Last night, I went out with my upstairs neighbors, Carrie and Ben, infinitely sweet and patient people. They work as independent designers, sometimes of book covers, mostly of websites.
We walked up Sunset to Taix, the only place I had been to in Echo Park before moving here. It's high French plastic camp with B+ food and a massive wine cellar that I will never need to know about. Against my better judgment, I get steak frites. I regret it immediately. It's not a season for lumpy meals — a rich and useless observation, since I later ate an "alley dog," a thing wrapped in bacon and slathered in mayonnaise so god kill us both let's just agree to disagree.
We find our way to The Holloway. The jukebox screen is stuck on a blue matchstick declaration: ERRORS EXIST. Ben and I try to play shuffleboard, which is like bocce but in miniature on a sawdusted plank. I couldn't judge the distance to the sweet spot. I guessed it would take a thousand tries before my wrist would know the proper swing. Ben guessed fifty tries would do it. I found that optimistic.
"Free Water" was painted in cursive on a mirrored wall, which says a lot about an L.A. bar in 2015.
Today, I saw my friend, Mara, at a more or less vegan café. We talked about our mutual distrust of white gallery cubes and proscenium stages. We were interrupted at one point by a wait staff member singing "Happy Birthday" to a patron in full operatic soprano.
