I'm Not a Genetic Counselor, But I Play One On TV

Until last fall, I had never been west of the Eastern half of Minnesota. That’s no longer true: Fancy New Kinsley went to Los Angeles for a (grumble) educational conference (grumble) week! No clinic (true), no homework (false); nothing but fun in the sun (false, false, false). The trip got off to an inauspicious start, as most of my better trips do. Three of us hitched a ride to the airport with my dad, who was in town for a meeting and also to take the cat back home for a week so I wouldn’t come home to find her shriveled up on my windowsill… like my crispy flowers. We went to the check-in counter to claim our tickets and see just how much I had overpacked. Answer: not enough to have to pay a fee. Win. The friendly SWA agent printed my ticket and asked for my ID, a security measure I usually appreciate. “Uh-oh,” she agent said. Oh, this is going to lead somewhere good. “Your license is expired.” Okay, but my name and picture haven’t. I’m not asking to drive the plane, so what’s the problem? Unfortunately I don’t carry my passport with me, though I should in case I need to flee the country if a spy who looks like Matt Damon needs my immediate assistance. Although how long do passports last? That might be expired too. Anyway, as it turns out, what we do now is red-stamp and write all over my boarding pass and tell me I’ll have to go to “special” security. Whatever. As long as I get on the plane, I don’t care. Dad’s already gone, there’s really nothing else I can do. And so it was on to our gate, special boarding pass in hand.

I was separated (we got sTHeparated! Ha! Does Tara even read this? Who knows) from my travel pals fairly quickly and shuttled off from the main hallway – alone, with my head hanging in shame. I lost sight of the rest of the airport while walking down a hall into a walled-off area of the terminal. It was horribly traumatic and we’ll have to leave it at that because I was forced to sign a non-disclosure document about my brief, nightmarish experience.

Just kidding, they were totally nice. I had to put my bags in trays and the first guard told me that actually, since my license has been expired less than a year the airport didn’t have a problem with it but the SWA people are persnickety little bitches and they call shenanigans after two months, which may or may not be against the rules. And for the record, my license had been expired for four months at that point, because who the hell ever looks at the expiration date of their license? Well, me, now. The guard put my cell phone in a bin and asked what sounded like “Have you ever been to the Buffra?” I believe “Uh, no? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” was my clever reply. “Have-you-ever-been-to-the-Puffer?” he enunciated. “Oh. No.” Apparently this is new. It’s an arch that you stand under, and jets of air are blown at you, and you wait there while a computer sniffs you and decides whether or not you smell like terrorism. After a tense moment, the green light went on and I was free to go, most likely because I had neglected to put on my Victoria’s Secret purple whore spray that morning. The spray is purple, not the whores. My shoes were returned to me, and I put them on while watching the mild violation of my bags. The process was pretty interesting, mostly because I knew I had nothing to worry about. That they could find! I’m kidding. Or am I?! I am. The only possible contraband would be the crochet hook I’d brought; even then, seriously? Terrorism and handicrafts hardly go hand in hand. They wiped my electronics and the insides of my bags with filter paper and took them to a machine that would decide my fate. A few beeps and boops later I was allowed to go free. As it turned out, I made it through my “special” security before my friends. Huzzah! We hit the food court (where they were performing flu shots. Huh? Exactly) and then went to our gate. The flight was long but uneventful; I didn’t have to sit next to a crazy alien believer, so what’s the point of writing about it? I got a window seat because I am a child. I saw mountains and deserts and clouds, and when we landed it was warm with a 100% chance of palm trees. The internets helped us find somewhere to eat, and then the night was pretty much over.

The upholstered expanse of central Nevada.

The next day I woke up absurdly early thanks to the two hour time difference. I’m talking 5 a.m. no problem. It was not natural. Conference stuff didn’t start until four, so we decided to head to Hollywood to be tourists for a while. We were dropped off by our weird and possibly dishonest cabbie in front of the Kodak Theater, where popular award shows are apparently held. As soon as we got out of the car we were standing on the Walk of Stars… right on Britney Spears’ star, essentially guaranteeing I’d have her music stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I’d pretend to complain but if you read this you probably know me and the lie that would be.

First on the list of stuff to do was Coffee Bean, because Kelli was dancing around and composing ballads about their coffee, having been in CA for nearly 20 hours and not having been to one yet. We sipped our drinks through the famous (á la TMZ) purple straws, with me getting an ice cream headache with every sip. I think my drink was freezing the short-term memory center of my brain, thus explaining why I’d continue to chug a drink that was clearly causing me pain. In true tourist style, we walked around with our heads down, reading the ground.

She's a man, baby. XY.

We passed Grauman’s Chinese Theater, also famous for hosting things. Probably some award show. Chinese Oscars? Who knows. We saw a giant TomCruiseOlogy center, took some very original and hilarious pictures and then walked quickly and silently past so they wouldn’t leap out and grab us to extract our alien souls and then marinate our brains in crazy juice, as is my understanding of the organization. After that we entered a rather sketchy area. We could see glimpses of the Hollywood sign between buildings, but the buildings themselves were definitely not hosting any red carpet events, unless you count “hosting” a Halloween costume sale by putting turboslut costumes on mannequins with THE biggest boobs I’ve ever seen. But I don’t think that counts as an event when that’s what you do all year long.

Buy, lease, or dump a body.

I also saw a store that sold pimp suits. I got a picture, but due to some Designer Protection Integrity Technology®, the pimp suits were invisible behind a large glare.

The fabrics are lovely. For smackin' a bitch up!

We turned back when the sketch factor got too high, and also when the stars on the sidewalk started repeating. Alfred Hitchcock has two? I admit I enjoy the man’s work but come on. Is one star for his shadow?

When we returned to civilization, we went to Highland Center to get some pictures of the Hollywood sign that didn’t have an abandoned construction/murder lot in front of them.

From our lofty tourist perch we surveyed the eateries available to us, settling on a nearby California Pizza Kitchen seeing as we were a) in California and b) being stupid tourists. It was going well until a “grave error” was made with one of our orders Mer had to wait approximately ten years to get her food. Our waiter, Alphabeta Kentucky (not his real last name, but okay fine it was another state south of the Mason-Dixon line that rhymes with Bennessee, I shit you not) told us our drinks would be comped. Woo! Should have ordered more than just an iced tea. This is a good general rule I will be implementing.

After lunch we had time for Grauman’s Chinese Theater. I’m not really sure what the purpose of this place is. What goes on inside? Why is it Chinese? Does Grauman have a variety of ethnic theaters in his possession? All of these questions have no clear answers, unless of course you Google them, but I’d rather leave it with its shroud of mysteriousness.

Another mystery: why does Samuel L Jackson write like a girl?

We walked around and compared our feet to the freakishly tiny feet of the stars of yesteryear. Seriously – Judy Garland may have had something wrong with her.

TCBFS affects tens of people a year. Please, won't you help?

Foot binding, tiny creepy baby foot syndrome (TCBFS), something was going on. I realize I’m tall (thanks to random guys in hospital basement hallways) and therefore have larger than average feet. But I don’t know how she was teetering around on those little nubs. One entire foot could have gotten caught in a chink between the bricks of the yellow brick road. Especially where the road fell into disrepair in the ghetto of Oz. Wait, was there a part like that? Maybe that was in ‘Return to Oz.” Ever see that? It is cracked OUT. The fact that I saw the movie while on codeine for my tonsillectomy (and then, of course, recreationally) may affect my memories of this cinematic surprisingly-not-straight-to-VHS gem. Talking couches, heads in cabinets, a rolling Nothing taking over the land (actually this may be from the Never Ending Story). What is up with movies from my youth? Speaking of tangents, what the hell was I talking about before? Oh, right. Tiny midget feet. Freaks! The fortune teller was roaming around here now, claiming to everyone that she had some good news for them if only they’d pay her for a reading. I couldn’t spend my money on her, though. I had to buy some postcards because I am a very good sister and friend so we went to Hip Hop Hollywood, and awesomely trashy souvenir shop. I carefully picked out cards for each person and if you are reading this and didn’t receive one, it must have gotten lost in the mail. Damn you, USPS! While we were browsing the other fine merchandise, we noticed a commotion outside: a bunch of people standing in front of a semi-circle of photographers. Things are happening...

We somehow figured out that a star was being unveiled. But whose star was it?! I SUCK at identifying celebrities, so I was staring at the crowd desperately trying to recognize someone when two of us come leaping through the store, whisper-shouting for me to get my camera (get? Please, it’d been in my hand since we got out of the cab that morning). Who had just arrived via gleaming white Dodge Caravan but Doogie. Freakin’. Howser. The Doog.

(Related but uninteresting fact: I did not watch Doogie Howser. The only episode I ever saw was one where his weird friend had to deliver their teacher’s baby in an elevator.) Was it his star? Were we waiting for the Doog? I didn’t see one for him during the walk, could today be his day? Hmm. He hung back playing it cool while I pretended I wasn’t taking his picture. No one congratulated him. I was still scanning the crowd to see if any faces looked familiar… nope. Then suddenly a giant emerged from the crowd. That nose! That gross Weird Al-esque hair! Those tiny Scrooge mini-glasses! We have it, folks. My first independent celebrity sighting. Penn Gillette. Towering over the unmagical masses

Funny story, even though it should have been obvious to look for sidekick Teller next, I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know he was there until I read a story about the event, and then noticed that he was even in the pictures I had taken.

Whoops. I see you now, Teller!

But the question remains: why was this unlikely duo being photographed mid-day? Who do they have in common? In the absence of any real answers, I kept taking pictures and speculating wildly. I love the lack of photographic responsibility afforded by digital cameras. Somehow, possibly by sneaking through the wall of photogs, I saw a name on the newly revealed star: Houdini. Oh, of course. Houdini. That explains Teller the Magical Giant, but Doogie? I got nothin’. A brief photo shoot later and Doogie skipped back to his Caravan and zipped away to who knows what. Probably not much if he has time to attend unveilings for long-dead magicians. Possibly the opening of a PetSmart or a Star Trek convention. You know, more logical events for him to attend. Before the crowd could disperse, we had to head back for some NSGC ice breaking newbie foolishness, effectively ending any opportunities to gawk at famous(ish) people. On our way out, the gypsy tried to peddle her crazy one last time. None of us were buying because we knew our immediate futures: ten hours a day of non-stop lectures and all the cheap plastic shit we could carry. And so until next time, I leave you with some words of wisdom on the timeliness of wearing striped sweaters.

Spongebob and Robin discuss the age old issue: sweaters vs. capes

P.S. Sorry about the formatting, it's screwed up and I don't know how to fix it and everytime I go back in I get yelled at about HTML or some nonsense and it was risking everything to come back in and make this P.S. That was the end of that sentence but you probably can't tell because of the period that is a part of the P.S. Shit, now it happened again. Do I need to put another period after that? I dunno. Sorry about the formatting.