Sunday Ramblings

Sometimes I hate my neighborhood. Usually, it's lovely: mostly condos and apartments tucked into tree-lined streets in a pocket of West Los Angeles, where people actually smile at each other when they pass on the street and every dog owner seems to know every other dog owner. We're close enough to the ocean that the air quality is excellent and the weather (usually) isn't too hot, and there are lots of stores, restaurants and coffee shops to walk to. And bars.

That's the problem. Every once in awhile there's a night where it feels like my neighborhood is situated in a drunk tank. When people start streaming out of the bars at the Magic Hour (1am) stumbling into the residential streets to their home, or worse to their cars. Between 1 and 3 this morning, I heard:

1 dude locked out of his apartment by his roommates
1 drunk guy trying to jumpstart another drunk guy's car
2 drunk girls fall down the stairs in my building because they were too loaded to negotiate one flight up (booze + stilettos = turned ankles, kidlets)
1 window getting smashed (couldn't tell if it was house or car)
1 couple having sex (hopefully in their apartment but the verdict's still out)
2 people puking (same as above)

It's like my own West LA "12 Days of Christmas."

I saw an evocative dance performance last night with my friend Roy - Israel's Batsheva Dance Company production of MAX. It sort of revelled in an uncomfortable angularity of human movement, reminding me very much of post-Soviet Block expressionism.

Roy didn't like it.

I broke free from my current YA reading binge and picked up two new books at B&N yesterday after returning a gift. I got Mystery Mile, the second Albert Campion book by Margery Allingham and Laura Joh Rowland's The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte. Read the Campion book last night. All of it. One of the best mysteries I have ever read! And now I've got a massive crush on Albert. *sigh*

Lakers game today, yay! And baseball spring training games are underway, double yay! I love to have sports on in the background while I write. No idea why, but it works for me.