L.A. FRIDAY

I didn't plan on being this cool today, it just happened. Neither did My Girl. This morning, laying in bed singing silly songs following a whirlwind multi-room multi-orgasmic sex romp, My Girl and I came up with an idea for a musical we wanted to write together. Instantly, we were jazzed about it and made some real progress before we even got dressed. As I was showering, she received an email from the host of this show in NPR called "Rewind." They want her to be a guest on the show, ranting and raving about the yet-to-be-determined topic of the week. This excited My Girl greatly, considering that just yesterday an editor from The New York Times Magazine called her to set an article in motion. So, she's feeling great about herself and her career and, for no particular reason, I'm feeling great about myself. We decide to go to Doughboys (delicious bakery and eatery on 3rd Street and Crescent Heights) for brunch. While we waited for our dream table, I took notes in our joint journal as we continued to work through our musical idea. Sure enough, the party of two before us didn't answer the call and we slid right into the ideal two-top, next to a buxom fivesome. Two blondes bimbos and three varied mimbos. We attempted to plow forward on our project, but the soundtrack from the table of model/actor/actress prototypes was simply too hard to ignore. Being that beautiful, naturally they were extremely self-conscious. They spoke in near-whispers and most of what we did hear didn't contain enough substance to sink our teeth into. But every now and then, the perfect sound bite would waft our way. For instance, one of the blondies, sitting mere inches away from My Girl with her leg draped over the arm of the chair, whined, "I so want to get this movie so badly." Later on, My Girl decided it wasn't going to happen for this particular blondie because movie stars are ridiculously exaggerated versions of great-looking human beings and this girl was merely an average great-looking human being. Another exchange between one of the hip-hugger clad sub-Britneys and one of the square-jawed man-tittied studs, who surely resides in the Buffwood apartment complex, transpired as follows:

Dude: "Have you seen so-and-so lately?"
Chick: "No, but I hear he's thinking of having a pajama party."
Dude: "Cool. I've never been to a pajama party."
Chick: "Neither have I. But I've always wanted to. We're gonna have to get in shape."

After the Calvin Klein Club left, My Girl and I finally got a chance to vent and order a delectable dessert. After involving the petite bleach-blonde Asian waitress in our decision-making progress, we settled on a chocolate brownie walnut cake with whipped cream. While devouring the sinfully scrumptious double delicious treat, a red-afroed waiter who gave me a sample of a Coke-lemonade mixture came over to chat us up. He listed his favorite Doughboy desserts and told us the secret is to order whatever just came out of the oven. He earned his expert status by working at the restaurant for four years, starting when he was sixteen. After high school, using the money he saved up by working there, he left the country for a couple of years to teach English in Thailand and Rome. He recently returned before his twenty-first birthday and resumed his post at Doughboys. I told him he came off wise and mature well beyond his meager twenty one years. He shot back, "Growing up a Los Angeleno forces you to do that." The contrast between the surface cool of the Calvin Klein Club and the true cool of this dynamic waiter was certainly not lost on My Girl and I. We suspect that he enjoyed talking to us so much that he put in a good word on our behalf to our waitress, because the total bill amounted to only twenty dollars. No charge for coffee, no charge for dessert, no charge for the Lemon Coke. We tipped twenty five percent and I wondered aloud if that wasn't too low.

We followed up brunch with a quick trip to Apothia in the Fred Segal shopping complex, where I acquired a canister of the supreme Kiehl’s shaving cream. My Girl was sniffing one of the flavored body lotions and accidentally squirted some in her face and on her shirt. After a moment of hesitation, I exploded into uncontrollable laughter. Luckily, she laughed too.

On our way back home, we were in the left hand turn lane, sitting in a borrowed Eclipse Spyder convertible with the top down and The Strokes blaring from the sound system. I raised my arms in the air, a la Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, and proclaimed "I love unemployment!" A working class black man in what appeared to be a company van next to us saw the whole thing and smiled. Thank God he was looking at the passenger side of the car, because that's the side with the huge dent and deep key mark. Otherwise, it would have been an obnoxiously over-the-top gesture. Plus, I didn't want him to think I'm that cool. Because I'm not. I just was today.