Day One, Continued (And Day Two): Lost In TransL.A.tion

So, I don't die. Just in case you didn't solve that riddle. Lol.

I am still walking on this "street" that is more like I-15 than a street...and it is now time for our Conference Call as coaches...So I get on the call and mute it for their benefit and participate and it's pretty decent and all the while, people are honking at me, as if I don't know they are rushing by behind me about to kill me, and like I'm completely impeding their ability to drive OVER the speed limit by walking basically in bushes. Sigh....
After the call ends, I finally find an off-ramp and feverishly head up it, not knowing or caring where I am, just that I am off death-street. Lol.

At this point, I'm lost, starving and it's starting to get dark. I text my friend James Ord who lives down here and ask him for advice and he points me in a decent direction. Soon enough I am getting over-priced food and barely sating my appetite. Lol. I am hella tired and just want to catch a bus back to where I'm staying and have no idea where to go. So I ask my server and he points me in a direction. He is incredibly vague, but I think to myself "Eh, I got this, how hard can it be to find my way home?" WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL BEING SO OPTIMISTIC??? LOL! So I start walking, and am a little lost and I decide to go back and ask for the directions again because I do NOT want to get stuck on another street like La Cienega again! Lol. So I ask two more times, and he just repeats the same vague directions. Thank god at that point his supervisor steps into the conversation and is much clearer. So I head toward the bus stop and some random black chick starts talking to me. She is very cool, and really sweet and talkative and we will really click. At this point, I wanna cling on to any hope I may have, and am violently debating in my head whether or not it would seem too creepy to ask her for her number so I can stay in contact with her, and by the time I decide I will, she gets off at her stop. Cool- Lesson learned: Don't wait, or life will pass me by. (Just FYI, I learned this lesson several more times over the course of my stay, so I think it's safe to say, I didn't ACTUALLY learn it that night with the black chick. Lol)

I finally get back to the place I'm staying, and the guy is creepy as ALL get out....he wants to fuck, and massage me (which that one, I'm actually not too against after my retardedly long day lol), and......that's right, people....HE HAD BED BUGS OOHHHHHHH MYYYYY GODDDDDD!!
WHAT???
How could the situation with dude get any worse??? Oh, yeah, let's throw some bed bugs into the mix! Why not?!? GUH!
So I kinda scream and he's like "What??" and I'm like "Dude, you have BED BUGS!" And he goes on to ferociously debate it, all the while pulling out this HUGE container of bed bug spray and starts spraying all around and on the bed. Um, I'm sorry, sir, but how are you going to debate the validity of your bed bugs and then pull out a HUGE FUCKING CONTAINER of bug spray that in HUGE letters says that it is specifically designed for BED BUGS. Nothing else, JUST BED BUGS.???!!!??!?!?!?!? WHAAAATTTT????? Yeah, so eff him!

I had spotted that there was a mattress on the floor of his living room just chilling there so I said "Well, I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but would you mind if I just slept on the mattress out there?..." thinking to myself: Even if you DO mind, I'm sleeping on that fucking mattress. Why didn't you offer it to me in the first place???"

So he tries to weasle his way out, and I'm just like "Yeah, I don't mean to disrespect you at all, but I'm sleeping out there. Good night!"

OH MY GOD, RIGHT???

So, it's freezing all night. I've got no blanket with me, 'cause I assumed I'd be sleeping somewhere nicer...with less bugs and more blankets....but I'm not, so alright, I'll make the best of what I've got...I toss and turn all night and I finally get up and text James (who I was going to stay with after my stay at bedbug-mansion had ended) and asked him to please let me stay with him a couple days earlier so I could get the hell out of this place. THANK YOU, JAMES, FOR LETTING ME STAY WITH YOU A COUPLE DAYS EARLIER!!

So that afternoon, I go out on another venture into the city, for 6 more hours, walking everywhere...only this time, I created more pain for myself -- literally. I thought, "Well, I'll go out dressed up a bit, like, business casual type of clothes, so that when I go into prospective employers, I will look better than in my board shorts or cut-offs. So in this dress-nice-decision, I choose to wear my brown dress shoes. Yeah, let's just cut to the chase and say that they are not meant, whatsoever, to wear for more than maybe an hour's worth of walking. Period.

So after all my blister-creating-dress-shoe-walking comes to an end, I am in Hollywood, and it's getting dark. I'm on Santa Monica Blvd, thinking, "Well, Sheryl Crow sang about this street, so I'm sure it's one of the most used streets in Hollywood, so I'm sure a bus will come down this street pretty frequently" so I start walking toward my destination along SMB, so I'm not wasting time just sitting around. Oh my god, I see TONSSSSS of buses! Just none going my way. Oh, wait, yeah, I DID see several heading my way. You know, all the ones that said "Not In Service."

So I continue plodding along, and get into West Hollywood. Still no buses. Well, whatever, I'll just keep walking. Soon, my feet are literally killing me. They are sliced up into tiny little fragments of blisterization and hurt like hell to walk on. But at this point, seeing all the buses saying "Not In Service," I think I'm going to have to walk all the way home, so I might as well just keep walking. I mean, I'm puzzled as to why it's 9:00 and all the buses are already going back to their hub, but whatever, L.A. has been nothing like I expected at this point, so why not believe that their bus system ends at 9 PM? People everywhere do say how bad their transit system sucks. So I sigh (heavily) and continue walking. And walking. And walking. And now I cross into Beverly Hills. Always the optimistic sucker (lol), I think "Well, at least I'm in the pretty neighborhood now, and maybe I'll at least see Katherine Heigl or someone jogging past me." The trouble with BH is, well, four-fold:

First: the regular, PAVED sidewalk turns into a nice dirt pathway. It's beautiful, if it weren't for the fact that I'd been walking on blisters all day, and pretty much mashed down any sole that was left on my shoes, so I could actually feel every ROCK and aberrantly patterned grain of dirt on the path.

Second: they don't find it wise to have any ramps on their curbs at the intersections, so I have to muster every piece of un-maxed-out muscle left in my thighs (which is like, maybe .2% at this point) just to step down the curb at the intersection and then step back up on the other side.

Third: I don't see anyone remotely famous or beautiful along this pathway. Fuck Katherine Heigl. Lol.

Fourth: There are ABSOLUTELY NO bus stops along SMB once you get into BH. NONE! And it stretches forever -- using Utah as an example, just the pretty, non-bussy BH part of SMB would stretch from about 1300 S. to 2700 S.

So I think "I need to stop being optimistic and believing I can walk the rest of this like Jesus did on water and just turn back now." So I stop. And I debate. Should I give up? No, I don't give up! But, Ryan, look at the facts... No! I've ben optimistic this far along and haven't died (yet), what should stop me from continuing to be optimistic?? Ryan, look at the fucking facts. Guh, fine, I give in, I'll turn around! So I turn around. And I make it back to the edge of BH and West Hollywood (abbreviated WeHo). I sit down on the curb and start crying.
No, I didn't really start crying, it just felt like the right way to start wrapping this story up. Haha.

OMG, ALL I DO IS WRITE MOVIES IN MY HEAD ALL THE TIME NOW LOL.

Anyhow, I sit down on the curb and think about crying. Lol. (Seriously) Instead, I just lay down on the grass, and go over my day. I mean, other than the blisters (that are actually STILL healing as I write this.....), the day wasn't TOO bad. And I'm sure it wasn't worse than a Mormon missionary's. So life can't be too bad if my day isn't as bad as theirs, doing what they choose to do for two full years. So I sit up, text James and ask him to do me the favor of just picking me up where I'm at, take me to bed-bug-mansion to get my stuff, and bring me back to his place, and he does.

I get home....and I think I ate? I don't know, I can't remember...If not, I must've been WAY too tired, 'cause I know my body was fiending.
Sleep could not have come soon enough.