February in New York, 2023

I found my cafe today. It’s a corner cafe at Lewis and Van Buren and a four-minute walk from my apartment. Although the cafe has only been open since August—I just asked—I’m only discovering it now, I guess because if I’m being completely honest with myself (and you), I’m a house cat, could stay in my apartment for days (the fourth floor is so far from the ground floor), and am not as much of an explorer as I am in my mind, or as I would like to be. But we are who we are. The cafe, which I will not name so that you will have to look it up if you’re really curious, is absolutely too cool or hip, or whatever word means “cool” and/or “hip” these days. When I walk into places like this cafe (or Highly Likely during my LA days), places I’m excited to have discovered, I feel an overwhelming hyperawareness of its coolness and continued coolness as it reveals itself to me (a font choice can change everything). The discomfort does fade with time—in this case, the approximately thirty minutes during which I try to gracefully eat a blueberry muffin that is so crumbly that I imagine taking it in my palm and squeezing it into a ball in my hand to keep it together.

The floors are concrete, the windows are a little dirty, and wall-mounted display shelves—wood on one wall, stainless steel on the other—quietly showcase a lot of incense paraphernalia; candles in scents like cardamom milk, which I’m going to buy; delicate clear glassware; and bags of Devoción coffee. All rather spaced apart.

Although, this is Brooklyn—Bed-Stuy—so I guess this is normal. I’m sitting in a black Alias spaghetti chair, one of three on the side of the Cool Communal Table for six that faces a wall of kind-of-dirty maybe-nine-foot-high windows lined with a hedge of potted plants of different types and heights, standing sentinel on a platform made of concrete block, two deep, four high. The plants and I are looking out at Lewis Av/Dr Sandy F Ray Boulevard. To my right, against the windows facing Van Buren is a long wood counter with two black barstools.

The Cool Communal Table has a thin dark red top in some kind of lacquered burled wood, thoroughly scratched and highly reflective. To my left is a woman sitting one spaghetti chair away. She is wearing a red knit sweater one shade brighter than the table and is growing a paragraph on her laptop by attacking her keyboard with one finger on each hand. Reflected in the dark tabletop are silhouettes of the two people, a woman and a man, sitting across from me. They are each having an iced coffee. No, you’re right, it’s probably cold brew. The woman appears to be studying Japanese out of a big workbook that makes me nostalgic for language class in general. She is wearing big black Apple headphones over a black beanie. Knitted into the black beanie is a butterfly as wide as the woman’s forehead. The soft butterfly is bright orange with lavender marks and white blobs for eyespots. Then I notice her companion’s MacBook Air, indistinguishable from mine except for a translucent sticker featuring a cartoonish drawing of a butterfly. Inside of the outline of the butterfly is a blue and green blob that we understand to be our planet Earth, spread across the body and onto each wing, with small yellow stars for eyespots at each end. As I sit there wondering What’s with the butterflies today?, a woman appears in the doorway with a child in a stroller. After they roll past me to the cashier, I hear one of the baristas compliment the little girl’s “butterfly”—toy, stuffed animal perhaps? “I like your butterfly. What’s your butterfly’s name? Caterpillar?” The response is too quiet for me to hear, but I think I hear the barista say, “Oh, it’s Evolution.”

The woman with the butterfly beanie also got a blueberry muffin, by the way. Our muffins’ scalloped brown wrappers each rest unfurled around its tiny plate like a fabulous dress train. The plate is completely too small for the muffin’s crumble radius, and the coffee mugs are completely impractical—the handle is barely larger than a Chiclet—and I’m absolutely going to be coming here every Saturday to write.

The next vignette was published here in August 2020. Remember mass emails, or emails, for that matter? This one is from my Year in New York—the year between my fourth and fifth year at Rice, what the architecture school calls the preceptorship year. The year I fell in love with New York, like so many had before, and decided I would return as soon as possible, after my fifth year. But I didn’t return as soon as possible and ended up in Los Angeles, of all places.

July in New York, 2006

July in New York is 98 degrees. I'm used to the heat, so on to more interesting things. I've been in New York for a little over three weeks. Got together with my sister's friend Kristen and found an apartment the second week. We are living on the Lower East Side on Suffolk between Delancey and Rivington. A stone's throw away from a number of boutiques, lovely restaurants, bars, bars, and more bars. Cake Shop, for example, sells coffee, snacks, and vinyl on the ground floor and booze and live music downstairs. Or Sugar Sweet Sunshine, apparently the best cupcakes in the city. Yes, better than the famous Magnolia Bakery. Flavors like Pistachio, Sexy Red Velvet. The perfect accompaniment to watching Project Runway. Jump on the JMZ and I'm in Brooklyn, walk west and I'm in Chinatown, walk north and I'm in the East Village, where my sister and her husband live. I work on the Upper West Side, which is about 45 minutes on the subway.

For those who know New York apartments, I live in a building replete with elevator, laundry in the basement, dishwasher in the kitchen, and A/C! The ground floor is occupied by Love A Lot Preschool. There is a shared balcony on the eighth floor with a nice view of rooftops and the Williamsburg Bridge, and a faint smell of Burger King next door. My super tells me Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, and Dave Chappelle have all been to the building for some parties. I'll keep my eye out. Besides a vegetarian homestyle Japanese cafe called Soy and a vintage boutique called Found, Suffolk is mostly residential. My roommate is from Vermont, went to Duke undergrad and Columbia grad school. She is 29 and a reporter for SmartMoney. She is vacationing in Morocco, so for ten days I'm pretending I have my own place in Manhattan.

I began work at Mitchell Giurgola Architects on Monday. The firm is made up of about forty people. When I arrived they had a desk and computer ready for me, my email set up, my own set of keys. I spent my first two days on CAD replacing existing doors on the Bronx Civil Supreme Courthouse and drinking coffee. The work day is 9-5:30 with an hour lunch. My first day a girl took me out to lunch, and I was a little nervous and poured my sweet and sour dipping sauce for my spring rolls all over my Pad Thai. I don't think she noticed. Today there was a lunch presentation by Liquid Boots Technologies on "cold-spray applied membrane technology." (Free lunch.) There are seven partners in the firm, and they seem pretty approachable. As far as the other people go, I felt comfortable enough to send an email to the entire firm to say hello, I'm the Rice intern, I sit next to the coat room, etc. Really my only concern right now is their enthusiasm in softball. They have no idea who they're dealing with. I didn't even pack my sneakers.

I think this might be my first mass email. And I don't feel good about it, but was I really going to write all 73 of you? I haven't talked to some of you in a while, some of you I may see soon, you know who you are. You made my mass email list; I'd love to hear from you. Serious points for a letter in the mail.

Ann

99 Suffolk St Apt 6E
New York, NY 10002

“April” means “to open”

I began L.A. Vignettes in January 2016 as part of my New Year’s resolution to write more. But what would I write about? I had zero interest in maintaining another aimless blog like Sit, Billy., which loosely documents my life from 2007 to 2013. I didn’t want the pressure of coming up with a narrative arc or having to form opinions about things. So after brainstorming some themes to adhere to—food? love? food?—I settled on the theme of Los Angeles. I would describe things related to Los Angeles. After all, descriptive papers were always my forté. So without further ado, I will describe.

At one end of my galley kitchen, behind a wood sliding door, my washing machine makes a continuous churning sound, before it goes silent, before it whirs. In front of the wood sliding door is a slim metal clothes-drying rack, draped with a pilled grey-green hoodie. Below, tiers of sports bras, thongs, and socks in an array of bruise colors, long dried, wait to be folded just-so and put away in their respective drawers. On one side of the rack, in the metal sink, a white ceramic coffee dripper holds a dark brown sludge—grounds delivered earlier this week by a Postmate from Super Domestic Coffee. After poring over the specialty coffee shop’s offerings, I decided on flavor notes of burnt sugar, dates, courage, and dark chocolate. Instead I got milk chocolate, caramel, walnut, and suffering. But no complaints.

To the right of the sink is an unofficial “dirty area,” inspired by the purple-gloved Dr. Sanjay Gupta in his CNN video How to properly wipe down your groceries, which has me forever imagining coronavirus as glitter—helpful and disturbing, considering how glitter gets everywhere.

The border between The Dirty Area and The End of the Counter, where a pile-of-papers-I-need-to-deal-with has sat mostly undisturbed since I came home from the office on March 16, is unclear. Behind the pile is my black Beats Pill speaker, which has run out of charge again. Less than six feet across the way are two pointy baguettes peeking out of a brown paper bag and a small cylinder of salami from Michelina. The closed end of the bag cantilevers over the counter.

It is silent behind the wood sliding door now. The soft chirps of birds (What kind of bird do you think that is?), the muffled sounds of impassioned neighbors (What language?), and the hum of light traffic punctuated by the occasional motorcycle, waft through dusty window screens, welcoming me to this Saturday evening in April.

Pickup Lines for Any Setting

Somewhere between West LA and Culver City.

"I don't know. You don't seem approachable to me. Probably haddat face like—” Jermain tsks, “—eyebrow up and everything, like, mm mm,” says Jermain.

“Well, the first question is, like, like, in what setting?” I ask.

“Any setting!” Jermain exclaims. “Handsome man approach you,” Jermain continues matter-of-factly. “Or are you gonna approach him?”

“No,” I reply matter-of-factly. Talk radio drones inside the old cream-colored-leather-interiors Lexus. “Cuz you just don’t really approach people out in the—I mean, maybe at a bar? But—”

“So you don't—“

“Are we talkin bout like grocery stores…?” I interrupt, laughing.

“You don’t approach a person at the grocery store?”

“No! Cuz that just would, that would just seem…creepy.”

“Somebody thought you was beau-ti-ful at the grocery store, that would seem creepy?”

“Yeah, I just feel like it’s not, like, typical—you know, I mean—I guess it all just depends if I found the person creepy or not. If I was into it, then I guess, maybe, I would, I dunno. But what would I want someone to say? Mmm…”

“I’m trying to like, cuz see—like I say—”

“So you’re asking me like how do you pick up someone?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s goin on today. I’m ooold school. I was married at an early age. I’m divorced after sixteen years.”

“Mm hm.”

“Two years now. And I’m ready to try,” Jermain says, ending in a higher pitch.

Now jazz drones in the background. The first few notes almost sound like the beginning of “Waterloo Sunset.”

“I mean I think I would, to minimize like somebody thinking like, ‘Oh gosh, like that’s, this never happens, this is really creepy,’ I think maybe you would have to preface it with something like—”

“Step down. Girl. What’s your name?”

“Wait, say that again?”

“Naw. Nu-uh. Noop.”

“Did you say ‘step down?’” I ask, laughing.

“No! Nuh uh,” Jermain says, laughing. “I’m not gonna say, ‘Hey girl what’s your name.’ Not gonna work.”

“I think just, ‘Hey, this is probably unexpected, but I just want you to know, like, I just noticed you. You know, like, ‘I noticed you.’ Like just low-key. Right? Like, I noticed you! Like who doesn’t want to be noticed?”

“You seem like you cooler than fifteen fans, and thirty air conditioners.”

“HAHAHA. That’s funny.”

“That is patent pending. I patent all of my sayings.”

“You seem cooler than fifteen fans and thirty air conditioners?”

“Yes,” Jermain trails off in a zen kind of way.

“Okay.”

“Depending on the side of the fan and the air conditioner that you’re standing on, it could be very cold.”

“Hmmm. And ‘cool’ versus ‘cold.’ You said ‘cool,’ though, not ‘cold,’ right? Because cold would be bad. Like a cold person.”

“No, what makes it bad would be like ‘cold-blooded.’ Somebody say ‘cold,’ in my slang term?”

“Yeah.”

“I be like, ‘Man that was cooold.’”

“Yeah. That’s like. Mean.”

“Nooo! That’s like good—“

“What, really?”

“I dunno I guess well me I’d be like, thas cold-blooded. Now that’s mean. I don’t even think I would say ‘cold.’ I be like, ‘No you wrong. For real. Wrong as two left shoes.’”

“Yeah, ok.”

“But yeah, I think it just has to be super…”

“'Uh, excuse me, you know I noticed you.' You know, you know, I’m trying this, when I go…out.”

“Mm hm?”

“So if I run into you and I say I noticed you I don’t want you to be like mm mm.”

“Right—” I say, bursting into nervous laughter.

“Did it take you that long to get that?”

“HAHAHA. But that’s hypothetical. So. I don’t know.”

“Well how you gonna give me a hypothetical where I ask you what you—”

“You’re hitting on me right now? Hahaha.”

“Why would I have you in the back seat and try to hit on you? I’d tell you to sit up front.”

Leaving, Part 2

"Truffle is an adorable, super friendly chow mix. We think she looks like a Chow crossed with a Pug or Pekingese but looks like a small Newfoundland! This adorable girl is only 2 years old, petite at 45 lbs and is very sweet, affectionate and playful. She is spayed and is up to date on vaccinations. Truffle has not been tested with cats but seems to do okay around friendly, well balanced dogs and every person she meets. Truffle would do best in a home with older children as she is very excitable. She is located in Culver City, CA. If you are interested in adopting Truffle please inquire with us today!"

People inquired, and Truffle was adopted. But before she was adopted, she lived with me. I first learned about Truffle through my friend who rescues chow mixes. Truffle was actually Candy, from Lancaster, where apparently no one wanted her after her owner was moved to assisted living. So she ended up in a shelter and my friend somehow got her to Culver City. My friend took me to meet Candy at the vet where she was staying. After a zigzagged walk through the Helms Bakery District, I decided I would foster Candy and rename her something amazing, which I later regretted for a couple of different reasons. One: She had gone by “Candy” for two years. Why would I rename her, thus giving her an excuse to not answer to me? Two: Why, as a person of Chinese descent, would I name a dog—a chow mix, no less—after a delicacy?

The day Candy arrived at my condo, which is on the second floor, we learned that she did not do stairs. It’s a mystery how she initially made it up the stairs to meet me, but when we tried to go downstairs for a walk, she pressed her face and paws to the ground and would not budge. Watching my friend gingerly scoop her up and carry her down the stairs, I wasn’t sure how Candy and I would fare alone. But I picked her up—maybe not as gingerly as my friend—and planted her soft little paws halfway down a flight of stairs. After a few days of this, Candy was bolting down the stairs like a true pup.

As someone who is pretty tired of the living in the moment thing, I will say that fostering a dog will force you into the moment. Just worrying about how to get a dog down the stairs so she won’t pee or poop in your condo. Just worrying about whether or not she is going to poop on this walk. Processing in your head that “Hey sweet thing,” was meant for the dog and not you. Very in the moment. On a larger scale, not knowing how long Truffle was going to be with me also forced me to live in the moment.

After Truffle was gone, when I would open a closet door or a bag of chips, I would anticipate the sound of her getting up from wherever she was resting—the jingle of her metal tag and the pad of her paws on the cork floor. When I didn’t hear anything, I felt both a sense of relief and sadness that it was just me. I no longer anticipate the sounds.

I thought I might have her for two weeks, two months, maybe forever, but probably not. In the end, Truffle and I were together for a month. I hear she goes by Donut now.

Leaving, Part 1

“Only kisses on the cheek from now on.
And in a little while, we’ll only have to wave."
–Fiona Apple

Langer’s is closed for Memorial Day weekend.

In the parallel universe of my own version of Sliding Doors, I would have two last names, in-laws in Philadelphia, and a three-year wedding anniversary coming up. For those of you who aren't familiar with Sliding Doors, it is a what-if movie from 1998 that alternates between two paths that the main character's life could take depending on whether or not she (Gwyneth Paltrow) catches a train. In my case, catching the train or not catching the train was more of a decision: to be or not to be with someone who I will call Leonard.

I met Leonard on OkCupid in the spring of 2011. I lived in Venice and he lived in Costa Mesa. Having only lived in LA for less than a year, I wasn’t fully aware of the ramifications of dating someone 44 miles away, or in Orange County, for that matter. I disliked Costa Mesa but I liked the idea of living with Leonard, so I moved in with him and his dog after about a year.

We watched United 93 and cried and agreed that if we were ever in a similar situation we would want to die together. But early signs of imbalance and incompatibility in the relationship grew more prominent. By the end, it felt like all Leonard and I wanted to do together was half-heartedly binge-watch The Walking Dead while eating Trader Joe’s Madras Lentil. Once in Newport Beach, while Leonard read Steve Jobs, I watched other couples and imagined how much happier they were. Distant laughter on the beach deeply upset me. But I stuck around.

Leonard proposed in the fall of 2013 and soon after, I began to doubt. On June 7, 2014, we didn’t get married at the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona Del Mar, like our Paperless Post save-the-dates and Squarespace wedding website said we would. Leonard was patient and waited around for me to have a change of heart, but we ultimately went our separate ways.

I wonder where Leonard and I live and what we're planning in that parallel universe. In reality, I live near Culver City, and he lives nine miles away in Downtown LA. He is engaged to a woman who lives in Tokyo. We are in touch and in a good place. Last fall he was headed to Tokyo for a visit and I asked if I could housesit. I had friends over to the rooftop hot tub and ate falafel and barbecue from Grand Central Market, which I documented on Instagram with the hashtag #16nightsindtla. The next time Leonard was headed out of town he thought I might like to stay there again. He gave me his spare key but, being a busy new homeowner, I never made it downtown. Eventually he asked me to mail him the key.

Hey I’ve got to get that key back, if I get locked out it’ll be all kinds of shitty.

But sometimes I am bad at that kind of thing and ended up carrying the key in my purse for weeks.

ME: I haven’t mailed your key, I’m like incapable

LEONARD: Smh

ME: What does smh mean

Leonard sent me a screenshot from Urban Dictionary. “Acronym for ‘shake my head,’ or ‘shaking my head.’ Usually used when someone finds something so stupid, no words can do it justice."

LEONARD: But not stupid

I invited Leonard over to see my new condo and meet my foster dog, but he was under deadline for work, and it didn't happen.

Memorial Day weekend, on Saturday night at 7:45, Leonard called me. “It happened,” he said.

“What happened?” I replied, thinking he was referring to his deadline, although not sure why he would be calling me about that.

“I locked myself out.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at my comfy sweatpants, the elastic loose at the ankles.

“The good news is that I’m going out and won’t be home for a few hours. What are you up to?”

"I'm just at home... What do you want me to do?" I knew that it would be shitty of me to not meet him and give him the key.

"I think it would make the most sense to meet me at the show. If you drop it off at my place, we'd have to time it exactly..."

“Where are you going?”

“The Bootleg Theater.”

“Ugh.” I had been to the Bootleg Theater once before, to see a friend play, and I remember it being kind of far.

“The good news is that you could maybe stay and see Show Knife. There may still be tickets.”

“Who?”

“Shonen Knife.”

“I don’t want to go to a show.”

“We’re walking and it’s going to take 45 minutes.”

“Why are you walking?”

“It’s a 9-minute drive or a 45-minute walk and I don’t want to drive nine minutes and then have to find parking.”

“OK. I’ll text you with an ETA.” Instead, I texted him to confirm the address, just to be sure.

ME: It’s 2220 Beverly, right?
ME: If so it’s gonna take me ~25 mins. Please confirm!

No reply. I called him. After a few rings, voicemail. I changed into black jeans and a loose white sweater and drove, growing increasingly indignant.

ME: I’m 10 mins away

I called and left a voicemail. “Hey, it’s me. I don’t know why you’re not replying to my texts or picking up your phone but I’m about ten minutes away, and I’m not gonna wait around.”

I hadn’t really eaten and thought about picking up some galbi from Beverly Soon Tofu, or lomo saltado from Mario’s. As I got close to the Bootleg Theater I saw the yellow light of Langer’s and decided I would pick up a tongue sandwich, maybe a pastrami sandwich, or maybe a half tongue half pastrami sandwich. On rye. Not sure which mustard, but would figure it out. I would also have to use the restroom.

Five minutes later:

LEONARD: We just showed up, at the back of the big line out front.

ME: Ok

LEONARD: You can pull up curbside.

ME: That’s the plan. I’m at at a light at Beverly and Alvarado
ME: Can you cross the street

LEONARD: Done

There he was. I was happy to see him. I put the car in park, turned on my hazards, and got out of the car. We hugged and then I stood between the open driver door and seat. I handed him his spare key.

"Thank you," said Leonard.

“I left you an angry voicemail,” I said.

“What?” he said with mock exasperation. “Don’t worry, I’ll delete it,” he said jovially.

“I was just annoyed because you weren’t replying to my texts and—“

“I thought it was a done deal! When I said ‘Bootleg,’ you said ‘Ugh,’ so I figured you knew where it was,” he exclaimed, again with mock exasperation.

“Well, I wanted to make sure—I didn’t want to go to the wrong place. Anyway, I was like, 'I’m not gonna wait around...'”

“Actually,  I am going to listen to the message,” he said with a toothy grin. “You look good."

“Ugh,” I replied. I’ve never been good at taking a compliment, plus I didn’t agree.

“I didn’t say ‘great,’” he said. We laughed.

“I wish you’d met Truffle,” I said. “Here, let me show you something real quick.” I reached for my phone and pulled up a slo-mo video of my foster dog, who had left that morning for her new home in Torrance.

“That’s good. That's well done,” said Leonard. The line across the street was moving. “I should get going.”

“Yeah. I want to get a sandwich at Langer’s but I have to pee so I don’t know, I may just go home.”

“If you go to Langer’s you can use their bathroom, you know.”

“True.”

"Thank you again."

I got in my car and drove to Langer’s. Elated that I had found curbside parking within an acceptable walking distance, I power-walked toward the restaurant, anticipating ordering my sandwich and using the restroom. As I walked past the restaurant along Alvarado, I could see that it was closed. Disappointed, I rounded the corner anyway, to see the sign, I guess. A street vendor greeted me enthusiastically in what I think was supposed to be an Asian language. It wasn't Mandarin.

“Are they closed?” I asked, as I read the sign stating that they were closed.

“Yeah.”

“Ugh.” I walked briskly back to my car and drove home, fast.

Not Reading

Acquiring reading materials and letting them pile up without reading them is a condition that the Japanese call “tsundoku.” I have this condition. It’s far from extreme, but I’m guessing I haven’t read half the books I own. And I continue to buy new ones. I’ve been meaning to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma for years. I began and have been meaning to finish Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg’s Modern Romance and B. J. Novak’s One More Thing, both on loan from coworkers. Currently, freshly unpackaged copies of Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton and Marcia Butler’s The Skin Above My Knee lie unread in my home. I’m technically in a book club, begun in January, but we have yet to meet.

In the almost seven years I have lived in Los Angeles, I am not sure I have even read almost seven books. What came first, tsundoku or Los Angeles? Did I move to LA because I didn’t read? Or did I stop reading because I moved to LA? Just kidding. But seriously, people say that people in LA don’t read. Like most things, I’m sure there’s some truth to it, and reasons behind it. I recently overheard someone say she only reads at the beach. Depending on how often she goes to the beach, she might not be reading very much. When I lived in New York, my roommate from Vermont could finish a book in a single night. One of my close friends here devours library books. She’s from the Seattle area, though, and technically lives in Culver City.

It took me years to finish Anna Karenina (which maybe should have been called Levin?). And it’s not like I was reading other books while I was not reading Anna Karenina. Aside from that, I mainly remember reading Jonathan Franzen. I’ve been a fan since his description of balsamic vinegar (describing Denise’s eyeball) in The Corrections:

"Denise closed one eye and opened the other very wide. Her open eye was like nearly black balsamic vinegar beading on white china."

I got to see Jonathan Franzen read last September. He was reading from his new book, Purity, at the Aratani Theatre, in Little Tokyo. There weren’t as many people as I had expected. I wondered if he was pissed there weren’t more people and was just going to say, Fuck it. But of course he didn’t. Instead, he made some self-deprecating remark about how he appreciated us spending our Saturday night coming out to see him read. Which was ridiculous, because it was one of the more exciting things I had done and would do in a while. Jonathan Franzen stood at a lectern in front of a big red curtain and read to us. “The apartment on Adalbertstraße was hostage to a stomach. When Clelia closed her eyes at night, she could picture it hovering in the darkness above her cot. Outwardly taut and glossy, a pale pink digestive aubergine…”

“Clelia” was distracting the first few times, but I grew accustomed to the sound, and before long I was in Berlin, in another time, with Clelia and her mother.

After the reading, you have to decide if you’re going to stay to meet the author, like talking to the musician after a show. For the most part, I don't do it. I don't see the point. But this time I decided to stick around, wait in line, and meet Jonathan Franzen. I had seen him read years ago in Houston, during college, but couldn’t remember if I had met him or not. In any case, I didn't know what I was going to say. I considered giving him my business card—I’m the marketing director at an architecture firm—and saying something like, “If you ever want to build a house…” I put the business card in my back pocket.

The line got shorter, and I got closer to the table where Jonathan Franzen sat signing book after book. A woman working the event helped me open my book to the page where Jonathan Franzen would sign. At some point, I decided that I would say two things.

“So, two things," I said. I was standing and looking down at him, seated behind the table typical of a book signing, but still a little bit odd. If we were both standing, he'd be looking down at me.

"OK."

"I saw you in Houston, at Jones Hall, many years ago when Justin Cronin interviewed you, and it’s so great to be seeing you again, here in LA, so many years later.”

Jonathan Franzen said he remembered. I believed him. At some point he asked my name.

"I'm Ann," I said.

"Ann, with or without an E?"

"No E."

He wrote as I continued, “The second thing. I gave someone a copy of The Corrections, and he never read it in the six months we dated. Don’t you feel like that’s an indication of something? Or is it bad to force books on people?”

“Not at all. Giving someone a book...is a form of communication,” he said, and he handed me my book. I did not look at the message. I wanted to save it for a little later.

As I walked out of the theater into the courtyard, I surmised The Corrections had 600 pages (it has 567), and I pictured myself saying 600 pages’ worth of stuff to someone who didn’t hear any of it.

I have received books from guys before that I haven’t finished or read at all. I had told someone about my fondness for Xerox copies of books, like the ones college professors pass out in class, and he gave me a Xeroxed copy of Wittgenstein’s Nephew by Thomas Bernhard. I read about a third of it, a half-inch stack of paper, which I ultimately returned to the 10x13 white envelope it had come in. I received another book, The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Haven't read it. It's part of the stockpile.

I walked to a Japanese ramen restaurant to read what Jonathan Franzen had written to me.

For Ann,
     years later——

Jonathan Franzen's signature looked like a figure eight. I tried to read while I ate my ramen, but between trying to manage the soup splatter and my inability to tune out conversations at nearby tables, I barely got through a paragraph.

Girl, 2003

Don't drink cold things when you're on your period; park under lights; tell a boy to walk you to your car; are you coughing?; from now on...; wash your underwear in hot water; don't go to public bathrooms by yourself; did you lock the door?; just be friends - boys are too young to have serious relationships now; pray even if you don't believe in God; don't listen to your music so loud; do not be jealous (it is stupid to be jealous); if you put a hole in your body, it would be like putting a hole in my body; you came out of me; do not dye your hair - the blacker your hair, the better; don't stand in front of the microwave - it is radiation; you say you want to be prettier - stand up straight; you say you don't want to be fat - don't put so much butter on your bread; never apologize after a car accident; always balance your checkbook; always carry a purse so you don't lose your keys; be nicer to your parents; do not buy Japanese cars - your great-uncle was shot six times by a Japanese soldier in the war; try to save your money - do not waste it on useless things; don't leave tofu in the refrigerator too long; you don't have to buy me a present for my birthday - just be a good daughter; we don't use your grandparents' money; do not jiggle your leg - it is not attractive; try to drive as little as possible - it's not you, it's them; they're staring at me, they're staring at you because they think you are pretty; eat fruit every day; do you need more vitamins?; do not sit at the computer too long - your will ruin your eyes; keep your boyfriends longer - do not break up with them so fast - it is not good; clean your bowl of rice - every rice kernel you do not eat is another pockmark on your husband's face; do not borrow money; use the softest tofu for thousand-year-old egg; do not eat drugs; take care of your body; you learned a lesson today; do not eat too many eggs in one day - your father has high cholesterol; do not slurp your soup or mash your food; walk like a lady - do not walk with your feet inward (we did not get you correction shoes for nothing); wear your retainer (we did not spend two-thousand dollars on braces for nothing); do not sleep late; do not criticize my faith in Jesus Christ; come to church with me for me, my sake; do not wear too high heels; I have given up on my dream of you marrying a Chinese boy, so as long as he loves you - that is all that matters; do not eat artificially colored foods - they are not natural and not good for you; never skip work; do not say that food is gross until you have tried it - I do not criticize your food; do not get manicures - they are unsanitary; do not get your hair cut for fifty dollars; always marinate your meat in cooking wine - it kills the bacteria; wash your vegetables at least twice; do not drink tap water; watch for expiration dates on dairy products; write clearly; always clean your hands after you get gas; always clean your hands after playing with the dog; do not eat with your leg propped up on your chair - you are not a construction worker; don't drink too much - control yourself; take care of your body; one person in the relationship will always love the other person more - it is better for your husband to love you more than you love him; do not compare yourself with those who are better off than us - you will never be happy; do not compare yourself with the bad kids; speak Chinese to me.

Misleading Magenta

It is just about noon on a Friday in July. Montana Avenue, just south of 15th Street, is sunny and quiet. The street parking here is a generous three hours, but two is enough for a mani-pedi. Two hours of parking here costs two dollars. The Aero Theatre marquee reads "Old Jews Telling Jokes." Dry Bar appears empty. The Olive & June storefront is pink and white and could be mistaken for a cupcake shop.

Inside Olive & June, the light is bright and soft. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the nail salon are a soothing white. Salmon-colored leather sling lounge chairs with beechwood frames sit on a white platform about a foot high, on either side of the space. The leather is speckled with dark water stains. The walls are adorned with paper garlands of pink and green flora. A few nail technicians dressed in black are hunched over in tiny Bertoia wire chairs. On the left wall, just past the entry, are shallow white shelves and shelves of bottles of nail polish. 350 colors, according to the website.

A woman in a black full-length tank dress is standing, now squatting, now standing in front of the shelves. She is holding her iPhone with her left hand and frantically scrolling down an Elle.com article with her right index finger. “15 New Nail Colors to Wear Now (And All Summer Long).” The woman’s mind is racing. ‘Juicy reds and oceanic blues are calling your name.’ Hm. Not sure I want either. This is supposed to be relaxing. OK: This will be relaxing after I decide on a color. I should pick something pastel or bright because summer. But who cares that it’s summer. It’s always summer in LA, anyway. Dark is more me. Magenta would be misleading. Let’s see, there’s OPI down there, and Essie…ooh NARS, I got that last time, I could do that again. But maybe try a different fancy brand, since this place is kind of expensive? RGB, is that a good brand? Where did I see or read about RGB? There’s Dolce & Gabbana. Gonna do Dolce & Gabbana. Purple. Dark purple. Yeah, that’s it. What’s this color called? Oh my god, does Dolce & Gabbana not name their colors? That makes sense somehow. Oh, there it is: Iris. That’s good. That works.

There are two hostesses: a pale-skinned hostess, dressed in a blue summer dress and brown sandals, with a gentle smile, and a strikingly tall, strikingly thin, even more pale-skinned redhead with a perfect high ponytail. She is wearing a short-sleeved, black collared blouse emblazoned with a spare floral jungle print and carries a gray portable phone in the right back pocket of her skinny black jeans, tucked into flat black booties. She shows the woman in the black dress to her seat, compliments her bag, then sees her suede platform sandals, compliments those, and concludes, “I love everything you have going on,” and flits off to the front desk with an amazingly thin iMac. A Hispanic woman with braces and a black woman with dark aquamarine streaks descend on the black dress to give her “The Dree Mani” and “The June Pedi.” Much to the woman’s delight, it’s a mostly silent treatment.

There are three other customers, all dark-haired: a pregnant woman with big eyes and a contented smile; a lithe, sharp-chinned woman sporting an Apple Watch with a double-wrap brown leather band; and a petite dark-skinned Asian woman in a flowy shoulderless top and loose-fitting jeans. The petite dark-skinned Asian woman is getting nail art. She is tapping her left foot to the beat of the Backstreet Boys song playing. Her eyes are fixed on her hands as her nail technician makes tiny movements with a tiny brush. When the nail art is complete, the woman raises one of her hands in the air and snaps photos with her iPhone of the hand in various positions: fingers spread, casual claw, and so on. Eventually, she hands her iPhone to her nail technician, steps down from the platform, squats down and plants her hands, fingers spread wide, on the platform. The nail technician snaps a few more photos. In walks a darkly tanned, skeletal woman in a bright red dress. “That dress looks so good on you,” says Jungle Print. The skeleton accepts the compliment with a smile and positions herself into the cavernous lounge chair, once occupied by the pregnant woman with the big eyes. Lykke Li is now playing.

A Dree Mani and June Pedi later, the black dress rises from her chair to settle her tab. “Do you want to leave a tip?” asks the summer dress hostess, by which she means, “How much are you leaving?”

“Um, twenty percent? And split it between…?”

Hostess nods with approval. “Oh, the computer takes care of all of that.”

“That’s what I like to hear! Byeee!” the black dress sing-songs her way out the door. Visible through the Dry Bar window are a couple of women seated in a row of chairs with their dirty blonde hair in various states of being blown dry or curled.

The meter still has about twenty minutes left, just enough time to put on some eyeliner in the car with the windows down before heading to Santa Monica Seafood for two-dollar oysters with girlfriends. A man and a woman speaking French unlock their bikes. As they ride past, their lyrical conversation fills the car for a second, then fades.

RX

The driver has called the rider, has exchanged a few words with her, and is waiting in front of the apartment building. After what feels much longer than a couple of minutes to the driver, three women in their mid- to late twenties, maybe early thirties, emerge from the building lobby. The women are dressed in black leather jackets and other black things, gold accessories, and big sparkly rings. One of the women is holding a red Solo cup. For a second, it is unclear how many of the women are getting in, but eventually all three pile into the backseat. The prettiest one sits in the middle. She is also the tallest. She is Allison Williams pretty.

“Going to Baco Mercat?” “Yeah.” At this time on a Wednesday, it will take about an hour to get downtown from Santa Monica. The driver’s iPhone, mounted to the dash, is open to the Waze app, which estimates a 6:40 arrival time at 4th and Main. The iPhone screen has cracks like rivers on a map. Where did the woman put that cup?

The girl seated behind the driver: “We’re going to be a little late. How long can you hold the table?” The arrival time is now 6:44.

Over the course of the next hour, the arrival time creeps later and later. In the backseat of the Hyundai, the girls—mostly the pretty one and the girl behind the driver’s seat—talk nonstop. At least one of them went to LMU. The pretty one and the quiet one are married. The other one has a boyfriend.

Mid-right-turn from Sawtelle onto Santa Monica Boulevard. The pretty one: “I really want a Lexus RX.” “Oh, me too.” “I used to drive a Land Rover—” Onward to the 10. “My parents want to buy me a new car but—” “But what?” “I just—I feel guilty. I guess I don’t feel like I deserve it.” “That doesn’t matter. Your parents want to buy you a car. If I were you, I would be like, ‘When are you available, LET’S GO.’” “I guess you’re right.”

Bumper-to-bumper on the 10. Left lane, because it’s going to be a while before—the beautiful one: “So things seem to be going well with Dan.” “Uh, Dan is such a mess.” “Like, what kind of a mess? He seems to be getting it together, no?” “No, like he is an ACTUAL mess. Like he is really messy.” “Oh, I think that’s just a guy thing, though. You have to train him.” “I just don’t understand. Every morning he works out—he is really good about that—and then sometimes gets back on the bed afterward, and I’m like, ‘You cannot do that. You have to take a shower.’” “Ugh. I had just bought silk lampshades, and Ben like is eating something and gets mustard all over the lampshades. It was awful. Ben also does this thing where he leaves empty water bottles everywhere, like on the nightstand, between the couch cushions, and I have to go around picking them up.” The third girl adds something about having a maid.

The girl behind the driver’s seat: “How is your dad?” “He’s still in detox. But he’s OK I guess. I was like, Dad, it’s a hundred and eighty thousand dollars a month—I mean, it’s your money, but just making sure.” “I know this couple who started a rehab center in Malibu. It’s like in the middle of nowhere, really isolated, like no one can visit.” “Yeah.”

“Oh I’ve been on Adderall since junior high. If I don’t take it, I walk into a room and can’t remember why I went in there in the first place. Also, I get really drunk really fast with Adderall.” “I don’t have an appetite when I’m on Adderall.” “Oh, I wish I experienced that benefit. I’ve put on weight. It’s just so hard. I’ve been going to the spinning class and I am not seeing results.” “I don’t care how much I weigh, I just want to be toned. I don’t care if I’m two-hundred pounds if I’m solid.” “Yeah, me too.”

Finally downtown. Skid Row. The sidewalks are lined with primary-colored tents and littered with colorful garbage. Several men and women amble in the street. Parked at a red light, the driver attempts to connect with the girls. “Lock your doors!” None of the girls respond but are reminded of the time they volunteered at a soup kitchen. “We should do that again.” “Yeah.”

As they leave Skid Row and their memories of the soup kitchen behind, one of the girls remembers they had agreed to split the Uber fare. The pretty girl looks down at her phone: “Oh, shoot, I don’t think we can split the fare now.” The girl behind the driver’s seat: “I have like no money on my debit card. Like none. I really need to get a job.” “Oh, did I tell you my dad set up a meeting for me with…so hopefully that will work out. I know. I feel so bad I’m not contributing.” “I know…”

“Oh, you can just let us out here. Thank you sooooooo much.” “Have fun!” Did she leave that red Solo cup in my car? The backseat and the cup holders are empty.

You’ll See a Valvoline.

Anyone who has driven through the underpass at National and South Robertson has smelled the undeniably delicious smell of fresh bread from the bakery operation tucked under the 10. The only clue to the origin of this incredible aroma is a tasteful black placard, emblazoned with the word LARDER, in white print, underlined, and BAKING COMPANY in tiny white letters underneath. Above, a white graphic of a tiny rolling pin and a single wheat stalk arranged like crossbones.

Across the way, a woman and man have moved in since the last time Google photographed this underpass. Sometime after the billboard for NBC’s “Undateable” went up. At the bottom left-hand corner of the billboard: SO SINGLE IT HURTS. It’s a Regency billboard. “Be at the most dynamic medium in the visible, real world of Southern California - the #1 billboard market in the world,” says the company's incredibly drab one-page website.

Three identical parking signs indicate no parking between 2 AM and 6 AM—one of the more straightforward parking instructions in this city. Outside of those hours, like with many homes in LA, several cars are parked bumper-to-bumper out front. During morning rush hour, this stretch of Robertson under the 10 appears to have three southbound lanes. But time passes, and the cars in the left and middle lanes begin to move, albeit slowly, and it becomes clear that there are only two lanes.

When the drivers of the nondescript cars and shiny black Audi station wagons are not texting or planning their next opportunist traffic maneuver, their eyes settle on the woman and man. She is black and wearing a bulky head wrap. He is white. They are of a surprisingly similar stocky build and height, maybe six feet. They move slowly around their small living area. There are few furnishings, namely a sofa, or bed, stacked high with a mille-feuille of colorful floral blankets, oddly reminiscent of the house and home portion of an Anthropologie sale section. To the left of the heap is a single distressed garden chair with a heart-shaped back. The woman is standing on the sidewalk. She produces a small plastic cup filled with the palest yellow liquid. She bends down and turns the cup over. The man is briefly nowhere to be seen. But every day, around evening rush hour, he is back again, milling about.

A month passes. The days are unusually warm, but chilly in the evenings. The sofa and chair are still there, but no woman, no man, at least from the vantage point of a car that has just inched past the Valvoline just south of the camp. But as the car pulls forward, stops, pulls forward, and stops, the woman’s head, chameleon-like, rises from the blankets. She is just waking up, lying close to the gray wall, parallel to the cars lined up for the 10. Her lips move, and the shape of the man's body emerges as he stirs. The woman and man exchange a few words and lay their heads back down.

Compliments of the Chef

The black evening is aglow with red taillights. The line for the valet outside of the Hotel Normandie is three cars deep. A Hyundai rounds the southwest corner of West Sixth Street and Normandie Ave. The Hyundai slows to a crawl. Past the inviting windows of Cassell’s Burgers. Past the cars waiting to be valeted. The Hyundai’s passenger-side window goes down. With her left hand grasping the steering wheel, the driver leans over the empty passenger seat and exchanges a few words with one of the parking attendants, dressed in loose-fitting black trousers and a grey polo. His kind face says, Sorry I can’t help you, and jogs back to the valet podium. The canvas umbrella, printed with VALET in white capital sans serif letters, is a shade darker than the parking attendant’s shirt. The Hyundai’s passenger-side window goes back up.

To the right of the valet, potted palms flank a recessed entry to a grand lobby. It is at once luxurious and rustic. The floor, a black and white checkerboard marble, has been buffed to a shine. Above, a golden crystal chandelier hangs from the light-colored ceiling, striped with dark brown wooden beams. Two curly-haired women in their thirties are seated on a blue-gray tufted velvet daybed. A third woman with less curly hair rushes through the door and waves enthusiastically. “They’re not ready for us, so they told us to wait in here,” says one of the curly-haired women. There are two middle-aged couples seated in separate lounge areas. They are all waiting for a six o’clock dinner reservation, written in stone two weeks before with a $45 deposit. The ten-seat restaurant offers one thing: a $69 tasting menu.

A young, dark-haired man materializes in the lobby. He leads the women and men up a few steps, around a corner, and through a door so modest it could be mistaken for pretention. Tonight, there are three empty seats—foldable bar stools. Behind the wooden counter is the chef, Gary Menes, against a background of a stainless steel commercial kitchen. With a full head of tousled black hair; friendly, freckled face; white collared shirt and rolled sleeves; and a dark apron, he is at once commanding and relaxed. He is not tall. His motley staff of young Asian men buzzes around him. Gary Menes waits patiently for his patrons to get settled. Like the ushers at The Landmark theatres, he welcomes his patrons, introduces himself, and thanks them for coming. He introduces his team, which includes a UCLA chemistry or physics student, and explains that the menu showcases vegetables from his own organic urban garden in Long Beach. He walks through tonight’s menu of vegetables. For seafood and meat lovers, there are supplements, or substitutions, for an additional charge. The Nantucket Bay scallops, a $12 supplement, are only available six weeks in the year. The three women study their menu as Gary Menes describes the six courses.

“For the fourth course, this is a Gamay from Beajolais, France” the stern-faced waiter says flatly before pouring red wine into the glass of one of the male patrons. Gary Menes is preparing the fourth course substitution—hand cut pasta with black winter truffles—for one of the couples. He shaves a black winter truffle onto a pile of pale yellow noodles in a shallow white bowl for one of the couples. Even though the black winter truffle, as a whole, looks anything but appetizing, the three women gaze covetously at the paper-thin brown-black shavings as they fall like leaves onto the damp noodles. But commotion at the end of the counter diverts their attention. Discomfort fills the small room like a noxious gas. Maybe the guy's unhappy with the wine? Taken aback by something the male patron has said, the stern-faced waiter retreats behind the counter, where he stands stiffly. He is still holding the wine bottle, with one hand on the neck and the other on the base, pulled close to his chest. Gary Menes calmly lays down the truffle shaver and partly shaven truffle on each side of the white bowl. He wipes his hands on a towel and walks a few feet to speak to the patrons. The three women hear mostly murmurs punctuated by exasperated demands. “This man has not smiled one time since we sat down. Does that not concern you, Chef?” says the male patron’s apparently equally indignant female companion. Gary Menes takes a breath and nods patiently as the female continues to yelp, always calling him by “Chef.” “I am very sorry you are not happy,” says Gary Menes. “Please,” Gary Menes puts his palms together. “You are ruining the experience for my other guests.” As he bows. The staff is momentarily paralyzed. The three women feign disinterest and push the microscopic remnants of their third course around on their small white plates. The din down the counter grows as the other couple becomes indignant by association, or proximity, or something. Gary Menes does not raise his voice. Rather, he asks the first couple to please kindly leave. He bows again. “Thank you. Good-bye. Thank you.”

There are now seven empty seats. Gary Menes picks up the truffle shaver to shave a bit more truffle onto the pasta before he serves his remaining guests the perfectly al dente hand cut pasta.

Red and Black

Just east of The Grove, on West Third Street, there is a tiny boxing gym. It is tucked between a dog daycare center and an auto body repair shop. The dog daycare, called The Dog House, resembles a miniature California mission, sort of, complete with belfry and clay tile roof. Where it departs from the Mission Revival Style is its whimsical black spotted coat. A decorative red lintel doubles as an address plaque. A two-dimensional red dog bone with dark yellow numbers is fixed above the black security door. To the right of the belfry tower, a big sign above a window reads: www.doghousela.com. Below that, 323-549-WOOF.

The boxing gym is set back about a car’s length from the street. The storefront is painted olive-gray. The name is installed in the top left-hand corner. PREVAIL, it says, in capital sans serif white letters. Except for the A, which is red. Below it, FITNESS BOXING, in smaller white letters. A pair of white barred windows flank a pristine white security door. To the right of the door are small aluminum Neutra house numbers: 5957.

The body shop is set back even further than its tiny gym neighbor. There are a few nondescript cars in the lot. It is enclosed by a metal security fence, painted pale blue. The pickets are curved, almost pretty. Appearing as if floating above the fence is a rigid off-white banner. Red, black, and faded blue letters, blocky and unevenly spaced, announce the body repair shop's offerings: RACK & PINION BRAKES ELECTRICAL TUNE UP.

It’s the first of February, just after eight o'clock. It is super cold and windy outside, at least to the Angelenos. It is winter. The gym's barred windows glow with inviting yellow light. Yet, the building and its neon white sign in the top left-hand corner are easy to miss for a first-time "Prevailer" driving east on West Third Street. Inside, the front room is bright and loud. A gaggle of girls and a handful of guys, their faces glistening and shirts translucent with sweat, spill out from a single door into the front room. The hardwood-floored multi-purpose space is both the reception area and locker room. A small group congregates in front of the lockers along the east side of the room. Dozens of hands are in different states of undress. Velcro rips apart and the red and black gloves pop off. A dozen colors of hand wrap unravel from hands like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Shakespearian chest bandage. Phones in cases of varying degrees of bedazzlement emerge. “Snapchat,” is uttered. Coach Lolo is thanked. Fingers are smelled. “I had no idea there was going to be conditioning.” “You are going to be so sore tomorrow.” Across the room from the lockers, a few girls are sitting on the bench against a white wall. (They are putting on their jackets and preparing for the crazy cold and wind outside.) Baseboard to ceiling, the wall is covered with words and drawings like an unfinished black-and-white full back tattoo. Words like YOU. ONE.

PERSISTENCE, underlined twice. And PREVAIL, of course. A cartoon-like drawing of a pair of boxing gloves. A bubbly, squat heart, colored in with a bright blood red. And high up, near the ceiling,

THE TROUBLE IS. YOU THINK
YOU
HAVE TIME.

Before Reading

A graying white man walks briskly toward the multipurpose room carrying two clear bags bulging with bagels as he might carry a couple bags of garbage or dodgeball-filled mesh equipment bags. It is unclear if this is the end of the bagels or the beginning. Inside the yellowed multipurpose room, he greets the half dozen or so people in the room with a friendly nod. He plops the amebic bags down on the far right edge of a caramel-colored veneered cafeteria table. To the left are two fruit piles, a pile of small navel oranges and a pile of yellow-green apples. Their plastic bags are perforated with a few holes as if made by a one-hole punch. A couple of oranges and apples have tumbled out onto the veneered tabletop, as if to say, We are a good breakfast option, too! To the left of the fruit piles are a Bagel Biter and an unopened light gray box of Philadelphia cream cheese. A black Mr. Coffee coffee maker, half empty with pale coffee, with an ivory turret of upside-down Styrofoam cups. An unintentionally matching plastic toaster smudged with fingerprints. The appliances’ long black licorice cords are taut between their bodies and the wall. 

Three women in jewel-toned sweaters smile politely at each other as they survey the buffet. The young woman with small, tight brown curls and a densely freckled face stuffs a plump poppyseed bagel into the Bagel Biter and pushes the matte gray blade through the bread, though not “easily in one swift stroke,” as advertised. Dozens of tiny black seeds scatter. She lifts the blade up and comically struggles to pry the soft flesh of the bagel from the guillotine. The women share a timid laugh as the flesh eventually yields. The women dissipate.

An egg bagel, the color of challah bread, pops out of the toaster. A short, sturdy black man in a green and yellow striped long-sleeved polo and striated blue jeans spreads cream cheese on the bagel halves with a flimsy white plastic knife. A woman in a raspberry chenille sweater trots up behind the man. She waits for him to finish. He steps aside and gestures for her to help herself to the buffet. “Thanks,” she says with a big smile. “Sure!” She hunches over to wield the knife. As she hacks at the deformed block of cream cheese—as much as one can hack with a bendy plastic knife—she confesses to the long-sleeved polo, “I thought I’d just put cream cheese on half, but who was I kidding??” More shared laughter. People laugh at the stupidest things when they are still strangers.

After they read together to the kids, they will have more substantial things to laugh about, and be concerned about.

Serenity

The lettered avenues begin after the streets with gem names. Avenue C dead-ends at Esplanade. Here is a steep flight of stairs, with a fairly popular Facebook page, Avenue C Stairs. Over six thousand check-ins. To the left of the stairs, just south, a ramp offshoot pauses at a landing about three-quarters of the way down, before it doubles back for a momentary downward slope to the strand. The Saturday crowd at this particular spot along Redondo Beach is diverse. Men, women, young, old, children, white, black, Latino, Asian. Some saunter down the stairs as they take in the view before them: a sheet of pale blue today, only a bit darker than the heavy-lidded sky. Some sprint up the stairs. And down the stairs. And up again. Meanwhile, a few scattered about the ramp plod upward with their hands balled into fists. Then there are those walking backwards, down, down. “Wow.” A huff. “I can feel it already.” A groan. A laugh. “They met on Tinder.”

Below, on the ramp landing, a leathery middle-aged woman with black exercise gloves hobbles by a younger woman in plank position, her arms shuddering. Her shoulders are not exactly above her wrists as they should be. “Five…four…three…two…one.” Her knees collapse onto a gray exercise mat, and she exhales loudly. A ponytailed jogger in black pants and neon yellow workout jacket paces back and forth with her hands on her hips as she catches her breath. A white-haired, pink-faced man on his bicycle pauses at the railing. Before him, the grayish blue water folds onto itself. And again. The waves, with a ratio of water to foam, like loose rolls of the fattiest, thinnest slices of prosciutto, tumble toward the cardboard-colored sand.

The swath of ocean between the lifeguard towers at Avenue A and C is punctuated with surfers in their slick black uniforms, like sentinels, or sharks awaiting their prey. Ashore, an AA group of twenty or so men and women warmly dressed in windbreakers and hoodies are seated in a Stonehenge-like arrangement. Their patch of beach is strewn with colorful towels dusted with sand, faded blue beach chairs with cupholders, and personal effects. “…grant me…the courage to change the things I can…,” they chant.

It's Nice Here

On South Robertson, just south of Cadillac, it is quiet and still, save for the woosh of a few nondescript cars as they pass each other on the gray pavement, mottled with black tar. Within the hour, the street will flood with more of these nondescript cars, but also shiny black Audi station wagons, BMW SUVs, and the occasional silver Tesla. They’re just trying to get on the 10. In the meantime, they will sit bumper-to-bumper with the sun-bleached, two-toned sedans and dented, dusty forest green pick-ups as flocks of Hamilton High School students, with Dolce Isola pastry in hand and earbuds in, amble toward their stately brick school building. The cars are barely moving, so here someone is lighting a cigarette, there someone is slapping lotion onto her face. And over there, some lucky driver pulls in front of someone looking down and swiping the screen of his phone.

But for now, the street is in repose. Only the yellow-roofed Miss Donuts shop is open. On the eastern side of the street, motley clusters of peach- and sand-colored single-story buildings are locked shut, their windows barred. Billiard-green and black valances, with scalloped edges and business names printed in practical white sans serif fonts, face a tall wall of hedges and trees, sporadically blanketed with tiny white flowers. The wall says, “Behind here is nicer. Behind here are winding, tree-lined streets that are nice for jogging. Behind here, please drive like your kids live here.”

Above, utility poles loom like black gibbets, and a stray palm every couple of blocks apart, darken into mere silhouettes as the soft blue and pink sky fades into the palest gray. Expect showers later in the day, they say.

Tetherball

The back room at Bar Lubitsch is intimate and dark. People are standing, or sitting in velvety booths. The exit sign, rendered in a striking Constructivist font, glows red. Sonorous suspenseful music fills the room. All heads turn toward the entrance. A woman blindfolded with a swatch of black lace and clad in a long gray satin slip saunters provocatively into the room. The audience fixes its animal gaze on the wild-haired, undulating specter. She does a lap of the room, takes her time. In certain light, her head of long, wavy chocolate hair glows white-blue. She is wearing four-, maybe five-inch black platform heels, but she does not stumble. She glides. She stops at the bar, leans her spine against the bar rail and pushes herself up into a seated position. Her legs dangle from the bar, her feet heavy weights. Her rear end barely grazes a translucent plastic container of lime wedges. In a blink, she is planted on the bar top in a squat. She removes her gauzy blindfold and discards it. Her stiletto heels press into the wood surface. Just behind her, a dance pole, slightly off-kilter, gleams under a spotlight. She descends from the bar without touching a single napkin corner or glass and reaches for the pole with both hands. With a firm grasp, she wraps herself around the pole, a glorified tension rod. With a shimmy, the slip slides down and off her body like water. She is clad in a lightly sequined black brassiere, bottoms, and a network of spidery shibari-like straps that together catch the light as she moves. She hoists herself, like a flag, straight up the pole. The suspenseful music stops abruptly. A pause, then Awolnation’s “Sail” thunders out of the speakers. Now she is upside down. The animal of onlookers cheers her on. "Ow ow!" Her legs hug the pole, still shaking. Her hair, a flag of messy brown curls, is haloed in the artificial light. She is the Pole Priestess.

Reception

A white event tent is pitched outside of LAPD headquarters. Tonight there are clusters of blue and white balloons tied to walkway railings to guide people to the reception, taking place under the tent. The L-shaped limestone and glass building rises ten stories. The sun has set. The southeast-facing façade, with its glass and goldenrod yellow walls beyond, is vaguely reminiscent of Perrault’s National Library of France. It is Thursday in January. The air is crisp and still. The people are mostly middle-aged men, mostly white and Hispanic men, and some women. Most people have just come from work; they are dressed in dark-colored suits and blazers. City Engineer Gary Lee Moore, Councilmember Huizar, architect Michael Maltzan, are there. A cash bar serves wine and beers, including a can of the locally brewed Get Up Offa That Brown. Cheese, fruit, and dessert plates are spread across two long tables. There are no plates, only napkins and a cup of bamboo paddle picks. Eventually, the crowd migrates into the freestanding auditorium at the corner of 1st and Main and disperses into the rows of padded persimmon chairs. At the front of the room, the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling screen plays a slideshow of photos depicting the Los Angeles River and its bridges, one supposedly taken by Mayor Garcetti. Shortly, the photos will be replaced with the first public screening of a documentary about these hallowed bridges, including the unsalvageable Sixth Street Viaduct.