I don't go out as often as I would like to. Mainly because I'm a flake and I can't make plans. I'm notorious for calling the sitter ten minutes before I need her and duh! when it doesn't work out.

But after last night, I realized how important it is for a girl to revisit her out-on-town roots, if only to maintain her local status. No one wants to be a tourist in her own town. I certainly don't.

The last three years may as well have never happened anywhere out of my house. The only reason I know anything about my local bar scene is because I live in Hollywood, where every bar, restaurant and club appears on television or in movies. I know about as much about Hollywood parties as any middle-of-nowhere dweller reading US Weekly or watching re-runs of The Hills on MTV.

For the record, we're secret fans of LC AND the gang, thus took her advice and made a dinner reservation for my birthday (It's today. I'm 26. Thank you, thank you...) at Geisha House because neither of us had been, and thought, even though the placed peaked about two years ago, better late than never. After all, we had the ultimate in excuses: parenthood.

We called for a cab and headed North on Vine. I excitedly stuck my neck out the window like a dog, ooooooh-ing and ahhhhhh-ing at my beloved neighborhood and wondering when the hell it changed so drastically. Hollywood has been in the throes of a makeover ever since I moved here eight years ago but last night Hollywood Boulevard was unrecognizable. Either I hadn't driven the boulevard in months or I was too busy making faces at Archer in the rear-view mirror to notice the extreme facelift of my beloved hood.

"I didn't know there was an American Apparel, here? Crazy!" 

"When did they convert the Vine office building into lofts? Shit, man!"

"Holy shit! They dropped a mall on Highland? Crazy!"

I ogled until we arrived at our destination, handed our cab driver some cash and said our goodbyes.

"Enjoy your stay in Hollywood," he said.

"No! I live here, silly. I just haven't been out in a while!"

But the cabby wasn't listening.

His voice echoed in my ear the entire night. "Enjoy your stay... Enjoy your stay..."
 

We dined by the two-story fireplace and gorged ourselves on sushi and lychee cocktails, trying our darndest not to blend-in with the crowd of out-of-towners: "wasn't this restaurant in Knocked Up?" and douchebags: "Nice Ed Hardy shirt, man. I have one in red."

We finished dinner and walked hand in hand toward Sunset to hijack a friend's 30th birthday at some new hot spot I had never heard of but was apparently real cool with the "kids, " a place where underaged women in halter top bootie dresses throw themselves at bouncers, begging with all their cleavage to get in.

"Where did you guys get dinner?" a friend asked, mixing our vodka-tonics on our cozy little party-patio.

"Geisha House."

"Really? That place still exists?"

"Yeah. It does." 

 "Oh."

"We're late, I know."

"Yeah. That's okay. You have a kid. It happens. Happy Birthday!"

What he said was true. Too true.

"Thanks," I sighed.

I have a kid. It happens. 

Don't get me wrong. I love my life. I love throwing building blocks at the wall on a Saturday night with my Very-Mobile Sidekick, but I also think the time has come for me to become re-aquainted with my city.

Of course, I still don't know whether that means bar-hopping with the scenesters or taking a double-decker bus tour to Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

I guess I have some serious thinking to do.

****
 

P.S. Happy Father's Day!!!