If you want to make friends in LA, one of the first things you must learn to do is to socialize with crazy people. Or rather, to socialize with otherwise sane people who will wait until several hours into a casual conversation to nonchalantly reveal a belief in elves, or telepathy, or the Hollow Earth.
We Angelenos have a proud history of fringe beliefs, going back to est and the primal scream of our parents' generation, all the way to the seances favored by turn-of-the-century Hollywood. And as an LA native, I have my own proud history of noncommital smiling that extends to the first time someone told me about their mother's astral projection when I was in the fourth grade.
I have perfected the disinterested "mm-hmm?" that carried me through the outdoor jazz picnic where a married mother of two explained to me Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques (or NAET) , a system by which you can detect and cure allergies to everything from carob chips to diamond rings by using your extended arm as a sort of human dowsing rod. (And yes, I've also met people who believe in good old-fashioned wooden dowsing rods too.)
I've listened to people expound on the fake moon landing; another person swore to me their cat could talk. I've accepted "Mercury is in retrograde" as both a warning and an apology.
Last month a woman at a professional networking event confided in me that she had used the power of positive thinking to avoid becoming infested with bedbugs.
"Both of my roommates had them," she said, so she just told the universe no and the universe listened. Then again, the universe told her to move to LA from New York while also suggesting she leave her upholstered furniture behind, just to be safe.
I've listened to people expound on the fake moon landing; another person swore to me their cat could talk. I've accepted "Mercury is in retrograde" as both a warning and an apology. One trick to making it through these moments is to furrow your brow in an earnest way while repeating back to them a few of the words they've just said:
“I'm sorry I'm late, I should have known not to buy a new car when Mercury is in retrograde.”
“Yep, buying a new car.”
Alternately, you can use the phrase, “Oh yes, I've heard of that,” which suggests you are familiar with the subject while not expressly aligning yourself with it.
“Have you read The Bible Code?”
“I've definitely heard of that.”
As she worked on me, Heather told me about a doctor in Italy who had discovered the cure for cancer. It is caused by a virus, you see, and an easily cured one at that, but of course the medical establishment doesn't want me to know that.
And it won't even be a lie, because before long you will have heard of that, and everything else too.
Three years ago my husband Dev and I visited a married pair of tattoo artists, Heather and Justin. As she worked on me, Heather told me about a doctor in Italy who had discovered the cure for cancer. It is caused by a virus, you see, and an easily cured one at that, but of course the medical establishment doesn't want me to know that. Meanwhile, Justin showed my husband, an electrical engineer, the dodgy modifications he had made to his tattoo gun's power supply. I made an evasive but encouraging noise, something that sounded like, "I am conversing with you happily and without passing judgment."
The conversation turned to the subject of very tall people we knew. I mentioned my brother-in-law, who is six foot seven, and my friend Zac, who is six foot eight. Some very tall men, I remarked banally, are also very skinny.
"My friend is like that, really tall but really skinny," remarked Justin over the low hum of his modified tattoo gun. "You know, like people from the Pleiades."
"People from the Pleiades," spoken with no more emphasis than, "people from Norway."
He went on to tell us about a guy in Venice who can summon UFOs to appear at public gatherings in Los Angeles much like minor celebrities appear at a charity walkathon. Actually, I had already heard about that guy, because my father is a great believer in UFOs, too, and sends me links to paranormal conspiracy sites the way other parents send their kids email chain letters.
Of course, fringe beliefs are hardly confined to Los Angeles, but I feel we are particularly tolerant of them here. Perhaps it's the the loopy optimism that brought so many people out here in the first place, and the hopeful blindness that sustains them. Leave cynicism to the East Coast – in LA we are kind and encouraging, and perhaps also a little worried that the person we're mocking today might be in the position to hire us tomorrow.
He went on to tell us about a guy in Venice who can summon UFOs to appear at public gatherings in Los Angeles much like minor celebrities appear at a charity walkathon.
But there is another reason to be charitable. The truth is, deep down everyone believes at least one crazy thing. My mother predicts earthquakes; my father isn't entirely willing to discount the existence of reptoids. I consider myself a skeptic, but I still wouldn't set foot in a haunted house. The problem is no one in Los Angeles ever challenges your another person's assertions aloud, so you never know who may be privately judging you. Insteadyou just continue blundering along through conversations thinking you're being charitable with all your rapid pursed-lip nodding about alkaline water while meanwhile the alkaline enthusiast is thinking, "Did she just say something about her horoscope? What a wacko."
Last January I paused in front of a pretty little florist's shop while looking for some moss for one of my several moldering terrariums. In my arms was my son Arthur, then 18 months old. Inside I didn't find the moss I had wanted, but I fell into conversation with the charming shop owner, as talkative as I am, and we stood there talking together about gardening and chicken-keeping and his godchildren and his flower farm in Hawaii (he showed me pictures), when he asked whether I intended to have any more children.
"Well, it's possible," I said, "but I doubt it. I don't plan on it."
"You are going to get pregnant and have another baby before the end of this year," he said with perfect confidence, "and it's going to be a boy."
Who am I to laugh at someone for standing around Muscle Beach waiting for aliens when I believe in psychic florists.
I said something appropriately friendly and evasive. Soon after, I rushed off to attend to my expired parking meter. Two months later I got unexpectedly pregnant, and in December of last year along came my son William.
A few months after William was born, my husband visited the florist and asked how he had known I was going to get pregnant again, and the florist explained that he had seen it in my aura, in the same unruffled tone Justin had used when talking about people from the Pleiades. He had been taught to read auras, he continued, by a shaman in South America named Greg.
Naturally, I've told this story a hundred times since to everyone I meet, because it's an amazing story. I tell it at parties and in tattoo parlors and outdoor jazz picnics and professional networking events, and everyone smiles and nods and says things like, "Oh wow," and I bask in their nonjudgmental acceptance until I recognize something familiar written in the set of their jaw and their too-open eyes, and I think, oh god, are they just humoring me? Who am I to laugh at someone for standing around Muscle Beach waiting for aliens when I believe in psychic florists.