It began with the usual 3hr flight from Van-city to the 10th Circle of Hell known as LAX.
With no extra baggage in tow, I whipped downstairs to the passenger pick-up zone and waited for good friend and legendary BS booster Fallen Angel to snag me from Hades jaws.
Little did I know that the fleshy face of God herself would be there to soothe my weary heart with warm banter, mild flirtation, and genuine interest in all things saintly. With a promo copy of the saga in her sweaty songstress mitts, I ran to the curb and officially began the weekend’s festivities!
LA freeways are another demonic device. Often, the only respite is to watch for very important people whizzing past you in very expensive machines – like a modified version of the old Punch-Buggy game, but rated by the driver’s level of celebrity and/or substance abuse record. The fellow in the pic to the right helped me rack up a formidable score…(bonus points if you can name the car, as it’s an old love of mine)
Cut to an evening of dive-bar karoake – now and forever established as ‘tradition’, thanks to the singular culture shock…and lingering fears of the non-bottled beverage and unlicensed firearm variety. But I fondly digress…
The next day, my mind and body – if not my very soul – were on loan to a wing of theEvil Empire. The marketing and PR crews that greeted me were interesting enough fems and fellows in their own right, if only for an uncannily natural grasp of Newspeak and a collective cubicle-sheik fashion sense. Hands were grasped. Plots were plotted. Glorious new packaging was ogled. And then, almost as soon as it had begun, I was whisked across the way for the now-standard ‘I’m in town so I might as well be productive‘ pitch. And it was…fun…in the ‘overtly comical’ sense. Particularly when my impassioned plot synopsis was interrupted mid-superlative by completely unrelated telephonic perk queries from this fellow. God bless those precious early seconds of lazily-managed speakerphone.
By now, the sun was setting with a smoggy shroud in the West, but our new distribby pals couldn’t let me slumber with an booze-free bloodsteam. A dearth of slickster attire on my part got more than its fair share of ogling here, but any discomfort was soon remedied by orgiastic consumption…and the pleasant result of corporate facades being dropped, and genuine humanity coming out to play. A wonderful night.
And then along came Saturday: early morning NPR, Green Tea Blackberry Frappuccinos, and easy HOV lanes all conspired to take my hand and swing it merrily through the oak and flowered gates of the SoCal Renaissance Fair. Eager throngs in all manner of period dress and dialect, excellent live performances of the comedic and/or physically adept variety, euphoria-inducing raspberry mead, and truly monstrous roast turkey legs (big enough to thrill the size-wench in all of us) made for a fantastic and festive experience. (snoopers of the Flickr variety might have a chortle and guffaw at my costumed expense)
All in all…? I’m starting to glean that I might actually have a life – indeed, perhaps even one possessing a scant degree of merit to various kin and the occasional passerby.
How did heck did that happen?
🙂