"I am thin and GORGEOUS!"

To sum up the past few weeks, I've been going through this "I'm young and I've still got it!" phase. This entails going out and making bad decisions. The motivation is a fear of turning 26, which will happen in 27 days. 26 means late twenties. When I think of late twenties I realize how far removed from college I am. At least 25 was a solid number. 26 feels old. These days I feel like I'm living AbFab on a budget.

I have friends who are married, engaged, have kids, are planning kids, and/or own homes. Clearly that's a different life than the one I'm living right now. I thank god that in this day and age a woman can do what she wants; there was a time when we didn't have that freedom. To each her own.

I love having adventures; I feel that many of my pre-college years were spent in this Angela Chase cocoon of anticipation waiting for my life to begin. I've been feeling a little bored, a little bored with L.A. I'm kind of in limbo, some of it stemming from the election--John and I made a pack to GTFO (get the fuck out) if Grandpa is elected (these days I'm feeling pretty confidant that won't happen), but the desire for a change of scene is in me. I don't know that I'll act on it, but a sick part of me has taken great pleasure in watching Wall Street collapse in slow motion. Group change/crisis is less lonely. There's a feeling of solidarity when the whole ship is going down, albeit sick. Then again, I saw this as a renter with no investments and massive student loans. Burn, baby, burn.

So to deal with all this I've been running around gettin' my kicks, and obsessively reading blogs and newspapers and polls. What probably kicked it all off was going to the Sunset Junction street fair with John, Rob, and Claudia in late August. We saw !!! perform--they had a new drummer that didn't know any songs off their first album so the show was great but not awesome. We capped off the night at the Echo, where the DJ from !!! was DJing. Subsequently the whole band was there, which was cool, but the music was not good.

Labor Day weekend I went back for my second Smiths' Night at the Echo. John came along, Chloe Sevigny was there again, and the music was awesome as usual. We danced the night away.

On the 19th, my friend Christine came down from San Francisco for a last minute visit. We ended up attending a performance of her composer friend Tristian's one-bit electronic music at an experimental classical music festival downtown. The Carlsbad Music Festival was pretty cool. Music composition is not something I'm particularly familiar with. While I played the violin in middle school/junior high I can't say that I know much about classical music beyond the standard composers: Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, etc. Through work, I have attended a few LA Master Chorale concerts, a few of which have featured Philip Glass compositions, and some mildly experimental pieces--vocal machinations similar to throat singing--but this particular festival really brought to my attention the wide range of experimental composition that is alive and well in classical music today. It's always exciting and humbling to meet people that are passionate and plugged into a scene/studies that are completely foreign to you. And since the event was held at a music school, the crowd was pretty young and attractive. Ha! One of the pieces featured a glockenspiel accompanied by a robotic music machine. Afterward, we went to the 107, my favorite downtown bar, and danced the night away. We also got to meet a few of the musicians which was great.

On 9/20 we celebrated Eleni's birthday with a lively "Night Brunch." I made bacon-wrapped dates, something I've always wanted to attempt, and horribly burned them. Sarah made some lethal punch, which is probably why I burned the dates, and I quickly became belligerent, choosing to give the evil eye to the vegetarian that dared to bring Fakin' Bacon-wrapped dates. Needless to say, the night quickly devolved into drunken mischief. I had to lay down in two separate beds to gather my strength before stumbling into the living room to sing "Happy Birthday" during which I audibly burped--luckily only John heard--or so I vaguely remember.

That Sunday, John, Claudia, and I saw Hot Chip perform at the Wiltern. We cabbed it there, and danced like mad. It was a great show, but couldn't top the Coachella performance. I was thrilled when I was rigorously carded at the bar. The bartender would not believe that I was 25, and demanded to know if I was an undercover cop. That means I don't look 21 people! Patsy Stone would approve.

Tonight Claudia and I are going to go check out some bar/restaurant in Silver Lake. We're feeling restless and it's a school night. I hope we don't get into trouble. Well, maybe I do.