Saturday mornings in my neighborhood, Silver Lake, are tinged with a faint hint of bustle. The farmer’s market, brunch, coffee—these delicacies lure people from their plant-filled homes, and suddenly the normally barren sidewalks are, if not full of people, healthily spattered with them.
I got to the farmer’s market right before it closed, securing some passed-over peaches and gorgeous white pita bread. I then puttered down the street, looking for a place to grab breakfast.
My neighborhood is currently undergoing what is called “re-gentrification,” a process by which the haves that drove out the have-nots are now being driven out by the have-even-mores, AKA corporations. They always win, don’t they?
What was once a nice, overpriced diner where the staff sang me happy birthday on a particularly hard one is now a Warby Parker. Convenient if you need your glasses cleaned, not so convenient if you like food. Even though I’m a colonizer here myself, I took irrational pleasure in seeing that a recently opened eatery dedicated exclusively to puddings had already shuttered, but I’m sure whatever replaces it will be worse, so jokes on me, as it always is.
After passing a bunch of uninspiring options, I noticed a popular bagel truck parked in front of the Warby Parker and its new companion, a Madewell for men. Finally! A store for men. I was (don’t ask) in the mood for a plain bagel and cream cheese so I put in my order and waited because apparently, the time it takes to slather a spread on bread in this town is “an eternity.”
As I waited, I observed the local culture. Last week I said there wasn’t much to see here but of course, that was hyperbolic. There was a lot to see. Men wearing jeans that were too short for them. British people. French people. A tiny child wearing a Nirvana baseball hat.
As I lingered by the entrance to the Madewell but for men, a young man and a young woman placed an order at the truck. The woman was wearing what many young women wear today: a tiny dress and a tiny purse and platform shoes that wouldn’t look out of place in an early Mandy Moore music video. The man was wearing white jeans and a white shirt all slashed up and his hair was white (okay, blonde). Luckily they had to wait a while before someone took their order and while they did I was able to eavesdrop on their conversation, which mostly consisted of the man saying that “everyone is so hot this side of town” and then proclaiming “I’m moving here, everyone is so hot.”
I took this in, initially not considering the possibility I was part of his assessment, but then I realized: I was wearing a bucket hat. Why not me?
I got my bagel in the same time it takes to bake a lasagna and let me tell you something: it was one of the worst bagels I’ve ever had in my entire life. And I’ve eaten millions of bagels. I guess the taste of the bagels from this truck has, in the past, been masked by toppings or onions or garlic, but the unfiltered effect was horrifying. The thing didn’t even have a hole.
But I wasn’t about to let it ruin my day. After all, I was one of the hot people on this side of town. I shouldn’t be eating carbs anyway.
Millions!? C’mon!
RIP Sunset Junction Diner