lifeinthealong.com
repository for the occasional perambulatory rumination

Jun

12

LA: I Am Here

Filed Under Doin's

On the plane a man from India sat next to me. In the middle of 3 seats, me on the coveted aisle seat. I don’t have much luck with men from India. They treat me rudely, horribly rudely, and, I am told, I should not take this personally or as special treatment reserved just for me. There was the Indian hotel guy who refused to let me stay (after he’d given me my key and imprinted my credit card) because I dared to suggest that he salt the icy entry I’d just slid in on. There was the Indian in Canada who filled the doorway and physically barred my entry when I was looking for Mother, TJ, and Walter. I’d dropped them off and they were supposed to go on into the building. I parked and went - or tried to go into - the building to find them, but this man rudely said I could not come in. I’ve encountered other Indian men, and so far these 2 have been the worst, but not a single one has been remotely personable or friendly. So to sit beside this Indian man for 4 hours, watching him squirm and wiggle with the physical discomfort of a small, confined space (oh did he have to struggle to extend the foldout or his Hindu Playboyesque magazines) and the emotional discomfort of a white female having a better seat than him, well, to be honest I rather enjoyed it. Then, when we landed, I hopped up to claim my space in the exit line, reached into the overhead to retrieve my bag, and put it on my seat so he had to sit even longer and wait on a white woman to allow him to leave his seat and eventually the plane. I understand I’m stereotyping. I understand and can only fervently hope that not all Indian men are like the ones I’ve encountered, but there seem to be a thread of truth somewhere, and I have never been good at being anybody’s object.

*

Every time I’m here, I’m touched by the way Kipp apparently uses everything we send from home. Keeping all the quirky things I understand, but his room is a veritable museum to things I and other family members have sent. When he first moved here, we treated it like he was at camp and sent goodies as often as possible so he’d get mail. He’s been at camp almost 6 years now, though, and his room is filling up plus his mailbox is teensy, so we’ve kinda’ slacked off on sending boxes.

*

He is his mother’s son, which means his room is lined with bookcases, and the bookcases are filled with books, all neatly arranged categorically. Want a book on art? Look on this bookcase and choose your medium. Looking for some poetry? Top shelf in the bookcase to the left of the bed. I walk in, sit my suitcase down and gravitate immediately to the bookcases. It’s a magnetic thing: I cannot help it. I scan the shelves in search of something to read (I have only 30 pages left in the book I read on the plane), and my eyes finally fall on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, a book Kipp has spent the last six years urging me to read. He’s actually withheld tales of his latest reading adventures until I read this book. So this week, I’m reading Kavalier and Clay. I’ve just finished 2 pages and already I’m thinking differently, but the best part is that Kipp has underlined. Oh, what an absolute treat to read a book he’s read before me. It’s like eavesdropping on an interesting conversation. When my friendship with Carol was in its early stages, she came came South for a weekend visit, and when she opened a book she randomly plucked from my bookcase, she gleefully noted that I read books like she does: notes all in the margin as we converse with the author.

*

Years ago when my kids were in upper elementary school, I began creating for each of them a R & R Personal Library(R & R = Read and Reread). At one point in his collegiate days, Kipp fussed about the amount of space the growing library was taking, and I took it as a cease and desist order. Today I look at the spines on the bookcases and see so many familiar titles - and I want to throw more than half of them away. Not give them away, THROW them away. Rip out the little note I wrote in the front and haul the rest of the paper to the incinerator. (See, I told you I’m already thinking differently. “Incinerator” is a word I don’t believe I’ve ever used. It’s not a Southern word. We discard by taking things to the trash and setting the collected trash out for the garbage man to pick up.)

*

I am in LA, the city populated by people who work hard to become somebody else. In the little Italian restaurant where we are celebrating Summer’s birthday, I am struck by the way Kipp’s friends almost casually toss around scripts they are writing, agents they have meetings with, producers who are asking for more. Such a contrast to my world where we angst over every word, creating draft after draft after draft of query letters that we’ll never send because we, well, we just won’t.

*

I am also struck by the way here, in this city-size phone booth where people come in and change themselves into somebody else over and over and over, there is no drinking. Well, none to speak of. At least not tonight. Some have a single glass of wine, others had a single beer, but the vast majority of us drink water, tea, or diet Coke. So different from home. (Probably not this way at every gathering in LA, either. I’m not as stupid as I look.)

*

I am here to do the mom thing: stay in Kipp’s apartment, writing the morning away, spending the afternoon cooking and cleaning, though I’m not so sure about the cleaning. For me, it would be a treat to have someone else clean my house - especially if they were considerate enough to leave everything in its place except the dirt and furballs. But he might take it as a judgment statement. Guess I’ll ask before I launch into an afternoon of cleaning.

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