Just Stick To The Schedule

I like taking the bus.

There, I said it.

I know it's not a cool thing to admit, especially in LA, a city for which the price of admission is a  lease on a Toyota Prius or something with similar social status attached.

Since ridesharing has made traversing the city in the comfort of a private vehicle as affordable as a large double shot almond milk latte from a Silverlake coffee shop, many would argue there is no need to deal with the much maligned LA Metro.  They would say that there is no need subject yourself to rubbing shoulders with skid-row bound stoners who lean uncomfortably close while you desperately pretend that you are writing something really, really important, when you are in fact scribbling,

 "everything is going to be ok"

 over and over, illegibly in a note book emblazoned with the phrase,  

"Believe In Yourself".  

Many would ask, why squint into the setting sun on Santa Monica Boulevard when you could be use the 5 minutes til your Uber arrives to put yet another layer of brown crayon over the eyebrows you overplucked in the 90s, all from the comfort of your barely partitioned bedroom. DO I LOOK LIKE CARA DELAVIGNE YET?? 

 No, you don't and you have more crows feet than Helen Mirrin.

 But here's the thing. Every time I choose to take the bus, I learn a little something. I learn about patience. I learn to allow much more time.  I learn that that huge dude who smells like pot and keeps asking you if you "like to RIDE the bus" while he raises his eybrows suggestively, isn't really any kind of threat.  I learn that LA isn't all giraffe-tall models and I-can-make-you-famous "producer" types.

I learn that, even when it feels like it isn't possible, even when shit gets more uncomfortable than Beyonce facing off with 'Becky with the good hair',  I will get where I'm going, and I will arrive in one piece, and that right now feels like a pretty crucial lesson.

I LEARNED A LIFE LESSON, AND NOT FROM A TAYLOR SWIFT SONG= WINNING.


I also learn that anyone who can't understand why I would want to sit, staring out a huge (ok, graffiti laden) window at the Griffith Park Observatory while the dusk shaddows set in, probably won't understand the vast majority of my life choices. No, no one has ever vomited on me on the bus. And I've never seen a drug deal going down.

I also learn that sometimes, you gotta know when to fold.

Javier in a black Toyota Prius is on his way, so I'll see you soon.

LA: Sea Of Crazy

“LA is driving me crazy”,  I say.

“Crazy good? Crazy bad? Crazy other?" he replies.

“Just all the crazies,”  I say, and I know he knows what I mean.

He suggests brunch/coffee/whatever and the Monday morning fog lifts. It's good to have friends in this crazy city.

I’m currently dodging phone calls from a man whose name I’ve forgotton. I haven't saved his number and he's been sending me emoji based text messages and leaving voicemails I don't listen to. This morning I answer the phone, only because I'm expecting a call from another unknown number,

"Hell, this is Cat speaking," I say.

There's a short pause and then,

“How come you look so sweet, but talk so tough?” he says.

I'm caught off guard, tripping over my own defenses into the sea of crazy, floundering for a reply. Am I lacking articulacy or self awareness? Both?

"I can't hear you," is my cowards reply as I hold the phone away from my face to catch some ambient noise before I hang up and quickly save his number as Do Not Answer.

He rings straight back and I put my phone into my handbag, letting it vibrate against my collection of notebooks and pens.

I don't need a stranger forcing me to face own dichotomies today.

I need coffee and brunch and a friend who keeps me from disappearing in the fog.