Hollywood (aka Hollyweird)

I am sitting in the Starbucks on Hollywood Boulevard and thinking back to the days long ago when I would come here in high school.  To Hollywood I mean, not to Starbucks.  There was no Starbucks back in the 1980's.  People consoled themselves with a thermos of coffee from home or weak coffee in a styrofoam cup from a donut shop.

My best friends and I would come to Hollywood when we were supposed to be in class.  By the time this tradition started, I had dyed my hair blue black, pierced my right nostril with a stud earring and wore black eyeliner Cleopatra style like Siouxsie Sioux.  My uniform (and looking back it was a type of uniform for the misunderstood and depressed) consisted of a concert t-shirt paired with a man's vest from a thrift store and red thermals over my legs covered by men's (striped preferably) boxers.  The cheery on top was a pair of scuffed red monkey boots purchased from Nana's on Melrose.

I would come to Hollywood with one or both of my two best friends, Melinda and Tracy.  I didn't have a car so Melinda or Tracy would drive to Hollywood.  Melinda had a 1964 white Covair and Tracy drove a small red Honda Civic, the back window of which was covered with stickers of our favorite punk bands.

I can't remember much details from the Hollywood trips, but I can recall excitement of those days.  The feeling of freedom while in the car driving on the I-10 freeway west from Ontario those sixty miles to the Hollywood 101 freeway.  We blasted the radio and leaned out the windows screaming like the teenagers we were.

It was as if the world was all ours.  We owned the universe and we knew anything could happen.  Miracles could occur.  They already had for us.  During our Hollywood trips, we met rock stars and had adventures and most importantly, bought cool clothes.

Driving here this morning (after dropping hubby off at a dental conference in Burbank), I felt none of that excitement.  On the contrary, being in my old teenage playground has made me more meloncholy than merry.  It reminds of of the Nirvana lyric, "Teenage angst has paid off well.  Now I'm bored and old."

I am here in Hollywood (or Hollyweird as Melinda and Tracy and I used to call it) to buy some pseudo 1950's rockabilly style clothing at a store called Betty Page.  The store sells reproductions of sexy dresses from the 1950's and the store has a punk feel.  It is better than buying some monkey boots which my husband convinced me I am too old to wear.

Some say rockabilly is where the goth and punk girls go to die.  I suppose this is my purgatory.

For now.