Dont Mince Words

I was recently told that I was living my own romantic comedy.  Dot com-crash-to-Wall Street girl leaves New York for Los Angeles for personal growth.  Discovers the emotionally unevolved, focuses on health, gets laid off more, and then moves to a small town where she has a job and a sensible romantic life.

This is finally my fucking movie.  Finally.

Living in New York was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I connected with a lot of smart and wonderful people.  But I also saw the evils.  I lived in fear for nearly nine months after I turned a dirty cop in to internal affairs.  After 9/11, I figured if I was going to get whacked by the mob, it would be a better death than burning in a building.  Needless to say, it all worked out and I happily left corporate slavery and chose LA as my backup plan when San Francisco was still in flames from the dot com bomb.

As I continue to look forward, it’s easy to reflect with the benefit of hindsight.  And I am one of those people who wouldn’t change anything in my life because even the bad stuff shapes the future path.  All those awful Los Angeles dates served some purpose (I know what I don’t want).  My odd projects, contracts and jobs all taught me that no workplace is perfect (I know what I don’t want).  Working is a fool’s errand.  You just have to try to pick your fools wisely.

The same holds true with dating.  When I was in the beginning interview stages in Santa Barbara, I went to the online personals to get a sense of the mid-40s dating scene in Santa Barbara.  Call it socio-romantic ethnography.  My random how-much-does-it-suck inquiry revealed dating there wasn’t much different than anywhere else:  crazy ex’s, drama, kids, liars, and the chemically altered.  And from that honest baseline, I developed a friendship with SB Man through a very, very long interview process.

But that’s not all.

My girlfriends in Los Angeles squealed when I told them that I saw SB Man four times in one week after I moved.  “It takes about six weeks to rack up that kind of time with one man in LA.  No one wants to make that kind of time commitment for fear of looking….available,” one admitted.

In New York, you knew your life was good when the trifecta of job-apartment-love was in balance.  Here, I know that my patience and perseverance prevailed.  I just don’t know how the movie is going to end.

You know you are leaving Los Angeles when you can comfortably throw out your Thomas Guide, the non-GPS bible to getting around.  I knew I was leaving when the fire trucks arrived.

Your layoff lady of leisure is discontinuing her 61-week underemployment lifestyle.  My nationwide job search finds me relocating to Santa Barbara, California for a marketing position with a consumer electronics company. My seven years and a couple odd months in Los Angeles has been plagued with the usual California cliches:  low-speed chases in the neighborhood, workplace drug deals, and who-do-you-know business card trading.  Between the odd work experiences and the tragic dating scene, I would of smoked a 45cal if it weren’t for my friends.

Those same friends turned out to wish me well with martinis at Lola’s on a record-breaking 112-degree day in West Hollywood.  We were enjoying the nice central air when the electricity went out.  We assumed the production company in the back bar blew a circuit while filming.  We continued to drink by candlelight only to discover that the transformer behind the restaurant blew and was on fire.  In typical LA-fashion, we ignored the drama and continued to drink until we were asked to leave an hour later.

That’s the sum total metaphor of my Los Angeles experience:  with shit swirling everywhere, I chose to focus on my career and my love life.  I got no where.

It is time to evacuate.

Tex, Spring 2008*

When I was very, very young, my parents has a fabulous farting Dalmatian named Zip.  From what I remember, she was your typical stupid, fence jumping Dalmatian.  But she was also known as my nanny.  Urban tale has it that she slept under my crib and woke my parents up one night when my puke overflowith.  I was still a single-digit age when my parents shipped Zip off to a “farm” in Great Falls, Virginia, where she could “retire” and chase squirrels.  It took many, many years before I realized that was my parents’ way of giving me the easy let down.  I never forgave them.  Until now.

I’ve never had to put a dog down until today.  Tex was recently diagnosed with severe heart disease (all ventricles clogged) as well as tumors on his heart and spleen.  While I have blamed his hip dysplasia on a lot, this diagnosis actually explained his monolithic slow down.  I knew fostering and eventually adopting a senior dog was going to be a short-term tragedy.  But Tex was seriously a gentle giant and so fucking cool.  I want to believe dogs like that deserve to live a very long life.

Everyone that has come into contact with Tex has been touched by his mellowness.  He also picked up where Zip left off.  Six months into our “relationship,” I had outpatient foot surgery.  When I came home, my girlfriend deposited me on the couch loaded on painkillers and she made sure my foot was elevated.  Hours later, the dog walker came in only to find Tex on top of me, like a hen protecting her chick.  That night, after I wobbled on crutches to go to bed, Tex snuck into my bed and watched me all night.

He’s slept with me every night since until recently when he took up residence by the front door.  His all-time favorite thing was a car ride where he could hang his head out of the window and woof air.  Now he’d just lay in the back seat, not even getting up to look out during stop signs.  Even food, his primary motivation, barely interested him.

And this is when I had to make the same decision my parents had to make decades ago    – where the zest and love of life has left the beast and the shell remains.  Tex left this world with me rubbing his pumpkin head and paws.  We’ve had a charmed 2.5 years together.  For better or worse, Tex has been the best date/relationship I’ve had in Los Angeles, and I’ve dated some real dogs.

There is never a good time to end an animal’s life.  I understand that, finally.  I feel Tex’ time was now and I can only hope, in his retirement, he gets to meet Zip, and those that followed, to talk about me over a few good bones and squirrels. Tex, you will be missed.  My walks and hikes will never be the same, but when I see a squirrel, I’ll think of you and your alert, squared off ears, looking up the trunk of the tree.

Marna and Tex, September 2010

*Photo courtesy of LA Woman Photography