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.