Lunch at the Chateau (Marmont)

Today is a rare day, even for the Djinn in retirement. After I served at Mass this afternoon, I was free to do as I wanted.  No important errands. No favor to be accomplished. No volunteer activity whatsoever.

I did pick up a tarp at the 99 cents store because we have been informed that it might rain in Southern California and I have terrace furniture to protect.  Right now, there is a significant breeze and errant rain like clouds overhead blocking the sun occasionally. So just maybe we will get the first of a rain for which California finds itself in extremis.

But a few hours ago, it was sunny and seasonable and I decided to do something I have long wanted to. I walked all of four blocks and up a hill to the Chateau Marmont and on an impulse had lunch in "The Restaurant". 

I think this comfort is a product of being at an age when I am largely invisible. I might well have been the eldest person there. And though I remain a bit of a wanna be, I am not presently vaguely in the entertainment industry. There was no one I recognized until Mark Ruffalo came handsomely breezing in, seeming like a very nice guy.

I found myself considering the look of the women. I generally don't share too much of my internal world in these pages, but heck, I am at that age now, also when frankly I realize that my internal world doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things, so what's to hide?  I was looking to see in them what I have been told is missing in me, (and I don't quite disagree as it happens) although it might be nice if people did not feel that they have a right to make overt observations about me when I could make equally difficult observations about them I am certain they would be enraged to hear.  I was recently told that I look asexual, that I dress asexually, that I am fat (true) and that if it is true (it was my fault for saying that I wouldn't mind having a soul mate, but I meant just that a SOUL mate; I wasn't speaking of anything particularly sexual) I wanted a soul mate then I had to lose weight and go to Beverly Hills and change the way I dress. This came from a Hollywood (I mean Hollywood prime) friend who was on his way to rehab and who isn't looking his very best at the moment and my first reaction was to scream, "Are you kidding me?!" with all attendant expletives.

So, there I was looking at the women. Three in front of me, one of whom had the trendy hat, each with identical full pouty lips and ample well presented bosoms. The three men with them looked like slobs, but that seems to be the trend.  The women dress, the men wear track pants. Another woman, large, dressed baggily, even more baggily than I do ever and to whom the word asexual might apply, was with a fairly handsome man, and they seemed fully a couple. How different did I wearing a nice pair of black pants and a casual but frilly ish turquoise shirt look from them? Older to be sure, as I keep dwelling on, for I think the average age in the room was 30. What did I lack? The willingness to put my feminine self out there?  The promise of sex?  To say that there is more to life than the promise of the giving or receiving of sex is to be downright heretical in this society. There have been moments, Lord help me, that I have wondered whether I have been greatly mistaken in thinking there is more to life than that. That is the subject of someone's dissertation perhaps, but not mine, here.

By the by, though, I did not think that I fell particularly short in the looks department or the dress department among these kids. Is it possible that I am just who I am, just as I am, with positives and limitations, just like every one of the souls in this beautiful arched courtyard?

I wasn't overly preoccupied with these thoughts happily.  I had a blast in that space, two prosecos, and a chicken salad and cappuccino, without a care in the world for like an hour and a half, talking to the hostess (an army brat she said) and being well treated by Scott the waiter. No demands. No expectations.  Good enough and even better for it being as different from the life I knew in the Bronx as going to Venus might be. I paid my 45.00 plus tip bill and walked back down the hill to my West Hollywood apartment, where I tell you the tale.

This is a place I'd go back to. . .alone or with others. Surprisingly unpretentious for the attendance of the arguably pretentious or the potentially pretentious.  My neighborhood. Where Schwabs used to be. And the Garden of Allah. At the entrance to Laurel Canyon.  All in all, I am a lucky girl.

And when I came home, a message from my friend in rehab, letting me know why he had not been in touch (and talk about too much information) and reminding me that as he was getting himself together I was to do the same in terms of my, well, let's say, look. I think I might have committed myself to doing something. Well, it couldn't hurt to lose weight anyway! 

The clouds have rolled in fully. I am praying for the rain to relieve us from the drought. And thankful for a pleasant interlude before they did.