Thursday, March 5, 1998
Small quirks of the place we call home
LOS ANGELES: Lunacy never ceases in city of glamour,
extravagance
I’ve been a woman in Los Angeles for quite some time now, and
I’ve discovered that in this place where Visa bills serve as
Rorshach tests, life gets stinky, and one forgets how to smell the
roses (well, it’s hard to smell anything after visiting the plastic
surgeon for that final rhinoplasty). I like being a woman, a lot.
It’s just that sometimes I realize that I’m part of the set design,
creating the next shot in the appropriate attire, and I swear it’s
because I’m living in Los Angeles. I walk through movie premiers to
get to my car parked in the lot behind In-N-Out burger; I
accidentally date actors; I am drowning in entertainment hooey.
I’ve been a woman in a number of places, some where the use of
lip-liner throws one into the ranks of cosmopolitan. Here, in the
land of the blown-out shag hair and the cookie-cutter decaf smile,
I wonder what it takes to survive, to be unscathed by Hollywood and
its boring definitions of "hip." I see women who go pick up their
kids from Montessori schools in their Range Rovers, I see the
others with puffy pink dreams of a film career like Sandra
Bullock’s who wind up smashed on speed instead of starring in it. I
see it all, and sometimes I can hardly step into my frilly panties
in the morning because I’m not sure I’m good at being a woman in
Los Angeles.
This mecca of iconoclasm does have some lovely amenities. I
found the Beverly Hills Library and became giddy with the
extravagance of the place; marble and dark woods make me tremble. I
went there last week and tried to fight the feeling that my life
was one big, cliche-ridden sitcom plot without any good sponsors. I
picked up an application for membership and began filling out the
form. I began to eavesdrop on the conversation in front of me.
There stood a woman with biologically impossible breasts,
purple-glitter toenails, legs to the rafters shoved (like as in
with a shoe horn) into hot pants and a cropped haircut. She was
asking the grayish, polyester-clad librarian a multitude of
questions. Standing there, blinded by the glaring contrast of these
two women, it became clear to me that the library should issue some
really snazzy Armani suits to the employees, for continuity’s sake
(you’ve got to see how classy this library is). So I’m hypnotized
by this woman with legs like chopsticks and I notice how her voice
has a naturally paced sense of eloquence and dignity. With royal
elocution, she says, "So, do you have anything with the title, ‘How
to Marry a Millionaire’ or, let’s see, maybe just ‘How to Marry
Rich?’"
She smiled a detergent-white smile, and I turned my face to the
membership form to hide my disbelief. Her diction was so refined I
had to have heard her correctly. Whoa. Those words, they don’t
exist in my idealized little world (a place full of Elvis
paraphernalia and men who live for foreplay and cooking with fresh
herbs). I was lost, and I looked to the librarian for help. I half
expected her to give the gold-digger-in-training the same look she
saved for little boys caught looking at topless natives in National
Geographic, but she didn’t. Without batting a gray eyelash she
typed the words into the computer and said, "Do you know the
author’s name?" and the woman shook her 1978 Vidal Sassoon haircut
from side to side in a helpless, well-rehearsed fashion.
"Ginnie Polo Sayles."
The librarian looked up and said, "What, Dear?" and I stood
there, catatonic. Suffocating and stuck sharing the air with the
fact that I not only knew the author of the book, but that I had
admitted it in a public place – I was nauseous. For a moment, it
kind of just floated there, kind of like Ginnie herself, all bright
and garish.
"Uhh … I was just listening and, umm, what exactly is it that
you’re looking for?" I said meekly.
"How to Marry a Millionaire," said the statuesque woman facing
me with all her wide-eyed hopes of future Prada and spa treatments
.
"Yeah, uh, that’s what I thought you said, I umm, well I watch a
lot of bad talk shows, and I …" this is the part where
embarrassed babble begins at the back of my throat and begins to
froth up until I am nothing but a verbally rabid female Woody
Allen. Shrugging my shoulders in a million staccato gestures I make
excuses for three minutes, and I am still explaining the talk-show
fixation.
"I watch bad stuff, like Geraldo and Sally. Jerry Springer
mostly; anyway, they always have this topic on and ummm … " Oh
holy "A" in women’s studies last quarter, what am I doing? Have I
turned my back on Naomi, lit the halls of Betty Friedan aflame by
answering this woman’s question?
"This woman, this Ginnie Polo Sayles, is always on promoting her
book. She always wears a red suit; I’ve seen her on, like, five
shows, and she always has the same suit on, but anyway, she’s the
author you’re looking for – Ginnie Polo Sayles."
I breathe through my nose and accept that I have no dignity
left. My secret vice is out. I love talk shows, and I retain the
information they provide. I nod and push my glasses up. I want to
evaporate. I’m sure the librarian is envisioning me in a Lazy Boy
recliner with a legal pad jotting down notes from the Richard Bey
show while the Malibu Barbie creature is pitying my flat hair and
matching chest.
The librarian types in the name and gives the woman the call
number. The gold digger gives me a "Hey I’ll be thanking you when
I’m doing Christmas at St. Barts" look, and I sort of smile.
"Thank you. " she says.
"Sure," I mumble. Yeah, you’re welcome lady, be a prisoner to
Chanel boots, I’m just trying to get a library card. I step up to
turn in my application.
"You need proof of residence. And you need to turn this in over
there, in the registration line," sighs the librarian.
"Oh, OK, thanks." I stammer and look down at my sneakers against
the steam-cleaned, emerald-green carpet. I try not to laugh out
loud – I try really hard – it is a library. I grope through my
backpack wondering what proof of residence I have when I find one
legal-looking document. I pull out my latest Visa bill, maxed out
(textbooks, haircut, therapeutic margaritas for me and my best
friend), payment due, tangible proof that I am a resident here.
Evidence that I am a woman living in Los Angeles.