Little Angelino

I've been housesitting my boss's pad for the past four months or so, and I have a confession to make. There are two halves to the way I feel about this situation.

1/2: I have never lived a more comfortable lifestyle. I spend my days tending to the pets, organizing someone else's living space, making sure all appliances work, swimming in a swimming pool, and watching the sunrise over Los Angeles and the moonrise over the Valley. I feel incredibly fortunate and relaxed. My life is beautiful.

2/2: This is NOT MY LIFE. I want my space back, I want my books, I want my mess. I want my fridge. I want my very big queen sized bed with the soft feathertop and down blanket. I want to be able to invite people over without feeling bad about it, and not worried that someone might break something. I want to be able to leave work, leave someone else's environment and come back to my own. I want to be able to leave my house, spend the night somewhere else, not worried that someone will break in.

My employers will be coming back in a few weeks, and I'm glad. I'll finally get to move into my great new apartment, and celebrate my new life properly. Here are some pictures:

My friend Becky works at E! Online as a writer for a gossip column. Part of her job is to go to parties and premieres where celebrities will definitely be. It just so happens that Pete Wentz is her fucking Godhead, the body, the son and the holy ghost of celebrities.

Pete Wentz is modeling for a new fashion line from Op, along with Wilmer Valderama and Rumer Willis. So Becky was DEFINITELY going to this work-related event, for the mere possibility that she'd get the chance to drink free booze and lick Pete Wentz on the face. (If you haven't been keeping up with the lives of people in the public eye, Pete Wentz just got married to Ashlee Simpson, who is pregnant with their first child. Ashlee is also the sister of Jessica Simpson, who is dating athlete Tony Romo. Jessica Simpson used to be seen around town with Man About Town, John Mayer, who is now banging Jennifer Aniston on a regular basis, and Jennifer Aniston used to be married to Brad Pitt who is now married to Angelina Jolie, who was in a movie with Winona Rider, who used to date that guy from that band in the 90s who sang Runaway Train, and that guy was a rock star JUST LIKE PETE WENTZ. You see how it all comes full circle?)

So anyway...

The last event Becky took me to, we were at Arianna Huffington's house and Adrian Grenier totally had eye sex with me. Don't get excited, ladies. The mere fact that I have a vagina and I was wearing a dress was all the reason Adrian needed. The OP party was located at a house somewhere in the hills of Beverly Hills. Like at the last party, there was a valet in front of the house, but there was an actual red carpet. SEEEEE:

Living in Los Angeles means that you come into contact with a lot of weird, strange people. What's weird about them is often times their connection to people who are famous. It's sort of like collateral. I don't know why. The more famous friends you have, somehow it gives you more of a reason to think you're better than other people. It's not your intelligence, it's not your good looks, it's just... I don't even know. Maybe it's the Paris Hilton Syndrome. People like you, not because of anything having to do with YOU, but the world that you exist in, the circles you drift in an out of.

We ran into a friend of Becky's who also works at E! Becky excitedly asked her friend she'd seen Pete Wentz walk in.

The following contains what I could glean from their conversation:

E! Correspondent: He's here, didn't you see him? He might be in the front. Yeah, I went over and said hi. We're friends!

Becky: You're friends? He's my IDOL. You're FRIENDS with him?

E! Correspondent: Well, yeah, he recognizes me on the red carpet and stuff because I've interviewed him a bunch of times. I interviewed him when he walked in.

At which point, I pfff'd under my breath. I don't know if any of you realized this, but I'm dating Adrian Grenier. Yeah, after having eye sex with him that one time, and running into him at a bar and a coffee shop, we decided to take our relationship to the next level and give our random encounters some real meaning.

Then a paparazzi asked to take a picture with her and her friends, and she posed and smiled brightly. I think that was the only point where I felt jealous of anyone at the party.

OK, in all honesty, I felt extremely out of place there. Everyone was good looking... extremely good looking. I went up to a very cute guy in an ironic T-shirt, thinking we might have something in common since I like ironic fashion, and I asked him for a cigarette. His name was Walter, and he had the most amazing pectoral muscles.

Dance: I like your shirt.

Walter: It's a band logo. They're my friends and they're playing at the Echo tomorrow night.

Dance: What do they sound like? Anyone I'd know?

Walter: They sound a lot like (insert obscure band that no one has ever heard of here).

Dance: Hmmm, I don't know them.

Walter: The Replacements?

Dance: Oh yeah, I love them!

Walter: They're like really happy music.

Dance: Do you know of the Parson Redheads? I love them, they're really happy music too.

Walter: (Rolls eyes) Yeah... I know em. (Takes a long drag of his cigarette and distractedly stares off into the crowd)

Dance: Ehm... Well... Thanks for the cigarette.

Walter: Yeah, hey. Enjoy yourself tonight.

I started to feel a lot like Daria. So there I was, in the middle of this gorgeous house, feeling short, fat, and drunk. What was I doing there? What am I doing in this town? What am I doing with my life? I'm not going to meet my husband in Los Angeles! What am I doing wasting my time here!

And after a half second of being lost in my own little world where everyone hates me, I snapped out of it. The truth of the matter was that I was having a good time, and there's really no reason to get bummed out over nothing. And at the end of the night, as Becky and I walked back to her car, a group of paparazzi took pictures of us looking post-party fabulous. And I didn't feel so jealous after all.

Here are some of our own party pictures, sans douchbaggery.

 

INT. HOUSE. MORNING, 10 AM.

(A portly, middle eastern man wearing a backwards cap and a T-shirt follows Dance through the sliding door, entering the house.)

MAN: Niiiiice house!

DANCE: I know. It's not mine, I'm just housesitting.

MAN: I can live here?

DANCE: Ha! I wish the same thing!

The pair walk over to the rug that in desperate need of cleaning. It is a Navajo rug, very old and very rare.

MAN: I take rug. I cannot here.

DANCE: Take rug? No no no, you're just supposed to give me an estimate. I told the dispatch that I wouldn't mind taking the rug in myself to the shop, but she said it would be better to have a technician come up to the house.

MAN: (rolls eyes) You want estimate? I give you estimate. (Sighs)

The man extends his measuring tape along the side of the rug.

MAN: You have dog here?

DANCE: Yes, but he stays outside.

MAN: Ah. (He puts his palms together, as if to make a very important point.) Dog goes peep on carpet?

DANCE: Peep? I'm sorry?

MAN: Dog goes peep on carpet? You understand?

DANCE: I'm sorry, I don't (I did but I just couldn't believe that he was asking me this question).

MAN: (Sighs in frustration) Dog goes peep on carpet. You understand!

DANCE: Does he go to the bathroom on the rug? No! He's outside!

MAN: OK, OK, OK... (proceeds to measure with his measuring tape)

DANCE: We do have cats though, I don't know if they've ever gone to the bathroom on the rug.

MAN: (Ignoring Dance's last statement) I take carpet, but... (he shrugs and rolls his eyes again) Will be cheaper.

DANCE: It will be cheaper? How much?

MAN: (Rolls his eyes again, as if to tell me that he will get to it all in good time) It will be cheaper, yes! Because I have to take, and machines, very big, and they will... they will rake. And you see?

(He jumps on a spot of the antique Navajo rug that is particularly worn, the threads are separating from each other. He jumps a couple of times, potentially separating the threads a little more than before)

MAN: I'm afraid the machines. And, I mean, COME ON!

DANCE: How much will it be?

MAN: (Shrugs shoulders and rolls eyes again) 120.

DANCE: OK, great.

MAN: Yes, it's great. But... COME ON!

(COME ON! seemed to be his favorite phrase, he said it with such relish. Maybe because it implies the ignorance of the person he's directing his criticism at.)

MAN: COME ON! Is time for change!

DANCE: (Laughing) OK, well, thanks. I'll let you know.

MAN: What is your name?

DANCE: Dance.

MAN: That's Niiiiiiiice.

(Dance guides him out the sliding glass door. Waves goodbye. Watches to see him drive off, making sure that he will leave soon. She is annoyed when he sits in his truck, a red SUV that has a For Sale sign on it, and talks on his phone for a good twenty minutes. Dance leaves and comes back to see him still sitting there. She leaves and comes back and finally the car is gone. She closes the gate with a sigh of relief.)

I've pretty much accepted the fact that it is my destiny to trip over my shoes and fall down steps, spilling wine on my white skirt. I shake like a leaf when I am confronted with heartache, when I should probably smile coyly and say something Bond Girl Badass instead. In a room full of boys, and we're all drinking whisky, I won't stop drinking when I've reached my limit as a lady would; I'll probably keep drinking until I black out or vomit or both. When given the opportunity to flirtatiously graze a paramour's rear end, my drunken mouth will more likely spill out something that sounds like, "That's yer butt!" instead of something sexy (To the man at the Roost on Friday night who I've had a childish crush on forever: I wish I had said something different when my hand found its way to your posterior, and perhaps we would be lovers now, but alas... all I could come up with was, "That's yer butt!").

Despite all of that, I still managed to have amazing hair and look great at the ReVamped fashion show

I hope you've all treated your mothers very well this past weekend. Here's a revisit to an animation I made last year for my mom on her birthday:

I didn't want to reveal anything too soon, however, I must give some kind of reason for my lack of postings in Little Angelino. I've been working on a comic book, completely hand drawn. I've never done anything like it before, and I've been working really hard to get it done so that I can attempt to sell it at Skylight books. 

That's just the cover.

In the mean time, I wanted to contribute something small to the world, hatched from my brain. Many years ago, a friend of mine and I used to write back and forth to each other and we would answer specific questions that reflected how we felt at the time. This is 17 year old Dance:

FAVORITE COLORS: I've always liked sky blue. Even when there's a veil of mist covering everything and the sky seems almost grey, usually right after it rains, I still like the color of the sky. Even at night, when the sky is so black over my house I love the color of the sky. But if you look at the sky over the city, and it's kind of an orange color and you can barely see the stars, but I still like the color of the sky.

FAVORITE SONGS: I haven't been listening to the radio enough to catch the names of the ones I really dig. I do like Fallin' by Alicia Keys. Short Skirt and a Long Jacket by Cake is my theme song. Those are the only new ones I can remember and latch onto. There are classics that will never die. Creep by Radiohead. Good by Better than Ezra. And one of the ultimate songs: I've Got it Bad and That Ain't good. I like both Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald versions. Talk about singing the blues.

FAVORITE BOOKS: Gone With the Wind is still my favorite book of all time. Other favorites: Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. And A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, an heirloom that was passed from my godmother to my mother to my godsister then to me. I'll have to give it to my daughter someday.

DEFINE LOVE: Unending affection that perserveres through spite and hatred, growth and distance, sins and sinners, and it accepts and forgives everything. The knowledge that you will live for the rest of your life knowing this person, be it a friend, mother, father, sister, lover, et cetera, et cetera and so forth. Love is a puzzlement.

NICE THINGS THAT HAPPENED LATELY: Smoking with Jamie. Late night talks with Susan. Trying poke and bananas and liking both. Gifts of Marilyn Monroe. The love of a cat.

DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: In chronological order: To write and to learn the craft of writing for several mediums- the stage, the screen, and literature, maybe. And also to learn massage or physical therapy, something to the effect. And also to learn Spanish. To have a strong career and to love what I do. To fall in love with a man who is almost an exact replica of Paul Newman and also who not only makes my heart go *Peep!* but makes my heart go *Aaaaah!* To travel the world, to Spain, to London, to Ireland, to Italy, to Indonesia, to go back to Guam, etc, etc. To finally settle down in a home in Hawaii, where my kids can have a good education without limitations and restraints. To have kids, lots of wonderful kids. To grow old with my wonderful Paul Newman-esque husband and play my guitar and make lemonade.

Here's 24 year old Dance:

FAVORITE COLORS: I'm enjoying smokey blue at the moment. I have this dress that was super cheap that I got from a discount department store because I was broke and wanted something pretty so I spent twelve bucks on a dress instead of buying lunch. It's white with muted blue flowers printed on the fabric. It's a very lovely, summery dress, and my favorite parts of it are the blue flowers.

FAVORITE SONGS: Either Way by Wilco, The Moth by Aimee Mann, Tonight You Belong to Me performed by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, Rush, Rush by Paula Abdul, I Can Feel It by Phil Collins, I'm Goin Down by Mary J Blige... lots of others.

FAVORITE BOOKS: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami, Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates, Lolita by Nabokov, Watchmen by Alan Moore.

DEFINE LOVE: luh'-vuh. 1) Uuuuuuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhh. 2) A complicated, political, hormonal agreement between two people who have extraordinary levels of affection for each other to spend copious amounts of time together for any number of reasons, logical or illogical. There are rules of engagement that one must follow. It is a currency, it must be earned, and it is just as easily lost. 3) Fun good times.  4) Kitty cats.

NICE THINGS THAT HAPPENED LATELY: Tea with Jeff and a copy of an effects program that will help me learn to animate. Spending time last week with Kate. Taking my grandmother for a drive around Los Angeles while she was visiting. My last show at Largo. Purchasing new make up with gift money. Finishing page three of the comic book I'm working on. Hangin with Becky. Gloomy weather (a very pleasant change).

DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE: That someone incredible picks up my comic book when it's finished and I finally sell it at Skylight and he/she is dying to get into contact with me, because they absolutely love the book so much. They hire me to do more like it. I turn Little Angelino into a franchise, and that is how I make money. I live in an apartment in West Hollywood, alone, and I'm not lonely and it's something I can afford. My apartment is terribly cute, with shabby chic, comfortable and vintage pieces decorating the space. My love life is traditional, and I've stopped throwing myself at the unavailable ones and I've stopped tolerating bad behavior from the ones that express interest in me. I have found someone that makes me feel new again every day that I wake up. My animations that I am creating on After Effects (thanks Jeff!) are interesting, quirky, cute and highly marketable. I have learned to keep plants alive and live plants are also a part of my routine. My closet is full of clothes that I love and will love forever. Muted blues, greens and pinks, flowing skirts and fitted shirts, lots of beautiful shoes, a necklace rack with delicate pendants and chains, pants that don't drag on the floor because I've found a tailor. I have written my Keats play into an incredible, award-winning opus and it allows me to travel to New York and London on a regular basis, perhaps even Barcelona. My car doesn't have any dents in it, and all the scratches are repaired.

I don't think my dreams have gotten bigger as much as they have gotten more specific. I'm living in a dream, it seems, and there isn't much more that I am wanting desperately. But once you stop dreaming, you stop moving, so here I am, setting my sights even higher, and hoping that the more I reach, the closer I get to something amazing.

Last night, while chatting with my friend Paul in London, I was unreasonably angry at nothing in particular. I may have gotten upset at my piece of fried chicken at one point, and that's about as rational as it got. But out of my anger sprouted a couple of gems, which I'm posting here:

 If you look up the definition of asshat, you'll read: "Ass-hat: a person who enjoys shoving his head up his own ass." And right next to the definition, you'll see a picture of you, with your head in  your ass, and tears coming out of your barely visible eyes
8:18:24 PM Dance: barely visible, because they're hidden by your ass

And then MSN kicked me off so I wrote this to no one in particular:

41:18
FUCKING MSN
44:00
I swear to jesus christ on a cross that if I ever come across the person who created this god damn instant messaging piece of shit program that he/she's no longer going to have any kind of reproductive organs after I get with thru with him/her. That fucking bitch, asshole, mother fucking son of a whore margaret thatcher piece of shit excuse for a human being fucking up my shit like that. Fuck you MSN. Fuck you. Fuck you and the fucking horse you rode in on you piece of shit. You cornholing pile of excrement. You swim in your own bile and vomit for fun don't you. You fucking douche. You fucking period stain.
45:04
MSN, if you got into a fight with George W. Bush, I'd be cheering for our dipshit asshat failure of a president to win
45:06
you know why?
45:10
because he sucks, but you suck NOW
45:16
you suck in my immediate life
45:24
you suck the marrow out of my existence
45:35
Ii'm trying to communicate with someone here, and you fucked it up

And so I went to see Iron Man with some friends. The show started at around 11:00pm, and I hadn't eaten dinner. So by  the time the movie got out (LAAAYYYYTE), I was very hungry, very tired and very angry.

So I drove to a Wendy's drive-thru, where my car was following a big Escalade. The monstrosity was being driven by one of those Hollywood ladies (they always look like Valley mothers escorting their daughters to the Sunset Strip), and a bunch of other girls and boys, but none of them looked very young. And I dont' know why this is, but i get really annoyed by people who go to the Sunset Strip who are no longer in their twenties. One of the passengers of the vehicle was extremely drunk, and he rolled out of the Escalade and stood in front of it. And I was so hungry, I was like, OH MY GOD THIS GUY IS PREVENTING ME FROM MY SANDWICH!!!

So I honked my horn at him and I yelled out my window:

What are you in HIGH SCHOOL?

But what I really wanted to say was:

Go home to your grandchildren, Rip Van Winkle. And get those crow's feet checked out. You look like Death Valley in the summer.

I love how my internal monologue is so viscious.

Lets take care of the Earth...

So the night I went to the Greg Proops show at Largo, I attempted to do my hair.

I was trying to recreate a look that I had been given on Sunday when I modeled in a fashion show for a couture vintage garment company called ReVamp. Kate knew the designer, so she suggested that me and a my curves sign up to be a model in the fashion show that they were going to have. I was dressed entirely in outfits recreated from the 1920s, and I was given a 1920s hair-do, with the bangs swept to the side and waved ever so slightly. It was an amazing look and I couldn't stop staring at myself in the mirror. That is... until I had to take my glasses off and put my first outfit on.

Me without my glasses is straight out of a Mr. Magoo cartoon. I couldn't see anything, let alone where I was walking. I may have looked cute, but I couldn't see what anything else looked like. I did my best to maintain my posture as I walked and displayed the lovely clothes. But as I turned to exit, I couldn't find the curtain to the backstage and I headed towards the main door. I put my hands out and felt my way around and finally made it through.

And then, on the last walk, my hand accidentally hit a big posterboard with all of our names on it, which caused a chain reaction and a big noise... you know that noise that happens when you're in a high school theatre class and you have to make a thunder sound, so you take a big piece of aluminum siding and you shake it? That's the noise the poster made as I walked out, trying to ignore it.

Regardless, the designer told me and Kate that I did a great job and I looked cute, and damn it, I really did. The hair stylist even asked me to do a photo shoot with her. Yipee!

So the next evening, I was getting ready to go out to Largo, and knowing that my favorite indie pop celebrities would be there and in close proximity, I wanted to make my hair just like (or close enough to) what it looked like the day before at the fashion show. I tried to do almost exactly what the stylist had done, take the hot iron that I'd borrowed  from Kate and ever so slightly curl the ends of the hair towards my face and then...

SSSssssssssssssss....

Do you know what that sound was?

The sound of burning flesh. In the middle of my forehead.

I stopped curling immediately and assessed the damage. Not that bad. Just cover it with some bangs and it'll heal in no time. Largo's dark. No one will notice.

The following morning, I wake up, and it looks like I took a cheese grater to my forehead.

So I've been sweeping my bangs elegantly across my face and it has been concealing the damage well enough so that I don't think people are noticing. But I'm always wondering if they ARE noticing and they're too embarrassed to tell me, "Hey... Dance... You... You've um... You've got something on your face..."