It’s never too late for Mam-orial day.

meganamram:

MILA KUNIS: I’m going to dance the Black Swan.

NATALIE PORTMAN: No, that’s my role. I’m going to dance the Black Swan.

(Door bursts open.)

PAULA ABDUL: No, you’re both wrong. I’M GOING TO DANCE THE BLACK SWAN!!!!!!!!

(PAULA applauds for herself and winks at two…

The Nigel Thornberry meme: possibly the greatest meme of them all.

Seems like all anyone cares about these days is infanticide.

Anthony Wiener should not have resigned and I hope he runs for mayor of New York City.

GLAAD might accomplish more if its most prominent and public mission was something besides getting black actors fired from TV shows.

I miss Macy Gray. That song still makes me cry in the alternate universe in which I express emotion.

I miss Brown, but in truth I miss some of my friends far more than others.

I kind of want an iPad.

I’m trying to grow facial hair.

I’m getting a tattoo before the end of the summer.

My 21st birthday is soooo close (compared to the 20+ years that preceded it).

I am so happy Beyonce felt a need to bring back 1994 on “Love on Top,” even if the song title falsely suggests a gay anthem.

I don’t Tumble enough.

How much black wood could a woodchuck chuck if Kim Kardashian could chuck wood?

If a tree falls, and Marlee Matlin is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Other favorite site: Ridiculous Pictures of Nicolas Cage

My new favorite site: Ridiculous Pictures of Celine Dion

Goals for the summer:

1. Find the real Chloe Sevigny with David Brown at Obesity & Bone.

2. Find Drew Droege, who plays Chloe.  Become best friend.

I firmly believe that the best way to judge a new neighborhood is to enter and assess its McDonald’s.

Yesterday, I arrived in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for my ten-week internship with a major television network that will, for the course of my employment, remain nameless out of professional courtesy (I’ll give you a hint: it’s an acronym that has the letters “B” and “C”).  While my aunt, uncle, and cousins were out and about at school and work today, I took a brief jaunt to the bank and drug store and, what do you know, I spy a Mickey D’s.

It’s no secret to anyone close to me that I miss my hometown of Dallas a lot more than I thought I would have upon leaving for college.  So it was a pleasant surprise to find that the Los Feliz/Hollywood McDonald’s I had entered was nearly identical to my local Golden Arches on Preston/Royal in Dallas: clean, well-lit, and full of lounging elderly Mexicans.

And let me be clear: this is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I’ve always had some less-than-optimistic expectations of Los Angeles.  I’ve been here numerous times, but never for that long, and though I’ve always enjoyed it, I usually assume that this enjoyment stemmed only from the fact that LA houses the bulk of the entertainment industry (with which, of course, I am freakishly obsessed).  When I considered the city apart from its Hollywood core (though I’m sure to call Hollywood the core of Los Angeles is highly erroneous), it never seemed to amount to much: neighborhoods with too much money, neighborhoods with too little money, smog, an awkward skyline, etc.

And then there’s the people.  The overly-tanned, fake-breasted, too-many-Zoom!-sessions, I’m-going-to-be-a-star, where’s-the-casting-couch citizenry that inundates the reality TV industry, and that I - like many others, probably - assumed to populate the entirety of Los Angeles.  On the whole, I never considered Los Angeles anything more than a cesspool of nip-and-tucked wannabes, excessive displays of wealth, and a dedication to polluted superficiality and obscene traffic.  I’d always tell friends that my dream was to make a living as a writer, then GTFO to San Fran or New York.

But today I realized: didn’t I say the same thing about Dallas once?  Didn’t I induce vomit at the sight of boat-shoe-wearing lax bros hopping out of their Escalade pick-ups? (Seriously, Cadillac? You’re going to make a PICK-UP TRUCK?!)  Didn’t I once challenge friends to a game where we took a shot every time we saw a natural blonde, or unenhanced tits…then remain sober the entire night?  Didn’t I lament highways and country music and spoiled Highland Park daddy’s girls who total their Benzes cause they’re texting their coke dealers?

And then, just months after leaving Dallas in 2008, didn’t I buy a Cowboys pennant, still displayed proudly in my room (well, currently, a box in my house’s crackden/attic)?  Didn’t I become obsessed with “Friday Night Lights” mostly out of nostalgia?  Didn’t I drive across the country from New York to LA just this week blaring country music for half the trip?

Who the fuck am I?

A Texan, I guess, whether I like it or not.  There are some shitty parts of Texas that I’ll never be okay with, and I think they’re pretty obvious (I don’t know which offends me more: ten-gallon hats worn outside a ranch, or homophobia/anti-Semitism/racism).  But on the whole it was the site of my most formative years, the residence of many people I still consider my closest friends, and, in a lot of ways, my home for more than half my life.

I never gave Dallas enough credit until I left.  And I never gave Los Angeles enough credit until I arrived.  Weirdly enough, it took a McDonald’s on Western Avenue to make me realize how similar these places really are.  Excluding Hollywood and palm trees, LA is pretty much just Dallas with a couple million more people and a slightly less disturbing list of former governors.

Actually - wait, no.  I take back that last part.

Mexican food.  Mexicans.  Congested highways.  Albertson’s.  Too many flip-flops.  Too many blondes.  Addictions to Mercedes and tricking out Mitsubishis.  Heat, bug-eye shades, affected glamor and sushi.  Is this 635 or the 101?  Yes, I’m near the ocean, but if it takes me 3 hours to traverse one fucking city I might as well be back in the 75240.

So maybe, I’m thinking, I could get used to it here, for all its sleaze and filth, for all its glitz and glamor.  I used to look at LA as the downside of my writerly aspirations, the inevitable consequence of dreaming about being that guy who slaves over a computer screen for months only to have his name forgotten by Jon Crier during upfronts.  But maybe it’s not so bad.

I’m trying not to give myself unreasonable expectations, but after 24 hours here I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this could not only be the best summer I’ve had since starting college, but that it could be definitive for me in a larger sense.  Maybe this is when I start accepting this place as my future home.  Which is important, because despite my brushes with success thus far, and despite the talent that, deep down, some part of me does know I possess, it might very well be a while - a long, long while - before I reach the point in my professional career where I have the flexibility and status to live elsewhere.  If there’s one thing about LA that I’ve always known, it’s that it’s a grind; that the girl serving me coffee at the Bean today was the next Meryl Streep (just kidding, it was a man); and that he/she might never, despite his/her talent, see his/her name in lights.  I know I’ve got skill, and potential, and even some connections, but I also know it could be a long time before I ever know the meaning of success, and I should learn to be happy with the environment around me if I’m going to be stuck in it for who knows how long.

So thank you, McDonald’s.  You clogged my arteries but warmed the rest of my heart.  You crossed borders, bridged cultural and geographic gaps, and made me realize that I could learn to love this polluted lil city.

But seriously, if the Pasadena McDonalds suck, I’m going the fuck home.