November 12

This is really living. I'm sat by myself in a Mexican laundromat and grocery store. I'm eating one of Homer Simpson's doughnuts and drinking a can of "Energy Coffee Double Shot with Vitamins". Outside the window is the freeway, and I haven't got a car.

Here are a few things in my drink: Pamax. Phosphates. Cyanocobalium. And good old-fashioned L-Carnitine. It's really making me feel on edge, this drink. Like all these Mexicans know I'm not Mexican at all. If I wore a Viva Zapata t-shirt would they think I'm being ironic? I like how indifferent all these Mexicans look. Without a care in the world. Am I being racist? Oh God, I hope I'm not being racist. Relax. This is just the Pamax talking.

I could happily spend a long time in this Mexican laundromat. The guy behind the counter seems cool. He has long hair. When I ask him if I can leave my stuff in the dryer for a while he says "Yeah!" like I've asked if I can buy him a beer. Everyone else is just doing their laundry like a Mexican in a laundromat. That sounds like the punchline to a joke. "A Mexican in a laundromat!" I'll award a prize to anyone that can write a set-up.

You know what franchise someone should rip off and bring to London? The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. There's a few of them scattered around town here. The tickets are cheap and they show all kinds of films but the best part - the selling point in my mind - is that you get fried pickles, beer and pizza brought to you during the film. They're all staffed by hip kids (I love hip kids!) and every evening they have special events like "Jiggy Krunk's 90's Pop Rap Singalong", zombie movie marathons and stand up comedy gigs where the comedian stands in front of a classic film and mocks it throughout. They even had an evening of Vietnamese spy films recently. Beat that Prince Charles! (The Soho cinema, not the heir to the throne).

The evening was the best kind of white-water, joy-ride of a night. We had originally planned to see a heavily-recommended rock band called Two Car Garage but it didn't work out like that. At the venue I'd spoken to a punter, asking them about the band, for about 10 minutes, before I realised said punter was in fact their singer-guitarist. It wasn't my fault - he was preturnaturally modest. Me: "What do they sound like?" Him: "Pretty normal I guess." Me: "Are they any good?" Him "They're ok."

To kill time before they started we went to a bar full of people watching television. Why would anyone do that? And they were watching a DVD of a film called Beerfest - a movie reviewers have called "chaotic and lame", and "aggressively, rampantly tedious". Why would any adult go to a bar and subject themself to this film? It's two hours long!

My mind was grappling with this question and others like it when a couple sat down in front of my friend and I. They were doing vodka shots and were very vocal about us coming back to their house to see their hot tub. Now I'm a reasonable man, but I've been around the block enough times to know that their invitation meant two possible things. Either we would be unwittingly initiated into the seedy world of some kind of Austin swingers cult, or we would be raped then killed. It could even be both. A debauched, masquerade ball in the Texan suburbs, culminating in a blood sacrifice.

Seth and Caren were actually very nice. They were young, married and had good taste in music. They did seem to be suffering slightly from that kind of anxiety people succumb to when they get married young. You know, when they become paranoid that their social lives are melting away. Next thing you know, your wife is up dancing on the bar, going "Whoo!" and telling random people "Oh, that's my husband, but we're cool like this". Are they cool like that? Or is everything turning to shit?

Anyway, they were lovely people and we did end up in their hot tub drinking whiskey. And it was all kosher, nothing horrible or sexy happened. I was only half expecting to go to the kitchen for ice, only to open the fridge door to see a decapitated head with an onion in its mouth looking back at me.

It was nice also to hear a waitress at Denny's (at 2am) say to us that she wanted to feed her two kids "healthy stuff". I'd hope there were more people like her out there because a lot of kids here have a diet that makes Jamie Oliver's dreaded Turkey Twizzlers look like a macrobiotic health-feast. One in nine American families can't afford to feed themselves properly and yet up to 25 per cent of children belonging to low-income families are obese or overweight nationwide. How is that even possible?