Dont Mince Words

I’m back on the subject of LA and cars, but before we go there, let me immediately digress.

I had the usual, traditional conflicted childhood. I was an individual who was different and didn’t blend in and yet I wanted to be like everyone else. And I didn’t. My parents’ delivered the usual fucked-up conflicted messages, “Why can’t you be like everyone else.” Or, “Why do you want to be like everyone else?” (That one they used during back-to-school clothes shopping season). All this was sorted out in college and grad school when I realized I got along with all types of people, but I was, indeed, very much an individual.

So here I am in LA. I’ve never really cared about fashion and usual err on the side of comfort. I’ve never been a conspicuous consumer. No bling-bling. No gottahaveit now. I’m pretty low maintenance. Cars in LA… that’s a subject a standup comic could analyze for days.

I am currently an owner of a 2001 Honda Accord. Is it the car I really wanted? Nah, not really, but I didn’t know what I wanted either. It is a reliable car and it will do for now. It is bigger than I’m used to (four scraped hubcaps to prove it) and CPA-conservative. When I open the trunk in the grocery store parking lot, I feel like I should be putting some cases of Similac in there too.

But I digress.

Today I went to a networking luncheon meeting for the International Association of Business Communicators in West Hollywood. I immediately bonded w/a graphic design agency sales guy named Joseph. I looked at his portfolio while I nibbled on my Mexican salad (“Would you like tofu or grilled chicken on that?” You know you are in Hollywood when tofu is first in the meat order). He’s also doing a short movie on the side about nuclear bomb testing in Utah. So, I immediately went into Pentagon mode and grilled him about the interviews and story line.

After we all paid the check, Joseph and I walked in the same direction together and he invited me to a rough cut screening of his film. We made it to my car and exchanged cards.

“Oh, this is you?” he said, looking deeply into my Honda’s headlights.

“Yes, as you can tell by my parking job, I’m relearning how to drive,” I said.

He walked away, promising to email when he knew the screening time. I knew he wasn’t going to email. I drove a Honda. He strikes me as the kind of guy that likes a girl that drives a Lexus SC430. When you see a woman in a 430, you think, “she must like anal sex.”

I drove down Santa Monica Boulevard chuckling when Joseph happened to pass me in his Cadillac Escalade. WITH A GOLD PACKAGE. A white guy with a gold package? Where I come from this means NO penis instead of small penis and you have a posse of “girls” working for you.

Do you think anyone will notice my new tires?

When I see my mom’s telephone number pop-up on my cellphone caller ID, I do the usual three-ring deliberation. Should I or shouldn’t I answer this call? The good angel tells me to pick it up because she is concerned for me. The bad angel tells me it might be the paramedic clicking on the speed dials on her home phone to notify me that she is on a stretcher in de-fib.

Today it was her calling with the usual question, “so, do you have a job yet?”

“No mom, not yet. I’m still networking and calling folks and making great contacts,” I replied.

“Well, it has been two months. I don’t understand how you can go this long. I think some man is keeping you,” she retorted.

Me, a kept woman? I wonder who this imaginary man with cash flow could be. (CircusBoy doesn’t send me a stipend from his circus check.) Why am I being penalized because I’m an independent woman who saves for the next lay-off? She doesn’t get it because SHE is the kept woman.

I’ve already out-worked my mother. She had a brief career until her early 30’s when she hatched me. Then she was a stay-at-homer. Now she’s sitting fat in happy in a paid off house and gets to live off social security (she didn’t even pay into the ‘system’) and my dad’s retirement.

Now, that’s a pretty sweet return on investment. And I’m not going to argue. I hear that raising kids is hard work. But that IS a SWEET ROI. I’d love to only work 15 years of my life and have a house and provisions for life. That sounds like ‘kept’ to me.

The trade-off is dependency and that’s not my style. Yeah, I’m a “kept” woman.

I’ve kept my independence.