72 Hours in Los Angeles
My husband and I sat at the world famous In-N-Out serving the LAX area; sitting under the planes jetting in from their domestic journey from wherever in the US. It was my first In-N-Out burger since last September, and I craved that animal style spread every single time California crossed my mind.
We were leaving LA the next day to go to Orange County, where I spent the four years of high school in a small suburb called Yorba Linda. The town’s claim to fame was more infamy: it was the birth place of Richard Nixon, deeply Republican, and a former sundown town. With all of this, it still has one of the highest ranked public schools in the area, hence why we moved to Yorba Linda in the first place.
I always ran away to LA during weekends to be in the land of film, TV and art, spending most of my time in Melrose just shopping and spending $10 on a coffee. I was able to dress like an absolute dickhead (I hadn’t developed any sense of personal style or taste), and no one cared or even looked at me. It was freeing, reminding me of the summers I would spend in NYC and experience the same unapologetic freedom.
We drove from San Francisco to LA, racing down the 101 to get to LA as fast as we could to beat the traffic. We left at 5:00 AM, only stopping for bagels in Salinas before jetting off again.
We finally arrived at 1:00 PM, deciding to kill some time at the Grove before checking into our Airbnb in Melrose. We walked around, went into stores I hadn’t set foot in since I was a teenager: Sephora, Barnes & Noble, and the coveted Brandy Melville that now apparently has two stores in the Grove. There were teenage girls giggling, gossiping, convincing each other to try things on before inevitably tapping their parents’ plastic on the machine with little to no thought or remorse. It was an immediate reminder that I was an outsider in the store, despite only being 23 and still believing there was no better place to buy basics. My husband was with me, who’s 26, and almost in awe at the sheer number of girls in the store and disgruntled parents waiting outside.
We walked out empty handed and decide to check in. It’s a tiny, brand new unit in the heart of Melrose. We change, we dined at the famous Genghis Cohen, then walked back to pick up the car.
I had a plan since the moment we bought our plane tickets to go back to my home state, and I had been drooling at the idea of being able to finally do another beautiful LA drive at night. My husband hits the STIIIZY, I put on my playlist I made back in high school specifically for those drives, and drove off in the direction of Mulholland Drive. You can listen to the playlist here:
I roll down all the windows, open the sun roof, and Beach House fills the car as I drive up the winding roads of Mulholland Drive. I peer to my husband when I can, and he’s just staring at the skyline of Los Angeles, mouth agape as we trek higher and higher into the Hollywood Hills. My hair was whipping about, giving me a sense of nostalgia I forgot I could experience. I don’t have my driver’s license in England, so I don’t have any opportunities to just drive around aimlessly like I used to.
The houses start to become bigger, the Hondas become Porches, and the skyline continues to grow, and we pull up to the iconic scenic point. We weren’t alone, a couple other people had the same idea as us; it was a Friday night after all. After basking the view, we continued. We raced down Mulholland Drive, past the Getty, back down through Beverley Hills. It was somewhat infuriating and comforting that the construction on Sunset was still there and confusing as ever.
As we come to the end to our drive, I felt elated and relieved, as if that piece of me never went away despite the many changes I had faced in adulthood. It was one of the most therapeutic experiences I’ve had in a while, and it only made me more sure in myself that I was still me.
The real reason we stopped in LA was to see the prog-rock band, Rush. My husband loves Rush; I do not. I always brag about how I’m such a good wife because I gave up 4 hours of my Saturday night to go see this band that I had grown up despising (no shade towards Geddy Lee, it’s entirely my mom’s fault for overplaying Tom Sawyer all throughout my childhood).
Rush had four sold out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, and we had snagged four tickets, giving the other two to a family friend and his good friend.
Can you feel my excitement through your screen?
The concert started (ON TIME!) with a short film produced by the band, and it was a whole production with cameos from Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, both known Rush fans from their viral Funny or Die! skit from about fifteen years ago, the South Park boys as “Lil’ Rush”, and other easter eggs nodding to their past albums.
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson take the stage to an eruption of cheers and applause, the crowd going bonkers the moment Geddy motions to their newest session drummer, Anika Nilles, as she sat in the same seat once occupied by late drummer Neil Peart.
It’s a stereotype that there aren’t many female Rush fans, or that the only women attending the concerts are wives and girlfriends, so it was incredibly heartwarming to see the predominantly male audience go crazy for Nilles. She seemed touched by the huge roar of applause for her entrance, and she was absolutely the star of the show.
What followed was three hours of playing from a wide array of decades and albums, with a couple short films dedicated to Peart and the impact he had not only on the band but in rock music. Even as a non-Rush fan, I was blown away by the level of musicality, production and thought that went into the entire show and setlist.
What stole my attention the entire show, though, was the family friend who bought the other two tickets from me. I was told he was a massive Rush fan, and he later told me that this concert was his 63rd time seeing the band. He was from New York City originally, having seen the band when they were first gaining traction by traveling up and down the East Coast and seeing every show they played in New York.
This man was a machine. He knew exactly when to chant, when to film to show his kids, and when to lean over and tell us that we were in for a treat. He was moving and speaking so calmly and as if he was an expert in this field of Rush concerts, which, to be fair, he was. When they played the opening notes to 2112 (the opening song is twenty minutes long), he leaned over and said “You’re getting the full thing!” as if there was any other option. Of course there was, he had seen it all.
I highly recommend seeing Rush with a lifelong fan.
The following day, we had nothing planned. We woke up at noon, having been out until 4:00 AM seeing one of my closest friends as we celebrated her graduation from UCLA. We rolled out of bed and made our way across the street to Fairfax High School for the Melrose Trading Post.
I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time and money over the years at Melrose Trading Post. It’s what originally got me into vintage and thrifting as a pastime, which then lead to my love of fashion and fashion history.
Unfortunately, it was a quite disappointing weekend. Construction at the school and the Rose Bowl Flea (which only happens once a month) stole most vendors and left the space a bit empty. We eventually left and hit up my favourite store in the entire neighbourhood, JetRag.
Famous for its $1 Sundays, we went in and dominated the two floors of clothing ranging from just donated items to curated vintage. We each got a shirt, then intended to just head back to the Airbnb.
Instead, we ended up outside a well reviewed psychic outside her shop.
It had always been a bucket list experience of mine, and we ended up sat at a small table while an older Russian Orthodox woman sat down in front of us. She had missing teeth, a raspy voice, and stressed that she was a ‘no bullshit’ psychic; she wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything.
She did my reading first, asking what I wanted to know from the universe. I asked about my career, asking if I would end up successful at whatever I ended up doing. She had me recite some lines, asking the universe to disperse its knowledge upon me, no matter if the knowledge was good or bad.
She flips some cards, not like tarot cards but nothing I had ever seen before, placing some crystals on the edges of cards, but not others. She handed me a thin book of Russian Gypsy Fortune Telling, ordering me to flip to certain chapters, then to specific verses. She paints a story of my finances and how I will be successful in life if I stop living and planning for the future and instead live in the present.
She stops after a few minutes and says that the universe hasn’t said much to her. How convenient.
She moves onto my husband.
She immediately has more to say to him, claiming his talkative nature is going to be his downfall. My husband is one of the quietest people I’ve ever met, and that is a shared understanding from everyone in his life. He peered to me as she looked down at the cards and continued to ponder.
As he’s looking at me, we hear a crackle and smell a brief puff of blueberry sour razz. We both looked over, and she has a massive Lost Mary vape in her hand, her other hand stroking her chin as if she was in deep thought.
She turns to me and goes, “The universe has told me something. You need to spend less money”.
Then she charged us $150.
