Coffee break
Sunday, April 30, 2006, 12:18 PM

I’m sitting here sipping a double mocha cappuccino and listening to Depeche Mode’s Dream On, compliments of Pandora.com, which is a free online music service that makes radio stations for you based on your favorite artist or type of music. The creator’s main hope is that you’ll discover new music; ninety-five percent of the songs played for me on my Depeche Mode and Mandalay radio stations have been songs by artists I’ve never heard of, or artists I do know singing songs I’ve never heard before. Some I like, some I don’t. Love is Love by Tortoise and Bonny Prince Billy, I blew right the eff up. Now Pandora.com knows I don’t want to hear hide nor hair of that song anytime soon, or anything remotely like it.

Try it. You might like it.

People often take me by surprise and Friday morning’s walk to work was no exception. LA traffic is almost always busy on the road (sidewalk) I take to work. Along the way, I pass a popular café. Unless it’s raining, there are people sitting outside drinking coffee and eating pastries. Since the café is on a street corner, there’s a painted white pedestrian walkway from one side of the street to the other. I’ve seen enough people cross that walkway during rush hour traffic to know it must be the law that cars have to yield the right of way to pedestrians.

This particular Friday morning, I noticed a man dressed all in black on the sidewalk curb across the street. I noticed him not because he was drop-dead gorgeous, but because he stepped into the street without looking either way, and he did so right in front of a car. It was an abrupt motion that caught the Fieval in me by surprise. His hands were in his pockets and his head was down, like he was lost in thought. I saw him glance quickly at the car that had stopped for him with a small smile on his face, as if might have been embarrassed by his close call, before his gaze returned to the road in front of him again. God, he was sexy.

He didn’t seem arrogant about the whole stepping into the road without bothering to look thing, but I had the thought that he was used to his looks parting the way for him. The city is rotten with gorgeous people, but this guy looked like a romance novel model with straight, shiny jet black hair, a well-defined face, and then there was the all black duds thing. Still, I wanted to ask him if he has a death wish. You’d never catch me walking out in front of a car. Even if this city’s drivers weren’t sometimes insane with road rage, distracted by talking on their cell phones, or feeling impatient to get where they’re going, I’m not going to pit my little body against someone else’s reflexes, not with they come with a multi-ton hunk of steel. It’s enough that I dare to live here, although LA doesn’t feel so intimidating as it once did. I’m even dreaming about driving on the streets.

Well, my coffee’s gone.
0 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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