At the cafe table across from me a group of older, gray-haired ladies sit down and one of them says, "Hi, you're back! We've missed you!" to their Mexican waiter who says he just returned from thirty days in Oaxaca. "Oh I love Oaxaca, it's so beautiful there! Did you hear that Deb," she says to her friend who is finishing something on her phone, "He's from Oaxaca!"
At the table next to me, a director, or producer, is talking to a young girl, early twenties, maybe younger -- wearing one of those headbands over her bangs, which I used to like a few years ago but not so much anymore -- about a film he is making that he wants her to be in. He brings up theater and she says she hasn't done any in L.A. but back in Ottawa there was something called the Fringe Festival and she was in that once.
It is sunny and still, cloudless, but hazy at the edges. There are no waves and no wind. The palm trees are limp and sort of crispy looking. Early this morning it was cold enough for a scarf -- and a coat -- but once the sun came all the way up I had to take off all outer layers and put on my sunglasses so the white magazine pages I was reading wouldn't blind me.
Across the boardwalk, a man plays guitar on a bench. He is old and black and wearing sunglasses and I think for a second he sort of looks blind, and then I think, now Lilibet just because he is black and wearing sunglasses and playing music does not mean he's blind.
Very fit and very tan joggers run past, many with dogs, one lady with three on one of those three pronged leashes.
A woman in a long tattered coat, and no shoes, stomps past screaming an animal-like "Rarrrrrrr!" and then screams, toward an imaginary enemy, "I'm gonna find you and kill you! Who leaves a baby! A baby! Rarrrrrrr!" We all look up and shake our heads and a man at another table says, "Welcome to Venice!" and we all give a sort of half-laugh.
I finish my coffee and my New Yorker article about Levi Johnston winning some porn award for his forthcoming appearance in Playgirl and ask for the bill from the Oaxacan waiter. When it arrives I am excited to see it's only $3.51 since I made it in before 9 am, when everything on the menu is fifty percent off. I have to get home to get my laundry out of the dryer before one of my neighbors takes it out and puts it on top of the counter so they can put their laundry in, which always completely creeps me out, the thought of someone else handling my underwear. Fortunately/unfortunately when I get to the laundry room I realize the dryer cycle never started because one of the quarters I inserted was actually from the Republica De Costa Rica and I wonder why in the hell I have a coin from the Repulica De Costa Rica but I don't have time to think about that because I have to get back to my computer to write, then run, then shower, then go on an audition for a Newcastle commercial at 1, for the role of "Female Newcastle Patron" who, according to the casting breakdown, is supposed to be:
"Attractive. Cute. Sophisticated. Confident, individualistic, laid-back and interesting. She's the type of person you'd like to hang out with, interesting/unique enough that you're drawn to her, but at the same time approachable. Tats okay. Urban sophistication as well. MUST BE 25 OR OLDER."
This all before cocktail waitressing at 5.
Just another day as the ultimate L.A. hyphenate: writer/actress/waitress/sometimes fitness model/sometimes box girl/ and hopefully soon-to-be grad student.
As a guy in a recent writing class said, "Are you like Jamaican or something? Cause you got alotta jobs."
No I am not Jamaican, but yes I do got alotta jobs, yes indeed I do.
