Another One!

ATTENTION!

I would like to welcome Alexandra to the Club of Writers Alli Likes to Hate On!

Alexandra is a fellow blogger who's theme mirrors mine.

As of 12:54am on 8/1 Alexandra joins Curtis Sittenfeld and Jessica Grose as a full-fledged member of the Club of Writers I Like To Hate On.

Only thing is... Curtis wrote a whole book and more and Jessica was published in the Sunday NY Times and more... neither of which I've done. (which is why I hate them... because they beat me to the punch! aha!)

Alexandra, however, blogs.

And it's really not interesting. Check it out.

P.S. "David's" comment on her blog is my favorite of the bunch:

I can not believe that something as incredibly dull and inane as your NY blog is actually being featured through MSN or any other browser for that matter. WIth all of the issues facing society as a whole we are expected to read about your trip to the Museum of Natural History where you "saw one of those planetarium movies."???Yes, I did have a look at your diary because I was certain that there had to be more there than meets the eye. It was actually less. Hurry home.
Published By david - July 31 9:56 PM

The Games We Play... or censor ourselves against

There's a new game going around DC called, "Let's Try to Figure Out Why Alli is Single."

Here are a few places it has occurred in the last month:

1. Adams Morgan. Row House.
Boy introduces himself to me as "Joe, YouHaveThePrettiestEyesI'veEverSeen." I laugh. Boy proceeds to lightly try to figure out if I'm single. He asks what my boyfriend does. I say, I have no boyfriend. He nearly falls off the stoop on which we are sitting. "Why?!" he asks.

I'm SO over this question. Why? Everyone asks me why. I should start coming up with all kinds of crazy answers:
-I'm gay.
-I hate myself.
-I'm scared of human contact.
-I'm actually a man.
-I've been saving myself for you, thank god I found you, please, let's get married and have lots of babies right here and now.

Whatever. So Boy then goes on and on about why I should have a boyfriend, but here's the kicker: does the Boy ask me out? NO.

Interesting... How "meta" of him...

2. Madhatter. Dupont Circle. Old friend Julie.
"I think you've done the independent thing for a while now, Als." I agree. I'm kinda over it, I tell her. Not in a "let's get married tomorrow" way, or even a "let's be exclusive and rub each other's feet after work three days" kind of way. But like... seriously, dude, what is going on here?

which brings me to #3... the most recent and mind-blowing occurrence/analysis/game-playing

3. Reef. Last Thursday. Adams Morgan. Chloey.
Last Thursday I hit the bar with three girl friends, looked pretty cute, wanted to drink and have a great time... and flirt shamelessly. The night wasn't a total bust as my eyes were pretty much glued on a boy who was wearing a Fidel shirt and really cool hat on the roof of this bar. Yum. Anyway, Chloey and I were chatting and drinking and she asked me if I've seen anyone since I've been home. No, I answer. This confuses her. What about in LA, she asks. No, I say. (I mean some stuff here and there, but no) So I tell her I haven't been in a relationship in three years. Not like I'm asking for one, I add. But WHY, she asks.

I don't freakin' know why. Maybe I'm not a human being at all. Who knows.

So Chlo turns to one of my other friends and they engage in the game, try to figure out what is going on, and my friend says, "Well, you do project an aura of wholesomeness."

Wholesomeness???

This blew my mind.

Wholesome.

Like a bread or farm girl in pig tails. Or perhaps a breakfast of some sort.

Wholesome.

I stepped outside myself and looked at my self: drink in hand (4th or 5th for the night), shirt slipping off shoulder so bra strap showed, tight-ish pants, little heels...

wholesome??

Seriously???

So this made me think...

How often do we project images of ourselves that aren't entirely true? How much trouble can we get in for projecting the wrong image? Should we change our image in order to get what we want?

"Maybe you should just try to look like a slut," my friend suggested.
"Yeah, that'll work," I said.

***

This made me think a little about everything I do to censor myself. I don't talk about myself, I don't gloat or share information with people unless they ask.

So... what exactly is wrong with putting it all out there... physically, emotionally, intellectually... because clearly, this tactic isn't working to my benefit...

The night after the last time we played the "Guess Why Alli is Single" game, I got to talking with someone about this blog.

"I don't even write the good stories in there,"I told her.
"You should," she said.
"My grandma reads my blog. I can't write that stuff!"
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because my grandma reads my blog. And my dad. And grownups and strangers."
"So?" she asked again.
I paused. "I dunno," I said. "I guess I just don't feel comfortable with being 110% honest in there... not yet."
"You shouldn't censor yourself, Als. Isn't that what artists do, put it all out there?"
"Maybe."
"So just do it," she pressed.
"I'm saving it for my book."

She laughed and I winked at her.

I guess right now, at the end of the day, what really stays true to me is the idea that if you're really that interested, you'll ask. You'll ask about the real good stories, you'll ask about my life, you'll freakin' ask me out on a date.

Until then I'll be out and about in bars here and there just generally looking wholesome and jotting down the good stories on receipts, and shoving them in my pockets for a time that really counts.

Chocolate Milk

Last night I mixed a glass of milk for myself and my good friend's younger brother.

"How many scoops of chocolate do you want, Justin?"
"Two please," he mumbled back, his eyes riveted to the video game he was playing.

I scooped two tablespoons of chocolate powder into his cup, which was adorned with Washington DC drawings. I picked up the glass and took it to him before returning to my own glass and scooping three scoops of chocolate into mine. I've recently become obsessed with chocolate milk. I lifted the glass, after having stirred the chocolate into the glass ever so carefully - so as to make sure the glass that was just too narrow for proper stirring wouldn't break - and paused it in front of my face.

My glass had "Hollywood" printed across it - the sign I could see from my balcony. It had a cartoon drawing of the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, a Sunset Blvd. street sign, Marilyn Monroe, a little derby hat, the Chinese Theatre.

"Aw," I said and laughed. "I lived there!"
"Why do you hate LA, Alli?" Justin asked, hardly breaking his video-game-playing momentum. "You speak so fondly of it."
"I do?" I chuckled and took a sip of my perfect chocolate milk.
"Yeah." he added.
"Huh." I said, and licked my lips.

I lifted the glass back to my lips and drank the whole cup straight down.
"What do you like better Cali boys or DC boys, Alli?" Justin asked.
"Cali boys, no doubt," I giggled.
"Really?"
"Absolutely."
"Why?"
"Ha. Well... I dunno..." I mumbled on about some thing or another.

Hardly anyone asks me about Los Angeles. It's really weird. Usually I get this question:
"Did you like LA?" to which I reply, "If I really liked LA I would have stayed there."
Most everyone goes on about their business around me, as if an entire year of my life didn't exist. Sometimes, very very rarely, someone - usually a friend of my parents - pulls me aside and looks me straight in the eyes and says, It must be really weird to be back.
"You have no idea," I tell them, and thank them for their sensitivity to my situation.

It's weird, in a good way, how sporatic my conversations are about Los Angeles. It's weird to be back here, in DC, which is a completely different world that I've had to readjust to even though I grew up here. Lots of people don't get that feeling. I don't mind so much. I kind of like drinking chocolate milk out of a glass adorned with pictures most people see as cartoons that I once saw as my home.

Tonight, as I lay on my friend's driveway at 2:15am and the heat from the concrete warmed my entire body, I stared at the stars. I stared at the stars and thought back to August 2003, that one night when I was zipping through the New Mexico desert at night in my friend's Mustang Convertible (top down) on my first drive cross country. I remember being bundled up as the wind and desert night air nearly froze me to the core. I was looking backwards at the highway I knew we had driven on for hundreds of miles, the same that stretched ahead of us for hundreds more, barely making a turn or heading over a hill. There was nothing, nothing around us.

I had turned around so I was facing due east as the car sped west, staring at this light way out on the horizon. I couldn't figure out what it was. Going 90 miles an hour, a car would only pass us every 20 minutes or so. The light gleamed and disappeared. What was that, I kept repeating. Every once in a while lighting would flicker in the north from a storm miles and miles and miles away. I turned around and stared west, into the darkness ahead of us until I noticed the light in the rearview mirror. I turned behind us and stared. It was the moon, full, rising due east above the highway, casting it's bright light on the road we left behind.

Close to 2am my friend slammed on the brakes and began to pull off the road. What are you doing, I asked, wondering why he was taking me out into the middle of nowhere in a desert in the middle of the night. I want to look, he said. He pulled the car down the side of the road and turned it off. We pulled our hooded sweatshirts over our heads and grabbed the sleeping bag out of the back seat. We climbed out of the car and onto the hood of the car so the warm engine would keep us from freezing. We buried ourselves under the sleeping bag and poked our heads out and stared at the starts.

From horizon to horizon they stretched, and twinkled and shone in broad brushstrokes across the sky. Coyotes howled in the distance and I grabbed the blanket tighter. At 2:30am I was wide awake, blown away by the sheer adrenaline that pumps through your veins when you're looking at one of the most beutiful things you've ever seen in your life, from the fear that if anything happened to you at that moment no one would ever know, and from the overwhelming sense of not knowing where you would sleep that night or end up the next day or how you even got to exactly where you are at the time.

We were headed towards some dot - a town - we found on some map earlier that day. Generally we tried to stop and sleep around 2am, but we'd get distracted by sunsets or stars or just something cool on the side of the road we wanted to explore. By the time we abandoned our road-side sanctuary that particular night and headed to the dot on the map it was 3am. When we reached the dot it was nothing. It was just some intersection in the middle of nowhere that at some point in time might have been considered a town. There was no motel open, nowhere to eat, no gas station. Just a couple run-down buildings scattered about at this one intersection.

In this moment of what should have been panic, we laughed. We had two choices: drive to the next dot and hope that there would be something, some bed, some motel supervisor we'd awake from his slumber at the desk, or go back to the side of the road and sleep on top of the car with the coyotes.

We pushed on. I don't know why.

And I don't know why I thought about that specific night tonight, nearly two years later, thousands of miles away, laying in silence in a driveway in Potomac, Maryland.

***

Two years ago to this date I didn't know I would drive cross country. I didn't know I would do it twice, actually, in the last two years. I didn't know I would move to Los Angeles. I didn't know I would come back.

As hard as it can be - the not knowing - sometimes I think it's best. You don't know where you are on the side of the road, barely know what state you're in, don't know what lies in the universe you're staring up at from the hood of one of your best friend's cars, wrapped in the blanket of uncertainty, but yet are completely and totally at peace.

I wonder if I could get voted into the Barista hall of fame for delivering legendary service, going "above and beyond the call of duty," if I made lattes with a bloody elbow.

I mean think about it... if every pitcher pitched a game - ok, an important game - with a bloody ankle, would it be so special? Would this make the news?

It's like the Redskins, right? If we didn't change coaches and players every 3 seconds we would never make the news because we're not good enough to ever make the news. The only news we make is what a freakin' let-down we've been for the last - almost - 15 years.

Maybe everyone should cut themselves, or get some sort of incurable disease, or adopt a child from a third degree country, or be a rapper from the slums who rose to the top from the very bottom... maybe then we could all just go about our lives without jaded visions of what a hero is.

Funny Because it's True

I have recently come to the conclusion that every cliche statement is total bullshit in which people invest too much faith, and every stereotype is at least somewhat true.

A tangent on cliches:

It occurred to me that phrases like,
"Give it time, it will work out!"
and
"You have to leave home in order to find out!"
and
"You always find him/it/happiness when you're not looking"
and
"You're so young!"
are total effing bullshit because everything in life is completely subjective and to try and paste some BS label like this on what someone is feeling/going through is completely rude and insensitive. A 23 year old orphan, for example, is way older - in spirit - than most 23 y/o's.

I'm a little angry today. Forgive me, please.

My district manager was in the store today and I swore I was going to get fired because she kept giving me glaring looks because I smiled at no one because I didn't want to smile and I'm pretty much over pretending everything is fine and that I love making your lattes.

Until my lunch break, when I went to the bank...

(This will probably offend someone, and just remember: you don't really know anything about me, so relax and don't pass judgement. I'm having a very "I hate humanity today.")

But anyway, I was at the bank deposting my measly paycheck when I heard a clanging sound from across the room and noticed it was one of those new snazzy machines that sorts your change and rolls it, so you can easily exchange it for dollars.

In front of the machine stood a jewish man who wore a yarmulke, with a bag full of change. He poured all his change into the machine and I tried so hard not to laugh out loud and call every single one of my jewish friends (which is every single one of my friends) to tell them what was happening.

Oh to see stereotype in the flesh! It's one amazing thing that you get when you work in the service industry: to see stereotype in flesh and blood.

Stingy Jews, dumb blondes, black people who don't tip, rich yuppies who talk to you like you're shit on the ground... it's all true. Well, sometimes.



Gosh, wouldn't life be so much easier if we could just slap a stereotypical label on all these people and toss in a cliche statement to blanket the situation so we don't have to actually work at not judging people and attempt to change anything about the world?

Oy vey.

Corporate "competition"

I peruse craigslist (and various other sites) for hours a day, looking for another job because I pretty much loathe working at the Corporate Coffee Shop. Somewhere deep in my contract it is stated that I cannot work for "competitors" - namely Coffee Bean, Caribou, blah blah, or any establishment that sells over priced coffee drinks.

I'm not kidding. They own my mad barista skills. And yes, I have mad barista skills. Too bad I have many other amazing skills that this completely awful economy won't bank in on. That and I have a degree in the arts. I'm screwed. That's why I make lattes. Well, that and health insurance.

My POINT is this:

In the spring of 2004 a little cafe opened up the street from my house. The owners know my mom. The place is called Red Dog Cafe, and it's totally awesome because they have all this dog decor and they allow you to bring your dogs to eat with you on the outside patio. It's a yuppy's dream.

Before I moved to LA I entertained the thought of living in DC for a while, or at home for a few months and getting a job at Red Dog. I thought it'd be pretty awesome to work for a non-The Man establishment, up the street from where I live where everybody'd know my name and yadda yadda. The owner was thrilled that I knew how to make espresso drinks (and this is before my Corporate Coffee Shop days) and offered me a job. I declined.

Today, while looking for jobs, I found this.

And now not only am I completely furious and angry and completely depressed that I work at the Corporate Coffee Shop, but I really want to work as a barista at this little cafe just to fuck (sorry, had to say it) everything about the job I have now.

I'm that angry.

Plus I hate corporate america and every time I walk into work I feel like a little part of my soul dies.

When will this country learn to support bright, fun, smart, arts-focused people like me? I'd much rather make lattes for people who tie their dogs up outside while they walk through the neighborhood than make frappuccino's (I mean, some sort of blended beverage that will disguise the name of the place at which I am currently employed) for rich Bethesda pre-teen brats who carry Coach bags, iron their hair and talk on their cell phones all the time.

Things like this remind me why I moved to California.

Should I Sell or Should I Stay?

Yesterday I met up with my friend Julie for happy hour at the Madhatter in Dupont - my favorite neighborhood in DC, and a great bar that I'm starting to enjoy rather muchly. Julie and I had not made plans to meet up a week ago or even the day before. It was a meeting that was arrange by text message about three hours earlier.

I wonder if deep down inside the London terrorists prompted my desire to see her.

When I was at the Dave Matthews concert last month a friend exclaimed, Well maybe if you stay in one place something will happen for you! I had never thought of this. Stay in one place? Settling in? Letting things move as they will around you?
"I mean you're in Baltimore, then LA, then DC," the friend continued.
"Before that, London..." I said, and the friend looked at me slightly confused.

Lots of people forget that I lived there. Lived in the sense that it was a study abroad program, but it was living nonetheless since school was just something we went to twice a week. People always say in their little cliche way, Studying abroad will change your life. They mention the culture, the food, the politics, blah blah. All that's well and good, but what happens - or what's happened to whoever I know who has studied abroad - is that they get branded. It's as if someone stuck out an iron and reached deep down inside you and just held it there for months. When you come back, that branding is always with you. You look back to the place where you studied abroad and can pin-point that it was there when your life changed. Your world has become too big, and you only want it to become bigger.

So you cannot stay still.

And even if you do physically stay still your mind is packing bags and sending you to San Francisco, the Peace Corps, Americorps, Thailand, China, Prague, Los Angeles, New York - anywhere but where you came from.

A few days ago my good friend Joe announced that he's moving to Thailand. Two years ago when he announced he was moving to China, it was a huge deal. I was shocked, curious, wrote a huge, beautiful (if I must say so myself) essay about him, I drove all the way from Baltimore to Old Town Alexandria to hang out with him. I cried on the drive home. His announcement that he was moving to Thailand warmed me in a different way. He leaves in two weeks. Only Joe would pack his bags that fast and move halfway around the world.

Joe, Julie and I met in London. We never seem to be in the same cities, but somehow we've gotten really close as time has gone on. They are who I turn to with the hardest post-collegiate angst issues. I know they "Get-it" on a level bigger than most people. They're branded, like me.

Last night Julie and I ate nachos and drank vodka tonics for four hours - from when the news went from the new London bombings to the Nats game. We just glanced at the TV briefly during the bombing segment and didn't say anything about it. I knew she knew it like I did. The photographs weren't photographs of a great city - or sister city - on the other side of the Atlantic. The coverage was from what was once Home... the Underground we'd ride together every day, the buses we jumped on, the transportation system we fell deeply in love with. We have the inside jokes about Minding the Gap, and stories about how strangers would stop us to tell us there was a bomb on the train. We know why there are no trashcans in the Underground, we know the bombing sites without looking at the maps they put on TV.

We talked about Joe, briefly, and smiled. Then, somehow, we told each other like a little secret that we no longer want to travel the world like that, and, somehow in the last three years we have become comfortable with the fact that we want a home. I, for one, am sick of packing boxes. We need our Place.

It all brings up a question I've been mulling over recently - one that goes back to that one passing comment at the Dave Matthews concert. Is it the going that keeps you learning, growing, or is it the return?

Joseph Cambell would argue that it's both - the hero journey out into the world to come back to where you once started. Joe would argue it's the going. My friend Sabrina would say it's staying (as she mentioned in her blog yesterday the following idea - among many - she's recently pondered, "Sell everything I own and travel the world in an attempt to 'find myself' like the white kids do." I laughed out loud because, well, it's true. In the last year and half I've sold my TV, my car, my laptop...to travel.)

Julie and I ordered another round after our first few and came up with the mature conclusion, that I'm sure I will come to completely embrace some day - that no matter what you choose, you must own your decision and really, really, truly not care what anyone else thinks, and really really truly believe you are making the right choice for yourself.

Living in Thailand, for example, does not interest me. Having a free place to stay when I visit Thailand most certainly does. And that is what we know today.

Another Open Letter/A Rant-ette

Dear Rich Bethesda People Who Do Not Frequent the Corporate Coffee Shop Where I Work, but Occassionally Drop by to be a Pain in Our Asses,

Believe it or not they pay me to do my job. This means I get a pay check for knowing how to do whatever you ask me. Therefore, when you lean in and widen your eyes and talk. really. slowly. like. i. might. not. have. ever. heard. the. word. latte. ever before in my life, and ask me to *gasp* make your drink which is a (this is where you get really clever and those wide eyes of your start to twinkle like, oh gosh, you're gonna get that Barista this time, aren'tcha?!): TRIPLE SHOT. MOCHA. TWO PUMP. LOW-FAT MILK. NOOOOOOOOOOO WHIP!!!!! EXTRA HOT. you needn't be surprised that I know exactly what the fuck you're talking about. But, as your eyes return to their normal size and you go back to clutching your Coach bag and your diamond engagement ring glints in the sunlight and gosh, thank god you're going to at least get your coffee right YOU THINK - because you ordered it just the right way - I have to say that I really really enjoy the look on your face when I simply say, OK, and what size asshole-specific drink did you want that to be? Your chuckle of discomfort at the realization that you just tried to fuck with the wrong Barista really makes me feel good about myself. Moron.

With love and lovely lattes,
Alli

I don't know why, but recently I thought back to this specific column I wrote for my college paper and realized that:

a) I'm psychic
and
b) I'm getting old(er)!

...because in the last two and a half years I have seen people put up away messages saying that when they will return they will either:

a) be Mrs. So and So
or
b) be a mom.

But I'm not too old because I still find it freakin' hilarious and ridiculous that people have done those things. Man, that cracks me up. Oh Information Age... oh, indeed...

Sometimes I'm in LA... sometimes I'm in DC... and sometimes I am here:


Bryce Canyon, August 2003; Cross Country Road Trip #1 (When post-collegiate angst was still new and exciting)


*photo courtesy of Micah T. Baskir

A Little Wedding Crashers/Baseball Trivia

There's a scene in Wedding Crashers where Vince Vaughn - whose character in the film lives in DC - is sitting in his living room, bummed out, drinking a beer and watching an Orioles game on TV.

Please note that Wedding Crashers was filmed in the spring of 2004 - you got it - before it was decided that the Nationals would, well, be the Nationals... in DC.

It makes me wonder, did they consider going back to reshoot that scene to keep it up-to-date, or could they just write is off as "Well, Vince is just loyal to his real hometown team."

Either way my friends laughed at me when I pointed out this tiny film flaw.

Crabcakes and Improv

Note: what follows is not meant to sound like a shameless gushing post... entirely.

Last night I went to see Wedding Crashers (opening weekend). It was the first movie I've seen since being back in the DC area, because we all know summer movies are usually excruciatingly awful. It was a bit of a shock, seeing this movie in DC, because, well, we got tickets. And it was awesome.

In Los Angeles the question was "what showing are you seeing of this movie on opening weekend?" In DC it's more like, "Yeah, that looks good, I'll check it out sometime." I guess in LA everyone in the audience knows someone who's in the movie or worked on the movie or heard a story about the movie. I mean what is LA without the movies? TV? Please... It's just what you do: movies.

But seeing Wedding Crashers in DC was great because it takes place in DC (the whole theatre cheered when the first shot came up! Imagine if everyone in LA cheered when they showed LA... haha). The movie played to my hometown crowd! That's always the best.

It was also imperitive that I see the movie as soon as possible because my roommate from LA - and future roomie in the Move To NY Plan - is in it. They filmed a large portion of the movie in Maryland, and I was privvy - when I moved to LA - to see some pretty rad pictures of the shoot on my roomie's Power Book (while we were kickin' back drinkin', I'm sure).

It's a little weird to have lived with someone for nearly a year and then all of a sudden move away from them. Things get... quiet... the laughter subsides a bit. You don't have a guaranteed movie buddy (he and I used to go to midnight showings on opening weekends all the time), and you don't wake up to their music in the morning. Needless to say, I miss my buddy.

So you can imagine my shock when the first time I saw him moving around in about two months was on a movie screen a gazillion feet high and a gazillion squared feet long. I jumped in my seat and clapped my hands. I'm a nerd. He would remind me of that.

Now there are two places we can go with this post. One is to go into how cool it is to see someone you know - really know - on a big screen, but that would be awfully LA-naive and annoying of me. I mean I work in the arts, I see cool people all the time doing cool stuff in cool places all the time (I saw my roomie on Broadway already. Ooops, that's gushing...), and I know that this is only the tip of the iceberg. But the other place we can go is what follows...

Wedding Crashers is AWESOME!!!!! Such a hilarious, fun, cool movie. And rather quotable. I forsee more AIM IM away messages quoting Wedding Crashers than Old School in the future. I can hear my 15 y/o brother and god brother quoting it (once they see the film). It's gonna be all over the place!

I'm a little biased and have to say that my roommate said my favorite line. It's in the beginning of a football scene. He throws up his arms and exclaims in the way I saw him do countless times in our living room, "Crabcakes and football! That's what Maryland's about!" Of course I laughed out loud and clapped my hands... but so did the whole theatre. Hometown baby, hometown. With my roomie representin'! Aw yeah.

When we left the theatre people were laughing and quoting the movie in the hallway. There was a line outside and around the building to get into the next show. It was a little weird because although I know enough abouy movies to know how and where they are made, who follows it, box office numbers, production company advertising and all that, I forget the anticipation of... well, the rest of the country... when a movie comes out. It's like magic. We don't know about the hundreds upon hundreds of people behind the camera, or the people on screen... or maybe we do.

I called my roomie right when I got outside the theatre. "Hi!" I gushed.
"What up, Alli, how's it goin'?!" he said.
"I just saw you on a really big screen and it was sooooo weird," I said.
"Ah, did you like the movie??"
"LOVED it! LOVED it! It was so cool to see you! I miss you!"
"Aw, I miss you too! I just got West Wing Season 4 [his obsession] and I still think of you every time I see Janel Moloney."
"She's so hot. Thank you!!!" I said, like I always said. "Hey, I might be biased," I continued, "but you said my favorite line in the movie!"
"Oh yeah? Which one?"
"'Crabcakes and football! That's what Maryland's about!"
"Ah yes," he said, then told me his favorite. Then he continued, "You know, my whole part was improved."
"What?"
"Yeah, they wrote my character then kinda put me there and all those lines were improved."
"I didn't know that..."
"Yup."

Then all of a sudden I was amazed again. I thought back to when I'd go see his improv group perform when I first moved to Los Angeles. Those kids were the first people I befriended, it was the first bar I frequented, the first few times I laughed out loud, rolling on the floor... in public. I thought about all the midnight showings of movies he and I went to - the theatre where I'd see Quentin Tarantino buying popcorn, Claire Danes getting her ticket ripped, Jack Black slip into the row in front of us for a midnight showing of Spiderman 2. I thought of my roomie watching West Wing, our late night talks, the nights we'd accidently drink too much, the diner we'd go to a little tipsy, the dive bar he loved, the day I had breakfast with him back in April of 2004 when I was visitng LA and he mentioned that he was looking for a roommate. A week later I told him yes, I'd move in.

And here I was, a measly one year and three months later, on the phone with him 3,000 miles away, missing Los Angeles - or a small part of Los Angeles - for the first time, well, ever.

On the walk back to my friend's apartment, down the streets lined with huge marble buildings and street traffic, people damp, soaked in humidity, I thought about my old street, the highway, the view of the city from my favorite hike, the beach, my roomie, how it wasn't all that bad because of... well, him. I thought back to the movie and how I felt so close to it and so far away at the same time. I thought about how cool it was that he just made up that line, all those lines. It just goes to show you that some of your most profound moments and favorite things can be decided upon in one split second.

The most annoying thing about being a writer is when someone says it better than you. I couldn't help but post this anecdote because it made me laugh out loud.

On "The Journey":

"Not exactly sure what I want anymore, but am open to anything? Not really, to tell the truth. I want to be both picky and directionless at the same time. HOWEVER, that won’t stop me from being fucking awesome."

~Joe P. Frick, 24, server/salesman, Outer Banks, NC
(former lifeguard, Northern Virginia; former english teacher, China; former temp, Washington DC; former temp, New York City; former english teacher, Sevilla, Spain; self-proclaimed boozehound, Worldwide)

We're Getting Old

I turn 24 in eight days and have spent the last several weeks pouring over all the reasons why I feel old. The annoying thing is that a) I'm right and b) I'm wrong, all at the same time!

But I have news for you folks! Just because I might go on and on about wanting a job and to find real love and, about how I want to settle (and not), and this and that and this again, I now have PROOF that my generation is old.

Kelly Kapowski is getting married!!!

There's No Place Like it

Last Tuesday I went with my ex-boyfriend to see the Yankees play the Orioles at Camden Yards, and the only thing I can seem to say about the game is "It was so awesome. SO awesome!"

I have a really hard time articulating how I feel about baseball. I say I love it and my male friends stomp all over me and tell me I don't really love it because I don't know this or that stat and therefore I don't love it at all. I'm not a real fan. I don't know what's up with boys and numbers, or boys and love for that matter, so it's pretty easy to blow them off.

My girlfriends look at me, brows furrowed, when I mention baseball. A few say they only like it because it works well when they are trying to pick up boys, other prefer "faster" sports, some sit and nod, others say it's boring.

I find it riveting.

When I think back to my time in Los Angeles, and a few times when I was truly homesick, I can come up with these examples:

1. When I returned from having been in DC in October to watch the ALCS and World Series. My roomie was still on the east coast and I spent every night glued to the TV with a pizza and a six pack, alone. When the Red Sox won the series I cried with joy, alone, before my dad called me up and I had someone to yell and scream with.

2. Watching the Redskins opener because they actually broadcasted that game on a national network in LA.

3. Meeting Jon Rosen, who invited me to a friends house so I could watch the Skins/Eagles game on cable.

4. Inviting myself over to Jason's house to watch the super bowl. (Avid Beyond Sunset readers will remember how that went.)

And then, somehow, when both the baseball and football seasons were over, I became depressed. Really depressed actually, in Los Angeles. I felt really alone, really homesick. Something was missing...

So I decided to move.

But before I did, I made a list of things to do before I left town. I only accomplished one of them: I went to Dodger Stadium for the first time ever to see them play... the Nationals. I spent most of the game thinking, this is NOT Camden Yards, yelling at a couple 9 years olds (Dodgers fans) who were seated next to me, wearing my Capitol Hill Expos little league shirt that no one really "got," and text messaging my dad.

I remember when Camden Yards opened - that summer - I became addicted to baseball. I tried and tried to find tickets so my dad and I could see a game together, which is really a hard thing to do when you're 10. Or 11... whatever (gah, numbers....). I would imagine walking from the concessions stands into the stadium and seeing the green field sprawl out before me... a vision that made me gasp when I was 10 (or 11... whatever), and made me gasp again last Tuesday.

So there I sat, in the nose bleed party seats, my feet resting on the chair in front of me, drinking beer, watching the Orioles play the Yankees after having been away for what felt like an eternity. I spent the whole time staring at the field and talking with my ex about what would be the most fulfilling moments in sports... the 3 pointer, a hail mary, actually scoring in a soccer game... seeing your team down by 3 in the bottom of the 9th, bases loaded, 3-2 count to have your catcher slam one out of the park to win the game... (which I saw that one time with Chris Hoiles...)

I think of my most memorable sports moments... my first football game (at RFK of all places!), watching the Wizards/Pistons game in those awesome seats with my friend from Michigan, Cal's 2128 game, the 2.5 hour rain delay O's game - on my birthday... then there was the last game I saw at Camden Yards - April 2004 against the Red Sox, the Dodgers game, the first Nationals game I went to (at RFK of all places! The night I got home from LA), then Tuesday, watching the O's beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 10th...

I'm sorry, this is long-winded, I still don't know how to articulate it. It's so sensory... the warm weather, the beer, being elbow-to-elbow with strangers, knowing the field, knowing who hit the warehouse with a homer, and when, knowing the smell of the french fries, chanting "Yankees Suck!" with 30,000 people, feeling the building shake with pride when your team beats the Yanks...

I used to articulate it better. I'd say, I love Camden Yards. "Going there feels like going home," I'd say. And here, 15 (or 14, whatever) years later, it still feels the same.

***

I bought a book when I was in Los Angeles, not long after the ALCS, called Baseball and Philosophy. I thought the essays would help me put into words what I really want to say. However, half-way through the first essay I stopped reading.

The essay was entitled "There's No Place Like Home!" and it made me too homesick to read it.

I pulled the book off my shelf Wednesday night, in DC, and read the whole piece. It left me smiling.

If I were an amazing writer, or a "truly great" sports fan, I could end this piece with some insightful comment that combined some statistic with something I felt and it would all be tied together in some sort of metaphor.

Instead I will leave you with this:


"When it comes to baseball... the goal is to get 'home,' and yet, every batter starts off at home... it's not hard to imagine Jerry Seinfeld asking the question, 'So, Why leave? Why not just stay at home in the first place and forget about first, second and third bases?' The answer is, of course, that 'home' in baseball doesn't count unless you've left it, until you've gone for a 'run' and returned. That's in the same vein as Joseph Cambell's [who I read a bit of in Los Angeles, actually] famous discussion of the journey that literary and mythological heroes often take. Known as the 'monomyth' it says that the hero must leave his comfortable known world, strike out on his own to find adventure, and the return home a changed man... It's Bachelard's dialect: you need to know both the idea of home and the real threat of getting out in order to experience the true satisfaction of truly making it home. The original Homer told us that when he wrote The Odyssey 3,000 years ago: home is all the sweeter when you've braved adventures to get back to it."

~Joe Kraus, "There's No Place like Home!"

Everyone in DC Needs to Stop Complaining About the Traffic

Los Angeles:





(Note, the above photos were taken around 6pm and 1pm respectively... on a Saturday)

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