Hey hey!! I know it’s been a while, but I’m back, betches ;)
And to the one person still reading this blog, this one goes out to YOU! (Mom, if it’s you, pretend you’re someone else, in the comments…)
So, my parents just visited me in Los Angeles, and if it’s not cool to wanna hang out with your parents, then I don’t wanna be right. Or cool. Whatever. I loved hanging out with them and doing ALL THE THINGS. Continue reading
I was thinking, YES. This is a happening. I got my boots, my LA-fake-Autumn sweater… my pleather H&M pants that fit like a glove. Like a glove that’s one size too small, on the hand of a man with sausage fingers. BUT. Still good.
In my mind I almost looked like:
Or even a little like:
And sorta:
I pulled on the pants, buttoned the fly, and bent my knees to test for bendiness.
They made a little rubbery sound. — Ha. Continue reading
It’s my super favorite time of year at my delivery job! Where the night settles in just as my shift is starting, and I’m blindly feeling for doorbells and buzzers on dark porches where people have forgotten to leave the lights on for “service workers”, like me. When dead bodies, bloody brides and elaborate pumpkin arrangements are common sights, and there’s a 50/50 chance that the spiders are real.
Make that an 80/20 split.
Even though LA boasts a ball-busting sweltering start to Autumn, I manage to find my pumpkin spice. The light is different as the sun crosses the sky. There are crunchy fallen leaves on some streets. And the evenings cool down to a brisk 65 degrees. Even the wind in the trees softly whispers, “WHERE MY UGGS AT. I WANNA WEAR ‘EM WITH MY SHORTS AND MY AZTEC CAFTAN. OMG I CAN’T FIND MY PHONE.”
Bliss. Continue reading
I went to a callback yesterday for a job that I’m definitely booking because if there’s one thing I know about this town, it’s that forcing your hair into beachy waves and whitening your teeth with a homemade peroxide solution equals a successful career!
I arrived at this callback in the same clothes I wore for the first audition, two days before. I felt like a homeless person who has a crumpled business suit tucked away for special occasions.
In the casting office lobby, I found a bunch of “Moms” like me but more symmetrical, child actors with their real Moms and nannies, and some nerdy looking “Dads”. All the kids were glued to iPhones and iPads. A slurry of psychotic sounding music was softly annoying everyone.
The casting director announced the next grouping of Dad, Mom and kid. “OK! Next up, is…. Tiffany, Mark, and Slayden-Jet-Applesauce.” The kids had the cool names. Continue reading
I got into a fight. In a back alley. I was outnumbered, but I was armed. With my “sass mouth” as my Mom would call it.
But first, let me give you some history ’bout this alley n me.
I’ve spent the past year driving through the alley in my car. I know all the potholes and hobos. One time I got free Mexican food from one of my delivery runs, and instead of mowing it myself, I gave it to this hobo I had seen a bunch of times, huddled behind one of the dumpsters in this alley.
I approached him at a wide radius, “Hey — hello? Do you want some Mexican food?” I held up a large brown paper bag that was showing grease stains from the complimentary tortilla chips. Continue reading
Hey you guys!
I don’t have anything exciting to write about. A lot of little stories, but — nothing that’s jumping out to me.
Do I write about how I got trapped inside Kelsey Grammer’s Bel Air mansion gate? (No, it’s not fun because I got out eventually.) Or how my roommates got me all hopped up on Mario Kart (the second time in my life that I’ve binged on the *one* video game I will ever want to play). OR, I could blab on again about how hard LA is, or how I haven’t had any auditions, or how there are a couple cool things in the works and how I’m making my OWN projects happen, and how I’m in the market for a large piece of green fabric to use as a background for a sketch I wrote, self-reflection, should I meditate?, juice cleanse, sunshine, traffic…
Snooze. Everyone’s doing that.
Maybe I’ll post a picture of a macaron. So I can get 5 million hits on my blog just because I like, LIKE-like, what we all like! #MACARONBITCH
So, here’s something else. My obsession with taking photos of mannequins. I drive around Beverly Hills almost every nite. And after all the store lights are down, and the fashionistas have gone home (or out to fancy restaurants with their sugar daddies because they’re tie-tie from shopping all day at GucciPradaVenetta), the window dressings are left alone, arranged in the dim evening lights, in their haute couture, looking out. Silently speaking to me.
I post these on Instagram. (Mom: download the Instagram app on your phone and look for user: ilikelauren. That’s me.)
This is Hilfiger, if you can’t tell by the “nautica”, and the faces that seem to say “Well, I’m not gonna feed myself vodka and oysters on the yacht, YOU are.”
This is jeweler Van Cleef and Arpels. Now, you can buy bejeweled ballerinas, inspired by a collaboration with dancer Benjamin Millepied (Natalie Portman’s hubby/babydaddy/professional dancer/choreographer — ok, yeah – we get it, Benjamin. You can do everything).
Neiman Marcus. They were doing a thing with dogs.
Frederick’s of Hollywood. You don’t have to be smart if you look hot in a bikini. Am I right or am I right.
I can’t remember who’s window this is… 
LOFT, Beverly Hills.
My favorite Foreign Soap Opera Bridal Boutique. Next time, on “Shadows of Russia”…
Saks Fifth Avenue. On not-Fifth-Avenue.
And finally, Agent Provocateur. It’s so nice to see mannequins that look (and feel) like real women. I mean feelings-feel…
And that about wraps it up for today.
XX,
L
An occupational hazard of working in Beverly Hills is that I am constantly surrounded by “youth”. The relentless pursuit of it, anyway. It appears in many forms. Baggy leggings, luxury convertibles, Botoxed earthworm-lips, so glossy you can check your own teeth in them, and of course, see-thru foreheads.
I spend a lot of time hanging out with beautiful hostesses in their early 20s (ACTUAL young people), while waiting for delivery orders. We talk about many things including their upcoming holidays in Cannes, their adorable outfits and where did you get that!, and did you see Kim Kardashian’s sitting at table 5 and doesn’t that guy in the cheetah print hat look like Ryan Phillippe – it has to be him — it has to. (We all Google him.)
Lately though, there’s been a weird shift toward “How old are you?” They lean in all secret style. God forbid someone might pass by and hear MY NUMBER and silently condemn me to invisible old lady Hell. “You don’t have to say,” but their eyes stay on mine. Waiting.
“Oh. I’m 35.” I say it in a normal speaking voice. It’s the facts.
Their creamy skinned jaws drop open and their pouty lips go “NO WAY. Oh, girl. I thought you were 28.”
Sweet. This might buy me a pilot season in this town.
“You hide it SO well,” they coo. Or, “You wear it so well”, which makes me feel like I stole someone else’s skin and it fits great, almost like it were my own!
“Thanks!”
“Seriously, I would have never thought. Like, the way you dress and – yeah. No way.”
It’s probably the food I spilled on myself earlier. Or the way I don’t seem to know what’s going on. Ever. Really, I’m just being myself. It looks like 28, it feels like Kindergarten, and it’s trying to get comfortable in its skin.
I’m glad I recently learned that “laying out” in the sun makes wrinkles and melanoma and ages you really fast. That Hawaiian Tropic SPF 8 is basically just coconut cooking spray. And that a good night’s sleep, drinking enough water, and an apple a day keep the Rejuvaderm away.
But I also think these Beverly Hills ladies make a mistake when they lie about their age. We all do. Not only are you putting a lot of pressure on your face when you subtract a few years (better to look like a HOT 55, than a ROUGH 32), you’re also disregarding how lucky you are to be here. Right where you are.
Maybe it’s because in my family, my sister died when she was 8, my uncle died when he was 40, and my grandmothers are still kickin it. And that I’m in an industry that I think is changing to be inclusive of older women (Thank you Meryl and Helen for being talented and beautiful).
But, it’s made me appreciate my age a little more. Not everyone gets the chance to live this long. And I get to be here for a purpose. (WHAT IS IT?? Still figuring that out.) That’s not to say there aren’t days when I’m all “Remember when I could eat pizza-and-beer-only, 7 days in a row and it didn’t matter, intestines?” “Where are the abs I used to—?” “Why doesn’t this adult acne make me feel YOUNG and ANEW!”
A couple months ago, Ervin, his brother Manuel and I drove up to San Francisco to celebrate his Uncle Juan’s “Juan Hundred-th” birthday. (For the first hour, I thought “How cool that his last name is Hundred! How often does this happen?!”)
I’ve never been to anybody’s 100th anything, and to see Uncle Juan dancing and eating normal people food, and completely surrounded by the legacy of his family, was inspiring.
Who are we to say who’s too old and when it’s too late.
I think the hostesses would agree: Uncle Juan totally wears it so well.
Oh. And there were clowns at the party. It was held at an Elk Lodge in the Bay Area and the bar was called “The Cork Room”. These portraits (of some real corkers??) were all over the wall:
I thought about “Dilly Cork” for a long time afterward.
A real long time.
XX,
L
Lauren Bair
