[Last updated 6/16/23 3:24 PM PT]
Living in LA, naturally the LA Times is a big part of the LA experience. You can't avoid it.
Circa 2017
Making up for lost time and missed opportunities, one adventure at a time.
November 15, 2012
November 14, 2012
On a Clear Day
Fall has finally hit LA, making nearly every day a good day for hiking.
But I've been a bit off my hiking kick. I haven't wanted to go alone.
The planning, the driving, the navigation, the pack and preparation are exhausting. Not to mention the distance and the elevation change.
But once I'm out there, smiling under the sun, whipping through the wind, gasping at the view, I remember why I love it, and why it's worth the climb.
On a clear day, you can see LA.
On such a clear day last weekend, I returned to the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area...
...having gotten a bit lost (as usual) the last time...
...and having been more interested in the adjacent oil history - and present - than in hitting the surprisingly complex trail system...
...which I'd finally discovered on my way out.
There's something about the light this time of year...
...at that particular time of day...
...that makes everything glow in the shadows.
There are various scenic overlooks planted atop the park...
...surrounded by sidewalks to nowhere...
...giving you a good view of the oil fields and surrounding city below.
But up there, near the Olympic Forest (named for the grove planted in commemoration of the former 1932 Olympic grounds nearby)...
...there are the trees and the shadows...
...and the sky and the trail...
...and the wind and the sun.
And for an afternoon late in the year, there needs to be nothing else.
Related Post:
Photo Essay: Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, Oil Adjacent
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
But I've been a bit off my hiking kick. I haven't wanted to go alone.
The planning, the driving, the navigation, the pack and preparation are exhausting. Not to mention the distance and the elevation change.
But once I'm out there, smiling under the sun, whipping through the wind, gasping at the view, I remember why I love it, and why it's worth the climb.
On a clear day, you can see LA.
On such a clear day last weekend, I returned to the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area...
...having gotten a bit lost (as usual) the last time...
...and having been more interested in the adjacent oil history - and present - than in hitting the surprisingly complex trail system...
...which I'd finally discovered on my way out.
There's something about the light this time of year...
...at that particular time of day...
...that makes everything glow in the shadows.
There are various scenic overlooks planted atop the park...
...surrounded by sidewalks to nowhere...
...giving you a good view of the oil fields and surrounding city below.
But up there, near the Olympic Forest (named for the grove planted in commemoration of the former 1932 Olympic grounds nearby)...
...there are the trees and the shadows...
...and the sky and the trail...
...and the wind and the sun.
And for an afternoon late in the year, there needs to be nothing else.
Related Post:
Photo Essay: Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, Oil Adjacent
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
November 11, 2012
Back to My Roots
I started a new job today.
No, it's not at another record label.
No, it's not at another tech startup.
It's at the mall.
I left my last job in July because I was on the wrong career path, having gotten sucked back into the music industry. And as the old proverb says, no matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, you must turn back, because you are on the wrong road.
So I've taken the last few months to try to figure things out. I've met lots of new people. I've interviewed for lots of new jobs. I just haven't gotten one yet.
During a recent interview for a position that didn't work out, I was asked which of my past jobs has been my favorite. I answered unequivocally: Media Play in Shoppingtown Mall, where I worked for the last two years of college. I almost stayed in Syracuse to keep working at Media Play, instead of moving to New York to start my career in music. I often wonder what would've happened if I had.
I loved the product I was selling. I loved the camaraderie of my coworkers. I loved my customers. I loved eating lunch in the food court. I loved being on my feet all day. I loved meeting new people all the time.
So when all of my current prospects for full-time work seemed to be put on hold until at least the new year - something recruiters warned me would happen with the recent election and upcoming holidays - I went back to my roots and started filling out applications for seasonal retail work at the mall.
I'd done this once before, back in Queens when I was financially desperate, and not sure I would ever be able to move to LA. Two years ago, nobody wanted to hire me. Maybe my overqualification was too daunting for them. Maybe they were too overwhelmed by local high school and college students for hire. I, a college graduate with over 12 years of experience, could not get hired anywhere in New York.
But this time, I applied to work at my favorite clothing store at the mall walking distance from my apartment, was called into an interview shortly thereafter, and was hired on the spot.
And the most bizarre thing happened: I looked forward to going to work.
Today was my first day back on my feet, back in the mall, and the time flew. I'd been reticent to tell anyone about the part-time work I'd picked up - including past employers whose references are usually necessary for hiring - but once I started the job, I wasn't embarrassed. I felt at home.
It's not every day. It's not forever. It's not a career. But for right now, in the holiday season, with decorations hung and Christmas tunes in the overhead, it is the right road for me to be on.
And - having already explored so many of the crevices of LA in the last two years - it gives me something to do.
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
No, it's not at another record label.
No, it's not at another tech startup.
It's at the mall.
I left my last job in July because I was on the wrong career path, having gotten sucked back into the music industry. And as the old proverb says, no matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, you must turn back, because you are on the wrong road.
So I've taken the last few months to try to figure things out. I've met lots of new people. I've interviewed for lots of new jobs. I just haven't gotten one yet.
During a recent interview for a position that didn't work out, I was asked which of my past jobs has been my favorite. I answered unequivocally: Media Play in Shoppingtown Mall, where I worked for the last two years of college. I almost stayed in Syracuse to keep working at Media Play, instead of moving to New York to start my career in music. I often wonder what would've happened if I had.
I loved the product I was selling. I loved the camaraderie of my coworkers. I loved my customers. I loved eating lunch in the food court. I loved being on my feet all day. I loved meeting new people all the time.
So when all of my current prospects for full-time work seemed to be put on hold until at least the new year - something recruiters warned me would happen with the recent election and upcoming holidays - I went back to my roots and started filling out applications for seasonal retail work at the mall.
I'd done this once before, back in Queens when I was financially desperate, and not sure I would ever be able to move to LA. Two years ago, nobody wanted to hire me. Maybe my overqualification was too daunting for them. Maybe they were too overwhelmed by local high school and college students for hire. I, a college graduate with over 12 years of experience, could not get hired anywhere in New York.
But this time, I applied to work at my favorite clothing store at the mall walking distance from my apartment, was called into an interview shortly thereafter, and was hired on the spot.
And the most bizarre thing happened: I looked forward to going to work.
Today was my first day back on my feet, back in the mall, and the time flew. I'd been reticent to tell anyone about the part-time work I'd picked up - including past employers whose references are usually necessary for hiring - but once I started the job, I wasn't embarrassed. I felt at home.
It's not every day. It's not forever. It's not a career. But for right now, in the holiday season, with decorations hung and Christmas tunes in the overhead, it is the right road for me to be on.
And - having already explored so many of the crevices of LA in the last two years - it gives me something to do.
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
Damaged Goods, Or, The Female James Bond
Oops, I did it again.
I seem to have broken another heart.
I didn't mean to. I thought I was giving him a fair chance by letting him kiss me, something not enough people have tried to do lately. And lucky for me, he was a good kisser, so I let him kiss me again.
It didn't mean anything. A kiss was just a kiss.
Well, at least, to me.
But it turns out, it did mean something to him, and the fact that I didn't reciprocate his desperation to lock lips again (and to be in contact daily by multiple forms of communication via social media, phone, and txt) hurt him.
He says I must break a lot of hearts.
I'm baffled that anything meant something to a guy.
After all, I'm damaged goods.
Nothing - much less just a kiss - ever meant anything to the guys in my romantic past. Once, many years ago, I was on a road trip that happened to include a guy I'd actually dated and his new wife, who asked me how I knew her husband. I made up some story, and then confronted him later, asking, "How could you not tell her how we know each other?" He said, "I didn't think it was important."
I took that to mean that he didn't think I was important. I still think that's true.
My acceptance of these heartbreaks has become so commonplace after nearly 20 years of dating that I've come to expect them. In my older, wiser years, I no longer pine after those who once touched me so tenderly, brushing a hand against my cheek or the hair away from my face, and then disappeared or, worse yet, turned against me. I no longer question the guy who stole one of my hair elastics from me as a souvenir one night and then, not so many nights later, shouted at me, "I'm not interested in you, OK?!"
I recently met a guy who professed his passion for hiking and exploring LA, and promised to accompany me on one of my adventures. I laughed at him. When he asked why, I said, "Because I don't believe you." He then protested - too much - and demanded I put him to the test, swearing he would hang out with me the very next day.
Of course, although I invited him, he did not. He proved me right. I gleaned a certain satisfaction from that.
I think this pervasive dysfunction has tainted me for any of the few freakish exceptions out there who do form quick, perhaps genuine attachments through conversation and innocent physical contact. Their infatuation seems ridiculous to me, unbelievable, laughable. They seem clingy, needy, naive, immature, feminine, delusional. Whatever they're experiencing can't possibly be real. They must be convoluting our times together into some kind of fantasy togetherness.
I recoil.
What's wrong with them? I wonder.
But perhaps the real question is: what's wrong with me?
Why has my well been so poisoned? Why have I lost all hope? How have I adapted so adeptly to a situation which is so unsatisfying and makes me so unhappy?
Then again, I'm not as unhappy now as I once was, agonizing over unreturned calls, unrequited love. I've learned to move on gracefully, and sacrifice the love I might have for the sake of my own sanity.
And so, I must ask: if I am merely taking on a more masculine approach to love and sex, is there anything really wrong with me at all? Aren't I merely mirroring the behavior that I constantly encounter?
With the release of the critically-acclaimed new volume in the James Bond saga, Skyfall, the media has questioned why - after 50 years - Hollywood has been unable to create or conjure an equivalent female character. One blog suggested it was because women "don't bang just for the fun of it."
Don't they? Ever?
I can't be the only one.
In my attempts at seizing the day, occasionally I am inclined to seize a hand or a face or a pair of lips or some other satisfying bit of anatomy. I'm lonely in this city. I've been on my own for a long time, with no end in sight.
I've learned to live without promises. So I'm not making any of my own right now.
If you don't crowd me, suffocate me, smother me - and just live for today - I'll come around. I'll learn to believe you.
But you can't force it.
Related Posts:
Of the Brokenhearted
Could I Love?
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
I seem to have broken another heart.
I didn't mean to. I thought I was giving him a fair chance by letting him kiss me, something not enough people have tried to do lately. And lucky for me, he was a good kisser, so I let him kiss me again.
It didn't mean anything. A kiss was just a kiss.
Well, at least, to me.
But it turns out, it did mean something to him, and the fact that I didn't reciprocate his desperation to lock lips again (and to be in contact daily by multiple forms of communication via social media, phone, and txt) hurt him.
He says I must break a lot of hearts.
I'm baffled that anything meant something to a guy.
After all, I'm damaged goods.
Nothing - much less just a kiss - ever meant anything to the guys in my romantic past. Once, many years ago, I was on a road trip that happened to include a guy I'd actually dated and his new wife, who asked me how I knew her husband. I made up some story, and then confronted him later, asking, "How could you not tell her how we know each other?" He said, "I didn't think it was important."
I took that to mean that he didn't think I was important. I still think that's true.
My acceptance of these heartbreaks has become so commonplace after nearly 20 years of dating that I've come to expect them. In my older, wiser years, I no longer pine after those who once touched me so tenderly, brushing a hand against my cheek or the hair away from my face, and then disappeared or, worse yet, turned against me. I no longer question the guy who stole one of my hair elastics from me as a souvenir one night and then, not so many nights later, shouted at me, "I'm not interested in you, OK?!"
I recently met a guy who professed his passion for hiking and exploring LA, and promised to accompany me on one of my adventures. I laughed at him. When he asked why, I said, "Because I don't believe you." He then protested - too much - and demanded I put him to the test, swearing he would hang out with me the very next day.
Of course, although I invited him, he did not. He proved me right. I gleaned a certain satisfaction from that.
I think this pervasive dysfunction has tainted me for any of the few freakish exceptions out there who do form quick, perhaps genuine attachments through conversation and innocent physical contact. Their infatuation seems ridiculous to me, unbelievable, laughable. They seem clingy, needy, naive, immature, feminine, delusional. Whatever they're experiencing can't possibly be real. They must be convoluting our times together into some kind of fantasy togetherness.
I recoil.
What's wrong with them? I wonder.
But perhaps the real question is: what's wrong with me?
Why has my well been so poisoned? Why have I lost all hope? How have I adapted so adeptly to a situation which is so unsatisfying and makes me so unhappy?
Then again, I'm not as unhappy now as I once was, agonizing over unreturned calls, unrequited love. I've learned to move on gracefully, and sacrifice the love I might have for the sake of my own sanity.
And so, I must ask: if I am merely taking on a more masculine approach to love and sex, is there anything really wrong with me at all? Aren't I merely mirroring the behavior that I constantly encounter?
With the release of the critically-acclaimed new volume in the James Bond saga, Skyfall, the media has questioned why - after 50 years - Hollywood has been unable to create or conjure an equivalent female character. One blog suggested it was because women "don't bang just for the fun of it."
Don't they? Ever?
I can't be the only one.
In my attempts at seizing the day, occasionally I am inclined to seize a hand or a face or a pair of lips or some other satisfying bit of anatomy. I'm lonely in this city. I've been on my own for a long time, with no end in sight.
I've learned to live without promises. So I'm not making any of my own right now.
If you don't crowd me, suffocate me, smother me - and just live for today - I'll come around. I'll learn to believe you.
But you can't force it.
Related Posts:
Of the Brokenhearted
Could I Love?
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
November 05, 2012
A Girl for All Seasons
With the temperature peaking at a record-breaking 95 degrees today in Los Angeles, it's hard to believe it's the end of Daylight Savings, and already a month and a half into fall. It's almost Thanksgiving, and it's as hot and sunny today as any day in August.
Chalk it up to global warming.
It's days like today that make people complain that LA has no seasons. If you ask the ex-pat New Yorkers, Detroiters or Chicagoans living here, any number of them will say that LA is great, but that they miss seasons.
I, too, grew up on the East Coast, in the snow belt of Upstate New York, with four years of college in the blizzard-buried Mohawk Valley. My ankles display permanent scars from years of snow-packed jeans burning them red.
If what these people mean is that they miss snow, blustering wind, raw running noses filled with frozen snot, and tearing eyes squinting under low visibility, I do not miss seasons.
Besides, I don't have to. LA has enough seasons for me. Sure, it doesn't snow in winter, making the holiday season not very Christmasy (save for the artificial snowfall at The Grove), but it gets plenty cold - at least at night. And from LA, you can see it snowing elsewhere, the snow-capped mountains just a short drive away.
On a warm day in November, you can visit a multitude of places - like the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont - to see bright blooming flowers...
...red manzanita branches...
...evergreen needles...
...and sage...
...until you're met with the dry, cracked, crinkled remains of the seasons passed.
Fallen leaves litter new growth.
And you realize: nearly everything can yellow...
...and redden...
...with the coming of this new season.
There are seasonal changes in LA, like the wildflowers that sprout in the springtime...
...you just, like everything else, have to look for them.
I am a girl for all seasons, who appreciates the subtlety of nuanced seasonal changes. I do not need a Nor'easter to indicate the coming of winter. I can already feel it in my bones.
Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Autumn in LA, Courtesy of Griffith Park
Heatseeker
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
Chalk it up to global warming.
It's days like today that make people complain that LA has no seasons. If you ask the ex-pat New Yorkers, Detroiters or Chicagoans living here, any number of them will say that LA is great, but that they miss seasons.
I, too, grew up on the East Coast, in the snow belt of Upstate New York, with four years of college in the blizzard-buried Mohawk Valley. My ankles display permanent scars from years of snow-packed jeans burning them red.
If what these people mean is that they miss snow, blustering wind, raw running noses filled with frozen snot, and tearing eyes squinting under low visibility, I do not miss seasons.
Besides, I don't have to. LA has enough seasons for me. Sure, it doesn't snow in winter, making the holiday season not very Christmasy (save for the artificial snowfall at The Grove), but it gets plenty cold - at least at night. And from LA, you can see it snowing elsewhere, the snow-capped mountains just a short drive away.
On a warm day in November, you can visit a multitude of places - like the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont - to see bright blooming flowers...
...red manzanita branches...
...evergreen needles...
...and sage...
...until you're met with the dry, cracked, crinkled remains of the seasons passed.
Fallen leaves litter new growth.
And you realize: nearly everything can yellow...
...and redden...
...with the coming of this new season.
There are seasonal changes in LA, like the wildflowers that sprout in the springtime...
...you just, like everything else, have to look for them.
I am a girl for all seasons, who appreciates the subtlety of nuanced seasonal changes. I do not need a Nor'easter to indicate the coming of winter. I can already feel it in my bones.
Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Autumn in LA, Courtesy of Griffith Park
Heatseeker
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
November 04, 2012
Photo Essay: A Seismic Climb to Potato Mountain
"Did you hear that?" our hike leader asked, and one of our fellow hikers up front with us said, "Yeah."
I heard nothing, and so I said nothing. A bird chippered. I kept walking.
Later, at the top of Potato Mountain, the ranger asked, "Did you feel the earthquake?"
"No! Was there one?!" I exclaimed.
"Well, it's just a rumor," he laughed, "But these two over here said they felt this thing move" - referring to the concrete tank at the peak's summit - "and this thing doesn't move."
I quickly checked my phone and it turns out there had been an earthquake, whose epicenter was just a few miles from our trail. And I didn't feel - or hear - a thing.
But truthfully, I was a bit out of it. I'd had every intention on going to bed early to get up at 6 a.m. for the hike that was at least an hour's drive away from home, but despite being home, I'd stayed up, relying on the extra hour of sleep thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.
And then when I arrived to Evey Canyon, where the first, shaded stretch of trail leads up a fire road into Claremont Wilderness...
...it was hard to believe that fall had arrived...
...with the day's heat already searing before 9 a.m...
...the sun, casting long, early shadows, not even directly overhead yet.
But we eventually happened upon some telltale signs of the season...
...in an area usually so populated by evergreen trees.
It was nice to see some autumn color, and feel some alpine air in the shade.
At the turnoff to Potato Mountain, we reentered a summer climate:
...dry, dusty, and sweaty.
We struggled up the steep stretches while watching mountainbikers creep their way up to the top.
We had a clear day, with lots of visibility...
...which we appreciated at the top when the views really opened up.
The concrete tank marks the top of the tater, where hikers decorate and carve messages into potatoes which they leave behind...
...as an equivalent to signing a register...
...or installing a survey marker.
There was only one potato there when we arrived, and our hike leader insisted there are usually more.
Where do they go? Are they taken? Trashed? Eaten?
Potato Mountain isn't really known as a destination hike, but for me, it was worth two hours of driving (which I don't mind) - especially to discover it with a small group. It has its charm. I kind of want to go back with a potato, which I neglected to bring in the early hour this morning.
And although I didn't feel it, I was glad to be near the earthquake. I'm always drawn to the epicenter.
Related Post:
One of Many Firsts: Earthquake
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
I heard nothing, and so I said nothing. A bird chippered. I kept walking.
Later, at the top of Potato Mountain, the ranger asked, "Did you feel the earthquake?"
"No! Was there one?!" I exclaimed.
"Well, it's just a rumor," he laughed, "But these two over here said they felt this thing move" - referring to the concrete tank at the peak's summit - "and this thing doesn't move."
I quickly checked my phone and it turns out there had been an earthquake, whose epicenter was just a few miles from our trail. And I didn't feel - or hear - a thing.
But truthfully, I was a bit out of it. I'd had every intention on going to bed early to get up at 6 a.m. for the hike that was at least an hour's drive away from home, but despite being home, I'd stayed up, relying on the extra hour of sleep thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time.
And then when I arrived to Evey Canyon, where the first, shaded stretch of trail leads up a fire road into Claremont Wilderness...
...it was hard to believe that fall had arrived...
...with the day's heat already searing before 9 a.m...
...the sun, casting long, early shadows, not even directly overhead yet.
But we eventually happened upon some telltale signs of the season...
...in an area usually so populated by evergreen trees.
It was nice to see some autumn color, and feel some alpine air in the shade.
At the turnoff to Potato Mountain, we reentered a summer climate:
...dry, dusty, and sweaty.
We struggled up the steep stretches while watching mountainbikers creep their way up to the top.
We had a clear day, with lots of visibility...
...which we appreciated at the top when the views really opened up.
The concrete tank marks the top of the tater, where hikers decorate and carve messages into potatoes which they leave behind...
...as an equivalent to signing a register...
...or installing a survey marker.
There was only one potato there when we arrived, and our hike leader insisted there are usually more.
Where do they go? Are they taken? Trashed? Eaten?
Potato Mountain isn't really known as a destination hike, but for me, it was worth two hours of driving (which I don't mind) - especially to discover it with a small group. It has its charm. I kind of want to go back with a potato, which I neglected to bring in the early hour this morning.
And although I didn't feel it, I was glad to be near the earthquake. I'm always drawn to the epicenter.
Related Post:
One of Many Firsts: Earthquake
To Like Avoiding Regret on Facebook, click here.
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