PURPLE PAULIE'S BIRTHDAY

(NOTE: Anyone can comment on this blog now-- I removed the restrictions)

The rain has been pouring down on Los Angeles in tremendous torrents. It hasn't been like this since last February. It's as if God and his angelic legions are all taking a huge piss on us.

I got bent out of shape over petty bullshit again. Road rage-- people in L.A. temporarily forget their driving skills when the slightest drop of rain descends from the smog-ridden sky. And I am left to deal with people who don't signal before they switch lanes; old ladies who should be driving in the L.A. River and NOT on the streets; and those special souls who wait until every car in the opposite lane FOR AT LEAST TWO CITY BLOCKS has passed before they make that arduous left turn...

I had to fax some papers. I went to the Library and had to use the computer, so I could print up copies of the docs I wanted to fax. I had to wait half an hour before I could log on. I had $5 in my wallet and nothing more, and it cost me $1.50 to print 9 pages of documents. I had to buy one of those lame-ass "print cards" that Kinko's used to have a monopoly on. Then, I asked the librarian if they had a fax machine.

Can you fucking believe that the Public Library in Burbank didn't have a fax machine?

I drove all over, in the shitty God-piss rain, unti I found a fax place. $4 to fax 4 out of the 9 docs-- and of course, I only had $3.50 on me.

I drove home, feeling defeated, cold, and wet. It was 1pm, and I was cranky from lack of sleep and being up all night, editing traffic reports in Spanish.

I slept.

Around 4PM the phone rang. I got out of bed to answer it. They asked for Mark.

"Wrong fucking number." I hung up.

Half an hour after that, the phone rang again.

"Did I wake you?" Eve asked.

"No," I said, telling a half-truth.

"I'm sorry if I seemed bitchy last night, before I left."

There she goes again, I thought to myself. Eve had a bad habit of inventing incidents over which she should apologize.

"Didn't notice."

I informed her that it was Paulie's birthday. She wanted to come along for the celebrations but didn't want to invite herself. I told her it was all good. She had a therapy session around 8PM, which would last an hour. I told her to call me at the Garage when she was done.

I then received a call from Beth, who had returned from Pacifica a few months back. This was the first time she called me since she'd arrived back in town. We had a heartfelt conversation, and I told her not to be a stranger. She lives a few blocks away from me, so I told her to drop by anytime. Talking to her cheered me up somehow.

Pulling up to the Garage, the rain got more intense, pouring and pouring and pouring like a waiter who doesn't know what the word "when" means. I entered the Garage and saw Paulie levitating a small UFO a few feet above his head.

"Is that the model Travis made yesterday?" I asked.

"No, something Nona bought me at the mall." Paulie looked like a big kid, squeezing the trigger between his excited grip. The UFO spurted upwards, flashing red-and-bue lights alternating, rotating.

"Dope," I said. I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

We smoked some potent hashish to celebrate Paulie's birthday. Real shit, too. None of that "hash oil" that regularly makes the rounds in hash-starved Southern California. My lungs felt like collapsing.

By the time Eve showed up, there was a small crowd of people waiting to drive out to Burbank, where we were treating Paulie to dinner at Hooter's. Yes, Hooters. Never been there before.

I showed Eve some more Photoshop tricks. We collaborated on drawing up a triple beam scale, using the Shape tool and the Paint Bucket tool. I also told her to draw a mock police sketch for a future document, possibly to be scanned into the Mac.

We all took to our cars and made the mad dash to Hooter's. My visibility was extremely bad, and I kept my car behind Paulie's truck at all times. Ten foot tall waves of mutilation on either side of me pounded away at my windows.

Wanna know a secret about Hooter's girls? They double up their bras. Some of the girls have genuinely big racks, but the ones who are on the small side pad their chests or use two or more bras to achieve the proper tit effect.

I almost died laughing when one Hooter girl, still in the process of training, showed up at my table with my drink. "One lemonade... who ordered the lemonade?"

We all looked at each other, wondering the same thing.

The girl who was training her quietly added, "It's a Sierra Mist, not a lemonade."

"Oh," the ditz replied. "It sure LOOKS like a lemonade!" And she giggled and bounced out of my sight.

Thank God for stupid blondes...

Glenn Foxx, an artist and friend of Paulie's, showed up. I'd been itching to meet the man-- he has a very distinct style. I've posted links to his site before, and maybe I will permanently link him, now that I can say that I know him personally. Paulie told him about the animation-- I wonder what his reaction will be when he sees it. I value what an established artist has to say.

I couldn't take my eyes off of all the tits and ass around me. Eve kept looking over at me, laughing. I guess I was being too obvious with my leering and ogling. Nona asked me if I thought any of the girls were attractive. I told her that they probably don't look as hot when they're out of uniform, although I was developing a slow and steady crush on the ditsy blonde who mistook my Sierra Mist for a lemonade. She was just so brazenly dumb that I was enamored of her.

Speaking of dumb females-- a stupid and drunk girl and her friends kept being obnoxious, screaming out annoying asides and generally acting like college never ended. Paulie, not to be outdone, kept yelping "PANTIES!" in a girlish voice every time she passed us. I had to hide my head under the table to keep from laughing out loud.

Eve proposed a toast. "To Paulie," she said, and we all toasted. Peter didn't have his glass, though-- the waitress had taken it back for a refill. He used the salsa dish as a substitute.

Instead of driving back to the Garage, I drove home. I was in the neighborhood, so why not? When I got in, I decided to call Eve, to make sure she got home safely.

"Yes, I got home fine," she said immediately. Even though she acted like she resented being checked up on, I knew she wanted to talk.

It's so surreal, how only two weeks ago I had no idea what she was doing or where she was... and now, we talk almost daily, exchanging ideas on art, making jokes, and trying to make it all work.

"It was fun tonight. All of us, sitting at the table, like we were all teenagers again."

"That's 'cause we're young at heart," I said.

"But we're not kids anymore. We're adults now."

I noticed the solemn tone of her voice. "You said it."

"We make a good team, you and I," she said. "We work well together, don't we?"

"I know," I said. "We do."

She brought up an interesting fact: I met her when she was 15 and I was 18. She was a Freshman, I was a Senior. Now, she is 27 and I am 30.

"I've known you for about half of my life," she said to me.

"Whoa..." I replied. "When you put it THAT way..."

"Isn't it odd? You're the only person I've known for that long. It trips me out."

Knowing Eve as I do, that's her way of saying "Thank you for not totally giving up on me."

Half of her life, I thought. Wow. It's been that long, hasn't it? 12 years, going on 13. She was my date to the prom. She was my consolation when I broke up with Vera. She was the girl who used to cross her eyes in class in order to make me laugh.

She was the pain in my heart for the past five years...

Her mother, whom I considered to be one of the coolest and wisest women I'd ever met, once told me that I was Eve's first love, and that a woman always holds her first love in a different light above all the others. I didn't know what she meant at the time, but I think I know now.

The conversation turned to the Hooter's girls. I revealed that I was not a breast man. I also shared an observance, that guys will forgive a woman with an ugly face if her breasts are enormous.

"I know what you mean. I have a friend named Holly-- she's a double of me, I swear. Looks just like me..."

A girl named Holly who looks like Eve? "You don't say?"

"...and she has this big, ghetto-sized booty... and her man is ALL OVER HER because of that junk in her pa-dunk-a-dunk."

"Guys-- we're funny like that. I mean, take Ellen for example. She's nice, but she's not my type. I've seen prettier. But the guys at the Garage... just because she has big knockers, they give her attention like she's a four-star general!"

"I don't have a type," Eve said. "I mean, it has nothing to do with physical attributes. It has to do with whether they are a little off or not."

"Off?"

"You know... not all there? A bit loony? That's what I'm attracted to, I guess. It seems to be the common factor."

"I see..."

"Well, anyway, I'll let you get some sleep. God, I don't see how you can do it. Going to work at 3AM? Man, it sounds painful."

"You know me-- the less sleep, the better. So, I'll see you at the Garage tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Call me if you're going to be late."

"You got it. Goodnight."

I grabbed about an hour of sleep before the alarm clock woke me up. As I dressed myself, the rain kept on pounding on my window, like a ghost from the past, or a banshee who portended a grim fortune.

That was how we celebrated Purple Paulie's 34th birthday.