Eden Origins (My Relentless Quest For Human Interaction)

Oh, like YOU'VE never done this..

Casual cool. That's what I call it when I wear a t-shirt, a loose-fitting blazer and a pair of jeans. This is also my outfit of choice when I walk Hollywood Boulevard. I find myself here every night, just walking up and down. It's a ritual now. Out of my apartment, down to the Hollywood & Highland Galleria and sometimes to the little corner market that sells the Caffeine Free Coke. My reasoning is always the same. I'll go out and wait for the unthinkable to occur. I've always been told that love happens when you least expect it, so I get all dressed up every night, and I head downtown not expecting it. In my mind, I'm picturing the movie scene, as I always do. I see her, she sees me, and something happens that draws us together. I never stop to realize that events like this only occur after three rewrites and a poor test screening.

Nevertheless, here I am, inconspicuously peering inside the Starbucks as I stroll past, looking for the love I'm not expecting. Oddly enough, she's not there yet again. So it's on to Highland, where I will inevitably trek through the mall with no intention to buy anything but time. It's at about this point that I unconsciously remind myself that I'm about to turn 33, and I'm completely alone for the first time in my life. I relieved my wife of her duties and found myself starting over with a whole new perspective. No full time job and no anchor to my home back in Boston, except the friends that had alienated me over the years because of the wife. I was, for the first time ever, independent. I could do anything I wanted. I had enough money, I had enough ambition, and I had enough reasons. Kin folk said, "Jed move away from there." They said, "California is the place you ought to be," so I loaded up the truck and I moved to Beverly. Hills, that is.

And now here I am stepping into the most expensive and unnecessary mall on the planet. The ritual had become more tiresome lately, so I had added a few shops to my itinerary. The bath oil store, where they sell aromatherapy oil by the drop and worship the lavender plant like a sacred cow, had become a fun browsing spot. I always feel more accepted with the blazer. I used to think very little about appearance, but I'm slowly learning to think more shallow and I believe it's paying off. I stroll through the collection of soaps injected with woodchuck milk and dandelion extract and I ask the super-trendy sales clerk questions he can't possibly answer, like "Who determined that this is the best thing for me?" and, "Is woodchuck better than beaver? And what's the difference?" Of course, if the clerk were straight, he'd have a quick response to my beaver question, but I like to hear him wander mentally through his employee handbook.. Really, what is the difference?

The hope in my psuedo-browsing is to find a shop manned by a lovely female who looks approachable and warm. It doesn't sound like a tall order, but this is Hollywood. If you aren't an aspiring actor, model, or singer, you're a former actor, model or singer, and in both cases, you're bitter about it. The only thing worse than a snobby celebrity is a snobby non-celebrity, and that's what a good hunk of the women in L.A. tend to be. I try to avoid the stores that have 600 square feet of space but are only selling items on one tiny table dead center with about fifty white-hot spotlights blazing on it from every direction. Stores like that always have the one chick behind the register with her hair wrenched back and pulled into a chokehold behind her head, enough make-up to make Michael Jackson look human and an outfit so black it can suck out your will to live. The lighting is so intense, it should be causing her to sweat from every pore, but luckily she has none. As I said, I avoid these stores.

I opt instead for the Origins store. Each time I go, I pretend it's my first time, because even though the girls are generally flawless and completely inapproachable on my scale, they're

always quite friendly and textbook courteous, complete with touching. I have it down to a

science. I stroll by once and make sure it's a new girl I've never seen before, then I go in and browse peacefully with a harmless inquisitive look on my face. Inevitably, she will approach and ask me if I'm looking for something in particular. I innocently tell her about the headaches I often get and she immediately goes and gets the item I'm so in love with.

"This is a cream you can use that will ease the tension. May I put his on you?" I love that. I'm usually not one to refuse when a strange woman asks if she can put things on me. I nod coyly and she proceeds to dab and rub a minty cream on my temples and the back of my neck. I feel better already, and I wasn't even sick. Call it a cheap thrill, call it what you like, but when you're all alone in a strange place, it never hurts to have a nice attractive girl touch you in a friendly way with no demand for money. This is always the most enjoyable part of my journey.

In the back of my mind, I'm still concentrating on not expecting love, but I'm always aware that it could be there. I wish I could get a look inside the handbook of this store to see if small talk with the customers is part of the act, because I'm sure the touching is. I also scan through the thoughts I assume she's having. From "I can't believe I have to touch this guy," to "Well, this guy's better than that really fat guy with the hairy neck and the boil a couple hours ago," all the way to "If only he knew how much I'd love to rub this stuff all over him with a bottle of wine and a Barry White record playing in the background." Unfortunately for me, I was inadvertently programmed early on to never make a move on a woman EVER. Thank you, genetics. In all of my relationships over the years, all of them relatively successful and all of them ended by me, I have never asked a woman out on a date until I've known her for at least five months. I consider it my "burning time". I call it that because I am not your typical, cookie-cutter dude. I don't have the abs and the jaw and the eyes and the fancy car. I need to improvise with what I do have: Wit, humor, and a natural ability to put people at ease, not to mention the most powerful calves in the Western Hemisphere. In order to work myself into a woman's psyche and cloud her judgment long enough to get her on a date, I need about three months of solid burn time so she can see that I actually do have something to offer. It's tedious and time consuming, but it gets the job done and I've had no complaints yet. The chances of me suddenly answering the question "Do you have combination skin?" with a snappy and cool, "Why don't you tell me," are slim to none.

So why would this night be any different? The variables are the same. Gay guy at the bath store.. Snobby girl at the 600 square foot/one pocketbook store. What surprise could I possibly expect from Origins?

I did my walk-by and saw nobody working the register. She must be in the back. I'll come back later. A quick jaunt through the overpriced Hollywood artifact bookstore and I was on the return trip past. Still nobody. I decided to head in with little regard for who was there. If I had seen her before, I don't get touched. Big deal. I began my usual consumer stupor through the walls of tiny jars with giant price tags, and then I heard it.

"Was there anything in particular you're looking for?"

I turned about 40 degrees, and my heart turned about 180. There she was. Red hair to just above her shoulders, and a face that was, for all logical reasons in my mind, approachable. I knew I had to have her, or at least I had to have her rub that mint stuff on the back of my neck. I never really made the conscious connection until recently, but I think I'm attracted to redheads. It didn't help that my wife's best friend was a redhead, and that she was a lot more entertaining than my wife. Perhaps that's why I'm attracted to redheads now. They're more entertaining than my ex-wife. Whatever the reason, this woman had everything I've ever looked for in a potential love. For one thing, she was unsure of what she was doing, obviously new to the store. This was comforting to me, because I had an agenda and she did not, so I looked cool and clever while she floundered through my line of bewildering questions about the healing power of grapes or whatever the hell they're trying to sell me. She also seemed to have some sort of markings on her face, whether they were tiny moles or freckles or blemishes or bugs, I really couldn't focus on them, they didn't matter. I didn't even see them. All I saw was a beautiful young woman trying desperately to be the ideal employee at a high-ticket herb and protein exfoliant store. Needless to say, I poured on the charm until my aforementioned powerful calves ached. I managed to hold her attention for what seemed like an eternity, learning everything she knew about products I didn't care about even remotely. I wanted to save the mint rubdown for a sweet finale to this brilliant performance. I wondered to myself as she reached for the daily facial treatment gel, was this the love I wasn't expecting?

Then the tragedy occurred.

I was riffing like never before, coming up with clever lines that seemed to be writing themselves with my mouth on autopilot. Her semi-nervous laughter was enough to make me feel pretty much in charge of the scenario, so I told my brain to turn it up a few degrees to test this girl's capacity for charm. She showed me a skin cream and told me in contained sunscreen so it was good to use during the day. She then showed me a similar product that was for night use. My brain, now pumping well beyond its capacity, handed me the line "Does this one contain moonscreen?"

Silence.

Oh my god, what have I done..

It was like I blew a tire and was now swerving violently all over the road. She played it with a nod like I had said something only to acknowledge her and wasn't going for a laugh. This was pain like I hadn't felt in hours, and it knocked me back to the Stone Age. I was ready to pack up and ride out when she suddenly threw out a net.

"Oh. Moonscreen. I get it."

Oddly enough, love happened when I wasn't expecting it.

I was renewed. Suddenly the plane pulled out of the tailspin and the pilot had a clean pair of pants again. Feeling rejuvenated, I went in for the Coup De Gras. It was time for the minty cream on the back of the neck. I went into the full story about the headaches and the need for an herbal remedy, and she was quick to come to my rescue. She was off like a shot and back in a flash with the tiny flask that may as well have had my photo on it by now. She told me what it was and how it worked and then she asked me the question I was waiting ever so impatiently for..

"Let me put some of this on your hand."

"Of course you can touch - - HAND?" Huh? What about the thing with the neck and you with the touching and the rubbing nice lady with the healing fingers.. In a silent rage, I extended my hand and she dabbed a little bit of cream on my fingers, then her own. She told me to rub it on my own neck. This was the most degrading moment of my life as a consumer. I was literally touching myself in front of a strange woman. I felt so violated and betrayed, yet I still mustered the ability to exclaim the standard revelation of instant relief to my head, as forced as it may have been.

What followed was a sickening display of various creams and oils suddenly becoming my primary focus, all with the hope of being rubbed or at least dabbed by this scarlet-locked tease. Each product was handed to me on a cotton ball or a Q-Tip, with instructions on how to apply. I was in over my head. By the end of my quest I was a hopeless shell of a man who looked and smelled simply fabulous. My need for more was answered by the insane idea that if I actually purchased a few of these products, my naive new clerk would feel that she had done her job well and would warm up to me a little. I bought three tiny vials of goop, one of them being the minty cream. I looked at her as she rang up my sale, and in my mind I was thinking I've already spent fifty bucks on this chick and I don't even know her name. She hands me a ridiculously large "look where I shop" bag and I finally asked her what to call her.

"Eden."

Eden. Wow. That's not really her name. That's a Hollywood "I-don't-know-if-you're-some-kind-of-weirdo-so-this-is-the-name-I'm-telling-you" names. It's a stripper name, like Starr or Destiny. I asked her if that was really her name and she assured me it was. Now I was hooked for sure. My mind raced me to the Garden of Eden and all I saw with the green and the mist, and Eden, still wearing her Origins smock, but looking far more sure of herself, her fiery hair now flowing well beyond her shoulders. I drifted through the firmament, my feet not touching the ground, and before I knew it I was standing on the corner of Highland Avenue again. How was I so enthralled by this nymph of dazzling imperfection? How did she get my money where all others had failed? How did I feel more fulfilled without the touching? Was she the one? Is she the love I'm not expecting?

No. Probably not. But the headaches have gone away.