The Swish of Life

Upon a terrible break up there is only one place I can suggest with any authority. It’s not The Counter. The Counter is perfect for a girls night out- but I’m talking about your boyfriend left you for an Australian model- or some other specifically West Coast atrocity and you and a burger need to get down- with a milk shake- probably without a straw. You could do Fathers Office if you wanted to flirt with a group of twenty four year old douche bags wearing euro shirts. But you don't. You want to feel your heart beating again. A tall order in a city where most of us actors, are rejected from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, and then expected to open our hearts back up for a date on Saturday.

The place I suggest for a little opening up of ye olde heart chakra is: Apple Pan.
At Apple pan the waiters wear white, and are short order cooks- the diner has become them and they have become the diner. The line up is worth it- everyone is hungry- hungry for conversation- hungry for the one thing we are all starving for: belonging, being a part of something that is bigger than us.

And it is here. Across from the West Side Pavilion mall, where you can see couples who have been together for thirty years arguing over who gets the extra ketchup- you can hear the swish of life - and it sounds good.

When I was about eleven years old my mother and I came to LA for a wedding. That was when Los Angeles was Beverly Hills to me. It was Marilyn Monroe in her white skirt over the subway grate. It was the beckoning of the mysterious hills that lit up at night. It was Blossom. The sit com.

My mother had bought me a button down shirt/ skirt combo, with the most amazing black, Blossom worthy Fedora to wear to the wedding. The marriage was between a most beautiful Indonesian woman, and Bradley a pianist from New York. Bradley was always trying to get me to find my voice, which led to a life long obsession of me thinking I had lost it to begin with.

The reception following the wedding was at the newly weds mansion in the Hollywood Hills. As we barely parked our rental car, I reminded myself not to hope for a boy to be at the reception. There were never boys in magical circumstances I had come to discover. There was really only ever magical circumstances or boys. The two seemed forever divorced to me. As we walked into the backyard which was lit up by fairy lights and my youth, I could almost feel the letters of the Hollywood sign whispering to me, as if they were spelled out on that hill for me. We walked towards the guests, and as if in a movie a wind blew, a warm nurturing mysterious wind, and there he was.

Central casting had provided me both a magical circumstance and a boy. He was blond, with a surfers freckled face. I was gone. Irreverocably in love with this city of angels. In that moment in time, movies, and burgeoning lust, and laugh tracks, all intersected, and I fell. I fell hard.

The wind, the guests, the boy and the silence. That's right, there was a silence, a space between peoples words and their jokes. A silence after a glass of champagne was placed on one of the oak tables. A silence that seemed to be the city itself saying to us, go ahead take a look, I really am that gorgeous.

I don't think the boy and I uttered one word to each other, we were too shy, and I was too concerned with shattering the fantasy world that I had stepped into. One guest had a notebook with 12, 000 jokes recorded in it. He said he started recording the jokes when he was my age, and never left his home without the tattered notebook. I saw the notebook, and read a few jokes, some terrible, some wonderful.

I think of that night, usually when I am driving home, looking at the lit up hills which cradle all of us dreamers, and foodies, and joke recorders. I think of the wind that I felt, how soft and cool it was. How purely possible it was.

I think of that night when I am rocking a burger from Apple Pan, and allowing myself to lean into the bustle of the city.

I think of that night, when I sink my fork into the best Apple pie this city has to offer. I think of that night as I trace the year 1947 written on the Apple Pan Menu. I think of that night while enjoying a perfect glass of red wine at Little Doms, or when having a bit of mozzarella flown in all the way from Italy, at Mozzo. Yes dear reader, this life is ours and it is meant to be lived quite pleasurably.

Apple Pan
10801 West Pico Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90064-2105
(310) 475-3585
www.applepan.com

Mozza LA
641 N. Highland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
www.mozza-la.com

Little Dom's
2128 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.littledoms.com