When I lived in New York, I would often take the red eye back from where I grew up in Oregon because it meant I didn’t have to miss a day of work. Also, I was young enough that sleep still felt optional. I remember returning one January to Park Slope, dropping my stuff off at my apartment, and changing for work. I headed to my subway station, which was above ground. In pouring sleet, there was a collective realization among my fellow commuters that, due to construction, the unused utility track was now functioning as the main track. This meant climbing a temporary wooden staircase over the regular track and waiting on a temporary wooden platform built over the old tracks. Due to the weather both the stairs and the temporary platform were beyond slippery. We navigated as best we could, like pucks trying to find purchase on an air hockey table. It was early morning. The sky was black.
This brings me to today. It is so warm out that my cotton sweater is stifling. Trees are blooming. People are wearing shorts. This is the LA winter people dream about, and so I will set aside my grumbling and say: it is very nice.
Sorry to rub it in for those still living in the depths of darkness, trying to find traction on sheets of slippery sleet. Know that it isn’t always this way; it rains here more than people like to talk about, and good luck finding decent theater! But at the moment the air smells like possibility (and sweat).
It’s the kind of beautiful day that makes me think of a simpler time, before the death of print journalism. I was reading the magazine of record (US Weekly) and stumbled across an interview with AnnaLynne McCord. For those of you who didn’t immediately call to mind her fresh, tan face framed by sprightly curls: she was the star of the 90210 reboot, a project that seemed redundant in a world already saddled with The O.C. and Laguna Beach. I think the publicists involved knew they were fighting an attention battle, because at the time I was inundated with information about the 90210 reboot and to this day know that AnnaLynne McCord was its star.
In the interview, AnnaLynne McCord said that she really enjoyed getting up to go to work in the morning because everyone is in such a good mood because the weather in Southern California is so nice.
Now that I’ve worked in television, I don’t know if I agree with AnnaLynne McCord that everyone is in such a good mood, but that may be because I was mostly around writers, and writers are rarely in a good mood. But on certain days, as I walk to my car, I do think the weather in Southern California is so nice.
Especially when I think of my freezing, defeated former self. If only she knew there were literal brighter days ahead! Sure, they’re buttressed by boredom and depression, but what adulthood is free of boredom and depression?
In the past year, AnnaLynne McCord emerged from obscurity (to me) to read a poem about Vladimir Putin on her social media account. Unfortunately, the poem did not have the desired effect (stopping him from invading Ukraine) and she received a fair amount of flak for it.
But now I’m putting it all into context, and I think I understand why AnnaLynne was reaching out to Putin. Trapped in Northern Asia, he doesn’t know what’s possible. If only he could visit LA in February! It would be a good place for him—surrounded by like-minded, insecure sociopaths intent on ruining lives in more nonviolent ways via the entertainment industry. Then he would know what it feels like when everyone is in such a good mood because the weather in Southern California is so nice.
Genius
https://open.spotify.com/track/6tunhVGD8C05MZNjSVIsjw?si=tT9oIKgHR966JBzEAkG2IQ