fun with lexicons

another ditty on our fine city from the fabulous folks at daily candy. ooooh, how i love the lexicons! a couple of these have already infiltrated my usual vernacular.

l

Paradise City. A place that so often leaves us at a loss for words (okay, fine, it's the blue martinis). Until now.

dressed to spill
adj. 1. Used to describe a woman's precarious and flirtatious state of dress, wherein a great deal more than cleavage will likely be revealed. (Look at Alexis's nonexistent top. That girl is dressed to spill tonight!)

hybris
n. Excessive pride based solely on one's hybrid car.

margariter
v. To serve a margarita for the express purpose of loosening up. Alt. margaritim. (He's just sitting in the corner, Sally. If you're interested you're going to have to margaritim.)

Mulholland jive
n. 1. A party way up in the hills. 2. The drive home following such a party.

p.u.i.
n. planning under the influence. The act of plan-making late in the evening, especially with friends, for next-day activities, such as shopping on Melrose and brunch.

restaur-romp
n. A date that gets out of hand at a dinner table and/or bar area. (After two bottles of wine my date turned into a full-on restaur-romp.)

sky-barred
n. The condition of being excluded from evening planning for having suggested the Sunset Boulevard staple one too many times. (You're sky-barred, Katie. We'll let you know where we're going when we decide.)

self-valetdation
n. Every now and then, when one parks on one's own, just to get away from it all.

Saturday night fever
n. Often followed by a real fever, the delirium that comes over some women as they get (un)dressed for a Saturday night on the town, believing that the temperature is as much as twenty degrees warmer than it actually is.

i still love l.a.

to live and die in LA. it probably should have been to love or hate LA. i've said it once, i've said it thrice and i'll say it again - if your distaste for our fabulous town runs that deep, mapquest LAX and go back to wherever it is you came from. the odds are they're missing their village idiot, and despite what it would seem, we're not really suffering a shortage of wait staff on the west side! hopefully you'll enjoy the following blogs from allan weiner and some folks on metroblogging as much as i did. i couldn't have given a better rebuttal myself. word to the wise, allen - when heading to LAX, it's best to take an airport shuttle (about $30) or hire a towncar (about $50). silly man.

l

Why I Hate LA
by Allen Weiner on Fri 03 Feb 2006 09:36 AM MST
I hate LA. I always have, and suspect I always will.

Reasons? The traffic, the smog, the $60/one hour cab ride from the airport, the plastic people, mindless conversations about long work commutes, oddball posers on the street, the pretense and did I mention the traffic? And how can you like a place that recognizes the talent of the Olsen Twins by rewarding them with a Star on the Walk of Fame. And what's there to like about the Dodgers and/or The Lakers?


l

February 03, 2006
Why I Don't Care Why You Hate L.A.
Metroblogger

Allen Weiner hates L.A. I know this because his post "Why I Hate L.A." popped up on the one of the L.A. feeds in my RSS reader this morning and caught my eye. I took the time to post a response to what I found to be a lackluster, empty rant, but strangely (and by strangely I mean "stupidly") my comment magically disappeared right after the author logged in around 2:00MST. While what I had to say wasn't complimentary, I wouldn't say it was anti-intellectual or pointless. From memory, it was something along the lines of...

Boy, that sure is a controversial stance you've taken there, complaining about the traffic and all the fake people. I've never heard that before. To borrow a phrase, you are what you eat. Nothing like journos and insiders that surround themselves exclusively with Silverlake hipsters or industry Westsiders and then complain about how shallow everybody is.
Wake me up when you've got an interesting analysis to share, instead of just masturbatory troll-bait.

Since I'm on the subject, and since Mr. Weiner has prevented any of us from continuing the conversation in the comments on his site, allow me to expand. To all of you who constantly complain about how shitty L.A. is, let me say this....I don't fucking care. I've heard these same four or five arguments a million times. You think everybody is shallow and fake? I've got a couple of hundred hard working, down-to-earth, working-class neighbors that spend their days staffing your gas stations and your hotels and your restaurants and your hospitals that would take great umbrage at your boneheaded attempt to paint 12 million people with one brush just because you've never been east of downtown except to drive to Vegas.

In fact, I'm glad all of you hate L.A. Do the rest of us a favor and move back to San Francisco or New York and leave this huge, awesome, multi-faceted city to those of us that are willing to take the time to appreciate it. I have a sneaking suspicion that you're going to find something to complain about anywhere you end up.

ADDENDUM: hexod.us adds brings up another good point in the comments that I forgot I wanted to mention, though I alluded to it a bit. Los Angeles is not Hollywood. If you want to bitch about Hollywood, fine. But be smart enough to know the difference.

l

check out the original post here.

and while we're on the subject of the city, this little link is fabulous - even for a native like me. an exhaustive list of LA neighborhoods from Wikipedia.

do you live in silver lake or sunset junction? echo park or pico-union? beverly glen, beverly crest or beverlywood? this growing list of neighborhoods in LA on Wikipedia might help you figure it out. who knew there were that many? i stopped counting around 974.

where you at? check yourself. you may be surprised. i'm still trying to figure out where irwindale is. maybe it's its own city? if you know, let me know. enlighten me!

16974

that would be my la marathon runner number. the one that will be plastered to me front and back, rain or shine, as i ask myself for 26.2 miles what on earth i was thinking when i started training for a marathon. rather auspicious if i say so myself. i don't think i could have devised a better runner number if i'd tried! five months of training down and just six short weeks to the big day..

to put a little of the insanity in perspective .. a few recent stats:

according the the latest approximation of the U.S. population (298,026,631) and the total number of finishers of marathons last year (382,000), if you finished a marathon you are in top one tenth of ONE PERCENT of the population who has done so.

then, figure in:
* multiple marathon finishes by single runners
* non US citizens who do not count for the total population who ran a marathon and you are even more elite!


sure somebody is faster than you and it may have taken you 5 hours (or 6 or 7) to finish, but hey, even if all the people who ran a marathon last year ran it at the same time, and you came in DEAD LAST you would still have done more that 297,644,631 lazy asses last year.

now, back to deciding which marathon to train for next while you think about where you put the remote :)

in all seriousness friends, six months ago, i'd never run a mile in my life. if i can successfully train for a marathon, ANYONE can!