Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (the Chevy Nova story)

This post is about cars. Kind of.

I am lazily ignoring the world in my freezing cold bedroom as a sort of protest today. I am sick of cleaning up after other people. I did not go to a fancy art's high school or The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts so that I could be a maid. That is not why I moved to LA many years ago - I have no intention of being a maid TODAY. Not TODAY, anyway.

I also had a stupid, horrible morning that took me on a round trip excursion down memory lane. I ended up driving past my old house (where Izzy was born) and my old haunts - including the place where I very first landed here. Before I found my first apartment. It all felt like a sign. A sign of WHAT - I have no idea. I feel like I'm in an M. Night Shyamalan movie today. Anything could happen - maybe I should just hide.
But it also felt like maybe it was the last time I'd see these places. I might be moving soon. So, that makes me think I should get back to some of these LA stories before I forget them....

The last one about my PAST was when I was dating Pen Pendleton. Living up on Hollyridge in the house that Monty Clift used to live in. (yea, I can call him Monty, cause I lived in his old house with his ghost as a roomy.)
That spring, after I did my pilot, Max went to visit his Dad in Dallas (as usual) for spring break. And when he came back, he was full of stories. Some bad, some good. Then this happened.

I was driving an old Chevy Nova with the back windshield broken out. I think I have mentioned this car before. And the morning after Max got back from Texas, he climbed into my car through the back - OPEN - windshield to come with me on my auditions (as he always did), and then promptly said this, "MY DAD has a brand new Mercedes. Did you know that?" -(he was sort of looking around my car with a disgusted look on his face)
"No. I didn't. That's nice."
"It's really nice and expensive and it's all leather inside. How come WE can't have a nicer car? This one's old and crappy."
I felt like I was reeling from a slap in the face. Of course Max didn't mean anything bad by it.
"Well...." I said, looking at him, and trying to think on my feet, "Does your dad let you eat food in his fancy, new Mercedes?"
Max thought about it."Nope.Not at ALL. Not even a drink or anything."
"Well, you can eat in this car. We do it all the time, right?"
Max didn't look convinced. "Yea..."he said.
"AND...can you hop into your Dad's car through the BACK WINDSHIELD like you're in a TV show or something?"
"No! Of course not!" (Max looked like a little light bulb had just gone off in his head)
"AND...do I ever get mad at you for spilling anything in this car, or making a mess?"
"No!" he practically yelled. Max was looking a LOT happier. "And my Dad's car doesn't get super, super windy on the freeway, either!" Max piped in. (I hadn't realized that was a plus, but I was glad he felt that way!)
"So." I said, "It's really all in how you look at it. Your Dad's car might be prettier and fancier, but maybe MY car is more fun..?"
"Our car IS more fun, Mom!" Max said happily. Then he confessed, "My Dad did yell at me a couple of times for even messing around in his car. I guess this car's pretty cool. All of my friends think it's cool to go in through the windshield, too."

When Pen realized that there was a giant hole right beneath the feet of the driver's side, he patched it up for me with some plywood. He fixed a couple other little things on it, too. But, ultimately, when I walked away from that car a few months later- leaving it at the intersection of Fountain and Fairfax - it still didn't have a back windshield.
Are you kidding? After that whole sell to Max - the missing windshield was the coolest thing about it.