Thursday, July 28, 2005

I want to write a TV show. Or a movie. Or something. I think I'll do that when I get home.
Right now, I am at work. Dying a slow and horrible death from boredom. It's pathetic, really, but I can't do it. I think I need more adventure in my life. Plus, my tailbone hurts from sitting in this chair all day.

Whomp.

Today I woke up on time and washed my face and brushed my teeth and prepared a lunch of yogurt with sliced peaches and frozen blueberries and high-protein cereal to bring with. During lunch I sat at desk and worked on style thing and ate my conglomeration and felt like I was in a commericial. The voiceover was saying that I was going to be able to fit into my bikini this weekend and that I'd be more energized this afternoon. Two things: the energy thing was a lie, and the bikini thing, really, who can't fit into a bikini. The part that might not fit over a swollen stomach doesn't exist, so there's plentry of room for it to all hang out.

Pshaw.

Last night all roomies and friend from school who just moved out here to be an actress went to see a sneak screening of RED EYE, new Wes Craven movie starring Rachel McAdams. I like her. Wes Craven is sort of lame, but she made the movie. She rocks. Moving on, Wedding Crashers is also fantastic and all people should see it. Very funny. Vince Vaughn is a winner on screen--off, I've heard he is le lame. Oh, well. Also, a long time ago, I wrote a long spiel about how celebrities are just people, whatever, blahblahblah. I would like to amend that statement by pointing out that there is a difference between, say, Brad Pitt the person and Brad Pitt the celebrity. Brad Pitt the person is attractive, yes, but he is just a guy. Brad Pitt the celebrity, though, is an idea, and that idea sells. I would imagine the happiest celebs are the ones that embrace the fact that there is a character they have to play publicly in some sense, in order to keep the real them private. Basically what I am saying is that Tom Cruise is actually a smart, compassionate, compelling, sane person.

Monday, July 25, 2005

As lease with the boys ends 1 Sept, have been perusing Craig's List for new housing options. Today there was a post looking for a "hip chick" to share an apt in west LA. I think it's pretty safe to say I fit the description. Here is what I wrote them:

merlngavn@whatever.bah

merlin:

this is what i shall call you even if it does not turn out to be your real name, fyi.

i moved to california in june after graduating from the university of virginia.

in my life right now i:
--work at a t-shirt store
--intern at a prod company in santa monica
--search for some trends sometimes for this lady i met on craigs list
--watch a lot of law and order: svu, as it's on 24sev

right now i am living in hollywood with three guys, one from high school, two i just met. living with guys is a-okay. i'm down. living with girls is also okay, especially one who is hip and is also down with living with guys.

i can be clean or messy, whatever you want. first roommate in college was a wreck, i was down. second roommate was neat freak, i was also down. am naturally somewhere in the middle. so messy is fine. i don't really like dirty. right now we have fruit flies in our kitchen. i do not like.

i like to abbrev a lot, so there's that.

also i have attached some pictures because i'm vain. and because i find them useful in life.

i think that is all. i am easy going and stuff. and i'll probably try to be your friends because i just moved here.

oh and sometimes i pretend to cook, on poor days.

lalala pick me,
logan

I think this email couldn't be any better. Hopefully it will bring me success in life.

In other news, today was my first day at work. I had training for some time and then worked a full shift. Have never worked retail, and after 7 hours, here is what I have to say:

1. Metal hangers DO look better than wood hangers. It's a good thing I spent 5 hours swapping them out.
2. I am never going to unfold or try on anything that I am not at least 63.4 percent sure I'm going to buy ever, ever again.
3. My legs hurt.
4. Getting paid is fun.

The store is a neato one with neato people and neato clothes and all things. I like it a lot thus far. Am working again tomorrow. Okay. After long day at work going to read Harry Potter while listening to roomies watching Arrested Development. Ah, life.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

After a zillion revisions, have finally emailed style report to boss lady. Have never really revised anything before. Am progressing as a human being.

In other news, car won't start again but as is parked up in hills in a non-tow-away zone, I'm not going to deal with it right now. I'll think about it tomorrow. Like Scarlett O'Hara. Though I'm dealing with a Lemon, not Reconstruction. Hm.

Yesterday in the grocerystore to buy ingredients for my healthy lifestyle, I wore my new sunglasses. I am basically positive that someone thought I was Mary Kate. Or at least Nicky Hilton.

I met a little girl in the cereal isle. She was four, and when I asked where her Mommy was, she said she had no Mommy and no Daddy either. Then her mom walked up and said earlier she told someone her baby brother was dead, and she'd never had a baby brother. She is fantastic. I want to be her friend. I expect big things.

Right now the roommates are reading the trades and discussing the weekend's box office figures. I really don't know why this is interesting to them, but it is. They are movie nerds. Other roomie has a long-distance girlfriends still on the East Coast, and he just ran into his room to talk to her again. He's going to get a tumor; he's talked to her for six hours today. Maybe I should purchase him an earpiece and offer a lesson on electromagnetic waves and cancer-prevention. I think it would be a nice thing.

Ugh now roomies are having in depth conversation about comic books. I have just started blaring Janis Joplin. They are ignoring. Now blaring Alabama. Also, no rise. I give up. I'm leaving.




Friday, July 22, 2005




After an extended stay home, I am back in LA and ready to get myself into gear. I got back to the city late last night after plane troubles. I thought I was coming back on Wednesday, but I had actually bought my ticket to come back on Tuesday, so when I realized this on Wednesday, I booked a ticket to come home one Thursday. Two things might be inferred from this. One: I am ditzy. I don't like this one. Or, two, I was meant to stay home with fam, friends, and puppy for more days, and thus all things worked out. I like to go with the latter.

Everyone is at work now. I'm sitting in the apartment. It's hot but I'm in front of the window, so there's a breeze. The place is a wreck, but I am not going to clean it because it is not my wreck and I don't want to condition these boys into thinking that someone will always clean up after them--especially a woman.

I have little else going on in my life right now. Style report and coverage for internship all due today--need to get on it. Have training monday at store. Am one step closer to being gainfully employed
, which is excellent, because while I was home, I finally "got" the direness of the money situation. Better late than never. I'm not worried though--will just have to give up new pretty things for awhile. Also, Starbucks is off off off limits. No more. No fraps, no cheese plates, no chocolate chunk scones, no passion teas. The end. I think it will cut my expenses in half. At least.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

I had an interview at a hip t-shirt store on Friday, and I got the job. Am delighted to have a position in a company that is both socially conscious and vertically integrated. Jury is still out on whether or not company is sexist or just not apologetic about the fact that sex does indeed sell. Lalala.

In other news, after getting the job I decided that my days of having nothing to do might be over, so I bought a plane ticket and decided to come home for a few days while I still could. So I am back on the East Coast. The humidity is a doozie--but it's home. Puppy and Parents and Brother and all people happy to see me. This is obviously why we move to far-away cities: the homecomings rock.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Wednesday I met le style boss lady at her house. We hung out, talked trends, and then headed to Barney's to scope the sale and check out the new offerings. Barney's is delightful. Really, all people must go. Most of the stuff is fancy shmancy--that is, not-tanks-and-jeans--but is still fun to look. After purusing, we had lunch in the restaurant upstairs. We sat on the patio overlooking the hills, an Los Angeles almost looked pretty. At the table next to us were two women with the largest collogened lips I've ever seen.

Oh, and as for what's hip for fall: burnt orange and rich turquoise. You're welcome.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Today I swung by Kitson, a boutique of kitsch and cool frequented by celebs and touted to be cutting edge. I needed to do some more research for my style report since it is due in the morning. Though the store was cool, the visit was less than stellar, mostly because I kept getting the same feeling in the pit of my stomach when I would be in the stacks at the library looking for sources the night before a paper was due. Collleeeeege.

Kitson was basically like Fred Segal--filled with overpriced things you'd have to be crazy--or crazy rich--to buy. Hmm, should I pay my rent or buy this $400 distressed cotton hoodie? Life decisions are difficult. There was a tanktop with a cupcake on it that I was really tempted by, but it was $85. Kitson also had a variety of cupcake candles and two kinds of cupcake books. So there you have it: new trend is cupcakes. I've been onto that one for a lonnnng time. Maybe I am hip after all.

Monday, July 11, 2005

I think I shall move to San Francisco. I had a night flight back to LA, so I got to spend another sunny day with my cousin. We went to a birthday party at a pub in Marin. It is twenty minutes from the city but felt like worlds away because it was so secluded. We had to take this windy, hilly road through a nature preserve to get there. We listened to Jewel and other pretty things. I felt like I was in a car commercial. Later we went a party in the city at a house with a view and the whole back wall was glass panels that folded and opened like a European restaurant. Then we had pedicures and ate basil tofu at a Thai restaurant. I bought a necklace with huge pink beads. It matches my toes. Basically, today was completely fantastic. I love the Bay area. Love Love Love. Perhaps I will move there and have a dreamy life in the fog.

In other news, we just watched American Psycho. It was gross. And bizarre. I did not like.


Saturday, July 09, 2005

I am now back in San Francisco, crashing with my cousin for one more night before I fly back to LA. After ten days of roaming San Francisco and flittering around Tahoe with friends from home, I am ready to get back .

My sojourn from Hollywood has been somewhat exhausting. When I am in the city, part of me recognizes that my being there is absurd, but another part of me looks around and every lifestyle decision that I am making is reinforced by everyone I meet. All my friends have degrees but are working for nothing, living with money they don't have, counting on a break in the future.

Detached from this culture, "I'm unemployed and sleeping on a mattress in Hollywood" doesn't sound so acceptable. In SF, my cousin qualified my brief explanation to her friends with "because she graduated from college early and her parents are letting her freeload for a couple months on the left coast." It sounds more real--but so much less impressive--when put that way.

Anyway, at the wedding I didn't have lovely family members to tell people how it really is, so I had to improvise--and fabricate, though just enough so people would like me.



Interior, reception hall. ATTRACTIVE ASPIRING ACTOR and OUR PROTAGONIST are engaged in conversation.

"So you are acting in New York? That's great. Well , I am in LA, working for a production company."
"Oh, wow, that is awesome. Do you read a lot of scripts?"
"Er, some. No, yes, lots. Lots and lots. Loads. There's a lot of crap out there. But when you come across a good one--"
"Have you?"
"No."
"Oh."
"You know, I have a LOT of friends at talent agencies, so, uh, when you're ready, forward me your headshots and I'll pass them on. You'll be the next Tom Hanks, no problem."

CUT TO: LATER THAT DAY
OUR PROTAGONIST is being quizzed by a DISTINGUISHED ADULT-TYPE PERSON

"So why did you leave your wonderful, steady life back home full of friends and stability, etc. to move to Los Angeles?"
"Well, I am a writer, so I am spending some time in LA feeling out the business to see if screenwriting is something I want to pursue."
"So you're writing screenplays."
"Not exactly."
"Oh."
"But I am working at a literary management company, reading scripts."
"And that pays?"
"Er, no. But I am doing a lot of freelance work."
"Really. Where?"
"Some magazines... and some newspapers...and stuff like that."
"Which papers? That sounds great."
"Oh, look! Cake! Lovely talking to you. Bye."

CUT TO: OUR PROTAGONIST being quizzed by ANOTHER ADULT-TYPE PERSON

"So I hear you are in LA."
"Yes, indeed. I have an internship where I answer the phone for nine hours a day. I have no income and am apparently not qualified to sell sweatshop-made clothes to preteen girls with cellphones and glitter mascara. I am literally living off of my credit card and am now in debt for no reason except that it seemed fun to move across the country."
"So it's working out? You're happy?"
"Yes. Fantastic. Best thing I've ever done."

Scene.





Saturday, July 02, 2005

After one month in Los Angeles, I have fled to northern California. I am in San Francisco visiting my cousin before I go to Tahoe for a friend's wedding, and I have a small suspicion that I may have up and moved to the wrong city.

San Francisco, as any Full House fan can attest, is beautiful. We spent the morning across the Bay in a neighborhood called Rockridge. While my cousin ran errands, I was tempted by the offerings in a toy store that rivaled Duncan's Toy Chest of Home Alone II fame (sans bad guys), talked to a little girl who was keeping charge of a fluffy black dog the size of a horse, and tried to figure out how I could adopt one of the kittens being showcased on the corner by the animal rescue league and get it back to LA. I think the perfection of the morning had gone to my head by that point--I don't even like cats.


Back in the city, we went to a going-away picnic in the Mission District. In a park at the foot of a steep hill covered in huge fallen stumps and dense, green trees, a group of young thirty-somethings and their toddlers gathered to say goodbye to three of their brood who were moving back East. The parents sipped beer and wine and the children nibbled on french bread slices and watermelon while they wandered around the park, jumping in the wildflower patch, wearing out the slide, chasing the birds. It was a wonderful, chill group of people with beautiful children and kind hearts. I claimed a square of blanket and stared at the sky as the fog was pulled in to the area just above the treeline and dissipated as the sun hit it. I had a small urge to talk about life and the sky as a metaphor for change, but I snapped out of it and opted to explain to my cousin the intricacies of today's slang.

Friday, July 01, 2005

I applied to a Craig's List ad recruiting a "hip, trendy writer" for an occasional gig, figuring one out of three wasn't bad. The woman who posted the ad does field and group-based research for consumer research groups and companies, among a myriad of other things. We met for breakfast on Sunday and she explained who she was and what she was looking for over pumpkin pancakes at this great breakfast place called The Griddle. Basically, she is a fantastic person who does wonderful things. She owns a company and she dabbles in everything from consumer research to writing to advertising. She just finished a stint as a pastry chef at the beach. She's heading to the Northwest to chill out for awhile in a month.

My first project with her is to compile a Los Angeles "style report," which is more or less an ethnography of hip twenty-somethings in LA: what they are wearing, where they are eating, where they go for fun, what they drink, what they are listening to, etc. She has been doing the LA section for six years and is looking to move on.

Armed with this new mission--seek the cool--I have found myself a patron of places I would have shyed away from before. On Tuesday I dragged Doug and Pyung to Giant Robot, which Pyung described as an anime store, but is basically a boutique filled with awesome art, magazines, books, tshirts, and the coolest imports from the far East. The boys enjoyed the underground comics, I was enamored with the design books. I noted that long bangs and Chucks are still hip, and we moved on to dinner.

Yesterday I went to Fred Segal to scope out what the cool of cool (and rich of rich) were wearing. Fred Segal is one of these "it" stores--many argue it is THE "it" store--that always shows up on the pages of In Style and Vogue and all those magazines that housewives and students puruse so they can know what knock-offs to buy at TJ Maxx. It is an intimidating, maze-like store with intimidating, exorbitant pricetags, but there are smiling young salespeople in excellent clothes. In the cosmetics section a lovely woman gave me a quick superficial collagen facial. The $150 starter kit is very affordable, I am told. My face felt so lovely that I wanted it badly, but I forewent. I did, however, add it to my growing list of things to buy as soon as I am gainfully employed, a list which includes, but is not limited to, a new car, a puppy, and a cupcake from Sprinkles, which I hear is the LA counterpart to the world-famous Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village.