los angeles farewell

There are so many interesting characters in Los Angeles, you could spend a lifetime sitting down meeting each of them, and it's my bad luck that I met some of the most compelling people right before I left.

My going away ceremonies were huge affairs, and I realize now that I was very lucky to know so many of the right kind of people, the kind who help you hold your center and make you become a better person. I encountered so many lonely transplants in L.A. who had only sketchy acquaintances after many years, and it was only through the good will of many cool friends that I was able to see the nooks and crannies and secrets that I saw in my time there.

I'll miss K's dark humor and wit and encyclopedic knowledge about every nook and cranny of the neighborhoods and history of the city. There was the shiny, brilliant choreographer with her troupe of dancing boys, this center of so much creativity and passion. I was introduced and spoke to her for only moments, but there are certain women who glow so charismatically, the center of so many great things. There was L, who I rarely saw, because it's impossible to run into people randomly in that place, organizing her shows and propelling things forward. The young men working forward with his projects and creating grand parties and girls with sharp minds who know it's better to D.J. than be a model any day.

I wish I had time to sit down alone with each of them, share a few weekends working on something interesting, because I truly do find people fascinating, and there are so many great minds at work in a metropolis like L.A. It's just that in that world, so much is hidden, and the cream doesn't often rise to the top, although once in a while it does.

It really does. I know this because I saw Julie Delphy from a short distance, one in which I could have called out her name and she would have heard me and looked at my face. But I was content to simply watch her laugh and talk with the make-up artists, oozing class even though she was sloppily dressed in jeans and horn-rimmed glasses for a television interview. It makes me happy that someone like that would be famous, yet stay so true and bright.