I moved to LA when I was 21 and started working in television when I was 22. Because of this, I hung around a lot of people who were five to ten years older than me, and who balked when I revealed my age. "You're a baby!" I also had a group of friends who were upwards of ten years my senior, so I was always the youngest. It was a new phenomenon for me, growing up the oldest, but I was okay with it.
I even bought into this idea that I was this young pup with so much time ahead of me. Right around my 27th birthday, I started to feel like I had been in my 20s for longer than most people. I started to feel that I had been young for too long. I've come to the realization that a few things have helped foster this notion over the years:
1. YOU'RE HOW OLD??: When I would meet people for the first time, they would not believe me that I was 27. They insisted I could not be older than 23.
2. YOU'RE HOW OLD?? Part 2: Older, or rather, better friends of mine couldn't believe I wasn't 30 yet. My birthday came that year, and I remember a couple of people asking me, "So, how old are you going to be this year?" "27." "SERIOUSLY? You're not 30 yet?" This exclamation was so rampant that I labeled my evite to my last birthday, "Still not 30!"
3. WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?, followed by YOU'RE HOW OLD??? Part 3: Family members began to confuse me for my younger sister Jackie, who is ten years younger than me. Yes, there is quite a resemblance, and yes, I do look younger than I am and Jackie looks older than she is, but ten years? Countless strangers have asked us if were were twins, and when when informed we're ten years apart, they are shocked.
4. OUT OF SIGHT: Truth be told, I left Ohio as soon as I graduated college and every time I go back, it seems like not much has changed. I still see the same people doing the same things. And even people that are doing different things, they're still the same friends I had when I was in high school (for this, I am truly blessed). And I work with one of my best friends from high school. So not only do I feel young when I go back home, I feel like I'm 14 every single day when hanging out with Patrick. With Patrick, I can only tell I'm older because HE looks older. But we still talk about people from high school, we still talk about marching band, we still reminisce about those days.
When 2008 hit, I noted casually that this would be The Year. The Year I Turn Thirty. But I still had so much time, and so many things were happening in my personal and professional life, I had very little time to think about it, and furthermore, I didn't think it really deserved much thought. Besides, who cares? I bought a condo in Los Angeles at 28, I had been to Sydney, Amsterdam, Budapest, Roatan, and Curacao all in one year, I was in a happy relationship, I had amazing friends, and I had good credit! Who cares that I'm turning 30? Besides, it's not for nine whole months!
We have two dry erase boards at work that act as calendars. So when one month is over, they erase it and put the next month up. For instance, we had June and July showing. When June was over, they erased it and put August up. That's when it hit me. Like a wall... a moving wall. A fast moving wall. As if those exist.
I'm turning 30. In two months.
I realized that I've been thinking about my birthday as though it were six months away since March. It's not March anymore. We're almost to the middle of July. My birthday? In September.
People ask me if I'm freaking out about turning 30, and I'm not, truly. But I fully admit, it's WEIRD to be turning 30. It's weird to think of myself as a thirtysomething. When my mom was 30, she was pregnant with her third kid. I remember when she turned 30 - I was devastated, because I thought she was on her way to death, surely. It's as though I felt she lost her immortality when she turned 30. Ah, the thoughts of a ten-year-old.
The truth is, I'm very happy with where my life is, save for the lack of creativity I exhibit, which is my own fault. Another truth is that I very much look forward to my thirties, because it will bring marriage (even for the gays!), children, a new home with a back yard, another sister moving to Los Angeles, more professional success (if things go as they've been going), and more memories. So it's good.
But it's still weird.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Lesbian Power Couple, updated edition
When I was younger, living in Los Angeles, I constantly saw well-dressed, beautiful gay women around me, women with things to do and people to see, women changing the world, women who knew everyone. I considered a grey suit and a pair of chunky glasses symbols of power. These women tended to be in relationships with other beautiful women, and these, to me, were Lesbian Power Couples. This was something I aspired to (or thought I did), and if I weren't in a couple, at least I could be a Power Lesbian.
In the past few years, I've had a few people refer to me as a Power Lesbian, which makes me chuckle for a few reasons. I think they call me this because I have a good job and own a home in Los Angeles at 29 years old. However, I am rarely well dressed, unless you consider shorts, tee shirt, and flip flops well dressed. And me? Powerful? Come on.
A couple of weekends ago, we went to Vegas and came home to a broken air conditioner. We called our home warranty folks, and they sent out West Coast Chief Repair. They were originally supposed to arrive between 9 and 12 and finally came at 3:30. They walked in and asked, "What's the problem?" I stared blankly at them. "You tell me." They fiddled and futzed, and asked for the roof access, and after 20 minutes, they came back inside and reported, "It's broken."
My eye twitched slightly. "What's wrong with it?"
"Well, your blower fan is dirty and you have a freon leak."
"Okay, when can you fix it?"
"I don't know." More eye twitching from me. He continued, "We have to submit it to the warranty people, and then they have to order parts, and then we can schedule an appointment to come fix it."
I gave him our warranty co-payment of $55 and sent him on his way, confused as to exactly what I paid for.
A few days later, the warranty place called me and told me they would NOT pay for the repair.
The eye twitch can't be good for the Lasik recovery.
A day after that, West Coast Chief Repair called Gina to give her an estimate. "We have to clean the blower fan, which will be $350, and then we have to do a leak test, which will be $450, and then we can let you know how much it will be to fix it."
Eight hundred dollars to NOT fix it. Great. We agreed it was too much.
A day after that, the new carpet cleaner we hired came to clean the carpets. He came right on time and was exceedingly friendly. He explained that the base rate was $95, and any additional services (deodorizer, etc) were $.25 per sq. ft. He began to take very rough estimates and came back with a price tag of $275 plus the base rate of $95.
"Wait," I said. "We have 1000 sq ft here. 1000 sq ft at $.25 is $250, and you're not cleaning the kitchen or the bathrooms. How are you getting $275?" He tried to argue with me that we had "way more than" 1000 sq ft, to which I offered the inspection paperwork.
After going through his math, I realized his mistake. He was measuring the length and width of each room, adding all of those numbers together, and then multiplying the added numbers. He was coming up with 1085 sq ft for what was about half of the condo. I had to convince him that he was wrong, and he finally agreed to it and the price went down to $132.50 out the door. I don't want to think of how many people don't check his math.
As he was leaving, we asked him if he knew any AC repair people. He did indeed, and two days later, a guy named Moses called me and told me he could come look at the AC. He called me at 10am and said he could come that evening. He arrived, tools in hand, looked at the AC, went to the roof to inspect, called us to tell us to turn on the air, and came back downstairs.
"It's fixed," he said quietly. Sure enough, after suffocating for 2 weeks, it started to feel cooler in the condo. We were overjoyed. The price? $450, total. He came on time, he fixed it in the same amount of time it took the other guys to check it out, and it was $450.
We are totally a Lesbian Power Couple.
In the past few years, I've had a few people refer to me as a Power Lesbian, which makes me chuckle for a few reasons. I think they call me this because I have a good job and own a home in Los Angeles at 29 years old. However, I am rarely well dressed, unless you consider shorts, tee shirt, and flip flops well dressed. And me? Powerful? Come on.
A couple of weekends ago, we went to Vegas and came home to a broken air conditioner. We called our home warranty folks, and they sent out West Coast Chief Repair. They were originally supposed to arrive between 9 and 12 and finally came at 3:30. They walked in and asked, "What's the problem?" I stared blankly at them. "You tell me." They fiddled and futzed, and asked for the roof access, and after 20 minutes, they came back inside and reported, "It's broken."
My eye twitched slightly. "What's wrong with it?"
"Well, your blower fan is dirty and you have a freon leak."
"Okay, when can you fix it?"
"I don't know." More eye twitching from me. He continued, "We have to submit it to the warranty people, and then they have to order parts, and then we can schedule an appointment to come fix it."
I gave him our warranty co-payment of $55 and sent him on his way, confused as to exactly what I paid for.
A few days later, the warranty place called me and told me they would NOT pay for the repair.
The eye twitch can't be good for the Lasik recovery.
A day after that, West Coast Chief Repair called Gina to give her an estimate. "We have to clean the blower fan, which will be $350, and then we have to do a leak test, which will be $450, and then we can let you know how much it will be to fix it."
Eight hundred dollars to NOT fix it. Great. We agreed it was too much.
A day after that, the new carpet cleaner we hired came to clean the carpets. He came right on time and was exceedingly friendly. He explained that the base rate was $95, and any additional services (deodorizer, etc) were $.25 per sq. ft. He began to take very rough estimates and came back with a price tag of $275 plus the base rate of $95.
"Wait," I said. "We have 1000 sq ft here. 1000 sq ft at $.25 is $250, and you're not cleaning the kitchen or the bathrooms. How are you getting $275?" He tried to argue with me that we had "way more than" 1000 sq ft, to which I offered the inspection paperwork.
After going through his math, I realized his mistake. He was measuring the length and width of each room, adding all of those numbers together, and then multiplying the added numbers. He was coming up with 1085 sq ft for what was about half of the condo. I had to convince him that he was wrong, and he finally agreed to it and the price went down to $132.50 out the door. I don't want to think of how many people don't check his math.
As he was leaving, we asked him if he knew any AC repair people. He did indeed, and two days later, a guy named Moses called me and told me he could come look at the AC. He called me at 10am and said he could come that evening. He arrived, tools in hand, looked at the AC, went to the roof to inspect, called us to tell us to turn on the air, and came back downstairs.
"It's fixed," he said quietly. Sure enough, after suffocating for 2 weeks, it started to feel cooler in the condo. We were overjoyed. The price? $450, total. He came on time, he fixed it in the same amount of time it took the other guys to check it out, and it was $450.
We are totally a Lesbian Power Couple.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Hands free - it's the LAW.
I find it funny (not ironic) that today is the widely advertised switch to a Hands Free Los Angeles, a Los Angeles where if you have a cellular telephone held to your ear while driving, you are in violation of the law, and that TODAY is the day that the bluetooth in my car decides to go on the fritz.
(I fixed it, but not before I had to resort to the OWNER'S MANUAL. Sheesh.)
(I fixed it, but not before I had to resort to the OWNER'S MANUAL. Sheesh.)
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