300,000 more reasons I'm glad I left New York

My father called me tonight to gleefully share a tidbit he'd read in the Boston Globe: apparently there are almost 90,000 more single men than single women in Los Angeles.

While I suppose that's good news and all, I have to wonder if the Globe took into account how many of them are actually straight. I'm pretty sure at least 15,000 are off my market in West Hollywood. That would certainly help explain why my gay guy friends seem to find new dates every week, while months will go by before I can find someone worth blogging about.

Of course, I have been dating someone, although I tend to be shy about broadcasting it. After all, he reads this blog, and though he says it's not weird, I have to wonder how non-bloggers in general feel about seeing their name, their actions, in print. On teh Interwebs. And because I am an insecure, immature, romantically-challenged retard, I can't help but worry that these public posts, at some point, will freak him out.

And then there will only be 89,458 guys left for me to scare off.

And that's when my troubles began

In the bizarre reality that was middle school, Bryan* and Chris hailed from two separate worlds, parallel universes; chronologically, they go hand in hand.

Bryan was my classmate in seventh grade and my first "official" boyfriend. Because he did not ask me out until fifth period on the last day of school, however, I had most of my "first boyfriend" experiences with my "second official" boyfriend, Chris, that summer at sleep-away camp.

That I had gone from having no boyfriends to two boyfriends in a matter of days was an irony not lost on me. I spent nearly every day of seventh grade in utter shame over the fact that I had never been "asked out." It's not that I was particularly unpopular - plenty of girls less pretty and popular than I were actively dating our school's dorks, dweebs and geeks. Losers proudly dated other losers and the popular kids naturally dated each other, but I was stuck in limbo somewhere, wondering where I fit in.

(I should clarify that being "asked out" had nothing to do with actually going anywhere. It was simply the term for being boyfriend/girlfriend, actual dates notwithstanding.)

Bryan, everyone seemed to agree, was on my level. He had a bowl haircut and a dry wit and was one of only two guys in homeroom taller than the girls. All year our classmates had tried to get us together. I don't know what finally made him take the leap - maybe it was the pool party we had attended days earlier in which my, um, assets were clearly on display. Or maybe he had bet that he'd have a girlfriend by the end of the year; and now, with two periods left, the clock was literally ticking. Regardless, at some point during fifth period study, he felt compelled to grab my arm as I walked by where he sat casually, atop of his desk; pull me in close between his acid-washed denim-clad legs; and ask the words I'd longed to hear all year: "Will you go out with me?" With that one line, he made it official. I was as good as anyone else.

Bryan and I had a couple of late-night phone conversations in the few days before I headed off to camp. It was never discussed, only assumed we would stay together through the summer. I got one letter from him, and wrote just as often in return. I mean, really, what was there to say?

Dear Bryan,
Having a great time here at camp. You should be pleased to know that I have mastered the art of the French kiss with a fast boy from Long Island and am eagerly anticipating sharing this newfound skill with you upon my return. Hope you're having an awesome summer! CUL8R!
(heart symbol),
Lori

Because wouldn't you know? Having a boyfriend at home gave me confidence at camp, and by the Fourth of July, I had somehow managed to get "asked out" again!

My relationship with Chris was truly sweet. I don't know how I knew, but it was understood we were each other's first dates, first kisses. We'd hold hands during field trips and slow dance at DJ socials and I'd pretend to get mad when his hands would rove too far down my back during the long refrain of Stairway to Heaven. (But really? So exciting!)

I had my first real intimate moment with him; not sexually, but literally intimate in proximity. It was a coed overnight, and after a day of hiking in the White Mountains, our group had settled by the campfire to tell ghost stories, roast marshmallows, and wind down under a miraculous display of northeastern stars. As soon as the counselors went to sleep (or, more likely, got drunk), Chris came over to join me in my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag was tiny, though - not big enough for two people - not that we would have known what to do even it had been large enough to move around in. As it was, we lay like sardines, nose to nose at first and later, back to back, two truly innocent kids lacking the wherewithal to take advantage of the opportunity.

I don't remember any particular conversations with Chris, but we happily and easily dated for the entirety of the summer, which, at 13, was an eternity. Kids dated for a few days, a week, and called that a relationship. To our peers, Chris and I were a power couple; in hindsight, I think we were both just too dumb to have any idea how to end it. We never really said goodbye in August; I let him get in one good grope behind the rec hall and was happy to call it a summer. After all, I had someone waiting back at home.

The only significant "first-boyfriend" experience I allowed Bryan was the heart-wrenching experience of dumping me. Apparently he found out I had dated someone else over the summer, and so sent his friends over to my lunch table one day to break the news. This was unchartered territory for me. Even though I'd been witness to countless breakups of my friends and peers, I still hadn't expected my relationship to end with anything less than a soap opera worthy admission of love. Uh, or something.

We ended up getting back together a month later, and dated for another month after that. We slow danced to power ballads and I did get to teach him how to French kiss after all; but ultimately he broke up with me again, this time for a faster girl who didn't see the irony in his roving hands during Patience.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or, you know, my embarrassment.

Rebirth

I remember shortly after I moved to LA, I made a comment to my aunt about how sweet the air smelled. She laughed and told me LA had the most polluted air in the country. She may be right, but for the last few weeks I've been marveling at the familiar fragrance that, even in my third year, still thrills me with its simple beauty.

Today was gorgeous. Mid-eighties, sunny, and smog-free. The San Bernardino mountains stand more than 100 miles away, often obscured from sight behind LA's typical smog screen; but today they stood crystal clear in the distance, purple mountains of majesty, indeed.

It was the first weekend I brought my fan out of hibernation and wore flip flops to Starbucks instead of Uggs.

I'm sorry that this blog is little more than a weather report. Things are good, really good. My dining room table is overflowing with opportunity, ideas, words looking for semblance somewhere between my head and my hard drive. My social life is bustling, busy, better than ever. I'm continuously surprised that the older I get, the better my friends, the stronger my relationships. Perhaps even more surprisingly, I find this true of my east coast/old college friends as well. My relationships with them, despite the distance, seem to have strengthened over time. While we talk less often, our words carry more meaning, our conversations, more important, if infrequent.

Sometimes I am just so overwhelmed with myself and the good things going on, I feel like the energy is palpable. Personally, if that's the case, I'm willing to bet that its manifesting itself in the form of neuroses, as I've noticed myself becoming tangibly more neurotic in the past two years. The thoughts in my head swim faster than I can keep up with, resulting in a near permanent stressball between my shoulders in my upper back. That might, of course, also be a result of the time I spend at this dining room table.

On Wednesday I had dinner with fellow bloggers Abby, Hilary, Nicole, and Samantha. Last night, the boy I am dating called my blogging "sophisticated." And the blog has also been the catalyst for some other projects I have in the works, none of which I would have ever known about or been a part of, had it not been for this strange, silly little thing.

Is it possible that we do create our own destiny? Even if, when I so randomly created this back in my little apartment on 33rd street, I couldn't possibly have imagined the future?

I don't mean to get all existential or anything. It's just this energy I have, looking to make sense of something I still don't really understand.

Just asking

What does it say about me that every time I read the "What are you doing right now" prompt on Facebook, I instinctively read it as, "What are you wearing right now" and feel just a little bit violated?

Rewriting history

Three years ago tomorrow, I moved to LA.

Three years ago today, I packed up the final items in my apartment, and spent the day walking back and forth to the UPS store to pick up just a few more boxes for my stuff. I kept underestimating the amount of boxes I would need, the amount of stuff I had accumulated over seven years in New York. The UPS store was only a block or two away, but I had to pass no less than three Irish pubs to get there. The bars were fairly empty on my first trip, mid-afternoon; by happy hour, they were packed, and I walked back from my third UPS trip only mildly sorry to be skipping the festivities. I had bigger plans ahead.

Today, at 4:30, my boss decided we should all leave work early and head to the Irish pub downstairs. Can't argue with the Man, so we shut down our computers and had a few rounds of green beer.

Ah, well. The gym will be there tomorrow.

More than a year ago, I submitted a bunch of old, embarrassing journal entries to be considered for the Cringe book. To my (not-so) surprise, like, 5 or 6 of them were chosen, and I've had to resend a number of entries back a second and now, third, time in higher resolution to ensure they'll show up in print. Some of this stuff was written as far back as 1988 - in pencil - so I'm not sure how much my basic scanner will be able accomplish. With this most recent request came the gentle suggestion that, if I was comfortable with it, I might tear out the actual page to scan, rather than flattening the notebook against the glass, where words get lost in the fold and the binder's crease picks up a shadow.

At first, I shuddered at the thought of tearing out the pages, defacing these books that have survived 15, 20 years, intact. It's not that I go back and read them, necessarily, or do anything more than shuffle them around from apartment to apartment, city to city, one bedroom to another, where they wait, hope, for me to one day finish the story I started. Rather, at this point, it's more of a testament to the fact that I have kept them this long; that these crazy, drama-laden details exist, not just in my memory, but in bubble letters and bad handwriting in sticker-clad notebooks under my bed.

But then I realized that I was doing more harm to the entire journals by bending and folding and manipulating them under the scanner than if I simply ripped out a page here and there. They've served their purpose, I thought. This book needs them more than mine do. So, with trepidation, I retrieved my scissor from the kitchen drawer, and made an awkward cut down the length of the first page, removing it from its placeholder in history.

It felt monumental, and yet, uneventful. Monumental in that I live to document, to detail, to tell stories from start to finish. I have 15-20 photo albums here in LA, more at my mom's house in Boston -- all showcasing pictures in chronological order, each meticulously labeled and captioned so as never to forget a minute, a memory. With a single shear, I swiftly disrupted the continuity of the story of my teenage life. At the same time, the act felt impersonal, unexceptional, the girl's life in those books so far removed from the woman I am today. I let my personal attachment go, and kind of wonder what made me hold onto it so long to begin with.

Recently, I've been given an opportunity to rewrite some stories, but to do so, I have to learn to tell them in a new way. This means breaking some long-held habits, looking in the folds, and considering new, additional points of view. I'm trying to break out of my comfort zone, disrupt my tendency to want to wrap things in a neat little package, and accept that, even after three years, some boxes still need to be sorted through.

Just another day in LA

I had a great double-decker celebrity sighting last night: Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman eating dinner at Dolce.

Also at Dolce was owner and Millionaire Matchmaker guest star, Lonnie. As we walked in, I wondered if he'd make an appearance. Literally, as soon as the thought popped in my head, he popped up right in front of me. Turns out he knew two of my friends (no, not like that) and I continued to revel in how small this town really is.

Because before dinner, I met a long-time reader of this blog for a first-time drink downtown. When I asked how he had found me, initially, it turned out he had been Googling another friend of mine. Considering their professions are similar, and that I had gotten an awful lot of traffic from her last year, it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

Earlier in the day, I had a business meeting to talk about potentially making soap with a soap star. Do I need to remind you all of my Passions for soap operas? Good (Tina) Lord! I may only have One Life to Live and I have spent half of it in front of the TV rather than out living it with The Young and the Restless. Needless to say, I am super excited.

Because I had such a big day, I wore this dress. I felt all gorgeous and fabulous, even with (or maybe because of) the sausage casings that were my Spanx. Frankly, I am a big fan of the Spanx save for one minor problem: no one ever tells you what trouble it is when you have to go to the bathroom.

One less

As a 31 year old single woman, I face a fair amount of pressure to find my soul mate and get married already. I have a good career, good friends, a good life - why can't I find a nice, young, successful man to share it with? Right?

But then every so often it comes out in the news that one of those successful, family-oriented guys can't keep it in their pants, and I feel incredibly thankful to have one less thing to worry about.

Mmmalibu

Last year, on the first Sunday of Daylight Savings Time, I watched the sun set over Venice Beach.

Hard to beat, I thought; but this year, I watched it set just a few miles north over Malibu.

Next week marks my three year anniversary in LA, and I still can't believe I am lucky enough to live here.

People may want to do a fact-check

On my way back from lunch today, I passed a handful of photographers following a girl into the Container Store. I couldn't see her face, but she looked so young and small, I assumed it was a student film project. One photographer remained on the sidewalk, shooting through the windows, so we asked about his subject: Katherine Heigl, he replied. It was the first time I've seen paparazzi in Pasadena.

We gawked outside the window for a few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse. She wore her blond hair back under a newsboy cap, and a bright green shirt only a celebrity could get away with. And at the risk of stating the obvious, she was startlingly tiny.

Now, celebrities are notoriously smaller in person than one would expect (the camera adds ten pounds and all that), but I've always imagined her more or less normal. Apparently I'm not the only one who thought this; this article makes a point of calling her a "curvy actress that avoids Hollywood's size 2 epidemic".

I'm here to tell you that if she is "curvy", I am obese. And the only way she's avoiding a size 2 is by maintaining a perfect size 0.

Note to self: don't rent porn from Blockbuster

A few months ago, Facebook launched a new ad partnership in which, when users purchased certain goods or services online, the social networking site would announce the activity to all of the user's contacts. So, if say, I rented a movie from Blockbuster, that news would magically appear via feed on my profile, announcing to everyone in my address book what I was watching. The partnership has been panned in the press and with users nationwide, but I rarely download anything on Facebook and shop online less often, so the issue has never really affected me. Until now.

I spent the afternoon creating a wedding website for my friend Kristin. To do so, I created a new email account under her name and signed into TheKnot.com using her contact information. So imagine my surprise when I logged onto Facebook an hour later and there, in bold letters under my profile, was news that - surprise! - I had created a wedding website on The Knot!

I'm sorry, what? The email address I use for Facebook and the one I created to set up for Kristin are completely separate; one is Yahoo, the other, Gmail. I'm a little annoyed at Facebook, and more than a little freaked out that such a connection could be made from what I thought was unconnected information. What's really killing me though, is that I have been kind of dating someone on Facebook for a few weeks (Hi! What's up?! You know that wasn't about you, right?) and I can just imagine his reaction at six dates in, thinking I have started planning our future. I have enough problems with dating as it is. I don't need Facebook getting in on the action.

Otherwise, the weekend was interesting. Friday night I saw Atonement at the new Landmark theater down the street. The movie was okay, but the seating was fantastic - it was an entire theater filled with couches! Like the Arclight, you can choose your seats in advance, but here, you could actually select which couch you would like to lounge on. The theater nearly empty, we were able to kick back, spread out, and feel like we were guests at a private screening. The only thing missing was a cocktail.

Last night, I went to a birthday party with Lauren and Nicole. The party was being held at a bar in my neighborhood, so they came over early to drink some wine and catch up. We headed out around 10:30, and, as I went to lock the door behind me, the key broke in half. Just simply, neatly, snapped off - the head in my hand, the body of the key flush with the lock.

There was nothing we could do at that hour, however, other than go and have a good time, so that we did. I stayed at Lauren's house in Malibu, borrowing clothes and amenities so at least I felt more human than homeless. And we started today off right, waking up to waves crashing, the sun streaming in through picture windows, and a yummy, soapy celebrity sighting at Starbucks - Jax, from General Hospital. We lounged in the late morning sun for an hour, until I eventually called a locksmith; 14 hours and $200 later, I was home once again. Getting myself in trouble on the Internet.