Swimming in Circles Under a Wide Open Sky

I first visited the West Hollywood municipal pool - where you pay $3 and bring your own towel to an open-air pool practically in the middle of San Vicente, amidst construction, traffic, and playground children - a couple weeks ago while housesitting for friends nearby, forgetting to bring a towel and sunscreen. Of course it's the opposite of what I'm used to swimming in in New York: neither a hotel pool nor a fitness club pool with amenities like lockers, it's a city pool, in Los Angeles.

In a city where nearly everyone seems to have access to a backyard or rooftop pool, I've been having a hard time finding a place to swim laps, an activity that has always brought me relief and solace, throughout stressful work and unemployment alike. I need to be swimming now, tightrope-walking the line between the two, not worrying so much now, but knowing I'll probably have to start worrying later.

I'm not a fast or a strong swimmer, relegated to the "SLOW" lane in speed-segregated lap sessions, but I've always swum with grace and precision, never splashing my neighbor, never gasping for air or littering the communal bathtub with my spittle, as many swimmers do.

But somehow, in this great expanse of a public pool, under that great big California sky, I appear a histrionic athlete plunged into foreign waters, gesticulating wildly as I attempt to gather my bearings. While facing upwards attempting the backstroke, I cannot swim in a straight line.

A couple weeks ago, I thought perhaps I was being blinded by that California sun, raging above in the noontime hour, searing my retinas through my tinted goggles and burning my unprotected nose. But tonight, I arrived shortly before closing time, when the sun was no longer visible in the sky, but its rays still shone longwise from the west, golden and glimmering, soft and amber, illuminating but fading. I watched as the marker flags flapped and reflected, first the day's final glow, then the evening's first flicker of white bulb set in metal cone on metal rod, a harsh, inelegant, contrasting means of lighting the park at night. They sent no flares my way, no glare to astound or bewilder or disorient. I wasn't squinting. My eyes were wide open.

So why could I not swim even remotely straight?

It occurs to me that I'm used to swimming predominantly indoors, save for a few splashes at the beach or at a Palm Springs swim club. When I'm really seriously swimming (and not leisurely paddling or bobbing or splashing or swirling), I'm used to being in an enclosure, with a ceiling at which to stare, its tiles and lines and marks and scars and lights and beams guiding my path from one end of the pool to the other.

So what do I do, when I look up, and all I see is blue?

Apparently, I flap like an oil-soaked seabird.

I try swimming next to the lane dividers, guiding my hand along it with every turn of a stroke, but my body starts to creep under the line, into the other lane, and thereby into the other swimmers. I veer violently in the other direction, overcorrecting my path and nearly clocking my cranium on the concrete wall instead.

I consider not doing the backstroke at all, but my arms get too tired doing the breaststroke the whole time, so I persist.

In an empty lane, I'm allowed to be as frenetic as I wish, but on a night light tonight, I have to be considerate to share the lane. Despite my ridiculous appearance, I continue to try to swim in a style most would consider unnatural since it is, by nature, backwards. I hold my head up and peer down my body towards my feet, in the opposite direction from where I'm going, towards the curious face of the swimmer behind me waiting to launch off the wall. I try to maintain a straight course. I briefly glance at the sky, and then try to tip my head all the way back to see behind me, in the direction of my approach, but my neck cranes to no avail and my ears flood with muffled waves. I try to swim straight but I know I'm weaving like a drunk driver on the Sunset Strip at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. I anticipate being pulled over, but even the lifeguards aren't policing proper swimming technique in this pool, which is about to shut down for the night and be covered by huge rolls of blue plastic tarps until the morning, when the blinding sun makes its triumphant return, and I have an excuse again for swimming with a total lack of sense of direction.

Evening falls before I can figure it out. The sky's daytime blue has shifted to dusk-ridden gray, a discolored pallor from the city's pervasive light pollution. I pull myself out of the water and into the evening's air with its newfound chill, wrap myself in the dark blue towel I brought myself, and walk a straight path into the locker room, where I can see where I'm going the entire way, down Melrose to my apartment, where I've learned to call home.

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Photo Essay: Taste of the Nation LA 2011

I've spent the last two days pretty much in bed or in the bathroom, writhing in pain, since I woke up Friday morning with food poisoning from dining out the night before.

I lost eight pounds in one day.

I think I lost my mind a little too.

But by the time I got sick, I'd already bought a ticket to today's Taste of the Nation event in Culver City, and despite my weakened constitution, I decided to go anyway.

Last year I'd pigged out with friends at the Wine & Food Festival in New York and had a grand ol' time, so I figured I'd go to a similar event in LA (OK, Culver City) to schmooze with chefs, bartenders, mixologists, and fellow foodies. After all, these are my people!

I arrived con gusto but could only really eat for a third of the event's duration, and then sat against a tree groaning. I'd eaten at least a nibble of every dish I'd taken, but if I didn't absolutely love it, I threw the rest out (causing enormous feelings of guilt since the whole point of the event was to raise money to end childhood hunger).

I sipped many cocktails but finished none.

And when I'd had my fill, I went home to recuperate.

Here are some of the highlights of the day:


Lamb terrine from Comme Ça


Cold beet & scallop* from Simon LA
(*looked pretty but my poisoned stomach could not handle cold seafood)


Lamb pop w/fava reduction* from LA Market
*favorite




Toasts from Church & State


Fattoush salad* from Lucques/AOC/Tavern
(*not a good representation of what these guys can do, was good but seemed too simple for the event)


Octopus lettuce wrap "taco" w/coriander flower from Tres / The Bazaar by Jose Andres


Egg toast w/olive tapenade & tomato from Campanile


Lamb slider from Go Burger


Highland Park Swizzle by Bols Genever


Rice Pudding* from Craft
(*I didn't actually eat it but it looked great)


Chicken pops* from Lukshon/Father's Office
(*I didn't actually eat it but it looked great)


Rabbit Rillettes from Le Saint Amour


Kaya toast* from Susan Feniger's Street
(*this was a somewhat deconstructed version of what you get in her restaurant, still very good)


Quinoa crabcake from Border Grill


Grilled cheese on raisin nut bread* from Foundry on Melrose**
*favorite
**most boisterous booth, with lots of bell-ringing


Paloma


Beef & pork "bolognese" (aka sloppy joe) from Short Order*
(*coming soon to the Hollywood Farmer's Market)


Chocolate pudding "donut" from Fonuts


Key lime pie cupcake* from Sprinkles
*favorite

I'm back in my apartment, writhing in pain, wondering if I should've stayed in bed today instead. But I never want to be left asking, "What does it taste like??" And now I know, even if all I got was just a taste...of a lot of different bites.

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What Have I Become?

A few weeks ago, I was off on an adventure with a new LA friend, and we were using the drive time to get to know each other better.

"Well," I said. "I'm a totally different person now than I was five years ago."

"Really?" he asked, perplexed. I don't think he could imagine me as anything other than what I am.

"Yeah, I mean, some elements are the same - in some ways I feel like I've reverted back to the smart girl I was in high school - but five years ago, I was all about the party."

I then began to enumerate some of the most important things in my life, all of which rose to prevalence in the last five years:

• My blog, 2006
• Architecture and urban exploration and historic preservation, 2006
• The desert, 2007
• Photography, 2008 (though that was the advent of digital photography in my life; 35mm came two years before)
• Hiking, 2009

Just to name a few.

I explained that, in 2006 and before, I was equally obsessed with not missing out on things, but at the time, the thing I was most desperate to not miss out on was, as I call it now, "the party." I turned down invitations for daytrips and road trips and weekend excursions in favor of open bar parties and accidental sleepovers because I was afraid to miss out on New York City nightlife and all that comes with it - drama, romance, excitement, spontaneity, danger.

It seems ridiculous to me now, all the time I wasted sitting in bars alone, waiting for cabs out in the snow, falling asleep on the subway with pizza sauce dribbled on my winter coat, using its fur collar as a pillow.

But in those years that I began reinventing myself, evolving, experiencing a crisis of my existence, I also went through some necessary trauma: ceasing communication with my parents, quitting my job, losing one of the loves of my life and enduring two years' of subsequent celibacy...

I can say now I'm better now for it. I'll always hold onto that part of me that I call "Party Sandi," who relishes a birthday, wedding reception, film premiere, or awards banquet, but I've allowed parts of me to emerge that I never thought existed, or could exist.

Five years ago, if you'd have asked me to go on a hike, or tell me about some cool place that you can only hike to, I would've said, "Uck, who'd want to do that?"

And now, you know what? I would. I want to do that.

Related:
Am I the Same Girl?
A New Version of Me?
Spare Some Change
Put the blame on me, if you want to...

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Taking the First Chance I Get: Angeles Crest (Sorta) Reopens

Last summer when I was housesitting in Highland Park, one of the adventures I tried to take was to drive all the way up the Angeles Crest Highway to Wrightwood, a boyhood road trip for which one of my friends was nostalgic.



I didn't get very far. Little did I know, a good portion of this epic highway had been closed as a result of the 2009 station fire.

Nearly a year later, now that I actually live in LA, I kept hearing rumors about the reopening of the Angeles Crest Highway, but there had already been a few false alarms, so I was doubtful. Then, when I went hiking in the Angeles National Forest, I actually drove on a section of it, but I had to take a roundabout way to get there, rather than the direct access via La Cañada Flintridge.

But on Friday, the Angeles Crest Highway reportedly was going to open, all the way, from La Cañada to Wrightwood, giving me a second chance at my adventure.



Shortly before 10 a.m.I arrived at the entrance, the spot where I'd reached a blockade a year before, and was greeted again by workers, trucks, barricades, signs, cones, etc. I joined a horde of bikers and cyclists, waiting to gain entry, as the workers began slowly removing sandbags and sweeping up their spilled contents.

And then they flagged me down, and waved me in.

"Go slow," they warned. "There are a lot of bicycles. Don't pass nobody."

The drive started out at a crawl's pace, congested with other looky-loo's taking their sweet time to gawk at the mountains, the landscape, the scenery, to allow themselves to be distracted by the beauty.

I don't know where they went. Maybe they turned around. Maybe they slowed down. Maybe they drove off the shoulder. But soon, I was all alone out there, the reckless speeding bikers having passed me by.

I sped along the new blacktop, shiny and slippery, my wheels squeaking sidelong as I rounded each bend, going close enough to the speed limit but feeling so much faster, slithering to and fro like a sidewinder in the sand.



I reached an unrestored section of the Crest, its well-weathered pavement rumbling deep like the many other California highways familiar to me...



...past Newcomb's Ranch, a biker stop where I bought my annual Adventure Pass...



...as the road continued to turn and turn...



...and as the elevation passed 4000 ft, 50000 ft, 6000 ft, the trees became sparser...



...and sparser...



...until once again, I was halted.



Just past Snow Crest, west of Big Pine - and not walking distance to Wrightwood, my ultimate destination - I reached another barricade: a silent, lone truck manned by a silent, lone worker, head hanging over some work or some light reading on the hood of his vehicle.

I sat in my car for a minute, incredulous that I'd made it this far only to have my trip thwarted again.

I got out of my car and approached.

"Hi there," I said.

He looked up. A long pause. "...Hi....?"

"So what's up?"

Nothing.

"It's closed??!"

"Yeah, it's closed."

Aghast, I lit into him. "But all the signs say it's open all the way to Wrightwood!"

"What signs?"

"ALL of them, from the beginning of the highway. All the ones that tell you which routes are open or closed!"

"Well, it seems like we must have a little breakdown in communication, because we're still working on this part, and it's closed. Might be this afternoon, I don't know."

I looked at my watch, and at 11:30a - having left the house at 9 and waited 20 minutes for the opening ceremony - I couldn't imagine waiting around (how many?) hours just in case it might open.

So, defeated, I turned around and went back.

Granted, I got to see a lot of the Angeles Crest, and experience the glory that thrill-seekers revel in. And for much of my ride, I was alone, after passing Pacific Crest Trail hikers with their walking sticks, out there in the mountains, distracted by the beauty of the scenery.



If you're really paying attention, you'll be reminded of what happened there two years ago...



...and what could easily happen again...



...which is why I had to go on Friday, on Opening Day, even though there was a chance (and the reality) that the entire highway wasn't ready to be opened.

Better that, than not get there before another wildfire or another storm destroys the Crest again.

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Reaching Full Potential

"Hello, this is Sandi?" I answered, as I always do when I don't recognize the number on my cell phone.

"Hi! This is Diana from Enterprise. Good news! It looks like AAA has approved you for a minivan rental!"

"Ugh, do I have to get a minivan?" I asked. What am I, a housewife? How would I park the thing in LA? Fill it with gas? Drive it to hikes?

I was peeved I was being separated from my own car at all, but I didn't have a choice after a chain reaction accident pushed two parked cars into the rear of my parked car last Sunday, in front of my apartment, while I slept.

After I dropped my bruised and battered Honda Fit off at the auto body shop this morning, and hitched a ride to Enterprise to pick up my rental car to cover me while my car's in the shop, I had nearly the same conversation.

"Do I have to get a minivan?" I asked. "Can't I downgrade?"

Brian at the counter looked outside and saw only minivans and SUVs available, save for one car. "Would you rather have a convertible at the same rate?"

I paused. I don't love convertibles, because I hate wind.

"Yeah, OK."

I've rented convertibles before, begrudgingly, but I've never driven them with the top down. But the problem with driving convertibles with the top up is that it's claustrophobic in there, and the sight lines - on the sides, and through the rear - are horrible. Add to that a long car body than I'm used to driving, and I'm a menace behind the wheel of an unconverted convertible.

Given that, I decided to put the top down today.

After all, what's the point of driving a convertible at all if you're not going to let it do what it's meant to do? To live up to its full potential?

And you know what? It was windy. But it drove like a dream. And as my hair whipped around my head, out of its ponytail, I was glad I'd given it a chance.

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A Simple Purpose

When my friends mentioned their trip to Hawaii, but lamented that their dogsitter might not be able to help them out this time, I jumped to volunteer.

"Really? You'd be willing to stay over for a week?" they asked.

Their surprise surprised me. "Yes of course! Why wouldn't I?" After all, I'd stayed with them twice last year while I was living in NYC and looking for a job in LA. I'd fallen in love with their dog, and at the time, had gotten so spoiled by their gorgeous section of West Hollywood, I was afraid my expectations of my potential quality of life in LA had been set too high.

Now I live just a few blocks away. Even if I needed to go back to my apartment for any reason during the week staying in West Hollywood, I could just walk there.

And the fact is, it's not like staying somewhere else for a week is really interrupting my routine much. I'd barely settled into my apartment during my first three months in LA when the rug was pulled out from under me, routine rendered topsy-turvy, suddenly eliminating my reason to get up in the morning. Without a job to go to, I found days slipping away from me, spent in front of a laptop, or accomplishing mundane errands like getting gas, groceries, copies made, etc. (which, because of traffic and sprawl, does take forever in LA).

So at least now, for a week, I have to structure my day around very simple assignments: walk the dog, who stares at me expectantly and licks my face sometime after 6 a.m., feed him and the cat, walk the dog again sometime after 6 p.m., and feed them again. Snuggle. Praise. Love.

It's kind of nice to have a creature depending on me, to have the feeling that what I'm doing is important (though not complicated).

I'm a selfish person, and if I'm going to have to be living in LA jobless, I'm going to do selfish things like hike and swim and visit new cafes and flirt with new cute bartenders. Maybe I'll find a place to volunteer. Maybe I'll find a way (finally) to help people.

But in the meantime, this little doggie looks like he needs to be pet.

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Photo Essay: Murphy Ranch in Rustic Canyon (Updated for 2021)

Update 9/11/21 2:11 PM PT—I'm not 100% sure of the status of some of these structures, as I haven't been able to get down there and see them for myself. 

circa 2011

Unfortunately, it's been confirmed that the Paul R. Williams-designed gate (made of wrought iron and stone pillars, anchored by a long stone wall) was removed without notice in 2016. 

circa 2011

In 2011 and 2012, it was intact.

circa 2011

But time and foot traffic had not been kind to the gate, which became increasingly tagged and unstable by the time of my last visit in 2014.

circa 2014

Whether any of it was salvaged is currently unknown. And I have heard from reliable sources that some of the other ruins at Murphy Ranch have also been razed or removed. I'll update this post when I have a definite confirmation.

In the meantime, here's my original post from 2011:

When I heard that there was a mysterious, graffitied, abandoned building hidden in Rustic Canyon, near the Rustic Canyon Trail I couldn't find during my hike from Will Rogers into Topanga, I knew I had to go.

Photo Essay: Griffith Park's Beacon Hill Loop

This week I had the chance to explore the easternmost boundary of Griffith Park, which overlooks neighboring Glendale and Eagle Rock, as well as the 5 freeway and the Los Angeles River (most notably, the Glendale Narrows soft-bottom section).



It wouldn't be the most interesting hike for most people, especially a Griffith Park novice or first-time visitor: Beacon Hill itself isn't much of anything, and appears early in the hike without the beacon from which it once derived its name.



But the loop trail around it was actually quite interesting to me, a budding expert on Griffith Park.

There's a lot of damage still from the 2007 fires...





...with some trees taking on wacky intertwinements and various oddball shapes...





...as well as relatively healthy-looking stumps and logs scattered about the cliffside.



Manmade structures - pipes, ladders and the like -





are interspersed with the interesting, striated geologic formations I hadn't seen elsewhere in the park...



...and a golf academy / driving range.





Some hikes have a lot to see, and some just provide a great vantage point from which to see other places.

One isn't better than the other, they're just different.

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