Saturday, April 10, 2021
Today I’m going to go out and leave my house. I have been at home for the past thirteen months. I haven’t the foggiest idea what to wear today. I don’t even know if I have still social skills, such as saying hello to another, or “how is your day?” In as sense, I feel reborn, perhaps even a new man.
The question is where do I go? Maybe something easy like The Last Bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles. Due to its size I imagine it’s a safe place for me to go to. Oddly enough, it is rare that I run into someone I know there. When I go to Skylight or Book Soup, I tend to see people I know. May be it’s due that The Last Bookstore clientale are people from out of town. When I’m there I tend to hang out at their record vinyl store. I have found some really good albums there, and the prices are either fair or inexpensive. The only weird meeting I had there was when I chatted with Elisa Lam a few years ago. She is the one who died mysterioiusly at the imfamous Hotel Cecil, a few blocks away from the bookstore. It was me, another male customer and her. She came up to the both of us to ask advice about which album she should purchase. The odd thing was that she was choosing between a Herb Albert and Miles Davis album. This, I think would have been a no brainer of a choice, and for whatever reason it really put me off on her. It was a month later that I finally put two plus two together and realized that she was the woman who died at the hotel, I think later that night. Now I’m having second thoughts about going to The Last Bookstore.
I think it’s best that I walk to my new favorite record store, Mount Analog on Hyperion Avenue. It’s a curated record store that focuses on electronic, European/Japanese soundtracks, experimental, and out-there rock n’ roll. Very small shop but everything is so beautifully displayed. As a child I was attracted to the colors of a candy shop as well as being able to smell the sweets. I get the same feeling when I go to Mount Analog. Everything is perfectly placed, and it feels like an art installation. Going there will make me happy.
Before I go there, I have to select an outfit to face the world. For months I haven’t been wearing what one would call clothes. A t-shirt sweats, and that’s about it. I have been a house prisoner for a while now. My attire does look like an outfit for a prison somewhere in the tropics. I go to my closet, which has been untouched for a year. I found nice pencil-striped pants, steady shoes, a black jacket with a matching vest, and my walking cane. And since I will be under blue skies, a derby hat. I will get dressed now, and then I will open the front door and go down the stairs, leading me to the street. Take out my iPhone map, and follow the path.