Home-ness-less
Alright, everybody, settle down now. I said, SHUTTHEFUCKUP! Thank you.
As some of you may know, I used to call Los Feliz my home. I also used to live in downtown shalala in the Higgins Building (sadly, I moved out the very month The Edison finally opened). Here is a picture!
I would post more pictures, to give you a sense of some of the debauchery and scandal that, well—but I am at my work computer. So just close your eyes and pretend like you can see:
Living in these places granted me the privilege of walking and taking the metro rail everywhere and, except for the grocery-needing parts of life*, all was one giant glimmery, sky-lined walk in the park. I encountered all kinds of people, glared at even more people, and ran away from tons more!
One person sticks out in my mind the most. I don’t know her name , but I guarantee you, right this second (because it’s winter), she is standing in front of the Elysian Masonic Temple Association on the corner of Vermont and Franklin. She has a worn black carry-on behind her, near the bushes, and she is holding a sketchbook. A lady in her late-fifties, perhaps, she’s always in crisp white clothes and shoes, black eyeliner and bright pink lipstick, wearing her platinum blond hair bound back into a ponytail. She is the most elegant homeless woman I’ve ever known.
If you don’t see her at the corner of Vermont and Franklin, it’s because it must be summer now, and you can find her by Y-Que Trading Post. There’s shade over by the Trading Post and a bus bench for her to take a break from sketching or pretend-sketching. I don’t really know what she does with that sketchbook, because I was always too busy (shy) to approach her. What would I had said? I suppose I could have started with “Who does your hair?” or “Do I have something in my teeth?” but I didn’t. Instead, when the weather got cold, I would leave $5 bills tucked into the bush.
The last time I did this, I was walking home on a Christmas, which I had spent alone**, having to entertain myself by drinking at a fancy restaurant bar and watching a movie at Mann Grauman’s Chinese. It was night, and it was fucking freezing. Naturally furious that I had to break up with my boyfriend now (because he hadn’t yet called even, and, also, who does that?), I stormed past the Elysian Masonic Temple Association, the little black suitcase in the corner only registering among my flurry of thoughts when I was half a block away. I came back and looked around. And I didn’t feel pity (never pity!), but I was genuinely concerned. Where is she tonight? Is she happy? Is she warm? Did her boyfriend he leave her alone all day? Is she plotting his murder right now?
I left a $20 in the bushes that day, mainly because it was all I had on me, but also because I had calmed down a lot, standing there, I definitely sauntered into the house in a different head space. People with Swarovski headphones in their ears, Moschino gloves on their hands, and Armani coats are not allowed to feel bad about their lot in life; EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO BE FINE.
And maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.
THE END
*The Ralph’s Fresh Fare on Flower & 9th hadn’t yet launched, but the Little Tokyo Market did me alright. For late-night cigarettes, Barclay Hotel was a dangerous, but short, walk away. Ah, I miss the creepy feeling of being followed near skid-row :]
**Not what I had wanted. But also, I don’t sit around waiting for any man. I’m all, to the left, to the left. Incidentally, so you don’t feel sad for me, Latinos celebrate on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is a whole ‘nother thing white people do, I dunno.
