rue-madame's Diaryland
Diary
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Bleu Blah Rouge
I went to a bbq on Sunday at my friend Ned�s place. His mystery girlfriend was in town, and it was a casual way to get to know her and also to celebrate his art opening. His girlfriend is nice, but she�s like a composite of two of his old girlfriends, physically and in other ways. Which of course leads me to think that this relationship will go the way of the two others... I am trying not to indulge in schadenfreude because Harriet says that it contributes to bad karma, so I will attribute my skepticism to not knowing the girlfriend well enough. Anyway, at the bbq, a bunch of us came up with some fantastic sweeping generalizations about Los Angeles, such as: 1. 85% of all men who wear Diesel jeans are gay. 2. Any man who blow dries his hair is not a man. Except in Los Angeles, but even then, you are permitted to have doubts about his masculinity. 3. 90% of all women in Los Angeles have taken or are taking yoga (this came about as we were discussing Ways To Meet Women if you are a single straight guy.) Once we finished with the percentages, we came up with these: 4. Nothing means what it�s supposed to in LA: the right lane is a passing lane, the sidewalk is the bike lane, red traffic lights mean it�s safe to turn left, tight shirts and mirrored shades on a guy do NOT mean he�s got sugar in his shoes, drawstring pants + flipflops constitute an Outfit for a woman (this one I had to keep to myself as Ned�s new girlfriend wore these the day before. But I didn�t know that when I was thinking it, I only found out later when we were talking about appropriate attire for scooter- or motorcycle-riding. Thank god I kept my trap shut.) 5. Straight men and gay men alike eat 1/2 a sandwich and take the rest to go. I think there were more but these are the ones I can remember right now. There was another discussion (or attempt at a discussion) about the assassination attempt on Chirac, which nobody knew about. Terence was shocked that no one knew, but I wasn�t. I don�t think anybody reads the newspaper anymore. If folks are informed at all, it is because they are news-aware Monday through Friday when they�re in their cars, on their way to work, listening to NPR. For them, news doesn�t happen on Saturday or Sunday when they�re not commuting to the office. Somehow the conversation turned into one of those �France would be better without all the French people� types of conversations and I got really irritated and defensive. It�s one thing to make generalizations about things you are familiar with (Los Angeles, straight men vs. gay men) but it�s quite another to discount an entire country based on your xenophobia. The same people claimed not to be enamored of Canadians. This I cannot understand. Canada is not really like a foreign country where because you have a strange accent, they�re rude/mean/dimissive. Canadians are the nicest people around. What�s there NOT to love about Canada? Mike Myers? Chixdiggit? The �This Hour Has 22 Minutes� show? Say what you want about France, but if you can�t love Canada, then I can�t love you.
8:18 a.m. - 2002-07-16
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