun. What to do on a Saturday or even school night? Why grab the clique and run off to some hotspot club in which you’ll be photographed in your fabulous designer dress, later to be displayed on Page 6!

When long-separated friends Serena van der Woodson and Georgina Sparks wanted to go out and have fun, they tossed on their slinky dresses and strappy shoes and made their way over to a bar where they were not carded, were hit on by attractive men and had the confidence that I never knew teenage girls could have in such a setting.

So, how does this take us back to the fabulousness of the O.C.? Well, the creator of Gossip Girl is also the creator of the O.C. Obviously, he wanted to put some of the magic fabulousness of his West Coast drama back on TV but in the East this time. However, my weekend in the O.C. once again proves that TV doesn’t necessarily capture the truth of a location.

This is what I mean:

I made plans to meet up with an old friend in the O.C. for a friendly catch-up chat. (Because we’re talking about Gossip Girl here, let’s call my friend S). As I don’t live in the O.C. anymore, I asked S to name a meeting point. S mentioned some sort of yogurt place, which I had to decline because I had a cold and couldn’t eat dairy. We passed a few more generic names between us, and then we landed on the only possible solution:

Target.

That’s right: We hung out at Target because a) it was the only thing we could agree on, b) it was a place we both knew the location of and c) S needed some stuff anyway.

It actually worked out well. S and I wandered up and down aisles, I tried on a pair of pumps I would never buy in real life, S bought some razors, and then we ended up sitting in the Starbucks located inside the Target. I ordered a cafe mocha. S declined any beverage as he had already satiated his hunger with yogurt. Oh yeah, S met me via public transportation. (Scandalous!) He used the bus to meet me. I took my car. We separated after a respectable time, around 4 PM. S went home and so did I. I went to bed at 10 that night.

Crazy times in the O.C. baby! And that’s the anatomy of this blogger’s post.