Saturday, March 22, 2008

We Tried To Make It A Dance Party

When it comes to my reasons for being here in LA, I feel like I may never leave the starting block. Although I did get up at 7 am to do sprints Friday morning.

The day began with Boot Camp. Amanda's friend is a trainer. He was one of the first people I met down here. Amanda loves his boot camp so I told him I was thinking about coming out but had to ask, "Kordo, will you...yell at us?" I hate being yelled at (all spin classes). But he said he doesn't and I could tell he wasn't lying so I joined.

It's actually really nice to be in Runyon Canyon in the blue-ish early morning light. I told Kordo I hadn't exercised in about a year but he still worked me hard and ahem, he was impressed.

My body really hurt this morning.

After boot camp, I spent the day by myself working at home with a break to go for a walk around the neighbourhood. It's really lonely walking because the sidewalks are so empty. It's lonely in general here so I got myself a Pinkberry.

The Pinkberry girl shouted at me. It was friendly shouting. Before I'd even stepped inside the door:

"WELCOME TO PINKBERRY HOW CAN I HELP YOU?"

It made me shrink. I don't actually know what Pinkberry is so I said, "How does this work? This is frozen yogurt, right?" (Moments like these make me feel like a crazy, Canadian bumpkin).

"NO MA'AM, IT ISN'T FROZEN YOGURT IT'S PINKBERRY."

"But what's Pinkberry?"

"IT'S PINKBERRY!"

I ordered a small. Which is actually gigantic, but Americans don't know that.

Service here is extraordinary. They're really into it. I think I'm just used to Queen St style aloofness because I get thrown off and almost suspicious with all this extreme service. Like, I have gotten into an in-depth conversation every time I've checked out at Trader Joe's...and you know me. I hate small talk! The first cashier I met is in a band with her brother but also performs solo and yesterday's cashier is 21, Nicaraguan and a child actor. See?

But everyone is really friendly. Unless they're behind the wheel. It's almost magical, this dichotomy. Talk to a stranger face-to-face and they are just so open and helpful, so American. Wait a heartbeat at a green light and the same person behind you will HOOOONNNNK and lean on the horn. It's like, Really? That wasn't even 0.5 seconds of green light. I know I can be impatient but the entire city of Los Angeles has me beat on that front.

When I told Kristine that for the first time, LA was getting me down, she gave me the terrible and awesome advice to go for retail therapy. I would argue that I shouldn't take financial advice from Kristine (the girls at Holt's must know her by name by now) but it wasn't financial advice - it was how-to-feel-good advice, so I took it. Anyway, I discovered that I'm paying for car insurance that I already have on my Visa card. I am rectifying that situation today. I could look at it like I wasted $130 or that I saved $370 by catching the error. I prefer the latter and put my savings into the investment of a killer, shiny dress.

The shiny, tiny dress is the Pretty Girl's uniform in LA. I am not a Pretty Girl. But I like to infiltrate all types of gatherings. So I needed this dress. It isn't tiny but it is shiny, which is an acceptable approximation. Jasmin is arriving this afternoon (a bonafide Pretty Girl) so I expect that we will make use of my investment and it will pay dividends (party time, hayyyyyyy).

Last night Sean picked me up in a white convertible and we went to the Getty Friday night dance party, which ended up being the Getty Friday night stand-around party. The band was too perform-y and art-y. Oh wait, what do you call that? Performance art. The music was like, "Boop boop boop beep boo boot boo." The 3 members consisted of a Pretty Girl covered in tulle and blinking lights, a laptop guy in what looked like a Hitler-Andy Warhol Halloween mix-up and and another guy who worked the visuals by simply staring intensely at a projection on the side wall (get off the stage!).

At the Getty we met with Elizabeth, who likes to call me "Homie," which I love, and all her work friends. Her CFO's wife is visibly pregnant and we started chatting about it.

"So I guess you'll take a mat leave of...a year?"

She looked at me quizzically. "No, that is like, European."

"I'm Canadian," I offered.

"Right. I get it. Well, here it's 2 months max. If you took 3 months it would be like, What is taking her so long?" She said it with pride.

Sean and I went around to another party at a boutique hotel bar and then ended the night eating at Mel's on Sunset. I was starving, and thought about how I had started off the day. It's what I liked about not exercising - you don't get that hungry. Now it's back to wanting to eat all the time - it's like maintaining a pet. I inhaled a grilled cheese and fries and divulged to Sean my secret fascination with the bodies of obese people. We were surrounded by them. We discovered that one of them is famous because as we were walking out, I heard an LA-type tell him that she LOVED his work in blahblahblah. Does a celeb sighting count if you don't know who it is?

Off to pick up Jazzercize at the airport!

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

White convertible, shiny dress, pinkberry?
Hello Los Hanngeles!
Isaac

9:35 PM  
Blogger Wendeh said...

Cap'n crunch and strawberries = best combination.

- wendy

6:14 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

ha ha. i love isaac's comment!

9:15 PM  

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