I don't mean to pry, but haven't I met you before?

Everyday I walk past this gentlemen's club on my way to work. Parking is scarce in the building where I reside from 9-6, so my spot is actually down the street. I think the place is even called the gentlemen's club. It's nearby to a great wine store and a fancy wine bar, but then there's also automative shops up and down the street as well. Cat hospital and hotel, pet grooming center. My street's sort of a mixed bag.

When I walk by the strip club sometimes there'll be girls outside in robes or little booty shorts. They're always talking or laughing into their phones or congregating by the stone benches against the wall. In the morning, there are two older people, a man and a woman, that sometimes sit on the middle bench. Not that they ever say hi, and my attempts at smiling and saying good morning usually fall flat as they stare at me vacantly or whisper amongst themselves.

The valet guys are usually nice though, the shorter one is more friendly than the tall one, but that could be on me, as well. Why do I feel the urge to say good night and good morning to everyone I pass on the street. Is it just good manners? And why do I always think everything's my fault?

One time I bumped into one of the ladies as they got out of a black escalade and headed into the club. I didn't mean to, but she gave me a hard glare and just kept walking.

I'm sure those girls get pushed and pulled by guys all night long, but I'm not a guy. They could be a little kinder to the passerby on the street. Then again, maybe not. There's no law that says kindness to people you don't know is paramount. It's probably all in my head. As Matt would say, fret, fret, fret. But I don't think this is fretting, I think it's just thinking really, really hard about small moments of random human connection and trying to make sense of them. Because I just don't get it. Honestly. This whole connecting thing. I'm sure I don't even register on most people's days. Just a bloop and then nothing. I think sometimes we think we're more important than we really are to other people. Most of the time, everyone's just trying to get through the hours. We're all our own little cosmoses (is that a word?). The center of the universe. Our own little suns.

My friend started a blog and wrote that she has no one in LA to connect with. It totally frustrated me, because I'd like to be closer to her again, but for whatever reason I suck and she doesn't want to hang out with me. Oh well. You can't force someone to hang out with you. Doesn't work like that. Plus, I don't exactly make myself available with my quest to spend every waking moment building imaginary worlds.

In other news, my James Dean story won that ticket to Argentina, right? But see, my day job isn't the type of place to just let someone leave for two to three weeks because there's no one else to do the work so then it just piles up and piles up, and plus, there would be so much stuff to do when you get back life would suck. You'd need a vacation from your vacation. And plus, I think I need a steady job, because then I just worry about money and not having enough to pay the bills and I spend all my time applying to jobs on craigslist where my resume is just spiraling out into the abyss that is the internet and hours of the day, precious writing time, are wasted, because I never (hardly) hear back from any of the jobs and then it's like, did I just waste all those good hours? Yes. Yes, I did.

And then I get depressed.

And then I try to hatch schemes to make money and then it usually doesn't work and I think of all the nice food and dance classes I could buy if I had a little extra dinero and then it's just this vicious cycle of WTF.

So, instead, for the time being, I'm thinking smaller trips. Hawaii. Mexico. I'm thinking of saving up my monies. Or maybe staying in Los Angeles, exploring more of California and the Southwest. I'm totally where I need to be right now. I love California - sure, traffic sucks in LA, but there are ways around it.

In the meantime, creative projects! We're finding lots of great stories in the bookstore to develop. There's a horror novella that's really creepy and that could be made cheaply into a low-budget horror flick and a story about spies and the people that help them and an LA phone psychic's tale of life and love (which is really, really well written and soulful) and then a true story about a pot smuggler in the late 70s and many, many more. Looking forward to the rewrite on the home invasion holiday script, as well. Which should be happening soon. Hopefully when we get more help I can focus a litte more (or a lot more) on the creative side.

But we'll see.

It's 2012. A new year. My resolutions mostly stem from writing and living and building something new, something I'm proud of.

I'm excited to see what the days will bring, even if it's the end of the world.