First Weekend

My first weekend in weho has come and gone. I was pretty excited for Friday night. My furntiture had come earlier in the day and for the first time since my arrival I had felt an assemblance of order in my life. For dinner, and for the first time, I decided to use the bbq by the pool at my apartment complex. While down there I spoke with some other dwellers, one whom I had met earlier in the week, so it was nice to begin to converse with some neighbors. However, as the new guy in an apartment complex I feel like I’ve crashed their proverbial party as everyone seems to already know each other. My plan for Friday night was to go to the Abbey. I wanted the Abbey to be the first bar I went to because it was the so called first “gay” bar that I had ever gone to. (on my trip to weho back in April) As I had mentioned in an earlier post the apartment I settled on is a hike from the main strip of gay clubs on Santa Monica Blvd. So according to walkjogrun.net (great site for the runners out there) I was 1.46 miles from the Abbey and the walk would take around 30 minutes. I don’t know if most people walk to the clubs or cab it, but I wanted to walk it to see if I would be a sweaty mess by the time I got there. (I wasn’t because the nights out here are awesome) Plus I wanted to walk a good part of Santa Monica Blvd. and gaze at people and allow them the opportunity to gaze at me. The walk was fun, went by quick, and I must say I kept laughing to myself and had a huge grin for most of it refleciting on all of my recent changes. I hate to say it but the walk to the Abbey was unfortunately the best part of my night on Friday. I got to the Abbey at 10:30 and got right in. The patios were pretty crowded and the interior space was not quite so. I got a drink and decided to walk around. The first thing I noticed was that I have to stop wearing a long sleeve button down shirt when I go out. Now I am not talking about a work button down but a casual button down with the sleeves rolled up, a blue t-shirt underneath that picked up on a stipe in the button down and jeans. For me that’s casual, but for weho casual seems to be a t-shirt. I get it. A t-shirt to show off what you got. Great, I can compete with what I got. But I don’t want to just wear a t-shirt when going out. That is not my style and I am not in my twenties anymore. Anyway, to make a long story short, Friday night at the Abbey was a bust. I spoke with more guys in the last few days walking my dog then I did at the Abbey. Sad, very sad! And as an aside, there were a lot of girls at the Abbey on Friday. It confused the hell out of me.

I woke up at six on Saturday to walk the dog and there was this tranquil peace and serenity in the city at that time of the day. I went back to bed after the walk and woke again at ten. I proceeded to go for a five mile run along Santa Monica and Sunset boulevards. These runs are a turn on for me as I get to show off what I got on my terms. It’s great to see the guys at the coffee shops and cafes look my way as I run by. Plus, I really enjoy running as it does wonders for your body and mind. (then again maybe not my mind since I still have so many hangups) After my run I went to the pool for the first time. I laid out for a few hours and to my surprise the pool wasn’t that crowded. I learned from this pool experience that I have to stop using the spray on suntan lotions. Everytime I use one of them I realize hours later the areas that I didn’t get good coverage. I look like a leopard from my neck down with very visible areas where I clearly missed a few spots. After the pool I ran some errands and did still more apartment shopping. After this past week I feel like I am doing my part to help keep the American economy out of a recession. My plan for Saturday night was to go check out some bars closer to my apartment. First on the list was a place called iCandy. I left my apartment at eleven. When I arrived at iCandy I looked at the line and observed that they must be having some sort of hetero, African American night. So I continued to walk past the place and end up making a long loop back to where I came from. Another place near me that I heard about was a place called O-bar. I went there next, got right in and realized the place was empty. I was annoyed, ordered a beer, and started chatting up a guy at the bar who was playing with his new iPhone. That lasted all of two minutes as he was there with someone else. I finished my beer and went home. Live and learn, and cross those two places off of my Saturday night to do list.

On Sunday I woke up early, walked the dog, and went to the gym at my complex for an abs and arm workout. After five days of working out and running, it feels good to be back on a schedule after a hiatus. It is amazing that after only about 2-3 weeks of not doing squat, and no not the leg exercises, weights that I used to have no problems with all of a sudden got a lot heavier. After working out, I went back to the Beverly Center, a shopping mall, to make some merchandise exchanges.

I only bring this up because I wanted to express my amazement at how lazy, selfish, ignorant, and stupid “some” people are out here. At the Beverly Center you have to pay for parking. I guess they recently changed their procedures from paying for parking when you exited the parking structure at a manned exit booth, to one where you pay using an automated machine from where you physically exit the mall. You then receive a “paid” parking ticket from the automated machine that you use to initiate the lifting of the parking gate at the exit. There are signs everywhere about this change. There are verbal cues from this sexy European sounding woman as you enter and exit the mall. The bottom line is this, I have been to the Beverly Center probably 7 times since I arrived here on Sunday. Every time I have left the Beverly Center there has been one of those lazy, selfish, and stupid people who decided not to pay attention and cause backups for others by not being able to exit. Get with it people and start paying the fuck attention. Your shit does stink and is getting way old!

Later in the day I went to a little gathering where I met some nice guys, some of whom I thought were pretty cute. I had some really good conversations with a number of people, learned quite a bit, and it was a very nice few hours. One piece of advice that I am going to take away from one of the more experienced guys I met was to not have such high and immediate expectations for things to happen. He was pretty adamant that good things lay ahead for me and to not put myself in a position where I continually get discouraged. His advice was pretty timely coming on the disappointment that I had on Friday and Saturday at the bars. He also thought I was 24 which was extremely flattering.

So there you have it. My first week and weekend in West Hollywood has come to a close and I feel good!