sad songs and chardonnay

story of my fucking life.

I GOT SOMETHIN' TO SAY

Sorry, folks- I've been watching Strangers with Candy on netflix. So good. Watch it.

Anyway, I saw something TERRIFYING today

I went to the "Novel Cafe" in Santa Monica, which is right next to where I work, so that I could pick up a grilled cheese sammich for lunch. As I had forgotten my phone at work, which I would normally fiddle with while waiting for my food order to be ready, I seized the opportunity to window-watch the people passing by. Normal, right? Skinny kid smoking. Surfer mom and her blonde gap toothed kids. Meathead boyfriend in a green day shirt and his skinny little girlfriend holding hands.

The passersby hit a lull and I stopped backtracking their life stories, so I turned around to face the inside of the restaurant.

SO DIFFERENT Y'ALL

There are these little tulip shaped lights that I had never paid attention to before, and today I realised that they aren't lights at all- but hanging outlets for phones and laptop chargers, above each and every table. Convenient, right?

Everyone in the restaurant was plugged in and talking on their cell phones, or clicking away at a laptop. No one was talking to each other. It was scary to look at because people were quite literally plugged in- a woman was shouting, indifferent and oozing self-importance, while her blackberry was plugged in above her. She was skinny and standing, tethered to the tulip. She had fake breasts. Another man was pacing, while attached to his charger, talking to Gotham Records (the label sticker on his Mac laptop, I'm assuming it's his workplace) about signing somebody or something.

I hated. I'm never fiddling with my phone in public again.

We use technology as a communicative crutch. It's easier to push the buttons on a keyboard to broadcast meaning than to speak the words. I'm doing it right now. I've done it before. I love you. I miss you. See? I just did it again.

Someone apologized to me via facebook for breaking my heart three years ago. Wish he would have said it three years ago, when it hurt the most.

I'm lookin' for truth, here, people. Something real. Something not presented to me through a technological buffering interface to diffuse the pain or discomfort. Don't tell me I'm in the wrong city for that- I know it's here somewhere, hiding.

New York was gritty, sharp, real- it was video. Los Angeles is grainy, fuzzy, soft, smeared, faraway, smoothed over with smoggy skylines. The whole goddamn city looks like a faded photograph. There's truth somewhere here too. There's real people.

So long, summer. It's been real.