my take on it

One of the things that I miss most about San Francisco is people watching on a random weekday afternoon. Even though I worked in the Financial District, there were all sorts of people walking about on a typical afternoon. There certainly never lacked a certain number of "crazies." There was always someone or something interesting happening.

Here in LA, I seem to see only the stereotypes hanging out in the cafes on a normal afternoon. Let's take the Coffee Bean next to my office as an example. I went in today for a late afternoon coffee break and decided to sit for a spell, admiring the clear, beautiful day. When I looked around, I saw five people working on screenplays on their laptops, three beautiful women with mini dogs in their lap/bags, two surfer guys, and a few agent/manager types in suits. To top it all off, a model in work out gear goes into the cafe, orders a water, proceeds to add a pack of Splenda to the water, and continues on her run. She looked like she hadn't eaten in months. Despite that, she was gorgeous, not unlike half the women sitting around the cafe.

I proceeded to observe as one of the agent/manager suits got into an argument with one of the laptop screenwriters

"You took our table! Didn't you see this woman's mini dog leashed to this table? We were saving it!"

"Fuck off. There's a table over there."

"You're a rude asshole. Go to hell."

"And you're a fat prick."

"Look who's talking."

"Look at you - you look like you'll explode any minute."

And so it went on for another five minutes. Then I watched as the beautiful womens' dogs decided to play with each other while the men in the cafe were mesmerized by the beautiful womens' laughter at the dogs' antics.

Then I had to leave because I couldn't handle it. It was just too much.