The other night I stopped for gas as I took a roundabout way home, after an impromptu traffic avoidance detour. As I stepped out of my car at into the empty gas station in the dirty heart of Hollywood, something seemed eerily familiar. I stood in the spotlight reflecting off the white cement and besides the chug, chug of the gas pump, it was so silent. The hum of the nearby 101 sounded like the ocean, deceptively calm and potentially murderous – my eyes darted around as I tried to figure out what was giving me that uneasy feeling.
There was a small garage next to the empty convenience store on the lot – and when I saw it, it all came to me. I’d stopped at this very gas station years ago. A friend and I were on our way back home to the valley after checking out an exhibit downtown. It was a hot day and her car started acting up – so we pulled in to see if they could check the fluids. The day was filled with sunlight and this place had looked more colorful. It’d been busy, full of cars and people. I’d not been familiar with this side of town then and hadn’t known where I was. But I was here again. It looked so different now.
This is an example of an LA haunting, where memories attached to random locations throughout the city come flooding back. Like the bench where I saw my first tranny hooker. Or the gas station where I sat in the car while my date peed in the bushes. And the coffee shop where I wrote most of my thesis. Even the restaurant where I sat outside for hours talking to a friend about if I should break up with my boyfriend. And, yes, we broke up.
Sometimes I purposefully seek out these places – like the building where a company I’d wanted a job has its office or the bar where I went with a guy I liked who never called me back – just to get that haunted feeling.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
22 Hours
12:30 am: I awake to a big spider crawling across my eye. You think I freaked out? Ever see a cat tossed into a bubble bath? Like that. I attempt to return to sleep, but all I hear are invisible spiders cracking beneath my bed releasing the feverish rush of millions of glassy, transparent spiderlings on sojourn across my bed and into my nose, maybe up my pee hole. I try to sleep using various mind tricks. I am dying to sleep for more than one hour. Haven't been sleeping well for a week.
2:30 am: I say fuck it to the whole thing and I go on a date with L.A. First stop - Grand Spa in Koreatown. It displays the best sign ever invented by modernity - OPEN 24 HOURS. 20 bucks gets you in after 9pm. The place is packed, especially the communal sleeping quarters where everyone is naked. Most of the men are deep in REM sleep, I can tell by their bobbing hard ons.
4:15 am: After two hours of soaking, steaming, and kicking back on the heated floors, I get out in search of donuts at Pico Union, maybe hang out with all the pre-dawn Latinos and Filipinos. Change my mind - I go to Chinatown in search of dim sum, via downtown. I drive with the roof open, seat heater on full blast. Nothing is open; I take it to Olvera Street and I am reminded that this is LA, not Bangkok which means that not everyone loves the night. No dim sum, no tacos.
5:00 am: Dupar's Studio City. The waiter tells me I look like Jeff Goldblum. People tell him that he looks like Jeff Goldblum. The three of us look nothing alike. The Coffee sucks, but the pancakes are among the best I've had.
5:45 am: On the 101 connector to the 405 north in Sherman Oaks. As I merge, I see my co-worker Tammy in her white Mini Clubman, headed to work. She starts at 6. We wave to each other. I exit and go to Van Nuys to check out the Van Nuys boulevard of cars.
6:10 am: I arrive to work bleary eyed and wired. I'm 50 minutes early. I do my job to the best of my ability. I'm pretty toothy today, for obvious reasons. The day throws some punches, I roll with them, maybe I punch back. It goes like this for 10 hours, with a fresh cup of coffee on the hour.
9:00 am: Some work challenges arise. I go to Vons to clear my mind. I don't buy anything, but I take a short breather at the baggy shirts and Raiders jersey depot next door. I contemplate buying myself a black and silver terry cloth head band. I walk out empty handed and I regret not getting the head band.
1:00 pm: Lunch at Chaparral in Sylmar. Who the hell cares about Sylmar? Just last week, it almost burned down from the brush fires. It's a wonder the meth labs in the hills didn't all blow and send the land that time forgot back up Prometheus' asshole. The lunch buffet is decent. I go for the guacamole and the corn cake. That's all this place has to offer.
3:00 pm: Hit a wall at work. Take a five minute stretch break and another pint of MJB coffee with coffee mate.
4:30 pm: Leave work. It's hot in the Valley. I'm in a sealed, climate control capsule isolated from this jarring life with good dampers and hydraulics, double-laminated glass. If the world outside is inhospitable, I am serene and unscathed in my 3500 lb. steel chamber of silence.
5:30 Get home. Spank it on the internet. Return telephone calls. Phone call of note - Someone is getting married. How can I get out of being a groomsman?
7:30 pm: Marathon training run. On one hour's sleep, I plot my course and I go for it. I am inspired by a quote from General Patton in which he suggests the mind must rule the body. In this regime, tonight especially the mind is ruling with the finesse of a veteran benevolent dictator. I do it with no pain, no whining, just cruising through Faircrest Heights, Little Ethiopia and Carthay Circle.
8:30 pm: I find an old dried nugget of pot in my medicine cabinet, given to me by our neighbor for photographing her injured elbow some time last year. I smoke it. Go for a walk in my neighborhood with my eyes closed. I realize for the first time that a majority of the people in my neighborhood have backyard fountains.
9:30 pm: I envision a McDonald's ice cream cone during my walk. I arrive at McDonald's - Drive Thru only. I flip off the nothingness that closes dining rooms but keeps drive thrus open. I slink to 7-11, and a magic beacon proclaims
Ice Cream
Indian Food
Pizza
This is perfection and the invisible hand of God nudging me to think bigger. I get a tall soft serve and a slice of pepperoni. One of three kids orders a slice, but is short 40 cents. Maybe they are runaways I think. I judge them a bit and pay the 40 cents. Maybe they were just warming up to the idea of selling ass on the streets and my 40 cents bought them a good half hour 'til they have to earn five bucks the hard way.
I walk and eat. Ice cream is just what the doctor ordered, pizza is at the right state of badness in which the cheese is congealed and the sauce is cold in the center. Life is good and I'm in it.
10:30 pm: Day is done. 22 hours under my belt. The spider that woke me also brought me to one of my best days in L.A. If I hadn't killed that spider, I'd say thanks a lot fucker and good night.
2:30 am: I say fuck it to the whole thing and I go on a date with L.A. First stop - Grand Spa in Koreatown. It displays the best sign ever invented by modernity - OPEN 24 HOURS. 20 bucks gets you in after 9pm. The place is packed, especially the communal sleeping quarters where everyone is naked. Most of the men are deep in REM sleep, I can tell by their bobbing hard ons.
4:15 am: After two hours of soaking, steaming, and kicking back on the heated floors, I get out in search of donuts at Pico Union, maybe hang out with all the pre-dawn Latinos and Filipinos. Change my mind - I go to Chinatown in search of dim sum, via downtown. I drive with the roof open, seat heater on full blast. Nothing is open; I take it to Olvera Street and I am reminded that this is LA, not Bangkok which means that not everyone loves the night. No dim sum, no tacos.
5:00 am: Dupar's Studio City. The waiter tells me I look like Jeff Goldblum. People tell him that he looks like Jeff Goldblum. The three of us look nothing alike. The Coffee sucks, but the pancakes are among the best I've had.
5:45 am: On the 101 connector to the 405 north in Sherman Oaks. As I merge, I see my co-worker Tammy in her white Mini Clubman, headed to work. She starts at 6. We wave to each other. I exit and go to Van Nuys to check out the Van Nuys boulevard of cars.
6:10 am: I arrive to work bleary eyed and wired. I'm 50 minutes early. I do my job to the best of my ability. I'm pretty toothy today, for obvious reasons. The day throws some punches, I roll with them, maybe I punch back. It goes like this for 10 hours, with a fresh cup of coffee on the hour.
9:00 am: Some work challenges arise. I go to Vons to clear my mind. I don't buy anything, but I take a short breather at the baggy shirts and Raiders jersey depot next door. I contemplate buying myself a black and silver terry cloth head band. I walk out empty handed and I regret not getting the head band.
1:00 pm: Lunch at Chaparral in Sylmar. Who the hell cares about Sylmar? Just last week, it almost burned down from the brush fires. It's a wonder the meth labs in the hills didn't all blow and send the land that time forgot back up Prometheus' asshole. The lunch buffet is decent. I go for the guacamole and the corn cake. That's all this place has to offer.
3:00 pm: Hit a wall at work. Take a five minute stretch break and another pint of MJB coffee with coffee mate.
4:30 pm: Leave work. It's hot in the Valley. I'm in a sealed, climate control capsule isolated from this jarring life with good dampers and hydraulics, double-laminated glass. If the world outside is inhospitable, I am serene and unscathed in my 3500 lb. steel chamber of silence.
5:30 Get home. Spank it on the internet. Return telephone calls. Phone call of note - Someone is getting married. How can I get out of being a groomsman?
7:30 pm: Marathon training run. On one hour's sleep, I plot my course and I go for it. I am inspired by a quote from General Patton in which he suggests the mind must rule the body. In this regime, tonight especially the mind is ruling with the finesse of a veteran benevolent dictator. I do it with no pain, no whining, just cruising through Faircrest Heights, Little Ethiopia and Carthay Circle.
8:30 pm: I find an old dried nugget of pot in my medicine cabinet, given to me by our neighbor for photographing her injured elbow some time last year. I smoke it. Go for a walk in my neighborhood with my eyes closed. I realize for the first time that a majority of the people in my neighborhood have backyard fountains.
9:30 pm: I envision a McDonald's ice cream cone during my walk. I arrive at McDonald's - Drive Thru only. I flip off the nothingness that closes dining rooms but keeps drive thrus open. I slink to 7-11, and a magic beacon proclaims
Ice Cream
Indian Food
Pizza
This is perfection and the invisible hand of God nudging me to think bigger. I get a tall soft serve and a slice of pepperoni. One of three kids orders a slice, but is short 40 cents. Maybe they are runaways I think. I judge them a bit and pay the 40 cents. Maybe they were just warming up to the idea of selling ass on the streets and my 40 cents bought them a good half hour 'til they have to earn five bucks the hard way.
I walk and eat. Ice cream is just what the doctor ordered, pizza is at the right state of badness in which the cheese is congealed and the sauce is cold in the center. Life is good and I'm in it.
10:30 pm: Day is done. 22 hours under my belt. The spider that woke me also brought me to one of my best days in L.A. If I hadn't killed that spider, I'd say thanks a lot fucker and good night.
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