Jenny Does the Judicial System

Passive girl that I am, I often find myself at the whim of others. Take for instance my agency. I become quite docile in their presence, my phone voice rises, and sometimes I bake cookies. If I am nice, I work. If I am mean, I work, too. This is only because I am hired on the basis of my buns and legs, not my attitude generally speaking. But we are told not to bite the hand that feeds, and the hand that feeds me first feeds my agency which makes the agency look like the hand when in reality it is just the little man between the hand and me eating (the feed).
A few months ago, a heated conversation with another model about "taking some bastard client to small claims court" inspired me to do a fiscal follow-up of my own. The job in question was for a small German boutique on Rodeo Dr. I had worked for them before; the first time being Black Friday of 2006. This was one of those real glamorous jobs I dreamed about when I thought I was going to be a super model: I stood in a store window for twelve hours while Japanese tourists took pictures with me "the living mannequin." Two fellows from high school managed to recognize me under a thick layer of drag queen makeup and ratty hair that the client had originally intended to interweave with Christmas lights. I protested, stating that being plugged into an electrical outlet didn't seem like a terribly safe idea. The then emensley popular Pussy Cat Doll's album played the entirety of my stay, watching real-time commerce and tourism displayed in front of me. Whenever I hear "Loosen Up My Buttons Babe" I remember the superficial burn I got on the left side of my pasty, SPF 55 managed skin from the movie-size wattage bulbs lighting me.
While I was paid for this first experience as well as the next day that they decided to bring me back (apparently my mannequin services were as popular as a Disneyland ride), I was not compensated for the third time I worked for them a few months later. Two years of complaining to my agency later, I was told I was "shit out of luck." Thus taking the matter into my own large hands.
I arrive at the Beverly Hills Court for my December 4th, 1:30 PM appointed time. Apparently I am not the only one, because when I exit the elevator there is a mass of chatting and not chatting people surrounding the four different court rooms like flies on shit. I am fly. I see my defendant. Shit. Since I got out of my car and put five quarters in the meter I have been sweating more than I care to. I begin to sweat more. I think that I am going to ruin my teal and white striped silk shirt that looks like it could be expensive but I bought it at The Wasteland for $25. When I see the German man who is screwing me out of my money all I can think about is the night after work when he invited me to dinner with his wife, baby, and Jose Eber. I don't feel empowered. I feel like an asshole. He looks up and sees me coming. Oh, dear God save me. The conversation that begins with an awkward wave of recognition is a combination of his German accent telling me about getting woken up by the sheriff at 6 am to serve him papers and me stumbling over "I'm so sorry for doing this" type nonsense.
To make a long story just nearly as long as it is, my client tells me that he never meant to hurt me but to punish the agency for another job that involved sixty grand and a flaky model who botched the operation. Whoops. While we are having this conversation, a woman in a red hat covered in ink black feathers approaches my German. Apparently they are friends. Phoebe is a D list celebrity who I can't recognize for the life of me but she obviously feels like we've all been friends for years as she unloads what she's been doing the last year. Said everything includes her hair accessory line and her upcoming E! channel show in which she is going to be paid "triple what everyone else is being paid" because she "the biggest celebrity there." She's got crazy eyes and a nose that's surely seen the Knife. She is suing the Ivy for crashing her white C Class Mercedes into a Buick. Her lovely frumpy mother pulls out photographs of the scene: Phoebe in a pink, purple and white dress surrounded by paparazzi running towards her crashed car with an acting class version of despair on her face. Each photograph is watermarked with a bright pink "PHOEBE" over it, obviously from her personal website.
Finally we are called into the courtroom by a bleached blond lady deputy. I sit down next to the German, although my initial instinct is to sit on the other sides. Are we supposed to be so amiable? I am existing in a constant state of confusion. The deputy comes up to me.

Blond Deputy: Miss?
Me: Yes?
Blond Deputy: Are you a witness or do you have a case here?
Me: I'm the plantiff in a suit.
Blond Deputy: There are not shorts allowed in a courtroom and when the judge gets
here she is going to embarrass you.

Oh, dear God. I sweat some more. I run to my car to get black jeans out of my trunk. My inner dialogue continues as such:
"No shorts in the courtroom? But these aren't really shorts. They are tasteful, high waisted and black with a slight sheen to them. I look completely respectable. These people just don't understand fashion."
By the time I return the courtroom the judge is speaking in front of the forty people seated in rows. She is stern. I am terrified. She starts talking about labeling evidence, speeches, etc. I stare at my random email print outs and internet articles. Nothing highlighted, blacked out, starred, labeled, stapled. Next to me is a man with a binder and pages marked with those arrow shaped Post Its. Fuck me. We are all dismissed outside again to exchange evidence, which we have already done. When the German and I get back outside I ask him if we should just settle it without the judge since we have both agreed that I provided a service and should have been compensated. He agrees. I am thankful that he has never been to Small Claims Court before and even more thankful that he is awkward and German. We ask Blond Deputy if we can just settle without seeing the judge, the judge gives me a paper, I sign, it's done.
The German and I share the elevator down to the lobby. He tells me he will call me on Monday. When we get to the sidewalk on Burton, he offers me a cigarette. I decline, shake his hand, and scamper back into the real world where I can be flighty, ridiculous, and wear shorts.

This goes out to Phoebe.

Dr. Pepper, French Rolls, Apple Sauce and Cheerios

Going over to my dad's meant a single-wide trailer, creamed corn, court-appointed every-other-weekend weekend. The healthy menu we adhered to growing up was apparently of my mother's doing. Dad's kitchen was a no holds barred curiosity buffet. And damn it was tasty.
Concocted one day in which there was no milk in the fridge within my two day post expiration maximum, I threw apple sauce into a bowl and generously topped it with stale Cheerios. Crunchy, mildly sweet, and satisfying until I could go back to Mom's - I had in my hands the original Poor Man's Vegan Parfait.
Less detail oriented but no less delicious was a meal that was more of a process and less of a recipe. This creation entailed dipping torn off chunks of a french bread tri-tip roll into a beer mug filled with Dr. Pepper. Dad always had these mugs ready to go in the freezer for his Budweisers. When the glass warmed enough, the soda-flavored frost would glacially move into the rest of the mug which at that point contained bits of white bread and smaller ice cubes.

Poolside Dining

Tom had a pool on the side of his house which seems weird to say but because it was more of a "gated estate" it didn't much matter where the pool went. Front, back, whatever. The closest I had ever been to regular private pool access was the jacuzzi off of my parents old bedroom. It broke one day and became a watering hole for mosquitoes until we filled it with cement five years later.
In the summer I would make tuna drowning in lemon juice and sit by the pool working on the best tan I'll ever allow myself to have. In hindsight it feels like I did this often over a long period of time, but in reality it was probably a summer or two at most.
When Tom divorced my mom we moved into a rental with a pool that took over the the entirety of the pool-sized backyard. We never sat next to it or went in it. No matter how warm it was outside, it always seemed cold back there. My mom spent a lot of time in her room with the shades drawn. I spent a lot of time practicing my rave dancing in my bedroom mirror.

Quarters and the Taxco Gas Station

With my mom's new found freedom from the chains of wedlock with my father, she rejoined the workforce she had abandoned when my brother got Leukemia. Since it was decided that my 6th-grade-old self was capable of keeping my brother and I alive for the three hours between school ending and mom getting home, we were free as well.
There were, of course, rules put in place as clouds into ether.
1. No answering the door for strangers.
2. No fighting with your brother.
3. No fighting with your sister.
4. Under no circumstance are you allowed to cross Woodlake.
We did our best to adhere to household policy, but to be honest we get a pretty abysmal record.
Now Woodlake was a two lane road running down the center of my neighborhood, my world. It was the maternal paranoia equivalent of an eight-lane highway in Germany. To be fair to my mother and her parenting abilities, the street did connect to the onramp and offramp of the 101 Freeway. Reckless drivers speeding a reckless 20 MPH could have certainly slaughtered us and any one of the numerous petafiles in sleepy white suburbia could have snatched us up and driven us to Santa Barbara where we would adjust to life on a hippie commune growing marijuana and acorn squash.
On the other side of this hell gate was the Taxco gas station. In it held everything my mom would never allow in our pantry: ho-hos, cherry soda, jelly beans, and Bubble Chew. My brother and I determined that the best way to thwart evildoers was to run as quickly as possible, as closely as possible down Leonora Drive where we would cross Woodlake with absurd caution. After all, as any smart kid knew, if we were run over or kidnapped Mom would definitely find out...a prospect that terrified us arguably more than any suspect on America's Most Wanted list.
A successful trip included a Dr. Pepper and Peanut M&Ms for me; a Coke or Cactus Cooler for my brother to be eaten with a plastic-wrapped pair of Ding Dongs with the swirly frosting tie. All of this was paid for by the exact person we were betraying. Anything found near the washing machine, under a bed, or in the blue dish my mom kept jewelry and lint in was fair game. We were never caught. I attribute this to economically whittling the journey down to a 5.5 minute trip along with craftily hiding all wrappers and cans in the bottom of the trash can. A trick I kept in my back pocket for parentless high school parties later on in life.

Road Block

What Happens in Vegas...Gets in This Blog

Amber: Want to go see The Thunder from Down Under Tonight?
Me: How much is it?
Danika:35 to 40 bucks or something.
Me: Hmm…

Spending twenty-five percent of my food stipend seemed a bit silly but hey, when in Rome…
I meet Amber and Danika in their room. Danika is tipsy and takes a swig from a nearly empty wine bottle. I think it is a Merlot. Both of them look pretty, wearing the same hair and makeup from the show before. I am wearing a hooded sweatshirt with “Get Fresh” silk screened on the left side and irremovable coffee stains on the right. I bought it from a boy I worked with at Robek’s Juice back in high school. He was a young entrepreneur. I can’t remember his name. He had brown hair and braces.
Amber, Danika and I make our way through the smoke laden depravity of the Hilton casino to meet four other girls. The other part of our party has decided to get a little more dolled up for the occasion. Mini dresses, legs, and dangling earrings.
One mini-stretch limo ride later, our group is loudly traveling through the Excalibur Hotel and Casino. I’m holding up the back, watching the girls in front make their way. One of the girls makes some retort back at a group of boys carrying hurricane cups. “You girls are fat!” one dude yells. For obvious reasons I find this extraordinarily humorous and laugh the remaining forty feet to the ticket counter.
Forty-seven dollars and forty-five cents apiece buys us stage left seats in two black vinyl booths. The view is shit. The gaggle of girls wearing silver palette dresses, birthday tiaras, and various bachelorette paraphernalia is blocking an already weak view of where the action’s inevitably going to take place. There’s an intro song that plays 39 seconds too long, it’s name I have erased from the Readily Useful Memory Bank. The boys come out together, dancing in what should technically be a synchronized, semi-nude, Britney Spears backup dancer dance. Instead, I have paid for three boys dancing in sync, one who obviously thinks he is above The Thunder From Down Under, another who routinely spins in the opposite of his comrades, and two with long hair who have passionately integrated the “Hair Flip” into their routine.
Our first solo routine is Chris “The Wild One” giving us his naked interpretation of Captain Sparrow. His nipple clips glitter like pirates’ booty under the stage lighting, gels switching from red to blue to red to yellow to blue. A fog machine goes off. Girls squeal. Boredom overtakes the room. An ass swerve revives hollering.
The rest of the show continues with the aforementioned pattern for another hour and fifteen minutes. Each “dancer” gets his own time to turn our childhood heroes into sexual desirables. A racecar driver, a greasy mechanic, a fireman, a vaguely romantic fellow in silk satin pajamas that for some reason doesn’t really resonate with the ladies. I feel exploited. The finale brings the team back together, all wearing denim chaps and white hats. I can’t see Amber, but I hear her screaming all of the lyrics from “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” at the top of her lungs. This could be heaven, but I doubt it.

Las Vegas Expense Report

It’s that time again: convention work modeling. Each time I sign up for a job like this, I can’t help but be forced to compare it to It’s a Small World. Except the people aren’t Disneyfied multi-ethnic plastic midgets, they’re dumb skinny bitches. Cuckoo clock modeling, every hour on the hour.

Las Vegas Expense Report

$0.00
My boyfriend drives me to the airport. The trip obviously costs him something (i.e. time and gas money) but this is my expense report. Matter struck irrelevant.

$17.00
I split the cab with three other girls. I’m usually the one to collect funds because I’m “good with numbers.” Seventeen plus three for tip to make it easy equals twenty divided by four…Gee whiz…

$2.50
Aaron and I make the trek past and through the Barry Manilow store, resisting the urge to purchase Manilow Merlot and StrawBarry lip balm. We arrive at the Las Vegas Hilton General Store. I grab a 1.2 liter bottle of Smart Water. I think about getting snacks but resist. The woman rings it up. “Six dollars.” Uh, huh. No, I don’t think so. I offer to take it back to the refrigerated isle. She tells me she’ll do it. I sense that this is less an altruistic, occupational duty and more that she believes I am going to steal it out of spite. On our way back up to the hotel room with Floor 16 views of this neon wasteland, I buy a bottle of Desani from the vending machine. Ounce per ounce, this was a rather dim decision. And it’s tap water. Fuck off, Coca Cola.

$4.04
Whenever I travel I realize that the two latte a day habit I have developed in the privacy of my own home translates to a very pricey business expense while traveling for work.

$11.80
Twelve garbanzo beans. Four slices of processed chicken. Gorgonzola cheese that I asked for on the side after substituting avocado was deemed impossible. Iceberg lettuce with carrot strings. Definitely not homemade Italian dressing.

$4.50
I break down and buy a bigger bottle of water from the Coffee Bean. The cashier tells me it’s one of the better deals in town. Ultimately, I would have been better served buying that first Smart Water. The prospect will haunt me the rest of my stay in Las Vegas.

$36.00
When I find out the hotel gym costs $20 a day, my frugality kicks and screams and buries my credit card in a random pair of shorts. Four hours into some seriously recycled convention air and toxic fluorescent lighting, we decide a pricey run on the treadmill and a moment in the steam room might be just the ticket. And if you buy two days instead of one you save $2 a day! Wow. I do fill up my $4.50 water bottle four times total, an $18 value. I steal five razors with moisture strips, two red apples and three bananas. Hilton has practically paid me to exercise and sweat. Boo ya.

$13.00
Margarita Grill. Aaron and I will split the same dish three nights in a row: two chicken soft tacos with a side of rice and beans (holding the cheese on nights two and three) plus the Jumbo Guacamole split four ways. By the third night we’re feeling adventurous and get two chicken tostadas and one chicken taco that we forget to specify soft or crispy. We end up with crispy.

$47.45
My biggest expense but not necessarily my wisest. The Thunder from Down Under, Australia’s Hottest Export. I had never been to a male revue before. The most I had ever heard about it was back in middle school. It was rumored that Alex Mendoza’s* father was a stripper at Chip ‘N Dales. I will dive into greater depth on this subject later.

$3.22
Our flight gets delayed an hour and fifteen minutes due to some reason never relayed to we passengers. I buy the Cranberry Power Mix from the Las Vegas Fruit and Nut Stand. I do not tell the cashier that there is a fly in the Dried Mango bin.

$10.00
My contribution for gas and parking. I cram this into the cigarette tray of Danika’s Audi despite her refusal. Take me home. Please.





*Names have been changed to protect the most likely uninnocent

Seattle: Sunset: August: Sixth

The light here is brighter. The colors more pungent and the white as blue as Kristin Poms' were in high school, something I always thought to be the result of a slightly freakish accident in the pioneering of Brite Smile technology. I have escaped the kitchen cum makeup room for a cement seat amongst some plants. Some ways down the street a drum line plays on invisibly. I cannot venture out to further investigate the noise, as I have given myself a thirty-foot leash from the venue doors.
A woman walks past sloppily with a tireless seeingeye dog. I wonder of it's self-awareness in terms of good Samaritanship. I hope she feeds him treats at nighttime; little dog treats shaped like dirty brown cupcakes.
Some man in the drumline yells in Swahili or some African language not offered in my high school ciriculum. The older woman in khakis and a white shirt shimmies about, uncoordinated but well intentioned. "Godeh! Godeh! Godeh! Everybody, move it! Animahl!" I am probably a bit off.
A bug crawls on my right wrist. A streetcar drives by. "18th and Lovejoy." How pleasant a destination, I think. A woman's large bottom walks past, perfectly timed with the bass drum I can only hear.

BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM

D.C.

Our taxi driver arrives in front of The Hotel Palomar at fifteen to seven. I sit inside drinking coffee with soy milk and eating the everything bagel I stole from work the day before. Free breakfast. Heather's afraid the cabs are going to be poached by other hotel patrons so we begin to load early, throwing our bags into a 1989 Cadillac station wagon. The cabbie later tells us it is reliable and easy to fix; his third one in his cabbie lifetime. The dense foliage blurring past us, wood sided suburban houses slipping through. In and out, in and out. Jam funk music circa some disco era plays on the stereo. The blue synthetic felt fabric that was once tightly adhered to the ceiling droops overhead. Meg moves it away with her hand a few times. Karen and I share a blue leather bench seat and listen to the cabbie talk about gas prices cutting into revenues. Although he never uses the term "cutting into revenues." He says something closer to "shredding into my money."
Dulles Airport is a mid-century take on "an airport of the future." The main terminal rises out from the surrounding flatness. Inside the ceiling swoops overhead, allowing you to imagine what it would be like to be under the belly of a UFO. We ride from the main terminal to Terminal D in a military-esque transporter as wide as a boat and one story high, riding on wheels the size of a semi-truck or some discarded military vehicle. I'm not usually a sucker for chatzky garbage, but when we pass the general store with 2008 election paraphernalia I can't help but want to buy the GOP Cookies and Democrat Snacks. I buy Danika a visually uninspiring "Barack Obama for President" pin, a Republican and a Democrat "Got President?" mug both decorated with a red, white, and blue version of their party mascot. I now feel vastly more connected to the democratic process of my country.

Models Digest

Yelling over the inane prattle at Hyde one night, I told my MIT graduate friend that my brain was atrophying like the legs of a paraplegic. My prescription came in the form of a subscription to The Economist, a worldly and well written weekly periodical discussing business, politics, the road to global explosion, etc. Having grown up on a diet of The Wall Street Journal and the Financial TImes, it fit well within the boundaries of my regular reading habits. I attribute my rebound into the intellectually capable crowd to a combination of my friend's generosity and my giving up on a six month Vegan bender in which my brain received little protein.
It would seem that the number of people in my field rarely share my enthusiasm. The reading regimen of my peers consists of US Weekly, Star, In Touch, Cosmopolitan (most often read by the Mormon's), and Elle. Generally Vanity Fair does little to offend my senses and when it is present I consider it a step up from the usual fodder. Call me completely self-involved but I care far more about my own life than that of some MTV reality star. I don't give a shit that Shiloh met the twins. The size of Mischa Barton's thighs should really be no concern of mine and I frankly don't understand why it rivets anyone else. Admittedly there have been a few times that flipping through one of these trash mags provided me with a few little gems: a picture of an Ed Hardy clad male model I work with following behind Britney Spears titled "Is Dante the new K-Fed?", a photograph of another male model with Paula Abdul (easily twenty years his senior), and I struggle to come up with a memorable third.

Seat 7F Virgin America STAC to LAX

The red paint encasing the engine to my right glides past the blue. Seattle beneath me. I watch as it dips further to the side, now contrasting against water and green. A beautiful city although a bit sad. After pulling out my camera to document the view I feel sick; the trail mix swishing around with the latte I had earlier from the chocolate shop. These trips never fail to sap my energy and ravage my otherwise decent complexion. Even though the hotel was user friendly and aside from the first morning (a 4 am wake up for a 6 am flight), the schedule wasn't necessarily grueling. Not grueling like working in a Chinese computer recycling camp or a diamond mine in Ghana, and probably not as grueling as my high school tenure at Robek's Juice. I suppose I'm tired from the three days of community complaining about this job and all it entails. "This shit doesn't pay enough" followed by "fucking __________ ." The food sucks, the money's shit, the traveling blows, the fittings are long, and the rehearsal is tedious. We are a bunch of insolent children in our mid-twenties.
The woman the seat in front of me is watching CNN. Barack Obama greets hundreds of Berliners: shaking hands and smiling. "Obama is widely popular in Europe" the tag line reads. I try to imagine a foreign political figure being greeted in such a way stateside; that we Americans would put aside our self-centeredness long enough to care about the politicians of another country. The Germans look at him with the kind of hope only generated by those of us who will eventually be able to punch is name in a ballot card.
Her son, this woman's son, has Alvin and the Chipmunks on. I never realized how ridiculous the basis of the cartoon's storyline was until seeing Jason Lee pick up a stack of waffles leaking maple syrup from under a rug and glower at three seven-inch tall squirrels. I would watch my own TV but I am stuck in the window seat with an overweight woman plugging up my exit like cork in a bottle of Merlot. The boy's headphones don't work and the mother tells him to be patient, saying she will get the flight attendant for help (which she never does). She continues to watch CNN. I can't help but think that my mother would have switched seats with me so that I could watch the movie.

United Flight 324

Every now and again, or rather, again and again and again and again I am subjected to the rather tiresome exercise otherwise known as flying.  The chore has become increasingly tedious as the mode of transportation has gone from a fairly selective to utterly pedestrian.  I am, in short, aboard the equivalent of a public bus 40 thousand miles above the ground.  The democracy of aviary travel is ruining my life.

This flight, in particular, has become particularly noteworthy.  Maybe it's due to the fact I have woken up at 4 am, 1:30 am, and 3:30 am the past three days.  Maybe I'm being oversensitive.  But maybe, just maybe, this really is the flight from hell.

What I Am Currently Disliking (Strongly) About This Flight:

1.  There are two hours remaining.  

2.  Over the course of the last three hours I have been forced to listen to the child sitting next to me ask such questions as:

"Mom, why is she sitting here?" 

"Are we even moving?"

"Is my water going to be cold?"

And conversations similar to:

"How much longer do we have?"

"An hour and fifty minutes."

"An hour?"

"An hour and fifty minutes."

"An hour?"

"A little less than two hours.

"Less or more?"

"Less."

The highlight being simultaneously entertaining and depressing:

"Are we going down?"

"Yes."

"Is someone going to shoot us?"

"No."

3.  I have had only two three ounce servings of water served to me since I boarded.  I am far too cheap to shell out $4 for a bottle of Desani from the airport and I forgot my empty 1.5 liter Trader Joe's water bottle to fill up with tap water.  The ravages of dehydration are setting in and I am beginning to feel my lips recede past my gums like a Victorian corpse in a wooden box.  

4.  The Taiwanese man that I switched seats with when asked by his wife, "You switch with my husband, okay?" has left his seat reclined into my lap the entire trip.  The person in front of him (aka the person who I should have in front of me per my United Airlines e-ticket) has kindly left his erect.  That's the last time I do you a favor, buddy.

5.  I am starving.  And no, Airlines, I don't want your shitty hot meals.  The last time I got a treat like that, a female flight attendant threw a cheese burger wrapped in plastic, burger sweat fogging up the expanding container.  What I would like is a granola bar, a bag of nuts, something that I don't have to pay for whilst in the middle of a five hour hunger pang.

6.  Rest assured, I am not naive enough to believe such fare will be provided for me.  Before boarding I bought my go-to trail mix which is now making me painfully gaseous.  I attribute this to the raisins.

7.  Our movie options were Horton Hears a Hoo and Gold Rush.  Enough said.

8.  I am close enough to the restroom to experience what I believe to be people passing gas en route.  I suppose the freedom I feel in having one foot of empty space to the right of me is only beneficial when said air is not full of methane gas.

9.  The state of the singular bathroom servicing sixty coach passengers was already in poor form one hour into flight.  The crevices in the floor corners collected piss like a rain gutter in Lilliput.

10.  While attempting to nap, a child stepped on my sandal-clad foot while running down the isle.  I am lucky he was young and light, not one of those super-sized children I read about in Time.  Children are quite fat these days.  Not to continue the barrage on the mother/son team next to me, but I was a bit befuddled when the mother tried to up sell Coke to her child and questioned his only wanting water.  He ended up with cranberry juice which I thought to be a sugary compromise.

Bodies of Water

Another Day in the Valley

I hate my apartment.  I can't live in it, can't exist in it.  I can't walk in there and take off my sandals in the hallway anymore. I can't stand to look across the 17 foot gap of air and concrete separating me from the 30 unit stucco piece of shit adjacent to my 30 unit stucco piece of shit.  And if I have one more dinner consisting of 1/4 cup of roasted garlic hummus, half an avocado, and some odd ounces of Trader Joe's precooked rotisserie chicken, I will kill.   I. Can't. Take. It. Anymore.

So when I have a day off from subjecting myself to castings and auditions, I drive the 25 miles to my mother's house in Woodland Hills.  My Audi takes Premium gasoline.  So my premium trip to the outskirts of Los Angeles costs me roughly $4.37 each way.  Nonetheless, at this point in my apartment-existing life the benefit of a poolside coffee and web surfing bender is priceless.

12:08 pm

I leave a casting for a cheesy LA t-shirt company.  Will I get it?  Who the hell knows.  I get on the 10 West to the 110 North to the 101 West.  Traffic.  This city is ridiculous.  Traffic breaks up after people figure out how to merge.  I estimate that the process generally takes 2 miles.  It should take a matter of seconds, but the synapses of the people coming from Interstate 5 flicker on and off like the light bulbs in a trailer home.  Traffic backs up again around Laurel Canyon.  An accident.  I drive...and drive...and drive.  

1:01 pm

Arrival to Mom's gated house.  I'm starving.  Her refrigerator is predictable, as is my diet.  I help myself to an iced latte with almond milk.  Over the course of my stay this afternoon I will have consumed 3 double shot iced lattes.  That is a lot.  By the end of the day the Costco-sized bucket of Sabra hummus is almost out.  I eat hummus daily.  Hummus with crackers, hummus with carrots, hummus with pita, hummus on a spoon, hummus on chicken.  I am turning into a chickpea.

1:35 pm

I frantically scour the Internet for reasons to live and things to do with my life.  Currently I am looking for apartments with my boyfriend which means I have an unhealthy addiction to Craigslist.

3:57 pm

Tyler sends me his friend's user name and password for Westsiderentals.  The layout gives me a headache and the apartments similar to the one I am running away from.  I anticipate mild usage of the website.

5:02 pm

I realize part of the reason I travel to this godforsaken part of the San Fernando Valley is the cheap dry cleaner I've been using since high school.  I take in the sweater my mom stole from her ex-husband (my ex-step dad) and that I have now stolen from her.  I thought I would treat the fuzzy wool thing to a chemical bath.  My boyfriend is as cheap as I am so I have demanded that he give me his dry cleaning: 1 black Gucci dress shirt, 1 pair black Helmut Lang dress pants, 1 black Helmut Lang knit sweater.  When they tell me that they're sorry they've lost the 2 dresses I left with them last time I don't get mad because I can't remember what the hell I left there.  My boyfriend will be mad if they lose his.  I hope they don't.

5:19 pm

I drive to the cheapest gas station on Fallbrook to fill up.  I pull in as a man in a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee tries to attempt the same from the other side.  He gets mad.  He yells.  I tell him I will just back my car up.  I do.  He kisses my ass.  What an idiot.

5:27 pm

My mom left her reading glasses at the vet.  I'm picking them up because she works 15 hour days plus commuting time to downtown.  She will come home later and have 3 glasses of wine, 2 chocolate chip cookie "dunkers", and frozen yogurt topped with strawberries and mangoes.  This is her dinner.  This is her life.

6:30 pm

Dinner.  Tuna.  I open the can and squeeze out the juice.  It sprays all over my jumper and gets on my feet.  At one point in my life I considered myself to be a gourmet.  This is one of my lower moments that presents itself with greater regularity.

6:45 pm

My car's filthy.  I wash it.  

6:59 pm

Mom comes home.  I go buy the aforementioned frozen yogurt.

7:11 pm

I come home to my mom spying on the neighbors through the guest bedroom window.  The lights are off so they can't see her.  She mumbles something about them removing the stucco under the eaves of their roof and calls them something along the lines of "fucking weirdos."  She crawls off the bed and I hand her the white paper bag with her frozen yogurt inside.

7:48 pm

We sit outside and I show my mom all of the apartments I've been looking at on Craigslist.  I have my third and final latte.  My head hurts.