“She drives a minivan?” a friend’s roommate asked her in horror. The speaker was a hunky, stylish, tight-pant wearing South African bloke new to LA, who straightened in his hair and went on all-almond diets. “But… but… how does she put out a vibe?”

My friend laughed—apparently, I was not there—and said, “I guess she doesn’t?”

There’s something about driving a minivan that makes it hard to put out a “vibe,” which, as I understand it, is the ability to seem cooler than you really are. I’m really not so cool, as it turns out. The thing about driving such a, ehm, non-traditional car, is that you quickly figure out the people who care (or pretend not to care) about the kind of vibe your car puts out, and those who don’t really notice. I was for awhile the girl who trundled everywhere in a minivan—no matter how edgy the destination or how suave I wanted to be rolling up to such destination—and really, that’s just funny. It forced me to have a sense of humor about the peculiar things we attach meaning to, to maintain an ironic distance between myself and my car (a distance that seems to be lost sometimes in this city).

Driving a brand-new white 2010 Honda Civic is less humorous than it is normal. I mean, it’s normal and it’s also awesome. That I have a car that is my own is fantastic and reveals just how very lucky and loved I am.

But, it’s still different… it’s a different vibe, a different way to cover distance. Now, I join the ranks of my sister and best friend who have twin cars, who dart around in their most young, single-person sort of ways and give out whatever vibe it is that a Honda Civic gives out. (The vibe I hope it it gives is, ‘I’m practical yet peppy, I’m so reliable—I’ll give you a ride, hey hey—and just look how little gas I’m using to get around!’)

It’s raining today, which so stressed me out, I am embarrassed to say, that I refused to drive my pristine white car to the Rose Bowl for a run (think of the mud!). It’s slowed to merely a drizzle, so I ventured out Zeli’s Coffee, where I now sit overlooking the sprawling Vons parking lot. I just gazed out the window and smiled at my vehicle nestled a few rows away. And then a mid-twenties woman climbed into my brand new car and drove away. Turns out, it was not in fact my Civic that this woman had so carelessly taken. Mine’s actually four cars south. See—Mini would never deceive me like that.

I wonder if I’ll look back at this time, this epoch, in a fuzzy, nostalgic sort of way; as a time when all ways were still open, paths still diverging, on-ramps splitting before me. Right or left, front or back—which way will the die fall. That this gamble—the gamble of making no money to do something I love—will pay off. The possibilities are narrowing, but they’re still pretty wide open. I suppose uncertainty seems like freedom in retrospect.

I mean, it’s all going to work out, and I’ll get all old and boring, stuck in a rut and routine; I’ll settle. I’ll get decided. Right now, I’m undecided, sharp contrast—highs and lows, the churning that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing and the fear that this moving walkway leads nowhere (that I will never launch).

In the meantime, there’s nothing like a good find at the library to set your day right. Walking in with a very odd, particular subject matter that has recently piqued my interest, spending ten minutes at the cataloging computer, venturing up to the 3rd floor, and finding exactly the book I was looking for that I never knew existed.

Incidentally, at risk of exposing the extent of my book-reading nerdom, the book is called, “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us).” Stand by for review of said book; if it lives up to its high expectation.

Half a bag of chocolate chips, one cup of coffee, two Sunday edition newspapers, sunshine, and silence.

I’m reading “Mountains beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, a book about a man whose life’s calling was to cure the third world of infectious diseases. That’s not my life calling, as it were, but:

“I imagine that many people would like to construct a life like his, to wake up knowing what they ought to do and feeling that they were doing it.“

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling like that. Feeling like this nebulous idea I have for a future could maybe converge into a career—or even, was already converging. Into something tangible, something I could hold in my hands.

Today, in the Times mailroom, I stared forlornly at a wall of mailboxes. I was going cross-eyed after an hour of scanning the tiny labels, stuffing packages into slots. I sighed, looked at the name on the package in my hand, and tried once again to find the coresponding mailbox.

“You look lost,” said an editor or writer checking for his mail, who had perhaps heard my hurumphing. ”Who you looking for?” he asked. I told him. He pointed to the large mailbox right below my left knee. Duh.

“Thanks. I guess it’s that mid-afternoon blindness setting in,” I said.

He asked me what I did, to which I gestured to the mountain of mail to my left, to which he, understandably, responded by asking if I was an intern. Not quite. He asked what brought me to the Times.”Well… I want to write.”

“Yeah? Had any luck?”

“Yeah! Actually, my first peice came out in Travel yesterday.”

“Cool. Read that section. Which one?”

“It’s about hiking a volcano in Nicaragua.”

He nodded. “Yup. Liked it.” He paused. “Yeah, that was a really nice piece.”

How’s that for a Monday.

Happy Cinco de Mayo (on the Seis)

Yesterday, I went for a stroll around downtown Los Angeles. I got some great news at work, and then I wandered out into the 3 p.m. sunshine of this sometimes breezy and oh-so-sunny city. I just wasn’t quite ready to climb into the car and wind my way home, so I went a’walkin.

I’ve been meaning to explore the area of downtown that I drive to everyday, so I walked to City Hall—white and tall and imposing—and then up Hill St. and over to 3rd and then 4th and then diagonal across Pershing Square. I like that square. Great name, and lovely mix of tourists, bums, and an odd little corner of groomed dirt paths called, “Pet Care Center” that is eerily devoid of pets. There’s a nice central fountain, where I found a pair of European-looking men studying a fat Lonely Planet. Nothing like walking past a pair of capri-adorned foreigners to make you feel like you live somewhere.

I had been feeling a little blue earlier in the day because, as I was writing a funny cinco-de-mayo-themed email to a friend, in Spanish, I forgot how to say “mail.” Was totally stumped. Had to look it up online. This, and last year on the Cinco de Mayo, I was traipsing around Guatemala by myself, babbling in Spanish to rogue security guards at Tikal. Where oh where had my Spanish gone? And then I went for a walk around downtown L.A. and I found it, dispersed throughout this city, available for the taking if only I had the gall to go out and get it, to speak it. Through the garmet district and stores with tank-tops for a dollar and a woman on a microphone announcing the day’s specials (diez calcetines para dos! diez para dos, damas y caballeros!) I wandered into the Grand Central Market, a block-long column of comedors and vendors and dense, packed corner-stores full of spices and hot-sauces and 14 kinds of beans. Cafeteria counters with fried chicken and gooey pastas and cheesy beef, and rows and crates of fresh fruits and veggies, and men grouped around linoleum tables with dirty baseball hats, and an ice cream station manned by two teenage girls chismeando. It was the perfect place to go in L.A. on the Cinco de Mayo to remind myself that this city is not all freeways and Wilshire Blvd. I’ve got to make more of an effort to find this city, the one you see when you stroll around downtown.

I walked up to Bunker Hill, and it’s charming—or maybe I decided it would be simply because it’s named Bunker Hill—and so charmed was I by my stroll and the Biltmore Hotel and a cobblestone sidewalk that I spontaneously ducked into the leasing office of The Downtown Lofts. I’ll live here!, I decided. Perfect and perfectly found.

“When are you looking to move in?” asked the chipper man.

Well, what do you have?

“Well… I have a 600-square-foot unit vacating on June 1.”

Perfect! And, the rent?

“Let’s see. The one I have in mind is renting for $1,495. Would you like to see the unit?”

I didn’t, actually, so I continued my stroll, and then by 4 p.m. it was getting rather toasty, and I could sense the traffic building, so I drove home, and then drove to the gym, and then drove to drink a margarita with two lovely gals at a flammingly outlandish Mexican restaurant/bar in Silverlake. One $10 margarita later, I found myself ordering another in Spanish, and my, that was a lovely way to end my cinco. Olé!