which 24-hour fitness do you go to?

there are distinctively different rules of engagement when it comes to going out [and going home] here in west hollywood. you have to be pretty observant to notice all of the differences from, say, london, but i think i’m starting to get clued in—i pride myself in assimilating foreign cultures, after all.

transportation:
in london, stumbling home with someone was easy and second-nature… chances are you’d both be drunk/roofied, it would be 330am, and you could share a quick taxi [minicab minicab minicab] or slum-it-up student-stylee with a nightbus. you’d wake up the next morning, and either (1) smile and have breakfast (2) shrug and have a quick coffee (3) get pointed towards the tube station or (4) tiptoe out before they woke up, fumbling with the 3 different door locks, standing on some random street corner in SE37, calling your mates to get directions home [what?! i'm in zone 4?!]

in west hollywood, since nobody goes out till 11pm, and bars shut at 2am, and since there’s no public transportation, it means there are precisely two camps… (1) those who expeditiously get drunk off of toxic overpriced apple martinis at the abbey or seduced into fiesta cantina for their nasty 2-for-1 drinks, and (2) the designated drivers who get to enjoy maybe one or two drinks before having to chug their redbulls to drive home, soberly [and easily] seducing some lush on the way.

thusly, the morning after usually results in a grizzly, hungover drive home. the downside is that there’s no escape, and you both now know where each other live. the upside is that you get to examine your pull in broad daylight, and you get to avoid the condescending stares of early-saturday-morning commuters that you’d get on the tube/bus in london.

diet:
everyone is [predictably, stereotypically] body-image-obsessed in los angeles. in london, it was quite all right [and quite attractive] to be slim/slender/lanky. here, everyone aspires to somewhere between abercrombie and arnold. i’m fine with being on a health kick, but i take issue with the 75% of the people i see on the streets [and in the bars] of west hollywood who are dressed in gym gear.

i mean, do you really need to wear your short-shorts and tank top to brunch? you, in the supermarket, do you really play lacrosse for the quebec lacrosse team, like your shirt says? i’m not a fashion snob, but it’s just strange that people are obsessed not only with fitness, but with the whole gym culture. the last jim i was in moved to miami…

i’m definitely missing my exercise regimen of london… 1 hour of walking per day, x hours of shagging per night, and at least 10 hours of dancing on the weekend. say what you will about inebriated clubbing… at least it keeps the pounds off!

dogs:
i adore dogs, i really do. that’s why i’m so excited that nearly every boy i’ve met seems to have a dog or two. you see them everywhere… parading with their daddies down santa monica blvd, sitting in a café enjoying a doggie mocha, perched in a convertible pimping down robertson.

a few weeks ago, i woke up in this very sunny, very spacious bedroom in a spanish mission-style house near beverly hills. we were spooning, so i looked over his shoulder to his nightstand to see that it was just barely 7am. in bed with us was this adorable short-haired pooch, looking up at me, wagging its tail with its tongue goofily hanging out.

around 8am, i wake up to use the bathroom, and get some water. i crawl back into bed, snuggle up and nod off, with the dog still staring at me from the other side of the bed, tail still wagging. i scratch his ear and he smiles.

around 9am, i wake up cuz i’m feeling a bit nippy. i’m splayed across his bed, alone, with the covers off of me. i drag his duvet up to cover up my… modesty, and nod back off, assuming he’s making breakfast or something.

about 5 minutes later, i get woken up by a, well, somewhat familiar feeling. an enjoyable feeling. i’m not really a morning person, really, but, you know, sometimes you feel frisky in the a.m. so you go with it. i yawn, smile and open my eyes at the same time.

feeling good, a guttural mmmmm… echoes from my throat for about 5 seconds before i glance down there to appreciate the scene. what?! hey! no! bad dog, stop, get down!

i. feel. dirrrty.

the dog gave me the saddest puppydog eyes i’ve ever seen. the things that this poor little pooch must have seen! i go scarlet with embarrassment, hiding under the covers.

what’s the protocol for explaining to a one-night-stand that you’ve been molested by their dog?

i clean up pretty well, see. scraggly studenty tshirty old me can, every once in a while, get glammed up, buttoned up, quaffed up, for special events. the special event on saturday night was the 21st birthday of adam, held at the new psuedo-exclusive members bar shaun & joe.

there are varying levels of pretentiousness in the members bars across soho… when shadow lounge first opened, it was fun and funky and if you were able to get in, you were sure to hobnob with celebs and have an otherwise high-quality evening. now most people look down their nose at you if you go there, since inside it’s filled with fat businessmen dancing poorly to wedding reception music.

sweet suite had potential, but took themselves too seriously, and pretended that they were even more exclusive than shadow lounge. i remember dining out in town a few weeks after they opened, and watched their purple cadillac pull up, and their gorgeous supermodel-cum-waiter-cum-flyer boys come up to our table and give us free passes to the club. fair enough, they were desparate to bring the punters in. after dinner we showed up to an otherwise empty club, and they tried making us queue for a few minutes, in order to make the place look busy. eric doesn’t queue, the sweet suite was blacklisted and went out of business weeks later.

the departure lounge at .heaven used to be A Big Deal. blagging was useless… you were either on the list and obviously fabulous, or you weren’t. it took me months of schmoozing and self-promoting before i was able to tiptoe in, to chat with sir ian, graham, neil and chris and george. now, anyone and their pet monkey can get in, with most of the crowd buying alcopops with handfuls 50p pieces.

from the outside, shaun & joe is perhaps daunting… a gratuitously long red carpet, two clipboarded bouncers at the door, and plenty of velvet ropes. but, i passed muster on saturday, and swimmed in with no explanation. i suppose i should feel validated or something?

inside i met the birthday boy, who, unfortunately i couldn’t ever remember meeting before in my entire life. we apparently met months ago, and apparently exchanged numbers, and he’s apparently keen on me. i figured, hey, it’s his birthday and adam seemed more than please that i arrived.

here, have some champagne, it’s £220 a bottle, you know! the attentive steward swims over with a crystal flute for me and pours me some bubbly. i toast adam, and try to suss him out. he seems mature, sure, and has a successful air of confidence. cute, i’d say. something’s not quite right, though, and i can’t put my finger on it.

so, i’ve just come back from miami where i just celebrated my birthday for real, he explains. picked up these wonderful shoes for only $800. okay, starting to see a pattern. we continue the polite conversation, and, somehow, within 10 minutes of meeting this boy i’ve learned his annual salary, a deliciously high number, but details of his job in i.t. are still a bit sketchy. one should always downplay one’s financial status, methinks?

shaun & joe is very cosy, funky and not horribly pretentious. people are mingling, smiling, dancing. 6 bottles of £220 bubbly later, and i’ve warmed up to the lad a little bit, but am still unsure about how everything fits together. he’s far from pretentious, but not quite down-to-earth enough for me. he’s mature and sophisticated, but, at the same time very much a 21-year-old. the wealth issue keeps coming up, and i just sort of grin in pain each time it does. it becomes obvious that at least several of his friends are aware of his attraction to me, as i see them sussing me up for later gossip with the birthday boy.

atif, being the wise and dear friend that he is, tears me away from champagne-fuelled conversation with adam, and within minutes we’re leaving shaun & joe, velvet ropes opening for us, and we walk past a queue [a queue?] of people anxious to get inside and be seen. we knowingly hop into a rickshaw and head to that sleazy local dive bar, .heaven, to meet up with friends and boyfriends.