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9:11 p.m. - 2001-06-13 --- ...and Los Angeles is so dangerously beautiful, yet incredibly surreal. I've always loved it for some reason... and in some part of me I still do, but there's this undercurrent, this taste of fear under my tongue. We were driving tonight under a low hanging, orange moon, through Brentwood first and Westwood, then Hollywood, then out over the San Bernardino Fwy to Claremont, the final destination. It was dark and sultry, the air coller than usual, the hum of the wheels. My dad had on music from 'Romeo and Juliet', and these two motorcycle riders came shooting by us, leaving trails of testosterone, going at least 100 mph and yelling, their voices were cutting and stones... I felt that shiver of something gone wrong and later, passing over the third hill, the right side of the canyon was shiny slick with blood, the motorcycle thrown on its side over a guardrail. Closing my eyes, I thought I could still smell their fear. I feel sick and yet it's not because of that, because I felt it way before that. Los Angeles is both beautiful and dangerous, open and hidden, and it seems almost as if nothing there really exists. It's been raining there, brought out green on the the canyons that's never been there before, and it drew out the poison with it. I read somewhere that nearly everything growing in deserts is poisonous. White oleander flowers, cacti. The ground here trembles with a pulsing undercurrent of pure, unadulterated danger. I don't know why I never felt it til now. I've always loved it here. It's almost like I'm being pulled under. Did you know palm trees aren't native here? Somebody transplanted them way back when and since then they're multiplied like mad to line every inch of the Sunset Strip. I locked eyes with a girl coming down the strip in stiletto heels and a glitter blue minidress, eyes lined in smoke, and there was a complete lack of emotion there. Lack of anything. The blue of her eyes scared me, like the flowers lining the canyon they were ripping apart to make a new strip mall.. I seem both plain and striking here like I've never seemed anywhere. I caught a glimpse of myself in a shoe store window, tall and awkward in a tie-dye top and draping jeans, next to this blank eyes, perfect bodied girl with perfect skin and chiseled bones. Next to me she looked like everything Hollywood wants you to be. But my own green eyes, reflected against hers, seemed unnaturally luminous, silver in my hair an unending reminder of the offbeat vibe that was so uncommon in this town. She couldn't smile. In her stilettos she came only to my neck; in a normal world I would have made a joke. Here, my lips were dry. This won't touch me like it does now, in the morning. I'll forget the tang of danger in the back of my mouth, the feel of iron pushing into the soles of my feet.
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