los angeles, pt 2

I only got home from Los Angeles six hours ago, but have somehow managed to acquire a brand new pair of skateboard shoes already, which is a sign that my SoCal brain infection is much more serious than I thought it was. I had a great time, notwithstanding my attitudinous previous post about improv comedy, so thank you Reena, Sonia, Navneet, Bubba, and Ray!! Since I was too sleepy to do too much yesterday, Bubba and I spent the day singeing our whiskers by her pool, taking Soda for walks, playing with her and Raymond's hisnhers berimbaus, eating things, lifting very light weights at the gym, and talky talky talking. It conjured the image of my dentist standing above me holding metal lances against my gums and telling me that the cure for my teeth-grinding problem is to go somewhere and relax for a while - he'd be so proud of me!



Here's Reena and Sonia laying in a blue bed on Sunday morning talking about immigration law. Reena is about to scold me for failing, for the 12th consecutive hour, to say anything funny.



Navneet buying a spinach torte. (I just Googled "spinach torte" and "spinach tart" and there is no difference.) She looks relaxed and happy because everything we cherish has not yet been insulted by a troupe of hack improv comedians. Happy birthday! Right after this picture was taken, we had to sprint down the block into the theater, where Ray's gigantic friends were holding five seats for us in the theather where hack improv comedians perform.



I took about 70 photos in L.A., and Bubba is doing this in 75% of the pictures I have of her. Here is everyone in a bar that was playing a Bob Dylan album all the way through. I felt my heart flutter at the prospect of kismet/the impossibility of free will when Sonia said that she knew my friend Deepa, but that feeling was quickly smothered when Bubba and Ray - cruel, athletic, popular bullies - pretended to push glasses up on their noses when I said something incredibly nerdy about Reihan Salam's highly-trafficked blog.



The cover of a free magazine I found somewhere in Burbank.



Here I am instructing Bubba to photograph my stomach in a way that minimizes it and adds pigmentation. Bubba was a V.E.S. concentrator in college, so she did a fine job with the visual effects here. Viva SoCal!