The next morning we rolled out of Tom's bed, took our time making coffee, showering, getting dressed. I did a little yoga in the slats of light that snuck between the kitchen blinds, casting all the way to the living room floor of the little studio.
I left a thank you note for Tom on the bed stand, and we headed out to find the breakfast place he'd recommended.
Our first move was to wait for the bus that ran down the nearest big cross street. We stood at the stop for about 15 minutes, slathering on cheap sunscreen from the gas station, and watched our bus pass right by us. It stopped across the intersection and then moved on before we realized that the plexiglass shelter with a bench, by which we waited, was not actually a bus stop. It was just the remnants of one, now being used as a bed by a gentleman of few means.
We crossed the street and found the real stop, with a sign and everything. I felt exposed and self-conscious, standing on the sunny corner of the huge intersection while SUVs zoomed past me and the only other pedestrians were of a similar character to our sleeping friend.
"Do I still have any sunscreen streaks on my face?" I asked Mark.
He squinted and peered carefully.
"No, I think you're good. Do I?"
I squint-peered back, and found a smudge by his ear to rub in, wondering if we looked as out of place as I felt.
The bus finally arrived, and when I asked how much the fare was, the driver just waved me away, indicating I should sit down and not worry about it.
"No wonder the public transportation sucks," I said to Mark. "I mean if they don't even bother to collect fares, at least to keep track of how many people are riding, they're not going to get any funding."
We bounced up the street, watching for Sunset Boulevard. The bus seemed impossibly noisy and bumpy, like someone had forgotten to put in any rubber bits, had just bolted together a clanking pile of metal.
I saw Sunset coming up, but the bus veered off to the left before crossing it. I made my way up to the bus driver.
"I'm trying to get to Sunset -- does the bus wrap back around, or..."
"No, you should get off here."
"Oh, okay, thanks--" I waved Mark over, and we hopped out. "Sunset is over there, right?" I asked the driver.
"Yep, just cross that way and you'll be there," she said cheerfully.
"Thank you!" I said. Cheer is about the last thing you get from Chicago bus drivers.
We crossed a confusing set of bending intersections, but found Sunset. Now the question was which way we needed to go. We discussed what direction we were facing, which way Sunset went, whether the numbers could be counted on to be continuous, which way they were going, and finally decided we knew what we were doing. We started walking, feeling fairly confident.
We kept walking, and kept walking, and kept walking, and started getting a little cranky about walking. We finally stopped inside a music store to ask directions to our cross-street. We were assured we were going the right way, but that it was another fifteen minutes walk, at least.
We looked out for a bus, but didn't see one until we'd already been walking for about 10 minutes, at which point it seemed silly. Some pleasant-looking old men dressed in pastels assured us that we were almost there, and finally, an hour and fifteen minutes since we'd left, we arrived at our destination.
The restaurant was a cute retro diner-type place, with a U-shaped counter, little booths, and pleasant indie music.
The hipster server gave us advice on ordering and was very pleasant, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring at me. In fact, I felt like there were a number of people looking at me, at any given moment. I wished I was wearing something I liked more than a couple of cotton tanks and cargo-type capris. But since I didn't look that interesting, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't being stared at for anything in particular about me, but just for the sake of staring. That it must be a cultural difference.
In Chicago, a server takes your order without looking at you unless you're looking at them. Like, when you're hesitating on your order, looking at the menu, they look at their pad, pen poised, or at your menu -- not at you. Not so in LA, it seemed. People spend more thought on appearances and presentation, I think, and so spend more time observing them.
We consumed enormous pancakes and some sort of futuristic organic mimosa thing that cost more than our food.
When we finished, we decided to go explore Echo Park, which we'd heard was a cool neighborhood, and maybe affordable. We took the Sunset bus for maybe 20 minutes, asking the bus driver (who let us pay, this time) where to get off for Echo Park. He seemed uncertain, but gave us a general idea.
We got out and went into a gas station (again) to buy a map and a big jug of water (since I'd forgotten my Nalgene at Tom's). We figured out where we were, and headed for Echo Park itself. On the way, we crossed a street about 15 feet from the intersection -- very Chicago standard.
"What the fuck are you doing?" a woman yelled out of a beat-up white sports car.
"Jesus," I said to Mark. He didn't say anything. He looked uncomfortable.
We made our way through a neighborhood that I couldn't quite interpret -- it was sort of cute, but sort of run down, but sort of colorful, but sort of shady. It just didn't translate to my urban sensors. I got the feeling it wasn't the greatest neighborhood, but at least during the day, it wasn't dangerous, either.
The park was peppered with homeless people. We only saw one pair of people that looked like they were enjoying being outside by choice rather than by necessity.
We sat down by the pond, which was a scummy brown, in order to drink some of our water.
"Well this is pretty," Mark said.
"You think? I dunno. There are so many homeless people, and these palm trees are just so tall it doesn't feel very protected or cozy, you know?"
"I think it's nice," Mark said, sounding irritated. I wondered if he just appreciated the aesthetic on some level that I didn't get, yet, since he'd been in Southern Cali to visit his folks many times.
There were a few disreputable looking ducks floating around, including James B. Duck, whose existence I documented with my phone's camera.James B. Duck? Brown, baby.
I wasn't sure whether I felt more amused or disturbed.
Mark and I took turns feebly trying to buck the other up. We pored over the map and chose a street that looked like it was close enough to a main drag to be convenient, and far enough to be appealing.
We walked down the length of the park, and headed across the main street, not jaywalking this time.
I was walking fast. Mark complained that he had a headache. I tried to slow down. We were walking uphill in the sun, past little bungalows and two-flats.
"God, the streets are so wide, even on a little side street like this," I said.
"Mm hm." Mark said.
"And the sun is so direct, it just, I feel so exposed. There just aren't trees like in Chicago, you know?"
"I guess."
"What?" I said, annoyed by his lack of response.
"What do you want me to say? You just seem determined to not like LA," he said.
I stopped walking.
"I don't want to dislike it, I just... I don't think that's true. I do want to like it." No response. "Can you just talk to me?" I said.
"I'd rather not," he said.
"Mark, come on, I'm sorry I'm being negative. This is just kinda freaking me out, how far apart everything is, and, just, I don't know. Trying to imagine living here."
"Yeah, moving will be really hard. Really, really hard."
I sighed. "Can we sit here for a minute, in the shade?" I said. There was a small scrubby tree on the corner. He sat down, not looking at me. I sat next to him and used a twig to play with the ants on the sidewalk. I took a deep breath.
"This is a pretty cute area, though, don't you think?" I tried.
"Yeah," the resentful answer came.
"Could you imagine living here?"
"I guess, I don't know. If I'd known we were going to be doing this for the day, I wouldn't have agreed to it."
"I thought you wanted to check out a neighborhood, too...?" A car pulled up to a house nearby, and the driver (a preppy white guy) got out and looked at us suspiciously, as he walked inside. I was close to tears.
"Not really."
"Okay, well, I didn't understand that. I'm sorry." Silence. "So what should we do?"
"I just want to relax. This is my vacation," he said.
"Okay, well, we're here, so I mean. Should we just walk around a bit, see what there is to see?"
No response. "I'll try not to be so negative; I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he said, and put an arm around me.
"Do you want some water?" I said.
"Yeah."
And so we got back up and started walking more slowly. We decided we should smoke the little bit of weed I had with me. We kept our eyes open for a concealed spot.
We came across a house that was under construction, its yard raised from the sidewalk, gated in, and surrounded by trees.
"Oh wow," I breathed, peering through the wrought iron gate.
"That's awesome," Mark said.
"Yeah. Wow. I wonder what the deal is." Construction materials littered the yard, under a tree that was strung with Chinese lanterns, across the flagstone area in front of the entrance, on the shaded grass. "Why don't we smoke here? Doesn't look like anyone's home."
"Yeah, okay."
The steps were set a good 10 feet back from the sidewalk, with a wall on either side, and trees shading us from above. We poked a hole in the water bottle, made a bowl out of aluminum foil, and congratulated ourselves on our cleverness.
Moods altered, we decided to walk on, discussing the virtues of living on a hill versus the difficulty of biking uphill, the idea of renting our own little bungalow, the fact that there must be other quirky little spots in LA that were appealing, as evidenced by this house.
I opened the water to take a swig and realized we had not been so clever, after all.
"Oh my god this is almost as bad as bongwater," I said.
"Oh no!"
"Oh god, and I have such cottonmouth," I said, handing him the water. He took a swig.
"Bongtastic," he said.
"Blech."
And we walked on, using our map to head us toward downtown LA, where we could grab the train back to Orange County. Our through-street turned out to be under construction, and also in the middle of a distinctly less friendly neighborhood. A few people stared at us from their houses as we walked by. It was clearly not a place meant for walking.
We stopped to ask directions from guys in a van that looked like a news crew. They looked to be Latino, and I wasn't sure if they would necessarily speak English, so I spoke clearly and slowly, and was immediately embarrassed when the guy responded with unaccented perfect English.
They said that it was a very long walk to downtown, and didn't know what way to recommend, clearly confused by the very idea of navigating on foot, so we said thanks anyway, and just chose another route from the map.
We walked for maybe another hour and a half, backtracking a bit in order to cross expressways.
"This is like that Super Mario level where everything is huge, you know?" I said to Mark.
"Ha, totally," he said, taking in the enormous concrete expressway girders, the office complex set way back from the street, surrounded by a huge parking lot, the palm trees looming way way way overhead.
"God, I'm so thirsty, but I just don't know if I can drink anymore of this," I said.
"Oh no way," Mark said.
And so we learned that LA, as a whole, is not walkable. And also not to use your water bottle to smoke your weed.
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