DON'T JUDGE ME

I recently called home to check in with my mother. It was a Sunday, the one day of the week I knew I would find her relaxing, probably reading a book, and available for some idle chit chat.

“Hi, Honey,” she answered.

“What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know,” she replied. “Just doing some crack.”

“Ah, of course,” I said. “Say ‘hi’ to Edward and Bella for me.”

Drug addiction has become a regular euphemism in my family for the last year or so, as my mother, my sister, and I have cycled through each of the four books that make up Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series. While the obsession among heartsick young girls may not be a surprise, the fanaticism with these stories is reaching epic proportions – the strange thing is that I am having this addiction conversation on a regular basis with everyone around me - and there is not a pre-teen amongst them.

I picked up Twilight last year after reading Time’s profile on Meyer. I had never heard of her and was baffled as to how this self-professed beginning writer could wake up one morning from a dream and finish a 500-page novel in three months. Let’s not even go into the fact that she was a stay-at-home mom with three kids under five. As a 33-year-old struggling writer, I had only dreamt about merely starting a novel, much less finishing one. I furrowed my brow. I went to Barnes & Noble.

A few weeks later, like a desperate alcoholic downing my neighbor’s cough syrup, I didn’t realize I was addicted until it was too late. Not only was I abandoning more and more of my social life to read at home alone, I would interrupt important conversations to muse absent-mindedly over the nuances of vampire/human romances. I started recommending the book on the down-low to my heartsick friends who had never heard of it. “What you do is this,” I would whisper quietly, so as to disguise the frantic edge in my voice. “Go and get yourself a copy of Twilight.” When I went to Seattle that summer, I was just as enraptured with the thought of long walks under the moody, overcast skies of Edward territory as I was with actually catching up with the friend I went to visit. I even had to stop by a bookstore while I was there because I had unexpectedly finished New Moon on the plane.

The final straw came when my 21-year-old brother, Davin, stood looking at me exasperatedly in the middle of a Barnes & Noble in Walnut Creek, where I had dragged him late in the evening on August 1, 2008 to await the release of Breaking Dawn. He was surrounded by a gaggle of 12-year-old girls dressed as though they were about to attend a “vampire prom,” as per the event instructions, all arguing over who would win Bella’s heart.

“Really?” he said to me, eyeing the blue wristband I wore that read “Team Edward.”

“What?” I said innocently.

That was the moment when I became observer to my own insanity. But as soon as I noticed it, I also noticed that I was not the only one. Once I “came out” to my thirty-something-year-old girlfriends about my guilty pleasure, it seemed they could hardly wait to confess their own experiences of succumbing as well so we could bond in a secret Twilight alliance for intelligent, empowered non-pre-teenagers.

Once my confession was out, the stories started spilling. My friend, Heather, pulled me aside at my birthday party to admit that it was the first time in two weeks she was not constantly thinking about getting home to finish Eclipse. Lara, after many glasses of wine, divulged in hushed tones that she saw the Twilight movie seven times. I bought Suzanna Twilight and New Moon to take with her on her upcoming business trip. Although she was skeptical at first, four days later came her text message: “Finished books. Had to buy 3 and 4 in the airport.” She later reported receiving a text message from a mutual friend who had borrowed the books from her which read: "My feelings for Edward are unhealthy."

So, what is it about Twilight that is so captivating to my well-educated, emotionally mature friends and me? What has turned my mother into a vampire-swooning cougar? I pondered this question recently while staring at the life-sized cardboard cutout of Robert Pattison as Edward in Heather’s apartment. How could it be that we seem to be just as enamored by Edward and Bella as the pre-teen girls? Is it possible that Edward represents the Prince Charming fantasy we have yet to abandon? I pictured each of my friends silently analyzing their boyfriends and husbands with inquisitively arched eyebrows, working out their abilities to provide protection from evil vampires and overwrought werewolves.

Suzanna’s theory holds that it is all about the romance. But I think it is more than that. Edward and Bella draw us in because their story goes beyond the practical circumstances of our everyday relationships. It is otherworldly and therefore has permission to be intense and emotionally bold. In essence, we find in these books what we used to find in our youth – the audacity of an honest love letter, the intimacy of a late night phone call, the breathlessness of a kiss in the rain.

But now, in our thirties, the scheduled minutes of our lives have overwhelmed the potential for those possibilities: we have chosen our careers, our mates, maybe even the names of our kids. We have shelved the unexpected nature that defined life a decade ago in favor of the stability of practical realities. While these choices fill the needs we have now, there does seem to be a tiny something that we are missing. Something…magical. So, we reach for Stephenie Meyer.

As I vaguely contemplate taking a picture with the Robert Pattison cutout and posting it on my Facebook page, I think about this tiny something that might be missing in my own life. A memory stirs. Once upon a time in college, a close friend of mine impulsively took me into his arms in the pouring rain and kissed me with a passion like I have never known. And that wasn’t just romance, as Suzanna might say. That was magic in its purest form. Note to self: Maybe with more of that in our lives, we wouldn’t need Meyer so very, very much.

MINT MOCHA NOSTALGIA

I can smell the sheer mintiness of it before it hits my lips and, all of a sudden, I am back in high school. I’m studying for an AP History exam and discussing the possibility of an interfaith library with two of my church friends. But I’m not really invested in the conversation. I’m – what? 16? 17? – and, at the risk of sounding like the heroine of a CW series, at this moment in The Living Room Coffeehouse, I am seriously thinking about prom. I’m thinking about prom and the fact that I have a huge crush on my date’s best friend. Major awkwardness. As I’m thinking, I sip my mint mocha, closing my eyes to savor the flavor but also to daydream for a moment. Would he even go to the dance? And if so, would he carpool with us? And if so, would it be totally weird if I start making out with him in the back seat while my date is driving? The sheer improbability of this scenario makes me laugh so suddenly that mint mocha almost comes out of my nose. My friends look at me and wonder what is so funny about an interfaith library. I look down at American History and blush, smiling to myself.

I am sitting today – quite a few years later - at the same coffee shop in La Jolla, and I’m writing. It’s been a while since I’ve spent significant amounts of time in San Diego, my hometown. Often, when I am here, I feel like a visitor, a transplanted prodigal daughter who is now out of touch with her roots. In connecting with my friends from high school, most of whom took a brief hiatus from “America’s Finest City” for college and then immediately returned after their four year stint was over, I find that the social topography has changed. There are now countless new coffee shops, restaurants, wine bars, and comedy clubs – collective quarters that were hardly available when last I lived here as a college-bound 18-year-old. I try to keep up, to jump back into the scene, now that I am living on the west coast again and visiting home more and more often. I often find myself pretending that I am in the loop, nodding in agreement, and then quickly calling my friends who are more in “the know” whenever a visitor asks me for a local recommendation. Sometimes, I think it may take me another 18 years just to reacclimate myself to this new urban “gaslamp” culture. Until then, when I am in need of something familiar, I tend to migrate toward the old haunts, like this one, where I spent many an evening in my youth agonizing over homework, AP tests, musical theatre scripts and boys.

I now sip my mint mocha with relish. I bought it for the sheer nostalgia factor. I watch the waning light on the ocean through the wall of windows that make up the northern side of the coffeehouse. I love coming here, not just because it reminds me of days past, but also because this spot has a view of the water, a common denominator in growing up San Diegan. No other city, not even New York where I spent seven years of my life, knows me quite as well as the oceans of San Diego. I can hear the laughter of my little sister in the waves of Mission Beach, where I used to hold her over the foaming break when she could barely walk. I can see the sandcastles in Solana, where, as kids, my cousins and I spent hours crafting architectural inventions inhabited by white and gray sand crabs, our backsides bright red by the time we climbed into our parents' cars at the end of the day, cradling ziplock baggies of sand crab stowaways. I can still smell the gun powder from the fireworks at Sea World, my first summer job, where I watched the pyro guys launch flaming shells into the dark night over San Diego Bay. There, floating on the barge, we would lie on our backs in our blue and gray polyester uniforms and watch the lights explode over our heads, a crackling dome of shimmering color in the damp summer night air. I grew up swimming in oceans and have crawled into bed many a night with my body still swaying in remembrance of the breaking waves that day.

My general hypothesis is that the ocean is to San Diegans is what tea is to England. When I lived in Canterbury during my junior year of college, my English roommates used to joke about how a cup of tea could solve anything from a bad grade on a test to having your arm severed by a runaway forklift. The beach, for me, can have the same effect. More than just a sanctuary or a peaceful respite, I believe the common experience of taking in the glint of sunlight on the water can actually bring people together. My life near the water has taught me many things. It’s taught me that no matter how much drama has gone down, family bonding can always be done with a picnic blanket, a bonfire and a football. It’s taught me that sharing a moonlit conversation on the rocks at Windansea can cure years of unrequited love. It’s taught me that hanging out on the beachside patio at the Hotel Del Coronado after your best friend’s wedding can be so magical that it reignites your belief in happily ever after. My dad once showed me how to lightly brush my finger across the sticky tendrils of a sea anemone and watch it slowly curl in on itself in the hopes of snaring a morsel of food, its bright yellow or orange blossom slowly vanishing into its dark protective skin. Even though I still fear that one day my fingertip will become anemone food, it is a talent I proudly take with me wherever I go.

The sun sinks lower into the horizon and as I look around the coffeehouse this evening I see a handful of people with their laptops out, alternating, like I am, between writing furiously and staring at the ocean. Against our common backdrop of inspiration, this familiar staple of our experience of this town, I realize that this is the first time in a long time that I have felt a deep and abiding sense of peace inside of me. Is that the ocean working its magical balm? I think to myself. I take a deep breath, calibrating the authenticity of the moment. For once in my life, I slowly realize, there is nowhere else I want to be, nothing else I want to be doing. Could it be that, in this fit of nostalgia and philosophical waxing about ocean waves, I have finally come home again?

Yes, I decide. Today, I am a writer. Yesterday, I was a waitress and in the past I have been an executive assistant and college tour guide and a t-shirt vendor and a business writing teacher and a theme park employee and, oh yeah, an actress. But today, I am a writer. I am so happy about this realization that I feel tears in my eyes. So, this is what home feels like.

I pack up my computer, allowing myself a moment of giddiness as I drain the remnants of my mocha. I am off to see Cyrano de Bergerac at The Old Globe Theatre tonight. As I leave The Living Room Coffeehouse, I recall that when I was in high school, I received an award from The Old Globe for Excellence in Language Arts. The ceremony was held in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, the outdoor venue where I will be viewing tonight’s performance. I will watch Patrick Page as Cyrano and ponder how it is that this city has the power to continually to remind me of exactly who I am.

9/11 AND CHOCOLATE CAKE

So, today is 9/11. I am not in New York right now, but I was there eight years ago on this day.

My friend, Heather, and I tend to call each other up on this day. She was in New York as well, but we both live in LA now. We call each other up, not to remember the gory details of 9/11, but just to check in. There is something about that shared experience that will always bond us with the friends I had in the city at the time, something that our fellow Angelenos may not understand. When Heather calls me, we remember that one of her most pressing thoughts that day was, "Why don't I eat more chocolate cake?" If something like this could happen at any time, she thought on that day, why was she denying herself something she loved? We laugh about it now, the crazy things you think about in the face of disaster, but I know we both remember her insight from time to time - how important it is to enjoy the moment, how easy it is to let the little things slip away unnoticed.

For some reason, the anniversary of this day is more poignant this year. Maybe because I feel even more removed from it out here, maybe because it seems like there might be a chance that the war and devastation that started with this day could come to an end with this current administration. I'm not sure exactly why, but today I feel the need to truly focus on my experience of this day, to remember - not just where I was and what I was doing at the time - but more specifically, the vast amount of love and support that ricocheted across the city immediately after the planes hit. I think this is the connection that Heather and I are looking for when we call each other up. I think this is what I am missing most about New York.

On that day, I remember immediately heading home to my apartment in Hoboken to call my family, trying to get out of Manhattan before all transportation routes shut down. But I had friends that immediately headed for St. Vincent's Hospital on 12th Street to see if they could lend a hand. Over the next week, that hospital asked for blankets and food, and the supplies came out in such masses - so many that they could not even use them all. We all eagerly awaited instructions from anyone telling us what we could do to help out. As I walked through the West Village in the days after the attack (I can still smell the air - do you remember the acrid smell of the air?), I would read the poetry and song lyrics and see the artwork that people had posted to lightposts and the sides of buildings. There was so much to express that New Yorkers were literally pouring out their emotions into art and putting it up wherever they could, for whomever to see in the hopes that they would somehow make a connection, somehow give words to the current of emotion running through the city.

Having now lived on the west coast for four years, I am missing my connection with New York. As I look at the status updates of my facebook friends, I see I am not the only one. Many of those that shared that New York experience with me on this day are now in other cities, and all of us are reaching out on this day. But I don't think it is the shared experience of this disaster that we are trying to embrace. I think it is the feeling of being a New Yorker on this day - not the victims of a tragedy, but a people bonded by overwhelming emotion who could do nothing but try to express it, experience it, and reach out with others to try to identify it.

So today, I will remember. I will be spending the morning with my mother, who teaches second grade. Her class has learned a poem which they will recite at their morning assembly. They are also going to sing "Proud to be an American," which they have been practicing all week. A local firefighter is going to attend the assembly, where they will present him with a book of letters they have written to him and his colleagues, as well as a giant canister of red vines and other treats for the firehouse. I am excited to experience this day doing something positive and heartwarming because, despite the chaos of 2001, that is still what I remember most about being in New York.

To my current New York friends, know that there is so much love for you out here. We are thinking of you today, and of each other, and by God, we are eating chocolate cake.

STARS TO GUIDE ME

 Henry Mancini.  Harriet Nelson.  Kermit the Frog.

I’m having a crisis of faith.  I feel my church has let me down.  I won’t go into detail but there was an incident involving me dramatically storming out in the middle of a sermon on how the Laws of Moses should still dictate who should and should not get married.  It means I probably won’t be returning for a while. 

I happen to be having this crisis of faith on Hollywood Boulevard because, right now, I’m in a play.  Every night, I walk past the same pink sidewalk stars on my way from the Kodak Theatre parking garage to the entrance of the Stella Adler Theater a block away.

Vivien Leigh.  Sean Diddy Combs.  Britney Spears

And as I walk tonight, I am wondering where, in fact, is my church?  Is it really the four walls that house a weekly ritual?  Or is it something…different, more?  Now that I am “ritual-less,” I wonder - what was it that brought me back week after week? 

It was more than just the spiritual teaching.  It was also the simple comfort I felt when participating in the weekly service.  It was one place I could go where I knew what to expect.  I knew the words to the songs, I knew how to respond, when to stand and when to kneel.  This knowing was made me feel safe and proud.  But does that qualify as “church”?  As “faith”?

Burt Lancaster.  Joanne Woodward.  Elvis Presley.

The problem is that I’m an actor which means that I have an insatiable need to feel like I’m a part of something.  Finishing a rehearsal is the only time I ever feel like I’ve accomplished anything worthwhile.  And tonight, I am in this play.  It’s a small role.  It’s the smallest role imaginable actually: I am onstage for one scene and I have no lines.  But I do it because I have faith that my moment on stage - no matter how brief - matters.  It tells a story.  For a short space of time, it makes me part of something bigger than I am. 

I stop on Lee Strasburg.  Could I possibly be describing a kind of church?  If I share common beliefs with others and we gather, not only to honor them, but to create something new out of our collective experience, are we, in essence, finding God?

A friend of mine tells me that I should just ask God to show me the answer and be patient and listen.  So, right there on top of Lee Strasburg, I ask: Show me my church.

I wait.  I am patient.  I keep walking.

  

Milton Berle.  Stella Adler.  Groucho Marx.

Across the street, the Scientology building looms large in neon lights.  Down the block a little farther, religious zealots of an indiscernible faith sing jovially and hand out pamphlets.  Behind me, a large Methodist church often used for open casting calls sits sternly against the Hollywood Hills. 

 

Not sure where to put my faith, but choosing the only four walls I trust today, I push past the sidewalk smokers crowded around a tacky Hollywood gift shop and enter the theater.

"Dime Stories" March 2011

SOMEWHAT SPOOKED BY SALEM

For Halloween this year, my family has decided on a vacation to Salem, Massachusetts. They are completely beside themselves with excitement – the history! the costume balls! the ask-a-witch séances! Could there be a better place to spend this spooky time of year?

Yes, I’m thinking, there is a better place: At home. In my bed. Preferably with a nice Christmas movie playing.

I am a scaredy cat. I admit it. I don't watch horror movies. I don't go to haunted houses. I don't partake in ghost stories. Halloween, needless to say, is not my favorite time of year. Sure, I enjoy dressing up and carving pumpkins – who doesn’t? But, when it comes to traipsing through a foggy graveyard to watch Carrie on a mausoleum wall, well…let’s just say there’s a bit of hesitation on my part.

Scary things, to me, do not equal fun things. Most people can laugh off the gore of A Nightmare on Elm Street or the shock of being attacked by a vampire in a haunted house because they understand the fictional element involved. Me? I have a ridiculous suspension of disbelief. I honestly think that the ghosts from the Blair Witch Project are going to string up stick-figure crosses in my house if I’m not careful.

It’s been this way since childhood. A contraband viewing of Poltergeist when I was eight scarred me so deeply that for the next three years I believed the tree outside of my bedroom window was going to eat me in the middle of the night. Consequently, I didn’t sleep much in elementary school.

My strategy, now that I am all grown up, is to avoid any possible exposure to nightmarish images that would result in this specific type of insomnia. I have developed an intricate methodology of sidestepping these situations, which includes, but is not limited to: suggesting the romantic comedy instead of the psycho-thriller on a first date, avoiding theme parks during the entire month of October, and jumping off the tram of any Hollywood backlot tour that includes a set where someone has died and is still known to be wandering around.

But this particular Halloween brings a scenario I, unfortunately, will not be able to avoid.

Salem, Massachusetts! Home of the witch trials, Gallows Hill and the House of Seven Gables! #7 on Sherman Travel's Places To Get Spooked on Halloween! #4 on Virtual Tourist's Top 10 Best Places to Celebrate Halloween! I might as well be plagued with obsessive-compulsive disorder and thrown into a septic tank.

Why, you ask, would I put myself through such torture? The truth is I can’t say no to my mother.

The woman has two passions in life (besides her two daughters, of course): history and theatre. Her favorite thing to do when we go back east is to walk through graveyards and read the inscriptions on the tombstones. (I join her for a few minutes and then go wait in the car.) Salem is an historical mecca for her. Aside from the famous Salem Witch Museum, there are a plethora of reenactment tours – both during the day and at night (I think we can avoid the nighttime ones) – that follow the witch trial events of 1692. Some of them even cast tourists as trial jurors and have them take part in the judgment of the accused. In addition, something tells me that there will be at least one or two cemeteries to traipse through in Salem.

As for the scary stuff, none of it seems to plague her. Her dramatic background inspires her to walk through haunted houses giggling and complimenting all of the monsters on their very convincing acting technique as they stand next to her snarling and oozing body parts. Meanwhile, I am running out the emergency exit door.

Obviously, she is going to love it. How could I say no?

Our family friends have spent the last 20 years visiting Salem during Halloween and have always invited us to join. My friend, James, actually has his picture in a costume shop attending a parade when he was five years old. When I expressed my hesitation about our activities, he assured me that the focus of the festivities is the on the history and that the town doesn’t feel haunted at all. He said it is, in fact, a lot of fun.

This statement alleviated my concerns for a moment, until I glanced at the town’s website (www.hauntedhappenings.com) where the list of haunted places to visit reads like the directory in a Halloween strip mall: houses, streets, villages, cemeteries, woods, museums, dungeons, hotels, trolleys, and…pirate ships?

Quickly closing my web browser, I decided that the best strategy would be to try to focus solely on this so-called “fun.” As of now, there are only two items on my “Salem fun list”: the Hawthorne Hotel’s Carn-evil Creep Show Costume Ball, to which I will be wearing something neither evil nor creepy, and locating as many Starbucks as possible in which I can take refuge with a cup of spiced apple cider, if need be.

But, who knows, maybe this trip is just what I need. I may even surprise myself with ridiculous amount of bravado I show. I mean, how scary can the Spirits of Salem Séance really be? And, the Candlelit Ghostly Tour through the city streets at night sees nary a ghost, I’m sure. Maybe it’s time to put those childhood demons to rest once and for all. What better place to do it in than Salem, where people have found closure with past atrocities for centuries now.

If it doesn’t work, I can always turn my sights toward the Witch City Haunted Beerfest, a visit to which might be in order by the end of the trip... if I make it that far, of course.

Happy Halloween!!

October 2009

photo credit: thecolumnists.com

THOSE DISNEY DAYS...

My first encounter with Disneyland was at the age of two. According to my mother, I rode Space Mountain for the first time that day. At the conclusion of the roller coaster adventure, she turned to me, bracing herself for my terrified cries. My response was simply, “Let’s go again!”

I look back on that event as a very early proclamation of courage and self-confidence. I don’t know if I was a brave child in general, but I like to think that Disneyland taught me how to be courageous. Perhaps there are many more life lessons I can trace back to my experiences at the famous theme park.

Stop laughing.

I am feeling the need to clarify. I don’t own a Mickey Mouse watch. I don’t give a hoot about the latest collectible buttons. I’m not obsessed with the Disney DVD vault or how many rides I can fit into one day at the park.

The simple fact is that I grew up in Southern California and because of my proximity to the Magic Kingdom, have been there more times than I could possibly count: school field trips, birthday parties, family vacations, outings with friends. I know the twists and turns of the park paths as well as I know the street on which I grew up. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that many of my major life experiences have taken place there.

For instance, learning to flirt with boys.

When I turned 15, a birthday venture to the park awakened me from my all-girls Catholic high school seclusion. This enlightenment took place on a series of small safari boats called the Jungle Cruise, captained by the most sarcastic, flirtatious, and devastatingly handsome “bad boys” of the theme park. My friend, Alison, and I spent the entire day blushing and giggling as they winked and smiled in our direction before delivering their very serious spiels about the animatronic hippopotami blowing bubbles in the river.

A few years later, when I was a graduating senior in high school, I fawned over the lead guitarist in Jon Secada’s band when they performed during our Grad Night at Disneyland, convinced I was in love.

A few years after that, I actually did fall in love while ice skating on the outdoor rink at the Disneyland Hotel at Christmastime. Although the young man and I had only been dating a few months, I had a feeling it would last forever. The defining moment occurred when he turned to me and said, smiling and breathless, “Being with you is like being in a Disney movie!” I smiled knowingly, thinking to myself that this man totally understood me. Two years later, when the clock struck midnight on the eve of the millennium, I gazed up at the New Year’s fireworks and reached for his hand on my left. On my right, beaming proudly, was a statue of Walt Disney.

Of course, things change, even at Disneyland. I left for the east coast to pursue my acting dreams and returned seven years later to an entirely new park. My new apartment in Los Angeles, roughly 40 minutes away, gave me permission to up the ante on my Disney adventures: I now own an annual pass. In fact, everyone in my immediate family owns an annual pass. In fact, when I need to see my mother, who lives just north of San Diego, we meet up at our “halfway point,” a.k.a. the Disneyland park entrance. When my new boyfriend and I began dating, my first present to him on his birthday was his own slick wallet-sized card with mouse ears on it. “You’re official,” I said to him.

Perhaps the best aspect of being a frequent visitor to the park now is the lack of pressure to fit everything into one visit. Once my mother and I met at the park solely for the purpose of watching the popular nighttime attraction Fantasmic! We sat saving our seats for three hours before the performance, just catching up and eating clam chowder out of bread bowls. Then we went home, smiling and humming the princess songs.

Being a passholder also means visiting on days when I feel as though I have the entire park to myself. For instance, it’s a Tuesday in February and a friend of mine and I just don’t feel like going to work. All of a sudden, we’re strolling down Main Street or standing amazed in the Hall of Animation at Disney’s California Adventure with no one else around. That is where the fun of Disneyland lies: not in hurriedly trying to experience it all, but in feeling as if you truly have all the time in the world to enjoy what one might call a second home.

Again, don’t laugh. If you grew up in Southern California, it just might be a special place to you, too.

Just ask yourself: Have you ever rung the doorbell to the secret Club 33? Do you know where to go to get your birthday button? Where is Walt Disney’s eternal flame? Which attraction is the perfect place for a midday nap? How about the best place to make a wish? If you know the locations of all of the bathrooms without looking at a map, you probably grew up at Disneyland just like I did.

Today is my 33^rd birthday. I can’t think of a better place to celebrate, and perhaps gather a few more life lessons, than at Disneyland.

My first stop: Space Mountain. I am feeling particularly brave today.

A NIGHT AT AROMA

A few months ago, my friend and I were in Ireland complaining about how no one in Los Angeles even comes close to displaying the same amount of friendliness for which the Irish are so famous. We were determined to instill some Irish love into our bereft population upon our return because, before that point, neither of us had experienced any sort of random act of friendliness on Los Angeles soil.

But recently, I had an experience which made me change my outlook on our west coast population. I have just relocated from Santa Monica to Studio City and last night, when I finally stopped whining about not living next to the ocean any longer, I decided to mingle with the local community. And apparently, if you live in Studio City, the local community is located at Aroma Cafe on Tujunga. So off I went, intent on planting myself in the library and working on my screenplay like any good actor/writer/entertainment industry member living in Studio City is supposed to do.

Much to my surprise when, as I was looking for the elusive parking spot on Tujunga, I almost ran over a man wearing a yellow reflector jacket and carrying a bouquet of orange flags marching across the street in front of me. Oh great, I said to myself. He's a retired actor who's lonely and looking to make friends by escorting them through traffic. I made a mental note to steer clear. But, of course, after snagging that elusive parking spot, I found myself on the corner of Tujunga, attempting to dart into oncoming traffic without being pegged by the speeding cars. Reflector Man was sitting in a chair a few feet away, organizing his orange flags, when he looked up, saw me and promptly jumped off of his chair. "Would you like an escort across the street?" he asked, as a convertible Beemer whizzed past us at 50 mph. "Uh, sure," I said to him and followed him as he waved his orange flags at the oncoming cars. We had made it safely across when someone from the nearby cafe called out, "Oh, look! It's Dave, the Mayor of Studio City!" I turned to him, unable to contain my surprise. "You ARE?" I exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly. We shook hands and he made his way back across the street to his folding chair, waving his flags all the way. As I watched his yellow reflector jacket go, I thought, well, maybe Ireland doesn't have anything on us after all.

Maybe he's up for re-election. I don't know. Honestly, my brain is too full of national politics to pay attention to any local ones. (I must admit, if Jon Stewart hosted Dave, the Mayor of Studio City, on The Daily Show, it would be a different story, of course.) But, somehow, it doesn't matter. All I know is I feel a little better about not living next to the beach any longer.