My Favorite Things

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Oh, the decade started out well: Y2K did not result in riots and shootouts in the lawless streets. Why? Because we identified the problem ahead of time, threw money and IT professionals at it, and fixed it, and the fact that we fixed it has made it a punch line ever since. (Al Gore would not have gotten much credit for staving off September 11 and the debacle of New Orleans—or, scratch that: he would have gotten no credit, as FOX and friends would doubtless have been focused vigilantly on his nitwit refusal to privatize FEMA and his bizarre insistence on fixing global warming, with his Vice President Lieberman coming on the network to chime in, with moralistic disappointment, in whatever FOX decided was worth being moralistically disappointed in.) The year started well too, with its boatload-of-bliss ‘Nauguration, but it’s hard to focus on all the strides the Congress has made (Nancy Pelosi remains Armani-clad AWESOME) when you’re sitting stoned, on your couch, and can’t find a job.

I for one am looking forward immeasurably to the sure to be better (positive thinking!) 2010 ahead of us. But I’ve bitched enough in this space throughout the year, and am feeling gifty for you this Christmas morning. So here are my favorite things about 2009.

The Boy and the Dog and the Cat. My boy is 15 years old and marvelous, kind and helpful and getting better and more focused in school, now that he is a grown-up and finally taller than his mama. The dog, Lilo, is a Dutch shepherd mix, a very good dog whose job is purely to watch her humans at all times, and despite intense provocation she has not once tried to kill the cat, Cat, who lies in wait for her when he’s not trying to make out with her, as he is Sexy. This is in direct contradiction to my mother’s rabid pack of cat-maimers, and for that I am grateful.

My Boyfriend Paul. He is handsome (really handsome!) and nice and comes over almost every day because we are out of work together and he likes my company. He doesn’t get his feelings hurt when I tell him (I tell him every day) that I would leave him for Clive Owen. He would leave me for Penelope Cruz, so it’s cool.

My New Gynecologist. I have been going to Planned Parenthood since I was a sexually responsible 16-year-old who would hitchhike to Agoura to pick up my birth control pills. (Once, the receptionist told me, with her lips pursed, that there was a gray-haired man there to pick me up. Confused, I peeked out to the waiting area. “Oh, that’s just my dad!” I explained, to her further consternation.) Anyway, I love Planned Parenthood, and I go there when I’m rich so I can pay $200 sliding scale and help support poor women, and I go when I’m poor, because then it’s free. This week I had a vexing but garden-variety lady complaint, and my new gynecologist was in her late 20s, with a light Russian accent, long curly brown hair, and eyes like Zooey Deschanel. This reminded me of the time my sister decided she would only be touched by medical professionals who were physically beautiful, until her new gynecologist turned out to look like a hobbit but told her, when my sister complained about a strong scent from her own lady pieces, “No way! You are just a beautiful, young, JUICY woman!” My sister decided hobbit doctors could be quite perfect just as they were.

Zooey Deschanel. I liked her better as Andy’s lunatic ex-girlfriend on Weeds (“Heart hug!”) than in (500) Days of Summer, the pedestrian romcom about Downtown L.A. But she is still adorable, and she makes pretty music with her band, the twee-ly named but lovely She & Him.

Television. My TV has been magnificent this year, from Daisy of Love, which makes my herpes flare up in sympathy, to Mad Men to Weeds (not a great season, but good enough) to Modern Family, which is just like my family if my family were nice and had money. Actually, it’s not like my family at all.

Inglourious Basterds. There were some damn good movies this year, but none was as wish-fulfilling as Basterds. Man, I would really like to see some Nazis killed, badly! SPOILER ALERT STOP READING RIGHT NOW: The only quibble I had was that the beautiful Jewess who killed all the Nazis didn’t get any credit from the world at large. So I decided that offscreen, before the inferno, she had sent a letter to the editor of the local paper detailing the plan she was about to put into action. Problem solved!

My Landlady. So when I moved in, she didn’t tell me she and her three stupid dogs would be living in the back house indefinitely, meaning Lilo can’t go in the huge, Valley-sized back yard because they gang up on her because they are assholes. And she’s kind of crazy (the first lease she wanted me to sign stated explicitly that I could not have overnight guests unless she met and okayed them first, but I explained that I was a grownup lady, and that was not going to happen, and she sheepishly backed down). But I can see that she tries to stay out of my shit, and she means very well, and she fixes things immediately (herself, being a handy person of the lesbian persuasion), and when my lease was up, we renegotiated for 15 percent less, because rents are way down in Mid-City L.A., there are multiple vacancies on every block, and I don’t have a job. So that was nice of her.

Jon’s Market. Nice neighbors hipped me to Jon’s, the grocery store with a Russian clientele at LaBrea and Fountain. Since then, I’ve lopped my weekly grocery bill for two to $50. First I go to Jon’s for all my produce needs (red and orange peppers for a dollar a pound; two bags of carrots for a buck; eggplants for a dollar apiece; fresh parsley or mint or basil for 30 cents; 10 pounds of potatoes 99 cents) and for Russian pastries. Then I go down La Brea to Ralphs, for cereal, meat on sale (to freeze for later), and day-old bread and pastries. Then I go across the street to Trader’s for wine, coffee, olive oil, milk, goat cheese, and jars of sun-dried tomatoes or whatnot. Luckily, I have all the time in the world for grocery shopping. Feh.

Bottega Louie. It’s not a food orgy of spectacular dimensions—it’s not Bazaar, or Church and State—but for sheer ambiance, it’s my favorite place in L.A. If I lived downtown, I would go there every morning and purchase coffee and a nibble just so I could sit in the big plate glass window, in the light bouncing around the marble interior, and pretend I was in Paris. The food’s good, and reasonably priced, and the bartender is handsome and multiethnic and far too flirty. I’m sure he’s quite ashamed of himself.

Pot in L.A. It’s quite good and easy to find these days, I’m not sure if you noticed.

Easy Listening for Aged Hipsters. Serge Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen, Carla Bruni, and you can’t go wrong with Jose Feliciano. Also, I really like Lily Allen and Spoon.

The Internet in General and FourStory in Specific. I love the Internet! No matter what stray random query pops into my mind, I can find the answer immediately. How many words does the average dog know? What various ailments are cured by Epsom salts? How old is Taylor Lautner, and what are the laws regarding age-of-consent in the state of California? Answers found! And as for FourStory, they’re actually paying journalists and editors and artists actual money to write about what’s going on in their living rooms each and every week. When websites everywhere are offering two-to-five dollars per post, and journalismjobs.com is filled with (for real) ads for “editor-in-chief/intern,” it’s good to have a friend. Spread the word.

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