No York Pity - Part 2

The story of one New Yorker's first visit to Los Angeles. Part One here.

Friday morning I woke up, not surprisingly, with a terrible hangover. But the sunshine peeping through the curtain of our room at The Standard West Hollywood motivated me to get out of bed fairly early. After all, how difficult could it be for this New Yorker to spend a November day laying poolside in the sun?

TightLips and I decided that coffee and breakfast were first priorities, so we again rebuked the L.A. norm and walked, not drove, in search of nourishment. Of course we went back to Santa Monica Blvd, obviously the main gay drag (no pun) of West Hollywood. Thursday night we’d had dinner at Marix, and now found ourselves next door at Basix. Immediately, there was a lot I liked about it.

One, we were seated outside on the large patio. Two, the extra-frothy double cappuccino that the cute server quickly brought me was exactly what I needed. Three, the California-Health-Savvy menu made it easy for me to order something filling enough to quash my hangover but nutritious enough to feel beach-body-ready. And four, even though it was a Friday morning in November, we were sitting outside and cute boys were walking, strolling or jogging by.

“I’m loving L.A.!” I announced, taking a bite of my Egg White Power Omelet as a hot boy in a tank top and mesh shorts ran past us.

TightLips rolled his eyes – he was already tiring of my constant L.A. praise. But I didn’t care, and was still raving 2 hours later as we soaked up the sun on the pool deck. He was splashing around in the pool on a pink innertube as I sipped an iced tea in a lounge chair.

“I could get used to this!”

He ignored me and pointed out the group of female models who had taken a table near the building. A couple of them were playfully posing near the fence, giving their favorite sexy-model-poses to the camera.

“I could be friends with them,” he said wistfully. I shrugged. Another Friday afternoon at the Standard West Hollywood.

By 3 o’clock we were fried, and I decided it was time to start working my way through the Tourist List. We put on our Shopping Outfits, and grabbed a cab to Rodeo Drive. We strolled through Dolce and Gabbana, glanced at Gucci, and tried on jeans at Prada.

“Rodeo Drive – check!” I announced, and it was off to happy hour.

TightLips had some friends who lived in the area, a college friend and her sister, and they agreed to meet up with us for cocktails. After some madcap antics trying to find and pick us up on the streets of Beverly Hills, we squeezed in their Camaro and soon arrived at The Abbey, one of West Hollywood’s best-known gay bars. It was huge, with several rooms and lots of outdoor seating.

Unfortunately the L.A. weather tricked me, and I wasn’t prepared for the sudden temperature drop as soon as the sun began to set. Wearing just our sunny-afternoon-jeans-and-t-shirts, sitting outside wouldn’t work. Fortunately inside, there was a huge fireplace with a three-level fire. We settled down in front of it with our fancy cocktails and a plate of hummus.

As we chatted, I was also texting ByeByeCostal, who wanted to meet us for dinner around nine. I agreed, thinking that gave us plenty of time to go back to the hotel and change before going out for the night. It was then that I noticed three cute boys sit down at the bar and order drinks.

“Hmmmm,” I said thoughtfully, and the girls turned to see what had caught my attention. TightLips didn’t have to.

“I saw them when they walked in,” TightLips said. “They’re totally your type. You may as well go.”

I paused. Could I really just walk up to three cute strangers at a bar? In New York I would not. I would assume they’d be pretentious, or bitchy, or just not interested (and 2 out of 3 would probably be correct in New York) and I’d chicken out. But again that weird and wonderful confidence of being in a strange city came over me, and I excused myself from our group and walked up to the bar.

“Hey guys, where’s a good place to go out tonight?”

A lie of course – I didn’t need the information, as I had ByeByeCostal taking us out. But it worked brilliantly. They all gave their answers, and from there came introductions. I settled into the seat next to them, thinking ‘I’m sitting at a bar with THREE cute boys. Does it get better than this?”

It did. They were cheerleaders.

“Cheerleaders? Like, you get thrown up in the air?” I asked, slightly directing my question toward the blond one, who I thought was the cutest (but only barely.)

“Oh yeah, that’s my favorite part!” Blondie replied.

“So who’s the catcher?”

They smiled, and told me that they were going to Palm Springs for the weekend, as it was Gay Pride Weekend there, and they were performing in the parade on Sunday. They were killing time now waiting for 5 or 6 cheerleader friends, and then they were all going to drive together to the house they had rented with the 4 bedrooms, pool, and Jacuzzi. Full of gay cheerleaders.

“It’s going to be an amazing weekend!” said one.

“You should come!” said another, smiling coyly.

“Totally,” agreed Blondie, as he reached over to squeeze my arm. “You should definitely come.”

It’s a good thing that I’d only had one drink, or I undoubtedly would have raced over to TightLips, screamed “We’re going to Palm Springs!!” and dragged him out of the bar and to the nearest car rental. Instead, I replied truthfully, “I wish I could,” and ordered another round of cocktails with them.

Before long, Blondie (who fortunately was not going to be the one driving) was pretty buzzed. He took a sip of his Lemon Drop Martini, and suddenly made a painful face.

“Ow!!” he exclaimed.

“What?”

“It huths my tahng!” Blondie slurred while holding his tongue with his fingers. “Its an exploded taste bud.”

We looked at him incredulously.

“An exploded taste bud!” he exclaimed, insistent. “My friend told me it can happen when you have too much citrus!”

“I’ve... never heard of that...” I said, trying to be sensitive. His friends were not so tactful.

“That’s fucking crazy!”

“You’re so stupid!”

“What?!” Blondie cried. “It’s an exploded taste bud! Haven’t you ever had an exploded taste bud??? Too much citrus!”

Perhaps it was better that I wasn’t going to Palm Springs.

I hung out with them for a few more drinks, until TightLips and I realized that it was almost 9, and there was no way we were going back to the hotel . But it had gotten pretty cold, and I decided I couldn’t walk around in just a t-shirt. So, at 8:55, I exchanged numbers with the cheerleaders, wished them luck in Palm Springs, and walked into American Apparel. It was five minutes before closing time. There was no one in the store but me and the sales clerk. He was young, thin, and very cute.

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, I know you’re about to close. I just need to get a sweatshirt or something. I wasn’t prepared for it to get this cold tonight. I’m from New York.”

I had uttered the magic words.

“Ohmigod I LOVE New York! I totally want to move there! Where do you live? How long have you been there? What do you do?”

I wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly it was raining men in California, and the cumulo-boy-us cloud was right over my head. I’d just left three gay cheerleaders, I was on my way to have dinner with my old trick ByeByeCostal, and here was a hot twinky sales boy who seemed quite into me.

Granted, I could hear the scolding voice of my friend MartiniFun as if he were right there talking in my ear: “My mother always says – don’t date the help!” But after all, I was on vacation – I wasn’t looking for a relationship.

I quickly learned that when he wasn’t working at American Apparel, ClerkKent did party promotion for some of the bars here in West Hollywood, and that he hoped to move to New York and get into event planning. Of course.

“I do event planning in New York,” I admitted. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, and he promised to let me know as soon as he made it to the big apple. I bought a lavender long-sleeve v-neck and said goodnight.

TightLips and I met up with ByeByeCostal, who took us to a cute little café down the street from the Abbey. It was nothing fancy, but I was glad to try somewhere popular with the locals. After dinner, we stopped for over-priced coffee on Santa Monica, and then strolled into a sex store to kill time. After 15 minutes of gasping at 3-foot-long dildos and being scared to stick our fingers into the sample FleshJacks, ByeByeCostal announced that it was time to hit the club.

The club was called Factory, the party was called Popstarz. It was a giant, multi-level space with abundant lighting and sound, a huge main dance floor and a couple separate lounges. The crowd was cute, and everyone was having fun, because they were playing fun music. Pop songs of course, the kind that everyone loves to dance and sing along to.

ByeByeCostal introduced us to a couple of his friends, and we drank and danced with them for a while. Occasionally while we were dancing my hands would innocently wander down to squeeze ByeByeCostal’s very muscular butt, and occasionally he would turn and grind that same cute butt up against me. I starting thinking about whether TightLips would be OK getting himself back to the hotel alone, as it was looking like I would spend the night somewhere else.

I got another cocktail, went back to the dance floor, and thought about how much I was loving L.A. The weather, the night life, and the boys! In the last 5 hours, I’d met 4 cute boys, gotten 3 phone numbers, gone dancing with 2 more boys, and was about to go home with 1 of them. Right on cue, there was ByeByeCostal crossing the dance floor in my direction. As he approached I smiled, listening to the thumping music. Tonight was gonna be a good night!

“I gotta go,” he said.

I stared. “Huh?”

“Have fun!” he said, and before I could even gather my thoughts, I was watching his cute butt walk right out the door.

“Bye Bye...”

I turned to TightLips, and he read my ‘what the hell?’ expression. He shrugged. We danced to another Britney song, but soon after decided to call it a night. We still hadn’t quite adjusted to the time in L.A., and it wasn’t just that. Hollywood suddenly wasn’t making any sense at all.