sweetheart redux

I work exactly across the street from the school I attended in Kindergarten and First Grade.  Another biographical fact is that I used to live with my mom in Pasadena on the weekends, and with my dad and Stepmom on the Westside the rest of the week.  Mom was poor so I lived poor on the weekends too, giving “You wanna start something?!” scowls at people in line at the grocery store who sighed exaggeratedly as she fished out wads of food stamps from her pockets.  The rest of the week, when I was middle class, and happened to be in a grocery store, I always made sure not to scowl at people in front of me in line  when the fished out wads of food stamps from their pockets; I always tried to make it seem that I wasn't noticing anything. Some people think it’s nice to go out of their was to smile and fuss over someone who is feeling embarrassed, but I usually find it's kinder just to act like whatever disaster they’re undergoing is the most natural thing in th...

It used to drive me crazy that there was no way to live simultaneous experiences at once; this is what would give me a sense of longing when I used to be on buses or driving through neighborhoods in states I'd never been in before, and I would be lucky enough to look into someone's living room for a second if they had their curtains open, their lives on momentary display for me like the set of a play about the secret richness of the lives of common men. I'm a bo ring old bag now so I don't have those thoughts as often, but yesterday when I was stuck on Santa Monica Boulevard forever, I did get to wondering again about what the interiors of some of these wrecked-looking buildings looked like.  Like, what is the story with some of these places that I love to look at but will never have first-hand experiences with.  It occurred to me that with careful research I could at least figure out a little bit about these ghost-frequented Los Angeles mysteries. Gold Diggers ...