Notes, etc. JANUARY 2025

Let us consider JANUS...

What do I know about Janus?  Well, he was a Roman god.  January is named after him, as it's a month when we look back on the proceeding year and also forward to the coming year.  So far, 2025 has been challenging.  The New Orleans tragedy.  The Los Angeles fires.  Speaking of which...I had invoked numerous Saints in a recent blog, regarding the fires.  And it seems like the wind might be kicking up again.  The Santa Ana winds.  Named after Saint Anne, i'm guessing?  I'll find out.  I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles, people talking about the Santa Ana winds and how they made people crazy.  Screwed with your head.  And I thought it was just urban myth.  Hyperbole.  But after I'd lived there for a while, I felt it.  Every year around this time, when I lived there, I'd start to feel what I can only describe as "squirrelly."  I mentioned this to a friend once, a born and raised SoCali, and they said: "Oh, it's the Santa Ana's," after I had described my symptoms.  And the funny thing was, the sensation really was like the wind got inside your head and was rattling it around like a tin can.
So, the winds are named for the Santa Ana canyon, which is named for the town of Santa Ana, which is named for Saint Anne, who was the Virgin Mary's mom.  Let's see what we can find out about her...

Well, it doesn't seem as though she had much to do with the winds; but she is often invoked regarding lost things; and so many people have lost so much in the past few days.  And I feel we should also pray to the Greek winds.  It is said that prayer works, even when people don't know they're being prayed for.  So, I say we pray to All that have been; past and present and future.

Looking back at a memory... 
I was recently writing about a Hollywood movie premiere I attended back in 1992 at Grauman's Chinese Theater.  I mentioned that my own "companion" for the event was "Fred," a fellow I worked with at the time who I had an intense, short-lived friendship with.  One I look back on with bittersweet...well, I won't say regret, because I don't regret anything about our relationship.  But, I suppose, melancholy.  One of those, "what if" sitches.  Here's a picture of the two of us back when we worked on Melrose Place:

Fred is the tall one.  Although, at 5'9", I never really thought of myself as short. It's funny the things you remember.  I remember this picture being taken. The summer of 1992.  I remember exactly where it was  It was on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, just on the other side of Melrose Place, where we worked at a "boutique" literary/talent agency.  In fact, it's in the 8400 hundred block of Melrose.  And now that we can basically visit most any place in the civilized world right now via the Interwebmachine, let's look at that spot now...or close to now...

Let's move in closer...

Why does this fascinate me?
Do our shadows remain?
Did anyone else ever stand in that spot for a picture?
What, if anything, will be in that spot 50 years from now?  100?  1000?
Melrose Place may have had a famous TV show; but there was never an apartment building there.  It was mostly antique stores and interior decorators when I traversed the thoroughfare.  The building that housed "Robinson, Weintraub and Gross" had been a home at one point.  Let's look at that today...

It is now home to a a skin-care and eyelash salon(s).  When I worked there, I was told it was originally the home of Janet Gaynor, forgotten movie star of yore and her husband, Adrian, forgotten costumer of yore.

Janet, I believe, was in the very first version of "A Star Is Born." I also recall being told that Adrian had committed suicide, which I did not know then and seems debateable now.  I was told he hanged himself somewhere in that very house.  I do not know if that is true either.  We had several fabulists in that office.
​I know there's another picture of me on Melrose Place.  As a matter of fact, I remember exactly where that one was taken as well.  At the corner of Melrose Place and Croft Ave.

Apparently the neighborhood is getting more high end retail.  There's a Balmain and a Bottega Veneta there now.  The corner building used to hug that corner a lot closer.  I think there was a planter built into the building.  I'll have to find the picture.  In fact, I have to find several pictures for the rest of this, because I'm going to be supplying ADDENDUMS to other blogs that I've been recalling; and as I'm something of a completist (that is, when I actually complete something); I want to completely complete it!  If possible.
I would tell you more about Fred; but I'm not sure if at this point in his life he's a "public" or a "private" person; that is to say, he's between businesses.  Now, I feel if he has a public business up and running, then he's a public figure.  But sometimes he doesn't, so then I feel he's private.  But he is on Facebook, which is public, so I'll post a picture of him that's more from now than 1992.

See, he's always with women; which is what probably put the kibosh on our friendship. Particularly that time he got married. Whole other blog. That might be his wife.

Fred had a big personality.  Has a big personality (he's still kickin').  I found a picture of him in a moving van (him, not the picture) and I had to laugh.  He roped me into helping him move once, when we had just met.  He was persuasive.  He had me traipsing all over Manhattan Beach and environs with him back in the day when he was starting up one of his businesses.  I'm talking like friggin' DOOR TO DOOR soliciting.  Man, I hated that shit since grammar school with the door to door fundraising candy. Almost made me hate chocolate. HATED IT!  But I did it for him.  And yeah, I miss him.  It's hard to make friends.  And it gets harder as you get older.  And it's something men really seem to neglect.  Anyways, keep your friends close.  The ones you figure out were your real ones, that is.  But I have a loyalty when it comes to that.  Even with the friends who weren't very good ones.  Crazy?  You bet!  Why?  I'm not really sure.  But if Fred starts up another business, I'll keep you posted.  Who knows, you may just require his services!

So, let's leave Fred in the past for now and look at something else...
THIS JUST IN...
This is something that has just come across my metaphysical desk.  Coincidence?  I don't know?  But this struck me as something highly unusual; but as stuff like this happens to me all the time nowadays, maybe I should just say it's "usual."  I've posted this picture in another blog in a discussion about synchronicity.  It's  taken at the Onslow Beach parking lot in Camp Lejeune, NC, which is a Marine Corps base.

On my recent birthday, my husband gave me a copy of the picture in a frame that was in the shape of a blue, VW bus.

Now, that is not my family.  It's more than likely the picture that comes with the frame.  Interesting that there is a row of palm trees.  Also interesting how much the little girl looks like my sister Kate at that age.  So, it's been sitting on our kitchen counter for a while now as I think about it where it will "live" in the house.
​Fast forward to tonight and this comes up on my phone:

Talk about things that make you go hmmmmm.  And the bus is pointing to the west, I'm assuming, like the picture frame.  The bus is pointing east in the picture of my family (that's me in the baby seat).  Joseph asked me when he gave me the picture if I would prefer if he "flipped" the photo so that we were facing towards the front (of the frame).  I said, "No, I like it that way."  And of course, I've been invoking Saints and Gods and gods and praying lately. Now, I'm not saying that my mother, who passed away this last summer, is sending a message from Heaven, to me or to anyone reading this.  But I'm also not saying she's not.  Or whoever.  You know what I mean?  It's kinda like the gal who claimed she was Elvis' long lost daughter in that documentary said: "Now, my mama never said that Elvis was my daddy; but she never said he wudn't, neither."
Funny side note.  Joseph was looking at the picture of my family in the van and said: "I never realized how busty your mother was."  I laughed.  "That's not all her," I said.  "That's a blue towel or something..."  Actually, it might be one of those kids, blue plastic beach pails.  Look close and you'll see the mistake.  I guess the VW in LA is called "Azul"?  I don't think that picture of my family in the VW could be more "about" Azul.  The color and the concept.  Some more connections:

Okay, well, I'm gonna wrap this up for now.  But before the month ends, I will probably do a part 2 of this with the ADDENDUMS.  Right now I've got to (well, I don't really "got to" as this is just off-track canoodling) finish up my Pretty In Pink rethink.  Once I'm finished with that, I'll put the whole thing together in a "mini-screenplay" so you can read the whole thing at once, if you are so inclined.
Ciao for now!
Your pal,
Chrissy

CFR   1/15/25