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like to call "networking". While you people on the East Coast are flaunting your in-your-face retaliation and flagrantly shredding potential contacts in your Karmic wasteland, we on the West Coast are carefully practicing our sleight-of-hand, self control, and nurturing our networking in our Zen-like state. We my not always be serene, but at least most of the time, we sure look it!

And about sincerity, is this really always such a fantastic quality to impose on yourself as well as others? Don't you wish at least sometimes, that there was some mutually acceptable get-u-off-the-hook caveat? The perfect excuse, when there really is none? Forgot to return that annoying guy's call? Not a problem if you live in L.A. you see, here, everyone is given their own personal flakability factor, according to their particular role in society. The parameters of acceptable flakability (the privilege of arbitrary amnesia) range from the relatively small sphere of say an accountant in Orange County(can't flake on wife, kids or boss, may on telemarketing salesperson), to the mega-stratosphere of say the teen pop-star diva (permission to flake effortlessly on everyone from personal trainer to stadium packed with thousands of pre-pubescent fans). Where you fit in by L.A. standards could be a question of Karma, your astrological sign, or who your agent is. Repeat this mantra to yourself in different voice inflections first, then try it on others: "I'm sorry, (beat) I totally flaked,". With practice, this can be pulled off sans the "I'm sorry", or even the word "totally'.

People in L.A. are harshly charged for being "worked on", for "going under the knife" in the name of vanity. Face it. They are all just so jealous of us. This is the maverick land of the self-made woman and man. This is where one truly feels the exhilaration power to reinvent oneself, whether through plastic surgery, a twelve-step program or multiple piercing. This is where people live out their deepest desires, as well as their most capricious whims. We fulfill every stray fantasy of every dreamer, every pervert, every misfit and every genius across the country. We let Entertainment Tonight and the National Enquirer tell the rest of the world in sordid, sensationalistic detail and we watch from our over-educated ennui as the middle American masses go through the standard progression of reactions; first appalled shock, then gradual acceptance, and finally unanimous embrace. From liposuction to past-life regression,

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