LA woman (uncensored)

Today i hung out with a couple of my friends and a group of christians who know each other from what i (affectionately) refer to as the Paris Hilton of churches - a very trendy, hip crowd who flock together with effortless social prowess. needless to say about half of the people in this group were LA folk - singers, actors, musicians. instead of playing beach volleyball they probably could have put together a decent showing of "Rent." but if they sang and danced instead of playing volley ball, then my friends and i wouldn't be fulfilling our intent, which was to observe the unguarded behavior of men. my friend has this excellent theory that if you watch how guys handle themselves when playing a competative game, you can see their character pretty easily and sidestep the potential months of dating it takes to find out about the pent up anger or poor teamwork. i've come to think this a very entertaining idea, especially when it involves a sunny saturday at venice beach.

around this type of crowd, i usually try to keep quite so i don't reveal my lack of urban street smarts, not smile too much so i don't seem like an airhead and hope that they assume i'm cooler than i am. anyhow, today i decided to be myself unflinchingly. befriend everyone, one by one. divulge my infant caregiving occupation. state that i live in the suburbs of VC. confess my early childhood educational pursuits. and i smiled alot, and perservered at talking to everyone, even if they gave me the distant act at first. and i had a great time. most of them were not natives and were from places like arkansas and new jersey and vietnam and spain. i got to hear lots of interesting stories. i think the best was the guy who moved here from NJ and paid his beach condo rent from the profits of online gambling - for two years! no kidding. just gambling. this just became illegal though, so he's job hunting in a sense. a very close second was the girl who escaped from vietnam with her mom when she was 9, and their boat was robbed by pirates. aarrggg!

Anyhow, I ended up doing a lot more talking than observing. and was lucky enough to hear one attractive, successful ("I live in Hollywood.") guy say, without a hint of humor, that he goes to a church until he gets all he can out of it and then finds another church. I started laughing and said, are you kidding?, truly thinking he was joking with a straight face the way i sometimes do to strangers, but he said no. and then other people joined our conversation before i got the chance to politely grill him to see if that's what he really meant. i hope he doesn't, but i fear he does. (i wonder if he thinks that way about women?) "I live in Hollywood." the delivery was priceless. clearly a very significant part of the unveiling of his identity.