Excuse to Go Somewhere New

from Google Maps

I'd bought a Groupon for a pattern-making workshop. Or maybe it was a CourseHorse. Or a LivingSocial. Who can keep track?

I left work on time for the bus to the Red Line, took it to Pershing Square, and caught another bus all the way to the eastern edge of DTLA, past the tents of Skid Row. The sewing workshop was on a higher floor of an old factory, all very industrial.

The actual class itself was a bit hopeless--it was the instructor's first time teaching the class, and the structure was to basically write down everything she said to write down as she measured a dummy, then cut out the shape we'd written down. I can't say I took away any info of value.

But I took away this. There are people making things in industrial nooks and crannies on the edge of the Arts District. It's the same part of town I went to in November, when I went to the gallery where Daniel J was performing.

Night had fallen when I left the blocky old building, and I walked with a bit of skittishness to the nearest bus stop that looked useful. A mentally ill woman sat there, then she wasn't sitting, she was kind-of grinding, dancing as if she were performing at a strip club. She stopped to take a drag from a cigarette, or to glare at me occasionally, but other people waited for the bus too, so I didn't feel under pressure to leave.

I didn't learn a damn thing about pattern-making, but I enjoyed doing something completely unlike anything I normally do in Los Angeles County.