SCARY PEOPLE

"Scary Movie was, indeed, quite funny. But I'm afraid to report that the dating scene in Los Angeles is not." That was the origninal opening for this post; but the topic has changed. My harrowing (yes, I said harrowing - and in the voice of the Movie Phone guy) experiences will have to wait to be catlogued here. Becuase I've since encountered other scary people in this star trek that now take precedence. While brevity is not my forte, what follows is an attempt at providing thumbnails, snapshots, snippets of some of the less than glowing persons I have met thus far in Los Angeles:

My neighbor, the pot head, who never seem to have cigarettes (or thoughts) of his own.
My nieghbor, the crack addict, who has far too many thoughts.
My nieghbor the drug dealer who apparently has quite the rolodex.
My nieghbor the wanna-be thug who was shot in a drive-by on the corner this weekend. (No, I do not live in South Central.)

The slimy shoe salesman in West Hollywood who did everything but stick his tongue in my ear to sell me six hundred dollars worth of Italian leather shoes that I didn't need. And couldn't afford. (We'll call him Alan "K;" we'll say that his torture chamber is at 7380 Melrose Avenue and that the phone number is 323-658-9092. Just because.) I still cannot believe that his slippery tactics worked. When reality later hit and I tried to return them, he morphed into Tammy Faye Baker off of her hormones and called the police. I was mortified and left before our men in blue arrived. The shoes, meanwhile, are still in my trunk and I now have fantasies of tying him up, and doing - in the words of Hannibal Lecter - "things with his skin." (Fava beans, anyone?)



The mordidly obese lady - also down the block - who apparently does not fully appreciate the nuances of the word oxymoron as demonstrated by her donning a sports bra to do the morning shopping.
The medical doctors at my job who somehow think they are equipped to treat psychiatric patients.
The adminstrators at my hospital who, in their blunted wisdom, agreed with them.
And, the secretary on my unit who also has trouble with various words and concepts; among them: professionalism, maturity, intelligence, and sanity.

Whew. That wore me out. There are more, surely, but I'll resist my impulse to continue; otherwise, I'd have to change the title of this post to "Bitch Fest." And that just wouldn't fit, because during this circus I was recently contacted by two old friends. It was a blast from the past, as they say. It was also perfectly timed (chalk one up for serendipity) and warmly welcomed. The first was Don, my roommate from college. Actually, he was more like a psychic soul-sister and we spent hours the other day on the phone catching up. An e-mail followed from Betsy, a former neighbor also from my college days. (She, unlike my present compadres, does not sell drugs nor belong to a gang.) The three of us, along with friends Carol, Julius, and Lisa lived in a fabulous u-shaped apartment complex in a colorful neighborhood of Gainesville, Florida, known as The Student Ghetto. And we had a wonderful time together. (We used to say that the producers and writers for the primetime soap, "Melrose Place," had been flies on the walls of our bohemian dwellings.) So, despite the current potpourri of characters in my life, I am reminded of the cornucopia, the panoply, of friends (both new and old) that are also there to round out my table.

I'll close, then, with the memorable words of Auntie Mame (the character I'm sure I'll one day play):

"Yes! Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!"