What the duck?

I vacay'd to LA for a week and I must say, before I left for LA I was HELL BENT on getting lip injections.

My friend is a pharmasales rep in lalaland and has all the medical hookups imaginable (which, by the way, I will enlist several of these services after I have kids...it's always good to know a doctor or five, but even better to know their sales reps). Naturally, if I can get a $300 job done for $0, I'm in (I'm also Chinese, so my deal-dar is always on).

Tired from the long commute, I arrived at his place and made a bee-line for the fridge, my thirst set on a glass of orange juice or something liquid to quench it. I definitely found liquid alright.  A fridge full of Restylane, some other lip filers  and HGH. I think there was more of that stuff in there than actual food.  I curiuosly peered at my potentially new best friend, the syringe of Restylane sitting the butter compartment, in its cute little pink, white and pastel green packaging. And I contemplated.

And then I went to my first lounge in LA.

I love people watching, and if you like it as much as I do, LA nightlife is the place to do it. Up until my first night out in LA, I'd never seen so much pretentiousness and douche-iness at the same place and time as I did that night.  And when you walk into a room, EVERYONE gives you what I call the "la-la-onceover".

Like an assorted pack of designer dogs at the local dog park, only these ones are just so much better than thou that they won't ever come up to you for a quick sniff and playful nudge.  Instead, the "la-la-onceover" leaves you feeling high and dry, completely exploited and feeling like you really need to take a scalding hot bath, no matter how badly your skin burns off.

My friend and I sit down at a table, right smack in the middle of the restaurant. The place looks so cool, I immediate make a move for my camera and Blackberry, hoping to snap a few shots of our appies, drinks and maybe a quick Tweet about the place. And that's when my friend reached over and gave me a light smack on the hand! I looked at him like a puppy who had no idea what she'd done wrong.

"Look around! Nobody does that!", he hissed, looking around to double check that no one was looking.

"Does what?" I whispered back, eyes darting around the room, like I was expecting jumping spiders to dismount from the ceiling onto my head if I spoke too loudly.

Turns out, nobody in LA does the camera and Blackberry thing during a restaurant outing. It's like, sooo not cool. Which is apparently, sooo LA. Which is quite sad, because over here in Vancouver we blog, write, type and tweet the hell outta what we eat and snap as many pics as we can and plaster them everywhere. A shame too, since our bill came to about $250 USD and my jumbo sea scallops were to die for.

Anyway. During my stay, I visited many more lounges and restaurants in Orange County, Manhattan and Redondo Beach and Beverly Hills. And of course, I people watched. But more specifically, lip-watched. And I really didn't enjoy what I saw. Way too many women have their lips done and it just doesn't look so hot and maybe beacuse it's LA, but it looks really obvious. I can spot fakes (boobs and bags) from a mile away, and during my visit, I developed this talent for spotting Trout Pout.

I think it was on Day 5 when I finally let go of the idea of getting my lips done.  Why? I'll let you see for yourself...