To live and drive in L.A.

Mission 1. Hook up with someone as old as my mom (54) and as young as my sister (20) in a month.
Mission 2. Live a completely gay lifestyle (without the gay sex) for a month.
Mission Three: Live without an apartment for a month.

I tend to get so caught up in the overarching aspects of my life that often times I obscure the details. That hit me yesterday on my JetBlue flight to LA. First of all, JetBlue doesn’t fly to LA, they fly to Long Beach, and maybe Burbank too. But I knew that when I booked the flight.

The other part of the equation that remained unsolved was how I was to get from Long Beach to West LA. Under normal circumstances (and normal circumstances meaning having a vehicle to drive), I could do it in 40 minutes without much traffic. I didn’t really want to take a cab. I’ve had bad experiences with them and their smells. I could rent a car, but that meant talking to someone behind a counter. I wasn't in the mood for that.

I had to go to the bullpen for this. I landed in the LBC and pulled out my new Treo, courtesy of Black. I’m not huge on gadgets, but I figured it was responsible to have a cellphone for my trip across country. Plus, it gave me the chance to keep up on e-mail. At least that’s what the guy with the overly gelled hair at Cingular in Vegas told me. And who was I to argue with someone who wore a cell phone as a clipped-on fashion accessory.

The phone rang on the other end, three times, four, five, fuck.

“Tracy, it’s Rob, call me back,” I nervously said to her voicemail. I hate talking to machines, or whatever they are these days.

I walked over to a coffee stand and my phone rang. Actually it sounded, “Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me.” It was my first incoming call on my new gadget. I couldn’t stop. I panicked and started pushing buttons as the song looped. Finally, I put the phone to my ear.

“Rob?”

“Hey Trac, what’s up?”

“Where are you? I was talking for like half a minute, I kept hearing you cursing and making clicking sounds. What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing, just hanging out, uh at the Long Beach airport.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“I went home to my parent’s house, I told you.”

“Yea, but why would you fly to Long Beach?”

“So you could pick me up, that’s why?”

“I’m not driving to Long Beach now. It will take forever.”

“It can be my birthday present.”

“Fuck that, Rob. Give you a ride as your present? I got you something good.”

“Oh,really, what is it?”

“Sanity, I got you some sanity. With a side order of respect for your friends.”

“Ok, well, will you deliver it to Long Beach.”

I could hear her laugh break through. It sort of was like a suspended mouth sneeze, if there is such a thing. I draw that sound from her quite often.

“Maybe I need to keep the sanity for myself," she said, relenting.

“Listen, I’ll take you out to dinner somewhere down here and we can wait out the traffic.”

“What about the traffic going down, Rob?”

“Yea, can’t help you with that, but you’ll be going away from traffic after LAX.”

"I'm totally swamped Rob,I'm going away tomorrow."

"Send your assistant to pick me up, Helen, right?"

"Yea, I'm going to send my assistant to pick up my freaky best friend at the airport, no thanks."

"You've made her do worse."

"Rob," she said angrily.

"Fine-then you come, please? See, that was the magic word. You're kinda obligated now. Here, I'll do it again, 'please.' Now you're doubly obligated."

"Why don't you rent a car or take a damn shuttle or cab?"

Tracy you know how I am with LA cabs, ever since New Year's and the Persian dude. And the rental car thing would require me to talk to someone behind a counter. I've had a long flight and can't deal." If anything, Tracy and I have the same lack of tolerance for "people behind counters." I knew that would get her.

“I can't believe I'm doing this, but fine. See you in an hour. Or nine.”

“I’ll keep my schedule open.”

I sat down in the corner, ready for the wait. She was just being overdramatic. But I knew I had some damage control in front of me, especially if she opened the door to the world of Rob Blogdom. She has grown impatient with my antics. I think she wants the old Rob back. But that guy’s gone. I opened up Giant to finish an article, but no sooner than I got a paragraph in did I realize I still didn’t know how to operate the phone. I looked around for someone with the same phone. I walked over to a man seated three aisles away.

“Hi,” I said to a middle-aged man reading Investor's Business Daily. I held my treo up to soften my entrance.

He looked up from his paper, then at the phone, then at me. “Do you need something?”

“Oh, yea, sorry,” I said, looking at the phone. “I see we have similar taste in phones. Well, I just got this, and didn’t read the manual or anything. I’m not sure how to answer it."

“I usually answer mine by saying ‘hello,’ but I’ve heard more creative ways of doing it. Maybe 'this is (insert name)' would work for you. Give it a try.”

I smirked. What an asshole, I thought. But he had information I needed.

“Very quick, nice one. Actually, I’m not sure what button to press. I only got one phone call and pressed a bunch of buttons, not sure which one worked.”

He lifted his phone off the remainder of the newpaper, “Just hit the green button. Same as sending a call. The red will end it.”

He looked at me and pressed the red button, as if he were saying, this conversation has ended. This dude was truly a piece of work. I hate technophiles.

I stepped back a pace, and held up a single finger, in true Columbo fashion.

“Ok, one last thing, the ringtones. Can I get something plain? Right now I have ‘dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me’ that the Cingular guy put on.”

Then he quickly took out his stylus and took me through a preferences this or something. I could tell at this point he was trying to confuse me. Cell phones don’t bond the way Saturns do. I doubt they even have a treo picnic.

“Hey, that was really swell. Totally appreciate it.” I said sarcastically and walked away. I’m not stupid, but this was not a normal cellphone. Plus the guy from Cingular may have thought he was hooking me up with this free dancetone, but I’m a vibration or simple beep guy myself. He totally misread me. And when Tracy called before I wanted to yell, “I didn’t pick the ringtone, really, it was the guy at the store, the gel guy.” But instead, I just blushed.

I was bored so I walked around the airport, inside and out, outside and in. I played with the phone, read an LA Weekly, tossed a quarter in the air. Thought about the hookers.

“Dontcha wish your girlfriend was ho-," The phone screamed. I hadn’t figured how to change tones, but I did figure how to answer it quickly.

“Hello.”

“You so owe me for this Rob, where are you taking me?”

“Are you here?”

“Look outside,” she said, waving.

“Be right there.”

I walked over till I finally saw her. She got out of the car to open the trunk. I was trying to hang up and throw my bag in the back.

“Fancy,” she said, looking at my phone.

“Life’s good for the Lowe,” I said, laughing at how lame that was. I have never referred to myself as such, but I always look for new and interesting ways to annoy Tracy. Even when she hooks me up in ways as dearly as this.

But hard as I try, she still comes back to me. It’s comforting. I opened my arms for a hug, and we embraced against her trunk like long, lost friends. It was a combination “I’m glad your back hug and happy birthday hug.”

“Let me drive, I’m fresh,” I said, trying to be nice.

She walked around to the passenger side and I took the driver’s seat.

“Rob, I have a ton of work to do tonight, could we just go home?”

“Yea, sure, but-, Yea, sure. I can pick up some takeout. We can go back to my place.”

“Oh, you have a place again. How novel.”

She opened the door to the blog. But it just creaked open. I wanted to tell her about the cash but not the hookers, about the suite but not the cannonballs.

“Ok, I’ll take you to the Ivy tomorrow night. On fucking me. How’s that? But tonight, it is Wahoos.”

“Deal,” she said.

So we drove back to my place and the door to blogdom did not open again. She never asked about my car, about those guys who picked up the phone, about me. We eased back into a friendship that had been strained for the past few months.

“I have a favor,” I said.

“Can I borrow your car tonight for basketball?”

She looked at me and nodded like a little girl. God, I love when she does that.

“How long do you need it?”

“Well, I sort of need to get one. I sold mine to Derek.”

She smiled. “I hated that car. You looked so gay in it.”

“Now, you’re telling me. My new car’s going to be way butch, some old Toyota landcruiser from the 70’s. It will be super non-gay. I’m checking some out next weekend on Lincoln. Wanna come?”

“How else are you going to get there?”

“Good point.”

“Rob, what am I going to do with you,” she said, rubbing the back of my hair.

“You can start with lending me your car.”

“Make you a deal, I’ll be at a junket tomorrow in San Francisco. Drive me to the airport, and the you can keep the car tomorrow too. But you have to pick me up tomorrow night...for the Ivy. Yummy crabcakes.”

“Wait, you want me to pick you up at the airport? No deal,” I said mockingly.

We were back in character. Me, the brazen jackass she wanted to save, her the sweet voice of reason I pushed away.

We got to my place and ate on the balcony. The place was clean, but dirty with Euro germs. We ate on my patio and a half-hour later I took her home to Mandeville Canyon. And as I made my way back down the steep slope in Tracy’s BMW convertible, I thought of how lucky I was to have a friend like her. Even if she said I looked gay in my old car.

I took a glance in the mirror and realized she was right. I do look gay in convertibles. It's time for a change.

I’m glad to have my life back.