Saturday, January 03, 2004

 
Picture it: January 2nd, 2004. I'm in LA. I look fabulous despite my two weeks of utter overconsumption. I put on my sunglasses, grab my beach towel and leave the house...

Only to discover a torrential downpour outside the door.

What the? Which LA have I come to? First it snows in Vegas, now this. Not content to endure crap weather in my own country, I've clearly decided to export it to other countries, so I can enjoy it there. Obviously I should have skipped the rain dance I did at Ontario airport (in Ontario, which is an LA suburb, I shit you not).

Still. If not for the constant driving thing, I would like it here. I poked around Hermosa Beach a bit today, spent some time on Olvera Street, which is where you can buy all the Mexican kitsch in the world, and then had Italian in Los Feliz, in a place that was a couple of blocks from the Derby, which some of you may know from when swing was cool. In fact, I'm staying a couple of blocks from the Derby, which is pretty neat. Los Feliz is a nice neighbourhood, very middle class bohemian, but fun nonetheless. I don't know if I'm seeing the "real LA" but whatever. I'll take what I can get at this point.

The big plate of gnocchi is making me very sleepy. Good night, kids.
posted by Alleen at 4:45:10 AM

Thursday, January 01, 2004

 
This week I put my foot down and came to an important decision.

I am never ever ever, not even if a large man with no neck named Rocco threatens to kneecap me, ever travelling with my parents again.

That said, Vegas was pretty fun. I do intend to go back. But with no parents. Not even anyone else's parents. There will be no parents involved. None.

On the other hand, they were more or less tolerable at my cousin's wedding, which was a pretty low-key affair. The actual ceremony itself was pretty funny... the priest had a tendency towards stand-up comedy, making cracks about the lack of joy in celibacy (have you ever seen an entire church full of people cringe? I have and it's not good) and peppering his oratory (?) with quotes from John Gray (of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" fame). At one point, he said, "You can give without love, but you can't love without giving," which got the biggest laugh of the night from me, because that's some serious, Dr. Phil, self-help, couples-counselling kind of shit right there. It sounded even weirder when he repeated it in Armenian. I think when I get married, the priest will be given a total of 30 seconds in which to ramble on about love, the institution of marriage, and the joys of marital sex. In fact, I'll just have the ceremony in the same place as the reception, so instead of saying "You may kiss the bride," the priest can say: "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. Let's eat!" Then we can all get on with things right away and there's none of this driving around with a map trying to figure out where the hell in Pasadena you are. Maybe I'll have it at Medieval Times, because then we don't even have to use forks. Better yet, I will actually go through with the Vegas drive-through wedding that I keep threatening my parents with. Or I will find the man I love and live in sin for the rest of my life. Abominable, horrible sin. And I will laugh evilly every morning thinking of how sinful I'm being.

My cousin spent most of the night complaining about the wedding hardware, aka the ten pounds of underwear she was wearing, most of which is guaranteed to make your wedding night unromantic, partially because you're in so much pain by the time you get out of it that all you want to do is sleep. That, and it leaves not-so-sexy imprints all over your body. That's what she told me the morning after, anyway. Personally, I have no problems wearing corsets, though she's right about the imprint bit.

She did look really nice though, as did everyone else. And it was a pretty fun evening. I met new cousins, who are actually my cousin's cousins, who were pretty cool people. Stupidly, though, I made the mistake of dancing with an Armenian guy at an Armenian wedding with my parents in attendance. I got benign, aren't-you-kids-sweet? smiles all night. He, on the other hand, got the third degree. "Where are you from?" "Who are your parents? Maybe we know them?" "What do you do?" "When did you move here?" "What is your net worth?" "Are you in the country legally?" They now know his entire past, present and future which is more than I can say for me; I only know his name, which is Joe.

I mentioned later on to my mom that this was an inordinate amount of interest for what was actually happening. I was chatting to a nice guy, who happens to be a distant relative, and he asked me to dance. End of story. Silly silly me. Now I can never speak to him again without inviting speculation as to the wedding date.

Like I said: Not even if a man with no neck named Rocco threatens to kneecap me. In fact, not even if he does kneecap me.

Also, just so I don't look like the biggest loser on earth, I know the time stamp on this entry says it's about 12:53am on New Years, but it's actually about 3:53pm on the 31st where I am. So I'm not the biggest loser on earth. Not just yet anyway, since the plan for tonight is to hang with my parents and then go to bed early.

Oh yes, I am the queen of cool.
posted by Alleen at 12:53:55 AM

HOME