In Case Of Fire

We’ve all asked ourselves that question: the house is on fire, you have one minute, what would you grab? I think we all have similar answers: photos, computers, pets, heirlooms… In my mind I had it plotted out too. Grab the laptops, the cats, my jewelry box, as many photo albums as I can carry and go.

We heard the screaming around 8:30 one night after dinner. It was my next-door neighbor who is generally silent. There was something to her voice that made me prick up my ears – an edge of panic. We muted the TV and that’s when the fire alarms went off. Not just a little beeping smoke detector but whole building siren.

“I smell smoke,” my husband said as he yanked open our door.

Our next-door neighbor had been screaming for her dog who she couldn’t find for all the smoke in her condo. “It’s the unit below me,” she blurted having finally gotten her dog. “Not again!”

“We can stop it!” shouted the guy across the hall matching her panic. There had been a fire in this building shortly before we moved in. It had destroyed several units and its terror was still fresh in our neighbors’ memories.

My husband and I looked at each other. Was this the real deal? Are we evacuating or just going down to handle the situation?

The guy across the hall slammed his elbow into the emergency glass over the hallway fire extinguisher. “Come on!” he shouted to my husband who grabbed our fire extinguisher and followed. I ran back into our kitchen for another. I put on shoes and a sweater, grabbed my phone and keys and followed after the guys. I was sure we’d be right back up after we’d put the fire out.

I reached the first floor and found the hallway thick with smoke. My husband and the guy across the hall pounded the door. “Is anyone in there?” shouted the guy. My next-door neighbor informed us that a woman and her dog lived there. We had no idea if they were home. The guys made a few kicks at the door. My husband realized that his flip flops were a poor choice. As the smoke thickened it was clear: this was a fire out of our league. We joined the flow of neighbors trooping outside.

Neighbors who’d never met stood together on the sidewalk watching the smoke billow the curtains of the imperiled unit. The president of our HOA finished her 911 call. And we waited. It was still just that one unit. Surely we’d be back in soon. Surely we didn’t need to really panic and go back in for the cats, laptops and jewelry. Surely.

“In the last fire,” the president mused, “we evacuated and were barred entry for two weeks while they made sure the structure was sound.”

Two weeks? Neither of us had wallets, my husband didn’t have his phone or decent shoes. How would we pay for a hotel or food? How would our cats survive for that long? Our next-door neighbor took that as her cue to walk to the hotel around the corner and settle in before we all had to head there. We still didn’t know if anyone was inside the unit and where were the fire trucks? We lived less than a mile from the fire house.

The guy from across the hall couldn’t stand it anymore, “we’ve got to get in there, come on!” He and my husband took their extinguishers and ran back in. They’re not foolishly running into a burning building, I told myself, just a perfectly fine building with one small fire in progress. I stood rooted to the spot.

The fire trucks came. To our revved brains it seemed that they puttered around, slowly assessing the situation and getting the hoses out. My husband and the guy emerged. The guy’s elbow streamed blood from where he’d broken the emergency glass. The firemen yelled at them and barred entry for anyone else. The guys, however, had somehow managed to kick the door in and empty both extinguishers into the fire.

“It didn’t seem to do any good,” my husband murmured. “All we could see was flames. They’re in the kitchen right by the door. We couldn’t tell if anyone was still in there but I doubt it.” I hoped he was right.

Our next-door neighbor returned from her hotel to check on the situation. “Why aren’t the hoses flowing yet?” she wailed. “My place is next!” And ours right behind, I thought.

The firemen set up yellow caution tape and we had to move down the sidewalk. The hoses finally started flowing as the unit’s resident came home. She was a wide-eyed girl in her mid twenties that I’d never seen before. She was horror-struck. She’d just left not half an hour before to run an errand.

“Stove was on,” a bustling fireman barked as he passed.

“I never cook! I didn’t turn it on!” the girl wailed. Confused and now in tears. “My puppy is in there!”

The girl sat down and I watched her. What was that like: to have your life going one way one minute and come home to chaos the next? I wanted to talk to her, comfort her, but had no idea what to say.

A short time later, a firewoman emerged from the building with a wrapped bundle. Thank God they found the dog, I thought. I wanted to see this reunion. The firewoman started to approach the girl but, seeing her in conversation with a policeman she stopped. My heart dropped into my stomach. It was dead. It had to be dead or she wouldn’t have delayed. The policeman wandered off and the firewoman went to the girl. I couldn’t tear myself away. I had wanted to see the joyous reunion, the relief at getting a treasured friend back. I wanted to see the utter despair, the pain even more. Not in a macabre way, not that I at all wished for her suffering. I just wanted to see the humanness of it. To see from the outside what I had so recently felt myself.

The firewoman presented the bundle and the girl shook her head and cried with renewed despair. She rocked the bundle back and forth and wailed into the night. I waited until the first shock had time to sink in and I went to her. I sat next to her and rubbed her back. I told her I was so sorry, that I had lost my dog too a few months back and knew just what she was feeling.

“You do? She was just a puppy. I only got her two weeks ago,” the girl sniffed. “It was my birthday yesterday.”

‘I’m so sorry’ seemed like an inadequate phrase so I just sat with her and rubbed her back with each crying jag.

After a while the fire was out. Thankfully the building was pronounced sound with only the girl’s unit a charred ruin. My husband said he was going in to check on our place and the cats.

“I’m staying with her”

A dog-loving neighbor joined us and called animal control to dispose of the puppy body.

“The fire marshall can walk you through now,” a policeman informed her. “It’ll be your only chance to see about any valuables or stuff before we cordon off the unit.”

“What do I do with her?” the girl gestured to her inert bundle.

“Just put it down, no one will touch it. It will be fine here”

“I’m not just leaving her on the sidewalk!” the girl spat. She brandished the dead dog at the cop like a threat, like a debt he owed her. “Will you hold her?”

“I gotta file a report,” the cop muttered and turned to use his cruiser’s roof as a desk. The girl stared in wide-eyed pain. “The fire marshall’s waiting for you.”

“I’ll hold her,” I held my hands up to the girl.

“Really?”

“I’d be honored” She delicately placed the wrapped bundle in my hands and I held the dead dog in my lap. Her grey head lolled out of the wrap. I briefly wondered how the firewoman had found such a clean white cloth for the dog and I petted the soft head, tucking it better into the bundle.

The crowd dispersed, filtering back into the building and to evenings interrupted. I sat alone in the chill January air with a dead dog on my lap. I told her she’d be missed, that we were all so sorry, that we tried to get to her. I asked her to say hi to my Simon. And then I started crying for the first time in the whole incident.

After a while animal control showed up. I asked the dog-loving neighbor who’d come out to check on me to get the girl. I couldn’t just hand the dead puppy over without her having her goodbye. The girl came stumbling out, numbly dragging a small carry-on behind her. I gave her the puppy and she petted her ears and head, told her how much she loved her and how sorry she was for her short life.

She looked at the mercifully patient animal control officer. “I can’t,” she squeaked. The dog-loving neighbor stepped in and handed the bundle over to the officer while I hugged the sobbing girl.

Her parents arrived to pick her up. I wanted to give her my number in case she needed anything. I watched dumbly as she walked away. I drifted back inside and found my husband on the couch comforting our freaked out cats. We looked at each other confused, relieved, guilty. We had just abandoned everything we said we’d grab in case of fire. We’d left with no money or supplies for survival. We felt we’d failed our fire test.

We heard later that despite their initial scolding from the firemen, my husband and the guy’s actions with their extinguishers probably helped stop the fire from spreading more. I never saw the girl again. Our building smells like smoke and the ground floor is missing its carpet but otherwise it’s as though nothing ever happened.

Leaving Home For Home

At long last I am giving up my bachelorette nest in the hills. This is the sunny, quiet refuge I’ve called home for nearly six years. Leaving isn’t easy.

I knew I needed to be in my neighborhood the first time I had coffee there. I was living down by the beach and feeling alienated by the transient, shallow, vapid culture near the sand. If I went to coffee I got glares from the Paris Hilton clones and the only conversation to be heard was centered on the latest jeans brand or MAC lip-gloss color to buy. I also turned out to be the only English speaker on my block which didn’t exactly foster a sense of belonging to my community.

One day after work I stopped for coffee with a friend in the hills. As nursed my latte I heard a conversation on one side of me about art history and on the other side about politics. My people! I thought. Here you are! I asked the barista what the neighborhood was called and plugged that into my Westside Rentals search that night.

I walked into my apartment and knew it was mine. It was the top apartment in a little Italian-style 1920s triplex. It had pale yellow walls, windows on three sides and a teeny balcony with French doors off the bedroom. I walked straight up to the landlady who was showing people around and told her it was my apartment and what did she need from me to make it official? I think she knew I would love it and care for it the way she wanted. She shooed the rest of the lookers out and handed me a rental application.

Over the years I have developed deep ties with the community and they’ve been there for me in ways I thought people didn’t bother with anymore. We’ve laughed together over the riddles of life, cried together over personal pains and shared many a glass of wine simply enjoying the quiet companionship of a starry evening. It feels like family.

When the fiancée and I started talking about moving in I panicked. Wasn’t there some way he could sell his spacious two bedroom condo and move into my one bedroom rental? Didn’t that make sense in some parallel universe? I think because I’ve lived far from my own family for so many years I was especially reluctant to give up this created one. What if I lose them and then we’re just adrift in this new neighborhood not knowing anyone. Not belonging.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my fiancée sighs, “you create community wherever you go. It’s not the place, it’s you.” He’s sort of right. I have already befriended many people in his neighborhood – our neighborhood, in our building and at our local Trader Joe’s. I’ve already found my hiking routes and invited neighbors in for cocktails.

In fact if I look at it another way, I can be glad to go. Yes, I had some of the best chosen family ever in that neighborhood, but I’ve also let some of the worst people come into my life there (listen to your first intuition, girls!). The evil sub-letter, the stalker ex, the bad business decision; I can breathe a sigh of relief to know they won’t be walking distance from my life anymore.

Besides leaving my hills ‘hood family, I worried leaving my single girl pad meant I’d be losing some part of me that made me fabulous as a single girl, some part that made me me.

As I organized my vintage typewriters and fountain pens onto a shelf next to my antique bottles filled with dirt from my favorite hiking trails, I saw the other side of the coin. As I close the single-girl chapter of my life, I get to discover my married-girl self and take that next step into a partnership and a life that I’ve been hoping and wishing for since I first fell for John Schneider. It’s the promise of that step that finally loosens my fingers’ grip on the old keys and lets them slip back into my landlady’s palm.

It’s been a year of tough transitions and it’s time to say goodbye to my nest. It feels like leaving an old friend. Thank you for keeping me safe and happy for so long. I’ll miss you.

The Note Writer

I am that neighbor.

I have stuck my head out the window at 3am and shouted for quiet. Those darn kids. I have left notes in their mailboxes when they woke up the whole street for weeks on end. I have left notes on cars sticking into my driveway or otherwise inconsiderately parked.

I have considered leaving notes for people with selfish signs:

“Don’t even think of parking here” – It’s a public street. You don’t have the right to restrict parking.

“If caught disposing of trash in this bin, you will be prosecuted” – If you spend your energy on something as trivial as guarding your trash cans you must have a sad life.

“Yes on Prop 8” – You are a hateful bigot…but then we’ve already been over that one.

I have also considered leaving notes for other concerning behaviors: The whole street can hear you when you scream at your elderly mother. We wonder if we should report elder abuse.

Sometimes I just feel the need to blow off the steam of my occasional outrage at the state of the Universe. Notes are fairly harmless. Plus every thwarted screenwriter needs as many outlets as she can get.

The thing is I also am the neighbor everyone likes, the one you can count on, the one you invite over for tea and cookies. I don’t know if they’d be so quick with the Toll House if they knew I was the righteous note bitch. I like to keep my righteous note soap-boxing anonymous. I feel my noted opinions are indubitably correct but I still don’t want anyone to know it’s me – just in case they’re not.

I was having tea and cookies last night at a neighbor’s when a friend of theirs popped in for a cuppa. He said he was parked in the alley with his hazards on. I suggested he park in my driveway and he chuckled. Then our hosts chuckled.

“What?” I asked.

“Tell her,” one prompted.

“Well,” hedged the guest, “it’s just kind of funny that you would offer since you once left that note on my car.”

I froze, horrified. How did they know? “What note?”

“I guess I didn’t realize four cars can fit across the street and I had sort of parked in the middle of the space so only three –“

“It said ‘please be a considerate neighbor,’” interrupted our host, “’four cars park here.’” She giggled. The guest giggled. Everyone giggled but me.

I actually remembered coming home expecting to park in front of my house but being thwarted by a rogue car who, very rudely in my estimation, took up more than his share of curb so that I couldn’t. I was pissed. Indignant. I wrote a note and smacked it on the windshield. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand it was people who were oblivious to how their actions affected others. I remembered writing that note; being that righteous bitch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I waffled. “I didn’t leave a note.”

My hosts chuckled on. It was clearly no big deal. But I was on a roll.

“Why do you think it was me?”

“You said you left notes.”

“Yeah, for the loud kids. They woke us all up for a month, remember? But… never just on a car.” I dug deeper.

“Oh. Huh.” The chuckling was dying out now.

“I’m actually kind of offended that you would think it was me.” Dang this was a big shovel.

“Oh don’t be offended. It was just funny.”

The evening went on from there and we moved on but I kept thinking about it. I wasn’t actually offended, of course. I just hadn’t known what else to say. It probably would have been much better for me to admit to the note and laugh along with them since it was clearly no biggie to them. But something stopped me. I didn’t want them to think I was an awful note-leaver.

I had always kept my notes anonymous because I was afraid, not of being wrong, but of being thought of as the bitchy busy-body with nothing better to do but leave notes on cars, passing judgment on others’ actions from on high. I didn’t think anyone would invite a note writer over for tea and cookies. Not being part of their neighbor family was what I was afraid of.

Yet they had laughed. They didn’t care if I was a quirky, occasionally indignant note writer. They knew and had accepted me for me anyway. Even then, I was afraid to trust them with my silly truth.

As I walked home, warm with tea. I though how silly I had been to lie. It’s not like the secret identity I was protecting was like Superman or anything. I was just the Note Writer. I will set the record straight over tea tonight. I finally get it. Friends accept you, opinions and all, and don’t cast judgment even if one’s opinion delivery method is a tad ridiculous. I’ll have to write them a thank you note.

Campaign Management

My eyes pop open at 5:30. Sure, I always wake up early but today I am on a mission that needs to be carried out in the cover of darkness.

Last night, I’d run into a fellow dog-walking neighbor. She was a lady I’d always liked. Part of the old Hollywood guard. She’d met her husband on the summer stock circuit back when she was a sassy redhead driving a new convertible ’57 Bel Air. Now her hair was still a flame red but in sparse chemical patches, covering the white.

We walked our dogs together through the hills in the fading golden LA twilight and chit-chatted about nothing in particular. Then we rounded a corner and saw it.

“Goodness,” she exclaimed, “A ‘Yes on 8’ sign. I haven’t seen one of those in this neighborhood.”

I too was stunned. Proposition 8 is our local initiative to take rights away from gays. Hollywood being legendarily liberal, you don’t see much right wing signage around to be sure.

As a talented friend points out in her ‘No on 8’ promo spots, 8 is the first proposition since prohibition that seeks to take rights away from people. I am naturally against it. Then I think of my gay friends and family – many of whom are married to each other – and can’t imagine a world without their unions being allowed. My uncle and his husband serve as the best example we have in our family of a healthy partnership and lasting love. They’ve been together longer than any of the hetero couples in our family. And their care and regard for each other is clear in their communication and they way they work through life’s issues together.

My father-in-law to-be, an old-school European gentleman, growled that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry and adopt because the kids will get made fun of and that will be hard on them. I shot back with a litany of my own childhood teasings including my height, the way I sat in my chair and being ostracized for wearing the wrong brand of jeans. Kids will find something to pick on no matter who your parents are. What a gift to be raised by two loving parents rather than an abusive home or even a struggling single parent household.

Local right wingers and many shipped in from Utah tried to scare voters with ‘Yes on 8’ campaigns that stated ‘gay marriage will be taught in schools and your kids will be corrupted.’ What? Since when is marriage taught in schools at all? And how is expanding kids’ minds about the differences of the world corrupting? This bigoted lie was quickly shot down but I was sure there was a base of haters that was still clinging to it.

My friend’s promo spots end with the tag line: “Don’t be a douche, vote no on 8” and I could help but agree. Who, but a complete douche could vote yes on 8? It doesn’t hurt you or take away from you in any way. All it does it hurt others.

Beyond douche – straight up bigot was more like it. As my dog-walking friend and I took in the ‘Yes on 8’ sign, BIGOT was the only word flashing through my mind.

“I’m just surprised to see that sign here,” she murmured.

“I know,” I agreed, “what complete bigots!”

“What? Oh no, that’s not bigoted.” Now I was double-shocked and then I remembered the Bush/Cheney sticker on her Volvo as she continued: “I’m voting yes on 8.”

“Buy WHY?” I couldn’t help myself.

“I believe in the sanctity of marriage,” she punctuated the sentence with a raise of her patrician nose.

At this point I figured I’d better reign in the argument or we’d cease to be friends all together. “Let’s agree to disagree on this.” I offered. You have your sanctity, I thought. How does someone else having theirs hurt you in any way? Two people who love each other and want to make a life together should be allowed to marry. Period. End of subject. I bit my tongue. I figured it’s kind of like that pro-choice argument: if you are against abortion, don’t have one. Leave others to make what choice works for them. Why do people feel the need to legislate the lives of others?

We finished our walk with awkward, inane small talk and said goodbye at the corner. My solace was that my neighbor’s point of view would, with any luck, die out with her generation.

But I couldn’t leave it at that. It was blatantly offensive and bigoted to have that sign out. To me, it was akin to posting a KKK sign in your front yard. I had to do something.

The clock clicks to 5:31. In the cover of darkness, I scoot out of bed. I should be more tired but I’m adrenalized. I dress quickly in all black and sit at my desk where I make a sign with black and red markers.

“HATEFUL BIGOTS” it reads. I consider it for a moment. I worry about getting caught. Maybe the ‘HATEFUL’ is too much. Was this kind of statement free speech or vandalism? Could I be arrested? I cut the ‘HATEFUL’ off the paper, leaving just ‘BIGOTS’.

I’m worrying more now about possible repercussions. I cover my fingertips in tape so I won’t leave prints and cover the front of my page with packing tape. This way I’ll be able to smack it on the front of the ‘Yes on 8’ sign and they won’t be able to pull it off without ruining the sign. They’ll have to take the offensive sign down.

I grab my dog and off we go. It will be light soon and we have to hurry. My dog is surprised as I drag him past his favorite potty spots. My pulse pounds as I near the corner where the bigot house sits. I can still back out of this, I think. I can just throw the sign away - leave them with their hater mind set, no risk to me. No, I decide, I have to do this.

I round the corner. In the darkness, I can barely make out the backs of their cars and the plants in the front yard. Wasn’t the sign on the left? I can’t see anything. I hurry closer, straining my eyes.

Nothing. The sign is gone.

I pause for a moment looking all over. Nope, not moved to the other side. I consider taping my ‘BIGOTS’ sign to their trash can but decide that’s not exactly fair. A motion detector light flashes on and I walk on, crumpling my sign.

Maybe someone else beat me to the punch and they had to take it down. Maybe the realized how hateful their point of view was and changed their minds. Maybe. I can have hope, can’t I? I thank the universe for protecting me from whatever would have gone wrong had I carried out my plan. And I leave those haters to that same universe for reprimand.

My dog and I trot home through the rosy dawn and I look to election day when I will vote for hope. I have to trust that that statement will be powerful enough.

It Balances Out: Stench Update

Funny how things come around to you. My cousin arrives for a visit today and as much as I've cleaned post subletter horror the place still just doesn't feel clean.

I'm watching a neighbor's cat while she's away and her cleaning lady - the neighborhood gem - came by today and asked me what to do. Since my neighbor is away, the place is just as clean as it was when she cleaned it last week. We came up with a few deep clean things for her to do and then she looked at my place and said "then I'll just clean your place."

"Oh I don't have any money to pay you." I demurred, longing for the amazing clean I'd seen her cause all over the 'hood. It's been a dream of mine to someday be able to afford her once a month.

She looked around the place, smiled at me and shrugged. She showed up half an hour later and now it's like my entire place has been cleaned by magic fairies. Things I didn't know could be shiny are shiny. Everything smells good. There is no dust or pet fur anywhere. I told her about the Kid's mess and she shuddered. I told her that her showing up and doing this for me today was like a miracle. She just smiled and went on her way.

My cousin should be here in an hour. I got to focus on work all day. And my place is cleaner than it's been in the five+ years I've been here. I'm left with nothing but gratitude. And lemony-fresh everything!

The Man With the Cans

As anyone in LA can tell you, there is a thriving sub-economy driven by the homeless and illegal immigrants. We have one such guy in my neighborhood. He and his shopping cart are a fixture on my street. He patrols the neighborhood and picks over our recycling bins thereby scraping himself a living. Over the years, we've developed a...well not a friendship but an acknowledging connection. We always say hello. He asks about my dog who gambols over to be petted. He tells me it's a beautiful day and he's doing well.

The neighborhood likes the cart man. Many people leave their bottles and cans out bagged separately for him so he doesn't have to dig in our deep bins. He has a calm, kind energy about him.

Then last week on a long dog walk I saw him - the interloper; a new kid with missing front teeth and a battered pick-up. The kind of truck held together by twine and duct tape. He was scooting quickly from house to house, leaving the truck idling while he dumpster dove. I didn't like it.

Now I am not really up on how things work in the world of recycling scavengers. I'm not sure about the rights and rules of territory protocol. But something about this new kid and his truck rubbed me the wrong way.

This morning, I saw his truck blocking my driveway as he rattled around in the bin across the street. I went out for a dog walk and saw him speed around the corner. Up our hill trudged our regular shopping cart guy. He nearly turned down our street but his shoulders sagged as he saw the kid and his truck and he went straight instead. I walked up to him.

"Who's the new kid?" I asked as he petted my dog.

He shook his head and said he didn't know but that he was ruining things for him. I looked at him, an old man, pushing his heavy cart up the hill.

"But that's not right. This is your street. You're our friend." I was hoping he'd tell me about some kind of scavenger protocol that was about to handle the kid. I was aware of how bourgeosie my concern was.

"Yes. There's nothing I can do though. No respect from the kids. Maybe the people here can tell him."

He left if hanging there. A dignified plea for help. I was, as it happens, the people here.

I continued on my dog walk and before long I ran into the kid, jumping from his idling truck again. Just then the man with the cart trudged into view at the bottom of the hill. My territorial nature kicked in, this time including the cart man in my territory.

"Hey. Who are you?"

The kid was startled. "I'm getting the bottles," he finally smiled.

"No. This is his street. It's been his street for years. You have to respect that." I pointed at the cart man looking into a picked-over bin down the hill.

"Well no, it's mine. I'm just over here..."

"No, it's not yours. This is his street. You have a truck, it's easier for you to find another street. He's our friend here. You go."

He hesitated, still grinning his toothless grin at me, the crazy Gringa. Was I serious or just a pain in the ass?

"Go. Now." I teach self defense for a living and when I want to command intimidation with my words, I can. He went.

I kept walking up the hill and saw he had not stopped again. Turning back down the hill, my dog and I ran into the old cart man again. He was passing an untouched bin.

"Wait! He didn't stop here," I told him. He looked at me in confusion.

"I told him it was your street and you are our friend. I told him to go."

He finally smiled a soft smile. "Thank you."

I wished him a good day and went home. I have no idea if I wrongly interfered in a scavenger turf war or if I actually helped. For all I know the kid has six babies at home and the cart man is single. But I felt like someone had to stand up for the 'hood - for this man who I had called friend. I don't even know his name. But as heard his cart rattle by again outside, it felt like it had been the right thing to do. Middle-class Pollyanna and all.

The Guy Across the Street

“What’d you do today?” I was on the phone Sunday with my friend from Seattle. One of my oldest friends who knows I live to check things off my ever-bloated to-do list.

“Nothing,” I told him. “I took a day off.”

The truth of the matter was I was nursing a wicked hangover, a rare experience for me.

“How’s life in LaLa Land?”

I snuggled down into the couch blanket and told him about my night.

I’ve lived here in my hilly, starry neighborhood for three years now. I’m in the cheap seats; the rental apartments at the bottom of the hills. But my uphill neighbors, the home owners, tend to be, well, famous people. Or people in the working realm of famous people. Just this morning on our hike, my dog and I greeted an A list actress whose dog likes mine and a cult TV legend whose dogs don't. A rising-star late-night TV host glares at me regularly for being friends with his ex-wife. With a 'hood like this, I shouldn’t be surprised at who my neighbors are, what they do and who they know.

I’ve been building a friendship with an ebullient artist up the hill who happens to be our street’s resident party hostess. I was thrilled to accept her invite to a dinner party on Saturday night. I’d been at her gallery opening earlier in the week and she told me the guy across the street, her dear friend, was going to be there. I was in.

The Guy Across the Street was someone I’d been fascinated by since I moved in. He seemed reclusive and often home like me so I reasoned he was a writer or some such creative. I was charmed by his boyish Mediterranean good looks and the shy wave and smile I would get if he drove by me.

“Oh he’s an absolute doll,” my hostess gushed. I would have accepted her invite no matter what but the chance to finally meet The Guy Across the Street was the icing on the cake.

I recounted to my Seattle friend how I’d arrived at the party and been presented to the Guy Across the Street by an art dealer friend of mine as the most fascinating and inspiring woman she knows. Have to remember to pay her later! It turns out The Guy Across the Street is not a writer but a major record producer only stopping home for a week. He’s in the middle of recording one of my generation’s biggest rock star’s new album. Of course he is.

We were standing next to each other when dinner was announced so we sat next to each other at the table and ended up talking. And talking. Guests left the party. He fetched a choice bottle of bourbon the rock star had given him and we worked on that for a while. Still talking until the wee hours. Finally, the exhausted hostess and her husband kicked us out.

So we did what you do. We went Across the Street. It was momentarily surreal to be entering this house that I’d walked by a million times and wondered what the guy who lived inside was like. And now here I was. We sat in his studio listening to music rarities and talking until the bourbon was finished.

Even thusly inebriated, I knew it wouldn’t be the best idea to let things go too far. We were neighbors after all. People would talk. But he was really cute. And we clicked so well talking. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I mean I’ve certainly had worse ideas. My head was definitely up for staying, talking all night and letting him continue to rub my cold hands. However, as often happens in these situations, my body took over.

The bellyful of bourbon suddenly felt like an unwelcome guest. I tried deep breathing to settle it but no good. I considered going to his bathroom but the thought of him hearing me throw up what was probably hundreds of dollars worth of bourbon was unthinkable. I thought it would look pretty ungrateful at least.

“I gotta go.” I blurted.

He chivalrously drove me down the hill to my cheap-seat apartment and for a moment I flashed on Andie not wanting Blaine to drive her home in "Pretty In Pink." But that thought was quickly shoved out by my inner den mother pleading “For God’s sake, don’t yak in the expensive car.”

He stopped said car, I pecked him on the cheek, bolted for my own toilet and flushed the evening’s festivities away.

Thus I spent my Sunday recovering on the couch while he was preparing for the Grammys.

“Do you think that left a bad impression?” I asked my friend. “I mean, it was a cool night, right?”

“Such an LA night,” my Seattle friend said. “Here you might go to dinner and say ‘I sat next to a guy in flannel.’ You’re sitting next to record producers.”

“Cute record producers!” I felt compelled to amend. A specific, cute record producer who hopefully didn’t take it personally that his evening’s conversation companion suddenly bolted when things were going so pleasantly. I’ll know next time he drives by me if I get a shy wave or not.

Meanwhile, add it to my list of Hollywood Cinderella experiences. I love this town.

My Best Collection

There is a boarding pass in my new thrift store book.

A man named Alex Naples flew here from Cleveland on March 14th. He must have been reading this book. The back flap of the dust jacket is still holding a place about fifty pages from the end. Did Alex not finish the book? It’s a sad story about a parent-child rift. Did it touch a nerve and he had to put it down? Take it to the thrift store where I would find it? Or did the flap find its way there, jostled in transit? What was Alex doing in Cleveland?

It seems the beauty of things is in the smallest parts. The tiniest evidence of a life. The things that go unnoticed except by the patient eye. I have become aware that taking the time to notice these details is the most rewarding part of the day. The smell of the orange blossoms on the tree we just passed. The way the light catches in the late afternoon in the uneven paint on my terrace doors. The vines with small blue flowers that stick to my dog’s coat like a fairy garland when he passes through them. I am becoming a connoisseur of the minutia of daily life.

I love collecting snatches and glimpses of people’s lives. Alex could never have known how he’d make my day by leaving his boarding pass in a book he was passing along.

Usually I do my collecting just walking around my neighborhood. Last week I saw a woman tending her garden. I stopped to compliment her on her geraniums. We ended up talking for half an hour. She regaled me with her life as told by the chronology of her plant acquisitions. “We put these in when Reagan got elected. This here was for Molly’s college graduation.” In the end she pressed cuttings from some long, trailing vines into my hands. “Clip ‘em here and they’ll root right up for you.”

I thanked her and walked back over the ridge to my side on the canyon, the vines flopping in my fingers and the spring heat. Vines that had seen presidencies and childhoods pass. Vines that now root in a pint glass in my kitchen.

Another afternoon I saw a wiry old man with papery skin tugging at his tree branches with clippers. I felt compelled to greet him. He stood petting my dog and told me about running in the ’36 Olympics with Jesse Owens and later surviving a Japanese POW camp after his plane went down in the pacific. I lamented aloud that I hadn’t brought my notebook with me. His adventures would make a great screenplay. “Oh they already have,” he assured me. “Nick Cage is supposed to star. They adapted my book. One minute.” He darted in his hillside house and returned a moment later with a copy of his memoir for me.

These glimpses of people always reveal such a generosity of spirit. Almost like looking through a keyhole at a cluttered room and seeing only the brilliant painting on the far wall. The way we touch each others’ lives in these smallest of moments. The kindness of strangers. The ability to be your true self with someone who knows nothing about you. Maybe just your best self.

These encounters create the web of human connection that comforts me when I get too overwhelmed by the big picture. I may not have cracked that character problem that’s been gnawing at my latest screenplay today but I finally met the guy who stands across the road smoking in the evenings. We’ve waved hello for over a year but today I know that his name is Adam and he is a butcher who is tired from standing all day. On a day like this, that’s enough.