Vignettes from Planet Not-So-Bright
I asked my friend, Corinne, the other day, “What Planet is she ON!?!”, to which she replied with, “that would be Planet Notsobright.”. There are lots of people in LA that are Notsobrightians, including me.
I’ve spoken to many different people, thus far, in my week and a half in LA. From two strikers (one more felony drug charge and he’s out of our society) recounting his time in the clink, to recovered heroine addicts, to Ant (the comic and host of VH-1’s Celebrity Fit Challenge, and a new client for me). You name it. I’m making my rounds.
My credentials for Notsobright citizenship:
I rode from the valley to work downtown on Sunday, allowing myself an hour and a half. I’ve found the hour and a half to be standard, whether by train or car or…..bike? prolly. I had three turns to make. That’s it. Onto Sepulveda to Wilshire, then off. I went down Wilshire, confidently, to the ocean. Ocean? I love the ocean. SHIT. The ocean. I was in Santa Monica, not in the smog of the skyline. My commute took three hours.
Today, I drank half a pot of coffee before I ran for a bit. Came home, was thirsty, so I guzzled two full glasses of water, then needed more caffiene, so I had two more cups of coffee before getting on the train. I came as close as I have ever been in my adult life to peeing my pants in public. There is just no out. No pulling the train over, or pulling myself over, and ducking into a bush.
It was pointed out to me, after my ‘run through the alleys to look for warehouses out of curiosity’ run in the valley (porn studios) that I should be more aware of my place as a tall, blonde woman in the valley. My place, apparently, is that I am undeniably in porn. Silly me. In any event, I was warned against it, even lectured, and my knee-jerk reaction was to change how I phrased it, and I couldn’t, which led to my defending myself by saying, “well, I ran fast..”.
Making eye-contact with schizophreniacs is just frightening. I am going to stop doing that because it may seem like they are talking to me, but they are, plain and simply, not.
Corinne is a production accountant and deals with Notsobrightians often. She is, at this very moment, recounting a story where she told someone “this is not an invoice. This is merely a piece of paper.”.
The plus side is that I DID NOT give my phone number out to the guy sitting next to me on the Metro who had explained to me that he doesn’t own a car and lives with 14 guys. Even though he did mention he started a job the day before after being unemployed for a stint so he DID, technically, qualify for my one and only stipulation for dating me: Must have a job. I felt like I had made a good decision.
Other Regional News-
Tour Of CALI! If they nullified the last 10 km of every race that had a crash at the end and gave same time/placing for those caught in the crash, most women’s races would be ties and we’d all be winners more often than not.
…That wasn’t a very bright thing to write.
BB