Every once in a while something small pulls the past forward.
A piece of music drifting through a room, the smell of warm pavement after a long hot day, the way the city lights start to glow when evening settles in. Suddenly the years fall away and I find myself back inside those early Los Angeles days, when everything felt new and wide open and a little reckless in the best possible ways.
Almost 20 years ago, that chapter of my life was just beginning, though I didn’t know how important it would become. Looking back now I can see clearly that she stood right there at the beginning of it all. Not guiding me exactly, not shaping things deliberately, but simply by being who she was and letting me step into her world for a minute or two.
When this story begins I was still living in Toronto. A life that held a rhythm I was familiar with. Church Street, the bars, faces I recognized in a crown, the comfort of living inside a community where people see you before you even walk through the door. It was easy to exist in that world because it already understood me.
But somewhere in the back of my mind Los Angeles had always been calling.
Sure, I had visited a few times before, and every time I left I carried the feeling that the city was unfinished business for me. It seemed bigger than logic, louder than reason, full of energy and contradictions that didn’t quite exist anywhere else. I didn’t know when I would move there yet, but I knew eventually I would.
So while I was still living in Toronto I started reaching out. I was looking for connections friends, something…
Craigslist was one of those strange early meeting grounds where people looked for such connection s. Friends, dates, conversations, whatever it was. That’s when I saw her. Her photos stopped me.
There was something in her smile that felt alive, a spark that seemed to reach right through the screen. She was beautiful of course, with that soft caramel skin and an easy confidence in the way she held herself. What caught me more than anything was how natural she looked ad how easily our conversations started.
We started messaging. Casual conversation at first, getting to know the outlines of each other’s lives. Where we lived, what kind of music we liked, the small details that slowly form a picture of a person in your mind. There was an ease to it from the beginning. No pressure, no expectation.
That February I traveled to Los Angeles for work and we decided to meet. I was staying on Hollywood Blvd attending a conference at the Roosevelt Hotel. The plan was to meet up on a night I did not have to work.
She picked me up at the hotel and we headed to Akbar, a well-known queer neighbourhood bar located in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. Imagine a newbie who had loved Los Angeles in a club at the intersection of Fountain and Sunset It felt like stepping directly into the pulse of the city. Music carried through the room in steady waves while people gathered shoulder to shoulder at the bar, conversations overlapping and laughter rising above everything.
Friends came over immediately, leaning in to hug her, picking up conversations like they had only paused earlier in the evening. Watching her move through that space made it obvious this was part of her world. All the while I stood beside her taking everything in.
Being in a queer bar in Los Angeles had a different feeling than the ones I knew in Toronto. The room felt loose and open, like people had come there simply to exist without explanation. And I was there with a woman I was deeply attracted to.
I found myself watching her more than anything else. The way she ordered drinks, the way she laughed, the way people leaned toward her when she spoke. I was mesmerized.
The patio felt almost like a small garden tucked behind the bar, enclosed but open enough to breathe. Soft market lights hung overhead, just bright enough to see faces clearly while still keeping the mood relaxed. Conversations drifted through the air while people gathered around small tables.
I mingled where conversations opened up, though I’ve always been more of a watcher than a talker in rooms like that. Observing people, studying the way they interact, has always been more interesting to me than dominating the moment.
But my attention kept returning to her. By the end of the night I was smitten. It was clear to me, she was not.And that was perfectly fine. There were no expectations attached to that night. The attraction simply existed between us without pressure.
Two days later, I returned to Toronto, though I knew something had shifted. My dreams to be in Los Angeles now had a face. My yearning to move to LA intensified.
My first weekend there I was still living in a hotel while figuring things out. The city felt enormous and chaotic and fascinating all at once. So I reached out to her and she said she would come and get me and we would go out.
She arrived at my hotel on the first Sunday there and we headed to Ventura Blvd to find a place to eat.
We had dinner at a small French restaurant that felt warm and intimate, candlelight reflecting off glasses while quiet conversation moved between tables. Sitting there across from her felt surreal in a way that only new beginnings can feel.
At one point I looked across the room and recognized someone famous. It was the actor, Brendon Beemer, now playing Sean Douglas on Days of Our Lives. My first LA star sighting. Though I kept that to myself. I did not want her to know I watched soap operas.
It was a small moment but it made something click in my mind. In Los Angeles the world of television and everyday life overlap constantly. Star sightings were something everybody had.
After dinner she took me somewhere darker. A queer bar further south on Ventura, I cant remember its name, but she said it only opened on Sunday nights. Tucked away from the obvious nightlife, the lighting was low, the atmosphere almost gothic, very few bodies, mostly men.
That was my second star sighting. There in one corner were Joan Jett and Carmen Electra. Not performing, not drawing attention. Just two people wrapped up in each other. Two unlikely stars disappearing into a dark room far away from Hollywood’s glare.
The next weekend we had another date. We planned a picnic at Venice on Venice Beach. She brought heirloom tomatoes and I got the wine.
We spread a blanket on the sand as the sun slipped below the horizon and the waves rolled steadily toward the shore. The air cooled while stars slowly began appearing overhead. We sat there talking for hours before heading back to her apartment in Boyle Heights.
Getting to know the basics of each other’s lives. Sharing food, stories, small pieces of who we were. For me it felt like time slowed down around us.
Our time together became increasingly adventurous. We planned an IKEA trip for a creative mission conjured up in pillow talk and emails. When the days came to go shopping, we were walking through the aisles looking for objects that might become part of whatever experiment we imagined. Thin wicker sticks, fabrics, containers, anything that sparked ideas.
This became our challenge after on weekends that followed. Art stores, seedy hotels in other cities in SoCal. We discovered our connection through canvas, paint and Brushes. Alcohol was usually involved.
Back in her Boyle Heights apartment those materials often ended up spread across the floor or bed. I would paint her body while she rolled across the canvas, leaving streaks of colour behind. It was messy and playful and full of laughter.
Vegas came early in the story, Inspired spontaneously after we visited a strip club in LA and found ourselves unimpressed. Too many rules, too much distance between performers and audience. The whole thing felt oddly sterile. I guess these were the rules. Rules we rejected.
Somewhere in the conversation while sitting at the table in the club someone said, “this would be better in Vegas”. And that was enough. Next thing I knew we were driving through the desert late at night towards Vegas.
Vegas reveals itself slowly when you approach it from the highway, first you pass through Primm, the first sign of the energy. A distant glow of the lights grows down the highway and then suddenly becomes a full explosion of neon and light
Inside the casinos the sound never stops. Slot machines ringing constantly, voices rising and falling, the chaos of people winning and losing all around you.
We wandered through Harrah’s laughing, playing roulette, watching the energy of the tables. We eventually made our way to O’Sheas, a smaller casino located mear Harrah’s where we were staying.
That was a fun night. At one point we joked that we were newlyweds. Just married. Playing the part fully Holding hands at the tables, leaning into the story for the fun of it. By the time we left we had enough money for breakfast and the kind of memory that only comes from spontaneous decisions made in the middle of the night.
Those nights opened something inside me creatively.
Eventually she moved from Boyle Heights to Highland Park. I spent one weekend helping her move items from the old place to the new. We carried items down the stairs of the Boyle Heights apartment, loaded them into her silver Ford Echo, and drove back and forth a few times from Boyle Heights on the I-5 North (Golden State Freeway), then to the CA-110 North (Arroyo Seco Parkway) towards Pasadena, exiting at Avenue 60. The trip generally takes about 15–25 minutes depending on traffic.
Her new place was a small back house cottage tucked behind the main house. Quiet. cozy, slightly hidden with a quaint little yard.
I found myself driving from North Hollywood Highland Park frequently. This usually involved taking the freeway through the Cahuenga Pass (101 or 170) before transitioning to local streets, avoiding traffic congestion near Hollywood or Downtown.
Other nights though less adventurous were still incredible for me. Driving around Los Angeles to find places to explore. was part of our thing. Steak dinner’s at Ruths Chris, in Pasadena or Sushi in the valley, and just exploring. I was amazed she was so willing to get out with me with me week after week.
Driving around Los Angeles became one of my favourite parts of those moments with her. Learning the freeways. Yes Freeways not highways. The 101. The 110. The 5.The 405. Highland Park to North Hollywood to Ventura Boulevard and everywhere iwe could discover together n between.
I spent a lot of those drives sitting in the passenger seat taking everything in with wide-eyed wonderment, probably looking a little dorky just staring out the window in awe, but I did not care. I was fascinated.
Big Bear brought another kind of memory.
The cabin had a fireplace that filled the room with warm, sensual light. We spent time on the floor in front of it while the glow of the fire moved across the walls.
At one point we stepped outside briefly, laughing at the absurdity of standing naked in bear country.
The photographs from that weekend remain some of my favorites. Some sensual and erotic. Others simple portraits. Her standing comfortably in warm light, completely at ease in front of the camera.
Looking back now what stands out isn’t just the places we went or the strange adventures that unfolded so easily back then. It’s the way those experiences slowly shaped how I moved through Los Angeles afterward.
She had already built a rhythm inside that city long before I arrived, and somehow I found myself stepping into it, learning its pace through her eyes, adopting part of those spaces and places for myself.
Through her I learned to wander instead of rush, to explore without needing a destination, to let the city reveal itself slowly rather than trying to force it open. That is how LA became home.
The creative chaos we shared opened something in me as well. Those messy evenings with canvas on the floor, paint everywhere, music playing while we experimented and laughed, drinking a little too much and creating playful moments. They were the beginning of understanding that creativity and intimacy could exist in the same space without rules.
She took me to San Francisco pride for my first time. Up until them the only prides I had been to were in Toronto. both Toronto and San Francisco hosted massive, world-renowned Pride celebrations, but they differed in scale and focus. SF Pride was a premier US political hub with over 1 million attendees, emphasizing activist roots, while Toronto Pride was rapidly growing into one of the world’s largest, known for its massive, multi-day, carnival-like street party.
Exploring the Haight-Ashbury history, Delores park where the edibles were sold like popcorn by hippies wondering Delores park on dyke day! We walked the Castro looking for breakfast the next day hungover from the love fest and all the alcohol.
Somewhere along the way the intensity softened and the relationship changed shape. What remained were the memories of that beginning.
Looking back now, what stays with me isn’t the individual moments themselves so much as the feeling of being pulled into a world that was already in motion. She moved through that city with an ease I didn’t yet have, and somewhere along the way I found myself learning its rhythm beside her.
It felt like being invited behind the curtain of something vast and unpredictable, a place that could be wild one night and quietly beautiful the next. I arrived wide-eyed, taking everything in, letting the city reveal itself slowly instead of trying to understand it all at once.
There was a kind of magic in those early days, the sort that only happens when you step into a place without expectations and someone is there to open the door just enough for you to see what’s possible. I didn’t realize it then, but she was giving me a way into Los Angeles that felt natural, unscripted, and completely alive.
For someone just beginning to find their footing in that city, it could not have been a more perfect way to get my feet wet.
That was the adventure from East Los.
