8:32 pm - MON 9/10/01
walking man
There's obviously been a little problem with me and "Diaryland" of late.

( And here's where I'd launch into some long-winded analysis of why that might be the case, complete with sharing my feelings of guilt over letting my "readers" down, and expressing my regret over letting things "get by" that will basically disappear into the ether because there's no one else to remember them but me...But I'm not going to DO that. I'm just going to start writing stuff again. )

I had this past Friday and Saturday off, worked on Sunday, then had today off.

Having today off kind of screwed me up. John O. had asked me, early last week, if I could work an evening shift this Monday ( I've worked a day shift on Monday for quite awhile ). He remembered my once asking for my Monday day shift not to change--because of auditions for "Working"--and wanted to make sure it wasn't going to screw things up for me.

I said I could do it "this time", but that I'd prefer not to in the future, since auditions often seem to be Monday nights.

Well, I didn't check this week's schedule till Sunday, and when I did, I was surprised to see that John had given me Monday off.

He did it to be helpful--to be NICE--but it threw me. I'd just HAD two days off, and when I figured I'd be working Monday night, I didn't bother to check Backstage West for auditions. So I wasn't psychologically prepared to have the day off, and I wasn't prepared to make productive use of the time.

And I sure HAVEN'T--All I did today was walk, walk, walk. I walked to Los Feliz--about 25 blocks from my apartment--then on the way back, I cut down Hollywood, walked on Hollywood to past Highland, then turned around and cut down Highland, to 3rd street, and walked about twenty-two blocks home.

It was too much. WAY too much. But I didn't know what else to do with myself.

I went from feeling kind of sad and lonely, to just walking and window shopping, to wondering at what point I was going to start back home ( And feeling guilty that I wasn't getting anything done, like the housecleaning I haven't done in weeks ), to walking further and further and further (I was kind of thinking I'd walk till I found a movie theater, and if something good was playing, maybe take a cinema break; I assumed there'd be a theater on every street corner here, but that turns out not to be the case ), to finally realizing I'd walked WAY too far for the walk back home to be anything but a trial. And it really WAS...

( At that point, I suppose I COULD have taken a bus back home. But for some reason, that would have felt like CHEATING somehow. )

I DID find out that there's another second run theater, on Hollywood and Vine. Two movies for $5 ( The movies were "Jurassic Park III", which I saw earlier this summer, and "AI", which I just saw on Saturday ). And there's a first run theater a couple blocks further down from that, on the opposite side of the street ( Currently showing "The Princess Diaries" ). So while there's nothing REAL near me, I now know where eight different theaters are here in LA.

And while I hadn't planned it, or even given it any thought, my jaunt down Hollywood did mean I saw, for the first time, the "Hollywood Walk of Fame" ( I checked them out for a while, then kind of lost interest ).

Hollywood Boulevard is officially the tackiest, most "touristy" part of LA I've seen so far ( For a few moments, I was enjoying the novelty, but as I came across one t-shirt shop after another, it ceased to feel very novel ).

Is this boring you as much as it's boring me...?

Here's some interesting things I've seen over the past couple days:

1) On my way to the movies on Saturday, I saw a group of a dozen or so Vespa mopeds pull up to a light. It looked kind of comical to me, somehow--"Heck's Angels"--but also kind of fun ( I've found myself thinking about mopeds and motorcycles, and their easy "parkability", a lot of late ).

2)On the way home from the movies, I was walking past Highland and Wilshire, and when I'd gotten about a block away, I heard an impact behind me, and when I turned around, a white Ford Aerostar was lying on its side, just past the intersection.

I started back to where the car was, not sure as I jogged back if I was just a gawker, or if I intended to try and HELP somehow. But by the time I got to the scene, there were already a crowd of people around the vehicle, helping the occupants out ( No one seemed to be hurt--I saw a young girl, a somewhat older boy, another teenaged boy, and a sixtyish looking woman helped out of the vehicle ).

When the cops came, one approached me and asked what I'd seen, but like I said, the impact happened as I was walking away, and I didn't see anything.

I watched for a time, long enough for more cops and a firetruck to get there, but when I realized there wasn't going to be any way for me to get close enough to find out what had happened, I went on my way ( I was sort of interested in how they were going to move the vehicle, but I was really MORE interested in getting the story of what had happened ).

3) Today, I saw an honest-to-God bearded lady. And by "bearded lady", I don't mean some old woman with a couple of chin whiskers; I'm talking about a woman with a neatly trimmed, snow white, full-on BEARD ( I'm PRETTY sure it was a woman; I suppose it could have been an effeminate looking man, but if so, it was an effeminate looking man wearing an outfit that looked more like a dress than anything else...which I guess wouldn't be out of the question. I AM in LA, after all! ). That was something I've never seen before in real life.

Had a not-happy surprise in the mail today--A notice from the city saying I owed them $98 for an overdue parking ticket back in April.

But here's the thing--I PAID them. And thankfully, I have the cancelled check to PROVE it ( My love affair with LA parking started early, when I got two tickets in rapid succession, within a month after moving here; One for an expired meter, and the other for forgetting to move my car out of the path of the street sweeper

So now I have to copy the front and back of the check, with the ticket number, and send them that ( I got a little SNIPPY with the person I spoke to on the phone when she told me--"You guys have already screwed up once. How do I know you're not going to screw this up and then boot my car?". That's when she told me that they didn't DO that till you had five outstanding tickets, which I guess is good for me to know ).

Well, I still feel like I'm way behind in here, but I also feel like I've gone on for days, and in a none-too-interesting fashion, so I'm going to call it a night.

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