this morning i woke up to my mom finishing "ringu". except, she doesn't know how to use the tv/vcr/dvd/-insert_name_of_electronical_device- so she was watching the default: from the beginning with english subtitles. so i fast-forwarded to where she had left off. after it was over, she said it was good, it was scary, but it was a modern horror story and that modern horror stories are different. i asked her to explain and her example of a traditional horror story (someone is wronged, they die, they come back to avenge their death) seemed to match "ringu"! then we watched "bedazzled". she fell asleep for a little bit, as usual, but overall she really enjoyed it.

then we made some gyoza and fried rice for lunch. yum. except, ever since my brother's been into all things korean, she makes everything spicy hot now. she put a ridiculous amount of chili(?) powder in the dipping sauce. i tried a little but even a little was too much for me. forget this! who needs sauce!

at this price, no wonder everyone is divorced!

i drove around a lot today. normally when i visit LA, i feel bored and do nothing. i hardly drive at all to go anywhere. never have to get gas. that's how little i drive. today i drove around a lot. i drove all over LA. i used half a tank of gas driving around the county to hang out with friends i haven't seen in a couple of years. driving around, i saw this sign.

there's a rock en español store in ontario that my friend has been telling me about but the last time we went, she couldn't quite remember where it was and we never found it. this time, we were able to find it so we checked it out. it was alright. small, but it had a lot more stuff than anywhere else i've seen in california, except they didn't have much on the groups i'm interested in.

walking around "downtown" (i suppose that's what it was) ontario was weird. even more bizarre than santa cruz. i felt out of place, like in a time warp. it felt like the 50s or 60s. the buildings had that sort of architectural feel. also, there was one of those old time bandstands. the kind of thing you see in older films that hark back to fables of community picnics in the south. i don't know how else to describe it. the only film i can think of right now that probably has one is "picnic". as we were observing this strangeness, a big red tour bus drove by. earlier i had also noticed a sign for the ontario tourist information office. all i could think was, why would anyone want to visit ontario?

another thing about ontario that reminded me of santa cruz was pockets of missing buildings. as if they were wiped out in an earthquake.

ugly but beautiful, held up by sticks a la dali

after all that excitement, i dropped my friend off and drove back to my mom's house so i could get directions to meet my friend in the north hollywood area for dinner. we didn't have much time to spend together, but since we hadn't seen each other in so long, we exchanged a lot of information. the funny thing was, the information exchanged wasn't merely the present or near present, but also of the past, things i should have known about. some of this information was so casually mentioned that i did not want to question it. i didn't want to seem like a bad friend for not knowing. it just made me wonder if i had been sleeping, if i had been awake, how did i not know these things? it now seems like each day i am here in LA i am learning something completely new to me that i feel like i have been asleep. then again, she learned some things that she's tripping over as well. i got to see her new place. actually, her boyfriend/fiancée's place. they pay $800 for 2 bedrooms. shit, i almost pay that for one. rent control!

then i drove back to my mom's house to pick a club to go out to with another friend and get directions. instead of doing the typical go to hollywood thing, i picked a place closer to where she lives. it sounds good and i'll soon find out if it's decent.