Giddier in Whittier

At the risk of beginning this blog on a gushy note: I've noticed on mornings that begin with waking up next to someone you adore, it feels like the universe is gently nudging you awake at some generous hour-- let's say 11am-- and setting slippers and a stack of pancakes by your bedside. It's tops. Thank you, universe, for these metaphorical pancakes... mmm, are those strawberries? AND chocolate chips?! Oh, universe, you're bold.

But your artistic execution could use some work.

Anyway, back to pretending I'm some kind of asexual technological voice borne from the internet: today was pretty swell. I woke up early enough in the morning to have breakfast before noon, which meant I was actually wearing pants before sunset. What can I say, I get fancy sometimes.

I applied to an online internship posting or two and also made $42 writing practice test questions for the tutoring agency I work with. Best deal ever. "Hey Jessica, can you think of virtually any 12 words and think of 1 synonym for each, and then list a bunch of random words as other answer choices?" "I don't know... that's like 45 minutes out of my day..." "Oh, well here's some money for your trouble." "AW SHIT FO RULL?? *Ahem*... I mean... I suppose this will have to do."

Not one hour after I applied to an internship, I got a phone call from them asking if I would come in for an interview on Monday. Now, normally I would be wary of an internship that got on my va-jay so quickly, but this internship advertised gas compensation AND a stipend. Dude. Internships don't give out money anymore. That's rarer than a "buy one get one free" sale at Lacoste [or other store where you pay more for clothes uglier than you would get anywhere else]. Let's cross our gosh darn fingers, shall we? I'm doing it right now, and you have no IDEA how hard it is to type like this.

That phone call was the peak of the afternoon, as it was followed by me staring at a bleak Celtx document wondering what the hell I should be writing. My friend and I made a bar pact with each other a couple weeks ago, that we would each finish our respective writing projects in exactly 42 days. He's writing a feature-length screenplay, I'm writing a spec script and an original pilot script for television. Draft one of the spec is done (i.e. the final product is .003% done), and the original pilot is just a series of slow, directionless openers that I scrap two pages in because I have no idea what I'm doing. I have lots of ideas, but putting them into writing feels like that bit from Family Guy where Peter pulls a bunch of swallowed handkerchiefs out of his throat.

If only my ideas were as good as Peter Griffin's.

After dry-heaving dead-ended ideas onto my laptop for a couple hours, I departed from C-Town (can we make that a thing? Actually, let's not... but let's revisit the nickname idea sometime) to make my hour-long sojourn to Hacienda Heights. Ah, the highest of Haciendas... it wasn't until I arrived in da double-H that my client texted me and suggested meeting another day.

Okay, let's turn this neggie into a pozzy (did anyone else feel uncomfortable when I said 'neggie'?). For one thing, gas is at least 40 cents cheaper here than in LA, so that's something we can all enjoy. And then Hacienda Heights is close to Whittier, so I figured I'd at least make something of the trip and swing by the Dubs. At the very least, I could make my Big Lots return and buy $1 tofu blocks from Fresh n' Easy... because apparently the Fresh n' Easy phenomenon hasn't struck L.A. with the same fervor as the rest of SoCal just yet.

I made my runs successfully, except that I bought applesauce at Big Lots after immediately forgetting I had just bought applesauce at Fresh n' Easy, and later returned to my apartment to discover I already had applesauce. You know the saying "you are what you eat"? Pretty sure my brain is turning into applesauce.

As I was walking out of Fresh n' Easy, I happened to run into my friend playing his guitar outside the store. I know there's a name for that but I'm never sure precisely what it is so I always just mumble it... Buskinning? Buck-skinning? Butt-kissing? Something. We decided to meet up later, which meant I actually had some kind of reason to be hanging around Whittier.

From there, I went to my favorite Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Whittier ("Silly Jessica, it's the ONLY Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Whittier") and ordered an iced-something to drink while I walked around Uptown in the warm afternoon. Uptown is a weird combination of cute, quirky and gangsta, and it's actually used in a lot of movies. I tried to find you screenshots, but the best I can do is reference you to Whittier's glamorous Wiki page. Not 2 minutes after I ordered my beverage, all the lights in the shop suddenly went out. According to two handy-dandy police officers "patrolling" the Coffee Bean, a transformer blew out and sent virtually the entire block into darkness. Sure enough, all throughout Uptown every place was pitch black inside, and people were wandering into the streets with dazed expressions on their faces like it was War of the Worlds.

Don't worry, Dakota, Tom Cruise will save us.

You see, it's things like this that I love about Whittier. Show up serendipitously and the power will cut out on you. Whittier is kind of like that awkward, well-meaning co-worker who can't help their disaster-prone nature (think Jerry from Parks and Recreation). You just shake your head knowingly and say to yourself, "Oh, Whittier..."

The shlemiel and the shlemazel.

But fortunately, the citizens of Whittier have grown accustomed to its clumsy charm, and they make it work. Everyone was abuzz in the streets talking about the outage. Bars lit candles and continued serving beer. The beauty salon hairdressers were standing on the curb dutifully towel-drying their clients' hair. The good folks at Coffee Bean made me a larger something-virtually-the-same order of my drink and gave me a $5 gift card, and I'm sure all throughout Uptown restaurant patrons were getting complimentary meals and booze.

Ah, Whittier, it's good to be back.

An hour or so later power was restored, so after milling about for a while I decided to stop by my favorite Uptown gem-- Mimo's Cafe-- for a dinnertime breakfast burrito (breakin' ALL da rulez!).

How I love thee, let me count the breakfast specials...

By chance, once there I ran into the same friend from earlier, along with a few other pleasant Whittier friends I hadn't seen since school let out. You starting to see why Whittier works? I know I talk some serious smack on the Dubs, but it's frequent happenstances like these that make you want to stick around. Which I did. We all got dinner and bummed around on the patio area and it was good times.

Sadly, I had to leave the promise of friends, booze, and some nifty concert at the tastefully-bizarre Fenix 5-4  (an organic/vegetarian cafe by day and cramped, artsy bar and show venue by night) because I have to be up at 6:30am tomorrow to proctor. Except that was sort of pointless, because it is currently 11:54pm and I've just been blogging this whole time anyway. Welp. Good thing proctoring requires little more than the ability to breathe while sitting in a chair.

Only true fans will know.