The CD That Starts With Something By Brenton Wood

The genius of Tami - word is getting out

Pool-side brunch - one of the great pleasures in life.

90 degrees with palm trees

Installation outside Los Angeles County Museum of Art

These days, it almost feels as though this blog has a split personality. It's funny to see my weekend gallivanting and nocturnal shenanigans right up next to the whole New Life, Baby Love thing. I'm hoping that there isn't an inherent conflict here, since I would very much like to think that one sister can be the happy baby mama and the other sister can be the happy single girl, that somehow that will be just fine, a blogging illustration of just two of the options for what to do with the female life.

Last weekend I was off for another adventure. I did a shamefully terrible job packing at 4AM (at least I remembered the bikini) and then Beyonce did the usual airport run for me so that I could hop a plane to LA to meet up with Pam and see my friend Tami's short stories performed at the Beverly Hills Public Library.

I'll admit it, I've always bad-mouthed LA. You all know about my allegiance to NYC, and somehow LA has always seemed antithetical to all that. But then there's the sunshine thing, and the fact that, really, I love outrageousness, and LA is the capital of both, isn't it?

So, I'll admit it now. LA was fab. Loved it! My rental car was a little white Miata so even the trip from the airport in LA traffic was fun. I met Tami at her friend Kelley's house, where I started the weekend off by being waited on hand and foot. Breakfast? Yes please, egg in toast, please! Orange juice? Yes please! Nice big towel for pool lounging? Yes please! Iced tea? Yes please! With a little sugar? Yes please! It was good. Good, good. Tami and I gossiped by the pool and then after a while we made our way over to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where we had a little bite in the cafe. I was hoping to see at least one Rothko, and my wish was granted, as you see above. In spite of getting lost every single time we got in a car, it was a weekend built for the satisfaction of small desires.

I meant to check in early at the fancy hotel room I was sharing with Pam, but at LACMA I kept being magnetically drawn to the Diebenkorns, and then there was one room I did not want to leave at the Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement exhibit. Eventually I tore myself away, in time to catch one of the Bachelors from the Bachelor walking into the hotel bar as I arrived. That's right, I recognized him. Hey, it was the first season guy, doesn't everyone remember him?

Hearing Tami's stories read by a series of actors was fantastic. I wish you could have been there. We got funny, crushing, and inspiring all in the same hour. I can't wait to walk into a book store and buy them all, bound together in something I can keep on my nightstand. One of these days.

Pam and I lounged away most of Saturday, swimming "laps" in the swanky pool and beckoning the young waiters who were there to bring us breakfast and then grapefruit juice and then sparkling water and then espresso with gelato. We took a late check-out and then were even 15 minutes later than that. It was 90 degrees and I have tan lines, however faint. When I gave B a peak at where my bikini tied around my neck, he laughed at me. Not all of us can be all bronze and six-packey like him.

All that sun had me ready to move down there, so I entertained this fantasy about how if I lived there I would buy a little two-seater Mercedes and live in a crappy studio apartment to pay for my sunglass addiction. Since part of my terrible packing involved forgetting every pair of sunglasses I already own in Seattle, I was pretty happy when it turned out that my first intro to Evan's GF Barbary was going to involve accompanying her on her quest to purchase these shoes.

I know what you are going to say, Katherine, but my new sunglasses are Gucci, and I needed them. Besides, I saved on food, because Barbary took us to lunch at the restaurant on the fifth floor of Barneys, Barney Greengrass, where I ate blintzes, as though I was making a secret pledge of allegiance to New York. We sat on the terrace, and I made little sighing sounds as I tried to decide which was prettier, the view of the hills, the berries on my plate or Evan's eyelashes. After lunch I tried on more sunglasses until Evan and I got distracted by seeing Lindsay Lohan hanging in the aisle with her little entourage. I never saw her looking at a single piece of merchandise, but when we left the building there were so many photographers that no one would have blame her for lingering in the quiet store, fake shopping.

Then again, she could have at least bought another pair of sunglasses. I'm pretty sure I've seen her in those aviators at least twice now.