Love and Hate in Los Angeles

Sometimes it's easy to hate Los Angeles.

There are too many idiots driving SUVs with off-road capability. This is all well and good except that these people consider driving next to a bus on Wilshire Blvd a major car maneuvering event.

When it rains everyone decides to crash into everybody else. I mean, the last rainstorm, we had about 280 car crashes in TWELVE hours. As I listen to rain falling outside on this stormy night, I know that somebody is crazily tail-gaiting some slow but safe driver. And then crazy'll rear-end the safe driver and send both their insurance rates through the roof.

Traffic and cars. So cliche, right? Well here's another one for you: We're the porn capital of the world.

If you find yourself wondering why Blu-ray won over HD-DVD, well wonder no more! The porn industry decided a year ago that they were only doing Blu-ray, the same way they chose VHS over higher-quality BETA years ago. Mmm hmm.

And you thought VHS got chosen because it had less letters than BETA. Sorry to disillusion you.

It goes without saying that we have bad schools. Of course, if you live in any city in this country, chances are the public schools aren't that great. But did you know that the Los Angeles Unified School District spent millions for a new payroll system that's SO messed up that in October my son's teacher got a paycheck in the amount of...drum roll please...$10 whole dollars!

Our mayor? Well, last fall it came out that Mr. Villaraigosa cheated on his wife with a Telemundo reporter. Needless to say, the wife left him and people aren't so sure he should run for governor anymore. Now he's not even with the reporter, leaving yours truly to wonder if a few nights of hot sex were worth it?

Ugh. Let's just list it out, a few other dreaded LA things:

-Gangs.
-Homeless Capital of America.
-Annoying Westsiders slumming on the Eastside, which isn't really all that far east but they're too scared of Latinos to head into Boyle Heights or East LA.
-Housing prices through the roof.
-Overpriced valet parking.
-Slimy Hollywood types that firmly believe in the casting couch.
-Breast implants, extreme tooth whitening and orangish tans.
-Celebrities terrorizing the streets of Hollywood, WeHo, the Sunset Strip, general Beverly Hills area...basically all the places TMZ puts live webcams.

Yes, if I think about all that too much, I'm not too fond of this city.

But today, I'm not thinking about that. In fact, after today, I find myself more in love with Los Angeles than ever.

Why? Well, we had a break in our torrential downpours this afternoon so I went for a long walk through the hills around my house. I walked for at least an hour. Maybe two. I don't know since I don't wear a watch on these expeditions.

The time flies because I love my neighborhood. And I love to walk in my neighborhood.

This isn't a neighborhood thrown up overnight, Las Vegas style. Nope, there's no urban subdivision cookie cutter tract housing over here.

Instead, every house, every building is unique. A Spanish style apartment building next to a a Craftsman home, next to a very modern glass and concrete structure.

And it all works. It works because as developed as this city is, every once in awhile there's a section that looks like a wilderness. Who would have thought that nature would even begin to reclaim the cars left parked too long?

I live in a very hilly section of Los Angeles, so hilly that many of the streets in my neighborhood have 15% grades, which are challenging to walk up.

As butt blasting as climbing these hills can be, if I go a bit east to Echo Park, I can try to walk up the steepest street in all of California, Fargo Street with it's 33% grade. I haven't tried climbing Fargo Street yet, but one day soon I will.

But I don't walk just for the exercise.

I walk because it's beautiful and I want to drink that beauty in. I want to create a lifetime of memories, visions that will forever resonate in my head and my heart in case, by some strange twist of fate, I go blind in the future.

I can go outside any day of the year and see bushes blooming with flowers, hummingbirds sucking nectar from vibrant blossoms.

I see flowers like these every day, but so rarely do I stop and pick some. Today though, I just couldn't resist.

To any observer I must have looked bizarre, holding a bunch of flowers, leaning against a light pole, watching the world. But I was captivated by a thin river of rainwater running down the hill. It was the sort of thing I would have noticed as a small child, the sort of thing I've forgotten to "see" as an adult.

Hours later, I'm still thinking about where the flowing water was coming from since it was no longer raining.

I walked a bit more and saw an old man sitting out on a plant-covered balcony of a Spanish style duplex. A young woman was cutting his completely white hair. The distant traffic noises faded away as I listened to him complaining that she was cutting it too short. She only smiled affectionately down at his head and answered, "Yes, Papa."

I walked some more and eventually went to my neighborhood park. As I sat and read my copy of LA Weekly, I listened to one mother scold her children in French. Another in Spanish.

I looked around me and I thought about the racial diversity in this city. More Persians than any other place except Iran. More Koreans than anywhere outside Korea. More Armenians than any place besides Armenia. The most Thai people outside of Thailand.

And believe me, I don't think this diversity's a good thing only because of all the deliciously amazing food that those culture bring to the table.

No, it gets me excited because if we can achieve racial unity in this city, what a model we'd be for the rest of this crazy world.

Pull back the veil and there's a humanity to Los Angeles. That humanity has nothing to do with Hollywood or the vain imaginings the entertainment industry throws our way.

Yes, these are the things that make me fall in love with Los Angeles all over again. What about you? What makes you love or hate the city you call home?

Did My Neighbors Break Up?

I'm beginning to suspect that my neighbors across the hall have broken up. I've been so busy over the past couple of weeks that I only realized last night that I haven't seen the female half of the duo in at least that amount of time.

I swear, no one who lives in that apartment can stay together. It's like it's got bad relationship karma oozing out of the walls. It doesn't matter if they're seriously dating, get engaged, have a baby together or are married. It all falls apart. Over the past six years that I've lived here I've witnessed lots of antics by my neighbors. Here's a summary of the relationships:

1) Crazy Claudia and Tattoo Artist: They were living together. She got pregnant, had the baby, and then for reasons unknown, he moved out. (Probably because he realized she was CRAZY!) She later moved out too...which I was psyched about because she was...crazy! I did not miss her obsessive compulsive vacuuming at two in the morning.

2) Save the World Girl and Smokin' Hot Guy: She'd been working for an NGO in Haiti and left that life to come to LA to be with Hot Guy. I mean, he was smokin' hot...and, unsurprisingly, things did not work out. Heartbroken once more, she left to go save the world again.

3) Snobby Brunette and Friendly Boy: They moved in together. He was friendly when I'd see him in the hallway. She could barely speak. And then he proposed to her her. There were a few doors slammed and some yelling in the hallway. Nothing major. But then I came back from being away from two weeks and they were gone. Someone else told me a year ago that she'd broken off the engagement.

So that brings me to the current pair. And did I mention, she's my landlord's daughter.

4) Landlord's Daughter and Guy of Unknown Status: We've never been sure if they're married or if he's just the baby daddy and they're living together. She's nice. He doesn't talk much.

They've had those moments when she was yelling, "Pendejo!" out the door and throwing his clothes into the hallway. But eventually they'd kiss and make up.

Come to think of it though, we haven't seen her or the baby in like a month. I suppose she could be on vacation, on some sort of exotic getaway. But I don't think so because we have an unspoken rule in this building: Only one tenant at a time gets to take a cool trip and my neighbors downstairs have already filled the "cool trip" spot. They went to Morocco for three weeks and they came by before they left to let us know they'd be gone.

Guy of Unknown Status is still over there though. And his beer guzzling buddies have been over to hang out quite frequently. That's another sign! You can't turn your place into a bachelor pad if your girl is still around. No woman is going to put up with a bunch of guys rolling through the door with cases of beer every other night.

Yes, I have a distinct feeling it's over and I wouldn't be surprised if he moves out sometime soon too.

For real, I don't think anyone who lives in that apartment can stay together.

Do You Believe in Soul Mates?

It's so foggy outside that I can barely see out my window. It's the kind of weather that has me wrapped in a blanket, sitting on my couch, channel surfing. I just caught the tail end of "The Bachelor" finale and a brief snippet of Tila Tequila on the Tyra Banks Show.

There's a whole lot of supposed searching for love happening on TV these days: Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, I Love New York, A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, and of course, the aforementioned Bachelor.

The guy on "The Bachelor" didn't pick either woman. He decided he wasn't "in love". Both women cried and sobbed about how they didn't understand how he could be walking away from what they have.

Are they for real or just hoping they can get their own reality shows and extend their own fifteen minutes of fame? I just don't get what these women think they have. To me, you've got a guy who's been busy making out with a bunch of women. You've got a guy who's been laughing to himself over the cat fights the women have been having. You've got a guy who's asked a group of women to disrespect themselves, all for him. All for love.

So girls, thank God that he decided he didn't want you because not one of these "relationships" has turned out.

And why haven't they panned out? Well, if I was a guy, I'd have a hard time respecting any woman who let me roll like that. "Go ahead and kiss all on a bunch of other women but I'll be waiting right here for you honey!" Yeah, if I'm a guy, I'm programmed to believe that only hos are cool with stuff like that.

And as a woman, could I respect a guy who's also whoring himself out in pursuit of some sort of "true love"? Would I really believe this man was in love with me? Heck no!

I know, these shows are not about love, but are instead on some level about the search for fame. I get that. But they perpetuate some of the stuff we believe about love.

For example, do you believe that everyone has only one true love, one soul mate? Because these shows are all supposedly about helping someone find their soul mate.

The young lady who babysits for me asked me on Saturday night what I thought about this whole soul mate thing. It was 2 AM and I was driving her home. She's beautiful, single and highly frustrated with finding "true love" in Los Angeles. She didn't even have to go into details about the clowns she's meeting. I was able to list them out for her:

1)Men who are really only interested in sex but know women want love so they front like they want love too.
2) Men who want to act like they own you and you need their permission to breathe.
3) Men who act like they have to be super successful in their career before they can commit.
4) Men who think you're lucky they're even talking to you because they're such a good catch. And they let you know you're lucky.
5)Men who are so insecure that they can't stand it when you're more successful than they are.

I could tell I sort of disappointed her when I told her that I didn't know for sure about the whole soul mate thing. I told her how I think we've gone overboard in our culture with believing in the lightning strike, highly romantic ideal of true love, that I've tried to be much more practical and level headed about Love with a capital "L".

"Practical?" she asked. "As in you don't really love your husband, it's just a practical arrangement?"

Um, no. Not that. It's just that that "spark" thing isn't enough. That spark isn't going to keep anybody married. After all, I'm sure everyone Pam Anderson has married has really believed they had that special "thing" with her. And then, kaput. Divorce.

I told my babysitter how for me, I learned it was just too easy to get carried away by that instant spark of attraction. I'd then forget to ask the tough questions surrounding who that person really was, what they were really about, what did they really care about?

No, the lightning bolt sort of thing never turned out well for me. To tell you the truth, it made me feel mentally ill. Then I'd ignore all sorts of big red flags because of that magical lightning bolt... and then I'd find out some sort of insanity about the person and before you know it, I'd be plotting my revenge on a guy. My motto was, "You make my life miserable, I'm gonna make you wish you were dead." But that takes a whole lot of energy and wastes a lot of time.

So I had to learn to be more level headed, get to know someone as a friend first and see past the mirage of that chemical reaction that happens when you feel that spark. I had to take a step back and learn to analyze men very carefully. Grill them like nothing else and grill myself too. After all, it's really difficult to figure out who you are as a woman and what you really want in a world that has so many jacked up images of women and men...and "love".

What do you think? do you believe in soul mates, true love, following the spark? Or no?

A Sonnet For Dreamers

Body breathing, softly your spirit calls
When weary eyes close seeking solace true.
Embracing silence after darkness falls
Can you hear my soul calling back to you?

Your deepest desire, a vision real
Heart open, unveiled, before you I stand.
Intuition’s muse sharing words that heal,
Dreams revealed, your tender touch warms my hand.


Yet I disappear with dawn’s precious light
Your eyes opened by morning songbird cries.
Memory clinging till again comes night
Magical wish swiftly closing your eyes.

Inhale my essence, in this love’s dream state
Never to meet in sunshine, such cruel fate.

A Sonnet Of Remembrance And Love

When death's kiss comes will you remember me?
Petals soft against the touch of your hands
Sweet scented dreams floating across the sea
Carrying love's vision to distant lands.

Before we meet again, my bloom will fade
Inhale now, my fragrance falters too fast
Physical replaced by memories made
This image of loveliness cannot last.


The soul released by such tender embrace
Seeking to gaze upon luminous joy
Fearless, never again to see your face
This handmaiden nothing can now destroy.

Hearts cleansed, your innocent tears are leaving
Eternally true souls still believing.