I Walk, My Skin Crawls

The other day, I found myself going to an audition in Beverly Hills. I've been to auditions in neighborhoods dodgy enough that I wondered whether I had the right address, but this was obviously in the other direction. I knew I was going to the right place, but still somehow I wondered, because there seemed to be little reason why a casting office need be in such a ritzy locale. There's a middle area.

From where the bus let me off, I had to walk for around fifteen or so minutes to get where I was going. Along the way, I saw what there was to see in an outdoor mall while seeking a restroom to use. All in all, I got my fill of the area. As I think I've made plain, such upscale districts are not for me. There is some kind of insecurity that I have about that sort of thing. I get the idea that I'll be sniffed out as insufficiently well-to-do or classy and asked to leave.

That has yet to happen, but what has happened in the past (and in this case) is that my nerves have been rubbed raw by a wealthy area's stores, restaurants and the people who patronize them. I didn't grow up in a backwater, but there were no places like these there, nor any people like these. Everything was very nice, but staid or flowery. The money was evident, and yet not ostentatious or vulgar, really. You'd think I would appreciate that, but I did not.

I was terribly desperate to not be there, and was glad to leave after not much more than an hour. I am far more at ease in such a place as North Hollywood, which nicely hits that spot of nice, cool and unpretentious. I was not, it is safe to say, unhappy to be in Beverly Hills on account of being envious and desiring what they have. They can have it. Maybe I'm like the characters in whichever scifi novel I read years ago where everyone is programmed to prefer the socioeconomic status they are born into, but I prefer where I am.