all the places i have been are so close to the places i haven't been

 
Whomever said LA wasn't walkable, doesn't have very good friends or has lost their sense of wonder. Which on both accounts are very sad.

When I first met the talented c and lovely k three years back, they talked about the amazing pilgrimage walk they did as part of their honeymoon in Spain. For practice they mapped their own route here a very daunting walk from LA to Pasadena.  When they described what it was like to walk from neighborhood to neighborhood, I knew I was in.   Part of my love for this city is exploring its nooks and crannies. They just had to name a time and place and I would be there, ready to walk.

We tried once on a fall day a year or so back, but our mission was thwarted by the bottomless bloody mary’s at the Bowery.  As so many missions are.

Our second attempt happened the Saturday after Thanksgiving. With bellies full 7 of us set off determined to make it happen and to also work off all of that thankful goodness. We started on a hill and found ourselves on Alvarado which somehow turned into Glendale, I stopped to take pictures of signs and street art, the back of the heads of my friends.  It was strangely hot. 80 after it had been so cold, I started to regret, the leggings, sweater and coat that were weighing my pack down, making my dress stick to my skin.

I was thankful for our first stop which came so much quicker than I imagined. If you think about walking from Sunset and Alvarado to the Red Lion it doesn’t seem like something you want to do, but it only took an hour-ish.

Pit stop 1-The Red Lion

It was brief, since we got there so quickly and we were determined to move on.  We cheersed our great timing drank up and moved out.

We continued from Glendale blvd to Fletcher took time to take in the LA river a little swollen from the rain.

Pit stop 2- Foster’s freeze

While there, waiting for a chicken sandwich and some cones, we could have had our Stand by Me moment. Hundreds and hundreds of seagulls circling a half a mile up, but out of our way. We deduced it was a dead hooker in the alley. Some of us wanted to investigate, but we felt that it would take us too far off of our plan and we were doing so good.

A mile later we picked up a minute maid carton outside of a McDonald's that we took turns kicking all the way to Eagle Rock, at times it wouldn’t cooperate, would get caught in the legs of strangers, but we showed it who was boss. It was in tatters when we stopped in for a round of spectator bowling.

Pit stop 3- a pitcher at eagle rock (or is it all star) lanes

Everyone was still excited, we cheersed, we stretched, me showing off my tree pose another warrior one, both in dresses, maybe not the smartest. We ate veggies and dip inside the Chinese restaurant inside the bowling alley and left in search of the Oinkster. I had never been and a co-walker went on and on about its fantasticness. I was hungry, and after 3 hours veggies and dip and beer just weren't cutting it.

A wrong/right turn over to Yosemite to shorten up the trip made us miss going to the Oinkster, too far south and east, but gave us a tour of some amazing houses and we stopped to admire the handiwork of a man carving animal topiaries in his lawn, a condo unit with the best pavement for hopscotch and me to take a rest on a broke-down 1980’s dining room chair. Again maybe not the best poses in a dress.

We turned onto Colorado, staring up at the hill that would take us finally into Pasadena, a steep climb up and thankfully the wind picked up giving us the cool motivation we needed. We cheered as we reached the sign proclaiming the Pasadena City Limit and continued on to the bridge which was more beautiful in person, or maybe that was just the euphoria of feeling close to the end. Some of us were so happy that they even tried a cartwheel for the very first time.


We passed the Norton Simon where I have never been, passed the throngs of people who were out holiday shopping in old town who were definitely not moving fast enough for us. We had to make it to our last stop. Lucky Baldwin's which marked the end point for our trip. 


9.7 miles in 5 hours and 40 minutes. An amazing tour of the city I love, places I had never been


And true to the name of the restaurant, we were lucky to have a friend meet us at our end point, and we all piled into her pathfinder, 8 of us giggling like high school kids packed in like sardines. Talking about the next time we are walking. This time to Venice.

P.S. read oranges and avacados post about this walk and it was featured in the eastsider. how awesome. 

Like me or whatever

I created a facebook page for my blog, I figured, why not. I thought it might be a way to write things while I am gone for the holidays. For the 3 or 4 people who read my blog. Post pictures of the snow, etc. The blogger app pretty much blows, wastes your battery in minutes and crashes when you try to post photos. Photos are such a part of the blogging experience.

And I hope to one day put a little like button in the corner, but alas I can't get the coding to work. (I tried so hard) So up in the corner it says "like me or whatever" but there is no action in which to like me.

Secretly I need encouragement.

So if you can find me on facebook, Kitty cattaraugus-the blog, like me, and there will be some bonus material to the posts I am saving up for your reading pleasure.

hidden talent reprise

Oddly when I was writing that last post my cooking buddy sent me an email for a possible round 2 cooking class at the same place. The offer ends on December 22nd. I would do it, but this time of year I ned to think about spending on others. It would however make a great gift, if anyone I buy for lived here.

It is super reasonable. You'll have fun, you'll get tipsy and leave with some skills. Tracey is a great teacher, let's you figure things out on your own and teaches some great vocab. It is a wife and husband team. He cleans, and they yell at you if you try to help.

LA on the cheap-rediscovering a hidden talent

I am loving all the discount emails I am getting groupon, bloomspot, travelzoo, living social. If you haven’t signed up and don’t mind all of the emails, I recommend it. It is a great way to explore your city during this economic crisis. As I mentioned before, I did get the trip to Catalina at half price, normally close to $100. I purchased 10 classes at my favorite yoga studio for $49, regularly $110. I have a Burlesque class at Hell's Belles waiting for me when I get back from vacation. My best purchase came from travelzoo, a French cooking class for $35, regularly $75 dollars at Cashmere Bites.

I had wanted to start cooking again, I am surrounded by people who really know how to cook; make their own sausage from scratch, know how to debone a chicken to make their own galantine, cook down apples to make a sauce that goes over pork belly. I am beginning to feel a bit insecure around my friends.

I used to cook my way through college, a line cook in a southwestern fusion restaurant in Iowa City. The restaurant is no longer, and for good reason. When I left there I could cook a perfect steak, made ancho chili mashed potatoes that would squeeze perfectly through a pastry bag, everyone always loved my jalepeno cornbread. The owner asked if I could make it all the time. (recipes I still wish I had)

I used to love to cook. Would invent things that turn out to be amazing, but when you live with someone who doesn’t like to eat or likes to belittle your cooking skills, you end up ordering out and making a lot of BLTs. Let me tell you, vegetarian Fake-on does not smell good cooking in a pan-although being on a first name basis with Kalia at Sunset Thai isn’t so bad. I am completely out of practice, My cooking prowess now, is being "grill bitch" at my friend’s bbqs.

So now, I have a desire to cook again. To not look bad at my friend’s dinner parties, make meals that make me smile when I bite into them, even if it is just for me. So when a friend sent me a link to the cooking class I think it was a sign I was looking for.

I walked into the cooking/artspace/loft/commercial kitchen a bit nervous. What if after all these years I sucked at something I used to enjoy? I was especially daunted by the fact that our first lesson of the day was crème brulee, which I always thought was so hard, which it isn’t as much as you need a crème brulee buddy and I am so very glad I had one. My friend and I were paired up with this cute British couple, who looked to me as their cooking sherpa, I let it slip that I had some skills and maybe out of lack of confidence or their desire to learn, I backed off and played the role of cheerleader during crème brulee time.

By the time we cooked our coq au vin I was in the zone, but a little discouraged that I couldn’t chop my mirepoix ingredients as fast as I used to. (Maybe I should stop staring longingly at the Japanese knives at Surfas, and just buy one)

Sole Meuniere was by far the easiest recipe and perfect timing because all of the laughing, storytelling, wine drinking was making class go so long that we didn’t get the chance to make the French salad. I don’t know if it was the 3 hour wait, but the food we cooked was so delicious, made with so much laughter.

In the end our eggs were soft yellow, like a baby chick, our coq au vin was gluten/pork free and delicious and I had an incredible pyromaniac joy while liquefying sugar on the top of my crème brulee.

Lesson about French cooking: It takes a lot of time and a lot of ingredients, but it really isn’t that hard.

Note: bring your own wine as well, they provide some, you can drink during class

1899-reprise

I saw her again, the piratess of the mta, this time no butterfly bandage crudely covering her missing eye. There it was in its scar tissue glory, shiny and pink, with an almond sized darkness.

This time she had her shoes on and added a black feather boa to the ensemble.

Sometimes riding on the bus can make you sad, sometimes it is an interesting anthropological study, sometimes it can turn you off the steak you just bought at Ralph's.

Windy aftermath

Sometimes Los Angeles can be ugly beautiful.

I noticed this with the last windstorm or WIND EVENT, as they deemed it in the news, oh so dramatic.

I saw this, Thursday morning, in front of my apartment and had to take a picture of the windy aftermath, it looks very much like Jackson Pollock and his only tools were nature, the bright red plastic cup in the upper left hand side is oddly beautiful. A neighbor stopped to see what I was taking a picture of, he thought it was beautiful too.

I love having a camera with me always, helps me to notice the little beautiful and ugly things about this place.

Trees uprooted reminds me that there is indeed nature here.

I walked around the neighborhood, bracing myself against the windy city and laughed to myself as a THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU bag took flight, swirling and changing shape in the air looking like a sea creature in the sky, when the song below came on my ipod.

That moment couldn't have been more perfect.

I love you Los Angeles.

Furious winds

I was out on a walk today enjoying some fresh air, tubaless-bassless-llorarless sound and catch two PST exhibits. I stopped to get one of the beeps from my cell phone in front of the empty Hollywood Video and saw a sign, I wondered what was going to go into this space, one of the many empty spaces on Wilshire. Upon closer inspection I saw that it wasn't telling me about the new tenant it was something completely different:

Pst....

PST tally so far: 5 exhibits

I haven't been visiting as many PST exhibits as I have wanted to. I plan to rectify that problem very soon. Hopefully this upcoming weekend if the wind doesn't stick around. Or if it does it may help me get places faster. I am usually no match for the wind in very embarrassing ways. One day I'll probably be blown up into the sky like Remedios. (I digress to magical realism, as always, but again has nothing to do with Los Angeles, contemporary art. etc.)

LACMA: (not in the order I saw them in, but in order of their closing)

1) Asco-December 4th
Firstly Asco, (Aah sko) -which is one of my favorite Spanish words, means disgust. Me da asco-You disgust me. You probably already know that, because you live in Califas, but just as always wanted to impart some knowledge, because if you can learn one thing today, it should be how to say the word disgust in another language.

I guess I left not knowing the contributions of Asco on the art scene, mainly I felt it was a photo series of them in Bonnie and Clyde style outfits, staring into the camera as a group. We are here I guess.

I understand taking the stereotypical and making it yours. (Space Lucha Libre) I understand wanting to acknowledge your place in a medium in which you are marginalized. (making an awards ceremony for your own movie because you will never be awarded for your accomplishments as an artist as a Latino/Chicano)

Maybe it was a curatorial problem or maybe because the night before I had spent to much time in Tispangatron, but I just didn't get it. I felt lost in that gallery space. I felt that it came off a little narcissistic. I am not sure if that was supposed to be the point. But isn't art in its nature narcissistic. (chew on that)

Here is what I am loving about this PST movement, is that a lot of these artists are still alive and they can talk and they do talk about their art. A lot of them are talking on the website, in handheld devices in the galleries, talks at the art institutions. I wish that I would have heard Gamboa jr talking about these pieces earlier, than just right now. I would have not been so very perdida.


2) California Design- closes June 3 (My birthday)
It is amazing to see the history of mid-century modern interior design pieces. A personal design era favorite of mine. This movement was so all encompassing, the clothes you wore, the music you listened to, the car you drove, whether you surfed or not. And it is all here in this exhibit the Avanti , the long boards, the shelves, pottery, sterocabinets, textiles.

The highlight of this exhibit of course is the Eames' living room re-created in a class box to get a 360 view. To see where they lived, created entertained.

I love really everything about this exhibit. Especially the thought of throwing a dinner party in these outfits, where I would serve Lobster of course. There is so much to digest, pardon the pun, I need a few more hours to listen to all of the video and sound commentary that comes with this exhibit.

I didn't have time for 5 car stud, I hear it is very polarizing, makes you feel emotionally beat up. It closes January 15th.

(a picture of me at the Getty talking about LACMA, I guess I will have to take a picture of me at LACMA and talk about the Getty exhibits, but for now, I am tired of talking about art.)

Trouble-reprise

Ein Proset

I have a friend who on my birthday every year since we have known each other wishes me a "Happy Soul Return" I like that sentiment, the idea of your soul returning to look at itself a year later. I was reflecting on this at Oktoberfest this year and this bitter little post from last year.

A year later I am in my own space and there is no one who can that can take that away from me except for myself.

I lent the Bavarian beer wench costume to someone else and hoped that it had better luck for her.

And ironically I got sent a photo of a man in a costume that was meant especially for me.

A year can make a lot of difference if you let it.

Happy

soul

return.

Na Zdorovie!

Many months ago I promised to Lauren of thisislalaland a list of more things to do in LA on the cheap, I have been delinquent in posting that list, mainly because lately I am finding that LA ain’t all that cheap. In the past, I have listed museums and other cultural activities, but what I have been trying to do is find something a little more palatable to the people who just don’t like art or culture all that much.

I thought I found my answer with DineLA , but that went so horribly, wonderfully, awry.

A friend wanted to cash in on a rain check for dinner/drinks and suggested a couple places on the dineLA list. It was my first time as a dineLA-er and I was really excited to try some local restaurant amazing-ness at oh so affordable prices. We chose Nic’s, I was leaning a little more toward Tagine due to a part ownership of this person . In the end Nic’s won because of the VODBOX. If that sound like an instrument of torture it is, but more along the lines of pleasureful torture (tispangratron) and I will get that much later.

I perused the mesmerizing martini menu, while I waited for my friend, who was stuck somewhere on the west side.

My bonito jito cost $16

My Maytag repairman cost $16 (the dirtiest martini I have ever had and should have an x rating)

For some reason, that night I wasn't really feeling the Prix Fixe menu, not sure why, that wasn't very dinela of me, but instead chose probably one of the most amazing fish dishes I have ever had. It doesn't look like it is on their menu online, so I won't tempt you with something that is no longer there. That was $28.

After feeling women enough we had our shot at the Vodbox (Tispangratron.)

What the Vodbox is is a room filled with Vodka, and it is cold, like Minnesota cold, so they give you these amazingly warm fur coats and hats, that make you look like stereotypical hot Russian spies in a James Bond film and vodka is poured by these beautiful women and they are funny and nice and complimentary and as we were having a "no, you're pretty off" I realize that I have had 7 shots of vodka and I have spent $40 on vodka, just for myself.

(I think I tried all of the vodkas on that table)

My friend and I hold each other up and get to the table see the bill and I realize that my dinela experience has cost me $120.

So in the end I failed. This was not the LA on the cheap I was hoping for, I just ended up being a rube for Tispangratron.

You paralyze my mind and for that...

I have had the worst writers block lately. I haven't felt this much at a loss for words in almost 20 years. That writer's block lasted 5 years, I hope that this bout is more like five more hours. I think one of the reasons why is that last post is a hard act to follow, I was laughing so hard when I wrote it and I am not sure if I can be that funny again.

bus blog-"you know where you are? You're in the jungle baby"

In all the years I have lived here, almost six in total, I have found that the biggest concentration of crazy is in Westwood. The poor poor parents from Kansas who drop off their child at UCLA and go have that final teary farewell dinner at CPK to only be confronted by Spanish Apocalypse man.

"Y Dios envie un gran terramoto en orden a limpiar el mundo de pecado!!! Arrepentirse ahora!!! Ahora es su ultimo opportunidad, Ahora Ahora Arrenppentirse!!!"

And he says this 6 inches from your face.

There is the guy in dreds that smells like a ferret, that has several plastic bags tied around his ankles, wrists and chest, who is actually a pretty good gangsta rapper.

And a whole other cast of characters that have nothing to do with one of the most awesome homeless person performances that I witnessed while waiting for the 761 last week.

This large woman rolls up her grocery cart to the corner of Lindbrook and Westwood, composes herself for a moment and like she is in her own private flashmob, starts march dancing, pulls out a black and yellow ping pong paddle and with her ping pong paddle arm outstretched she starts mumble singing Gun's and Roses' seminal hit "Welcome to the Jungle"

At first I don't know what it is she is singing exactly. It sounds like:

"Welcome to the HEE-HAW. Sprata brata GAMES. We got everything you huh? We got everything you huh?
(and the ping pong paddle goes shaking upward)

"schmee schmee figging huh"

and skips ahead to the part she knows and says "You know where ya arhh, you in the jungle BABAY, you gonna dieeeee!!"

And it was amazing, that was until a Westwood Community patrol person tells her to move along and she goes after him for 5 minutes straight, talking to him, but talking to the air and she can't let it go, until the approaching bus changes her focus.

fete du test-day 2

I woke up in Desert Hot Springs, I slipped into my swimsuit and left A in the room to sleep. I swam, in the small way I know how to swim, dipped in the medium hot and super hot, mineral springs. And I sat there head back contemplating life's most recent events, a hairy backed man strikes up a conversation in broken English about how loud he finds Mexican people now that the pools population has suddenly swung south of the border. He wanted to know if I were American, which I guess is the burning question on most people's minds. His friend joined him and we began having a broken conversation, they are from LA and before I get asked questions on where I live and would I like to possibly go dancing or out to dinner, I feign how hot the pool is. They are very disappointed that I am checking out of the hotel and want to know where I am going.

There is something that Eastern European and homeless men find insanely irresistible about me.

Where I am going is back to Joshua Tree and the Test to experience performance art and see a man made crater. Our first stop is to replace the map we lost and stock up on waters. Our second stop was a dry bed lake after all to see a dance with ribbons.

That goes a little something like this:











The desert is such a monochromatic place, but it is amazing in its monochromaticness. It was however nice to see it broken up with color, even if it was an hour, once a year. I think colors become more brilliant there, like they like to show off.

Next stop was the Yucca Crater installation that was, for lack of a better term, in the most beautiful middle of nowhere. That made me shout "praise the Lord for the GPS, and the 4G and the smart phone." sorry, still riding on the gospel high.

It ended up being a very surprising installation. It ended up being an oasis for you to swim in, unfortunately for us there were too many bodies.

Even though I didn't get to experience test as much as I wanted, a conundrum of time and space, I did get the chance to take a lot of great photos. The desert seems to want to be the star of the show.

I will definitely be at Test next year and this trip was a very good HDTS 101 for me. I will have more of a strategy instead of the zen like tumbleweed I was this year.

amendment of the amendment

I know it feels like I can't let it go, but this post from my lovely friend and favorite healer, made me a little sad.

read.

fete du test- day 1

When two things you haven't done before suddenly coincide you have no choice but to run toward that direction. Even if that direction is in the middle of nowhere.

My desert experience has been very limited, a drive through the Valley of Fire where I watched a sidewinder cross the road as we were coming toward it and a day were I shot a prison riffle w/ a bunch of republicans. (that thing can kick)

Living so close, an hour and a half, I felt the need to make that experience list be more than venomous snakes and assault riffles. I needed to touch a dry bed lake, be creeped out by windmills, see stars unobstructed by lights and hear gospel songs sung by people in handmade crocheted garments.

The answer to this yearning was High Desert Test Sites .

A and I climbed into the car and headed an hour an a half east armed with new music and sunscreen. We watched the landscapes become more alien. Fields of windmills and precariously stacked rocks that slowly revealed more rural places. I wondered what it is that people do out there. A said cook meth. I thought a bit more G rated, like get a lot of reading done.


We rolled into town in just enough time to grab a map and directory. They had gluten free fudge cookies available by donation-they must have known I was coming. We booked it, the two blocks to Art Queen gallery to catch the World Famous Crochet Museum Gospel Revival. And they revived and they sang and I felt the Lord and I felt a tremendous guilt for not crocheting more.

So feeling uncomfortable by the heat and my guilt, we moved on. We headed to Pioneer Town to have margaritas with friends at the famous Pappy and Harriets and it was filled to the brim with leather and bandanas. (and some shockingly white teeth) I guess the same weekend was a biker rally in Palm Springs. The drinks were strong and everyone was having a good time, it was jovial, but I was secretly was hoping a bar brawl was going to break out because I have always wanted to break a beer bottle over someone's head and string a sentence together that had expletives and scorned woman dialog in between the expletives, but alas, I can't do everything I have never done all at once.

Then we left, taking pictures along the way, speeding steadily towards one of the worst meals I had in 12 years.

carpocalypse-an amendment

When I moved to Los Angeles, I lived in an apartment building for a couple months and there was a caretaker who was a very chatty guy, he spent a lot of time at the Self Realization Fellowship , and liked to talk about that experience with me. I think he thought maybe it would help me in some way, to live vicariously through his spiritual wanderings. He once said to me:

"If you have an issue that is plaguing you and you cannot change that issue to your favor, maybe the only thing you can change is how you react to it."

I was reminded today that I had an original intent when writing the post Carmagideon Time . It was mainly to compare how peaceful carmageddon was to the agony it is whenever Obama comes to town. I think with the experience of Obama coming here, as a rule, in rush hour traffic made people freak out about Carmaggedon a little more than was rational.

Understandably so, Obama coming to town is a beeping, angry mess of near fatalities. Twenty minute commutes turn to hours and it is just a bunch of people sitting in tin cans not moving just getting more and more pissed off, making stupid decisions, almost hitting pedestrians with their cars, just wanting to go home.

I think that is what people expected with Carmaggedon. This, what happened today and what happened a month ago, and what will continue to happen until 2012.

Obama is never not going to come during rush hour.

At first I was angry, then I tried to beat him to my destination and when that didn't work I went to have a dinner with a friend and just let him pass by.

Thanks creepy apartment caretaker.

blogger vs blogger

I love the blogger vs blogger interview. While I am ruminating on HDTS, read the interview lala did with me. Insight perhaps, almost a full photo of my face, oh no!

Doing lala land w/ kitty cattaraugus.

Casta Diva -Maria Callas was one classy lady.

The feeling is mutual

Dear one fan of my blog,

You are very smart and attractive.

love,
kitty

Interview pre-wild west

T and I were sitting at Joe's eating a very hearty breakfast of eggs, hash browns and vegetables and I thought it was the perfect setting to do another "blogger vs blogger" interview.

I have known T for over 3 years now, and she has an amazing blog about exploring the wilds of California called Western Wilds . I have been on some of her excursions. I am referred to as K. She introduced me to tide pooling and for that I am eternally grateful. Before I get all mushy, here is our chat.

Kitty: So, what did you do today?
T: Woke up super early and took a boat to Catalina in the fog.

Kitty: See anything interesting on the way?
T: I saw a super cool Blue Whale w/ a big tail and I am totally going to write about it in my blog. (See here )

Kitty: Where are you from?
T: A little suburb outside of Detroit in the great state of Michigan.

k: Why did you move to Los Angeles?
t: (a pregnant pause) Following my man.. and to go to UCLA to be a librarian, but mainly following my man.

Her man is outside on a park bench recovering from the realization that he is not a sea person. Not a great time to find out. Especially because on the way back it is choppier. And although I was up top, because of the lack of places to sit together, I heard that a baby started a vomiting chain reaction that can only be likened to.. remember that scene with the pie eating contest in Stand By Me, we have all seen it, you know what I am talking about.

k: How long have you been writing your blog?
t: two years-she looks up in puzzlement- I can't remember. I cheated though and went back and retroactively posted. I started the blog in November of 2009, although the posts look like I started the blog in January.

k: why do you blog?
t: before the blog I would keep track of the tides and then decided to share the information w/ others. A close friend V inspired me to explore the world (in SoCal) and wanted to share that with others.

I like to show people that you can escape the city within a half a days drive.

Since starting the blog, many California explorers contact T about things she has seen. She often contributes photos of "what the heck is this" to iNaturalist which is a forum for people to share all the naturey stuff they see and help to identify naturey stuff for other people. They helped identify the 20 legged sea star we saw-which is actually called something I can't remember.

I hope she has inspired you to explore. She and I will be bringing a report to you next month-ish on Mono Lake, one of the many California state parks that they will be closing by next year due to budget cuts. See them while you can.

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Not everyone can be king of the world

Should some things remain a fantasy? When exploring, sometimes what is in your memory is way better than what it actually IS. You wonder then, would it be better left unexplored?

Catalina, for me, was a mysterious place. A place for couples and tandem bikes (they are playing songs of love but not for me...) a place, and I guess I mention it frequently, that was not sold to the US by Porfirio Diaz in that agreement of $1 million and the Brown Berets tried unsuccessfully to occupy in the 70's in the name of Aztlan, because in fact it was owned by no one. (so far from god so close to the united states)

My friend T (interview upcoming) and I bought a Groupon for a half off boat trip and seized our chance to explore this place we both wanted to visit since moving here from our respective places in the middle west. To this place, our fantasy island.

Our boat ride was an hour and forty five minutes, for me a pleasureful journey, because there is nothing I love more than staring into the expanse of the ocean and feeling so insignificant a speck. We passed flotillas of birds, departing planes and were greeted by a Blue Whale who kept us at a safe distance. I missed the fluke w/ my camera. I sat huddled in my hoodie, with a cup of coffee as dolphins welcomed us to the island.

We landed/ported, we walked into town and tried to find a place to eat and we settled on Joe's, where they serve drinks in waxy dixie cups so the tourist population (TP) doesn't cut themselves. I listened as the May-December international romance, tried to decide my nationality. They decided w/o asking that I am Lithuanian and my eyes are green. Curse my amazing hearing.


Next stop, Catalina Conservancy to find tide pool sites (there are none) and other nature goodness we could stumble onto in the short time we were on the Island of Catalina. Our only option was a hike up to the Wrigley Memorial and botanical gardens. A hike where we choked on exhaust from the many golf carts that passed.

I learned many things in this place, like the previous post on what can kill you and what can save your life. What an endemic is and that there is nowhere you can go within walking distance that you can truly feel alone.

In the end Catalina is just a touristy beach town, with its sand dollar key chains, palatable food and a place where you can get a "my boyfriend went to Catalina Island and all he got me was this t-shirt", t-shirt.

Maybe it should have stayed in my memory as this place for lovers and revolutionaries.

intermission

While I get my posts together, enjoy this tidbit I learned while in Catalina.

you can make poison darts.

you can drink this when you are thirsty

don't get them confused.

ask miss kitty

This is for the men out there going on dates tonight. I think it is because you do not know, so I am here to provide a service.

1. Do not talk about porn on the first date

2. Do not ask if their hair color is natural

3. Negging won't get you anywhere, it makes you look like an asshole.

4. Do not say "do you know who you remind me of? (fill in name and description of bitchy character in a movie)

5. Never ask if your date has ever considered plastic surgery

There, if you can remember these five you are already ahead.

smartsexyfunnywomendating

My friends have heard my dating stories as of late, the bad ones, the ones that make me laugh hard. And I of course being the great story teller I am, make them laugh along with me. I had a brief stint in online dating, I met some great people doing really cool things, but there wasn't a connection with a lot of them or they didn't have a connection with me. I had a few socially awkward guys, guys who never had girlfriends before I think. I also had some right assholes.

The best email I received was:

"So, you are from the Midwest, I am surprised you are not fat. You're pretty, I have seen better, but yet you have a certain look about you."

The funny thing was that I got that email on Valentine's Day, after work, two hours before I went to see a Mortified reading. I should have gotten up on stage.

The best comment I had on a date was:

"It seems that you have lived a sheltered life, but at least you have good taste in music."

This from a guy from a small town in Colorado where everyone thinks the same. (that were his words, not me being snarky)

My friends say, "you should start a dating blog" and the funny thing is that I already did. I started it with a group of singlesmartsexywomen, and slowly it just wittled down to just me. I know what I think and that being my 3rd blog, I decided to let it go. I also decided that it would be a bit daunting for anyone who dated me. Would they feel pressured by the blog?

So here it is Twominusone

Too bad I never got to share the story of me being offered the leftovers from a romantic dinner an ex had with his new lady. She got the lobster, I got the booty call.

smartsexyfunnywomenwriting

In another case of smartsexyfunnywomenwriting, here is another blog you may fancy.

Hirzegovina

It is about bikes/music/life/not sleeping/LA/boys not men/art and all the stuff we think about but don't write down.

Enjoy!

Just love this work from Maurizio Anzeri, thanks for the tip Miss hirzegovina

We all float

I made a vow that this summer would be different, I would go to the beach more. I would be in my swimsuit more, I would actually try to make this pale skin of mine turn a color, I would get freckles, I would bury my feet in the sand, I would smell sweetly like coppertone.

I was in my swimsuit twice this summer. (see pictured) both times were very memorable. both times made me happy.

The first was for my birthday, when we rented a mid-century modern house and I locked myself in w/ the greatest friends a person can have and we ate, and swam, floated and sang and schemed. The second, that I will not go into here, just know that it was memorable and still continues to be...

I think I was tricked by LA, as we just finished what is usually the hottest month, a month where I could go to the beach free from the throngs of the Tourist Population (or the TP as we have begun to call them) I am huddled in my hoody drinking tea.

Summer definitely came to an end here this time. A sudden shocking end. It got too cold to wear my swimsuit. And now I'll have to wait until next year.

Wrong. (on the cheap)

If you aren't aware, this weekend marks the kick off of Pacific Standard Time all around the SoCal area. Sunday is also free, so if you don't take advantage of it, it is completely your fault.

And they event have free shuttles going from museum to museum, so again, no excuse.

Asco exhibit=free
3 Getty exhibits=free
Eames exhibit @ A+D= free (did you know Ice Cube is a big collector of Eames furniture, well know you know)
Mexican Modernism in LA=free

Scroll down the website to free admission and see all the wonderful FREE.

I promise it will be great.

Her beauty was matched

The Hammer is a strangely quiet place on a Thursday for it being free. I didn't even have to through my free card out, I tried but was greeted by a very joyful store clerk that said.

"You don't even have to show your _____ i.d., the Hammer is always free on Thursdays"

I smiled and was on my way to catch the Ed Ruscha -On the Road exhibit, that I have been meaning to see since the beginning of summer.

I was one of 4 people in the gallery and the only noise was a female security guard clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth to catch the attention of a male security guard. It definitely echoed in the gallery. I would say for dramatic effect I put on "take 5" by brubeck to drown out their audible flirting, but my ipod was out of battery and I am not that pretentious.

I don't know what draws me so much to Ed Ruscha, maybe it is because text to me is as beautiful as the other art forms, maybe because I am daft and need to have things spelled out. THIS IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT. That isn't what Ruscha does, he finds beauty in shapes and loves the word [SO] and the work of Jack Kerouac, who was so influential during that time- a lumberjack kid from Mass. who helped to change writing so that writing had rhythm and sound. I can see why these two people work they both cross[ed] art forms so effortlessly.

If I would have known before what it was, I would have sat and read a book that changed my perspective when I was a teenager with a bunch of strangers that probably had the same thing happen to them. They were packed into Libro Schmibros passing On the Road around, and I just saw PACKED and went on my merry way.

Besides, I had other plans.

Exhibit ends this Sunday the 2nd of October.

Libro Schmibros closes on the 9th of October-I have to go back, their misson sounds fantastic.

Note: While there be sure to catch the 18 minute movie Octopus by Yoshua Okon.

carmagideon time

The ability to freak out over small things is something that really amazes me about Los Angeles. Every moment, especially a bad moment, is something that snowballs to something truly preposterous. I am talking about carmageddon, and had I had the internet, I would have written about it sooner.

It was national news this minor shut down of the 405, if I remember correctly Diane Sawyer warned about a traffic jam so great that it would be a stand still all the way to Mexico. People were freaked out and we even had a nickname for our impending doom CARMAGGEDON, although I prefered Carpocalypse, but no one asked me. For weeks people lamented their condition and I actually thought people thought that the world would in fact end.

It didn't end, it was quiet, it was nice and people stuck to their hoods and had bbqs and talked about how tame this whole thing was, and people danced on the 405, set up a dining room table and ate with friends. Turning something we all loathe into something kind of special.

It reminded me of this thing called National Night Out, that although is national is probably only celebrated in Minnesota and Texas. My friend Jira would put together DJs and bands shut down his street and we would all eat and talk and dance watch graffiti artists do their thing on a Tuesday night. His neighbors would come and we would all talk about minneapolis and how great summer was and I got to know people I probably would have never talked to. The magic of shutting down your block and getting to know your neighbors.

For this carmaggedon I just did what I do every weekend, headed up to echo park on a train, free this time, and was grill bitch, and cooked and laughed and ate with friends

See nothing to worry about LA. I hope it happens every year.

bus blog-huh?

"you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, here, I drew a cartoon of you"

303

I am working on not living out of boxes, in my tiny studio in Koreatown. I wonder when I will stop having the lines of the Neko Case's song "In California" stuck in my head.

"Now I am living in Koreatown, waking to the sound of car alarms"

(as I write this she is probably prepping for her show at the Hollywood Bowl tonight.)

I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to live alone. I sing a lot more and have a lot of solo punk rock dance parties. Which I feel were both missing from my life before.

I live in a 1920's old residence hotel and it is nice to think that maybe some aspiring someone lived in this room and at night would head over to the Ambassador's Coconut Grove to get discovered, like Norma Jean. This is Los Angeles old school. The Los Angeles, I would have rather lived in, but I will take this LA instead. Maybe all this nostalgia of what once was is my impetus for reading a biography of Greta Garbo.

People in this space are still aspiring, I hear people reading their sides at night and prepare auditions for the Voice, by the way I don't think she will make it.

So here I am navigating a new area of LA again and documenting it for all of you.

clense

It has been a while since I have written, I am up to my eyeballs in boxes, spackling holes I didn't put in walls, going through my things, tossing, keeping, sifting through the flotsam and jetsam of relationships gone awry.

I thought about all the things I want to say/write and just when I have the time to say them, I am moving to a place with upgraded U-verse wires and I cannot get internet service until September 6th. It is going to be hard since the internet is like crack.

Maybe this is the time I go on the technology cleanse I have been talking about since July.

No facebook

No internet

No google +

None of my 4 email addresses that I have

No Nook

No checking in

No finding out about exhibits, just going

No blogging

Only phone calls and perhaps a text for all of the voice shy people I meet/know.

Until the 6th I guess.

LA nature

This little guy hung out at my yard sale for a while. And I watched a praying mantis eat the head off a fly. Who knew I had so much nature in my front grass patch.

inter museum relations

The thing I love about my job, which is one among many, is that I get the opportunity to see some exhibits before a lot of other people can. I can attend gallery talks and be one of 25 people who get to listen to a curator or artist talk about their or their mentor's art work.

I did get the chance to see the new Dino Hall exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles the evening before it opened to the public. Some inter museum relations a la Dino Dance Party. I am not much of a dancer (the psychic even agreed) and luckily the rest of the museum was open, so while everyone was shaking their tail feather I got to wander around and see the exhibits almost completely alone. Which is my version of heaven.

I hadn't been to this museum before and probably wouldn't have searched it out since I like museums of a more art based kind. That is really too bad because I would have totally missed out on the fabulous dioramas of African and North American Mammals, which are very much like art pieces, but features real, but long since deceased animals of far off or not so far of lands. (The white tailed deer, black bear and otter made me homesick)

This was before PETA and in the early 1900's where people would think:

"I would really like that in my museum"

BANG BANG!!

"Now this animal is in my museum"

(Which I would like to mention is conjecture by me)

What I was most impressed by was the production value of each diorama. The shadows of the sands of the Sahara Desert, hoof prints in sand (I can imagine them dancing stiff animals around to do that), ice bergs that look 3 dimensional and floating, darkness, light, chimps picking bugs out of their loved ones hair. Watching a giraffe drink, hilarious.

Plus there is always the Honey Badger, I was looking at him and he doesn't scare, because you know he don't give a fuck.

If you want to see how they create each diorama they have a youtube channel you can access through their website, which I have already linked to above. It really is an amazing process and maybe some of them aren't as old as you think they are.

I thought this installation was a bit funny, which is called something like the animals of backyard LA. My camera couldn't capture all of it, but what is in this diorama is a coyote with a dead house cat in its mouth, a swimming pool, a house mouse, one of those wild parrots and the LA skyline. My picture is a bit blurry, but consider the blurriness to be a little bit o' smog

Admission is $12 for adults.

Bad touch

(or "I just got off of work")

For some reason strangers like to touch me. I don't know what it is about me that is so very inviting. (impatient person's Amma perhaps?)

In Minneapolis while in a very full cafe talking to a friend a very drunk man sat at my table and started sucking on my fingers. I was saved by a gutter punk named Simon. (Thank you wherever you are)

On the way to celebrate my 5 year anniversary of living here, I was stopped on the street by a man who came up to me and stroked my cheek and said "You are very pretty. What are you doing right now? I just got off of work." Then he pointed to his guitar case and sleeping bag resting against the wall of the new Trader Joe's on Vine near Sunset.

"I didn't say you could touch me." I replied to him.

I don't know that at that point he had realized what he had done, or if no one had ever responded to his drunken touch in that way. He stopped following me.

This last one that I am going to relate is a story I have been repeating a lot these days.

I was walking the last half a block home one day, listening to my ipod, lost in thought when suddenly I feel someone grab a giant handful of my ass. A stranger, he continued on route on his bicycle, never stopping, never having to adjust his center of gravity, just kept going like nothing had happened. I stood there aghast. I wasn't sure whether to be angry or impressed. That must have taken a lot of practice.

In the end I told him to Fuck off, but I don't think he could hear me.

Conversation overhead

El Rey bathroom @ Foster the People

Line starts to extend out the door

"sucks to be women" man says on the way to the men's

"but we are prettier." replies girl 1

"and we have better clothes" says girl 2

LA=Bliss

Solstice #2

There is a place with buzzing so deafening that there isn't room for the sound of your thoughts in your head.

A bird that sounds like radar coming closer, beep, beep, beep

The prospector's house isn' t actually all that haunted and the prospector wasn't a prospector after all, just a man with a dream.

Then there is that house with the

1,

2,

3,

4,

5,

fireplaces next to a waterfall

that ultimately burnt to the ground.