Open Letter to My Potential Dates

To those single men of the internet -

Somehow I've become convinced to try online dating again. I've had no luck with it before, but since I'm having no luck finding dates on my own after a year in LA, I don't have much to lose.

And I've joined a dating site that's predicated on actually going on dates - and on dates that consist of more than just coffee or a drink while we size each other up. It's supposed to encourage the offline aspect of online dating.

We're supposed to pick each other because we both want to do the same stuff.

That's supposed to mean you want to do stuff.

So forgive me when I skip over you because you haven't posted any date ideas. Forgive me if your date idea is "get to know each other" or "get drunk and fall asleep" or written in ALL CAPS or egregiously misspelled and fraught with bad grammar.

Forgive me if your username repulses me because it includes a four-letter word.

Forgive me if I don't want to "Eat out 69 & have wild sex at urs or my place after diner !!!!!"

Ew.

Forgive me when I don't reply because your photo is that of a kung fu fighter, dead president, Big Lebowski character, Prince, Mick Jagger, or your dog. As much as I'm focused on your personality, I want to be able to see your face. It means something if you don't want to show it.

Hey bald guy, you're kinda cute.

I know I only have one photo on my profile, and technically it's an outtake from my headshot session. But it's a good one: it hasn't been retouched, and it looks like me. In fact, I look better in real life than in that picture. I didn't want to set your expectations too high. I'm cute enough. I'm not on here looking for dates because I'm not hot enough.

I know my profile says that I want kids someday, but I don't know that to be true. I'm not really sure but that wasn't among the answer choices. I just want to have the option in the future.

I do want a guy who lives in LA (sorry dude who messaged me from Denver).

I do want to go hiking. In fact, most of the things I want to do won't cost you any money.

Sorry, I don't wanna chat.

And thanks, JRV, but I don't want to give you a massage.

I do, however, want to go where I "will safe and comfotable" ladiesman2000, but you have to be more specific as to what that might be.

What is wrong with you people?

Who dates you?

Is anyone actually so desperate that they lower their standards to your level?

Or have I just found the ultimate pool of undatables?

No offense. I'm sure you're lovely. But I just cannot get past your profile.

And so for the next three months I guess I'll just be fielding incoming requests in hopes that someone relatively decent, sane, and literate might stumble upon me.

And in the meantime, you can find me sitting at the bar alone, trying to look cute and available.

Deepest gratitude,
Username: [redacted]

Related:
Open Letter to My Potential Matches

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Photo Essay: Elysian Park, Beyond Dodger Stadium

In my explorations of LA, I have seen more in one year than most locals - or even natives - have seen in several years.

But there are still areas I don't really want to go to alone, and so they remain as-yet unexplored.

Despite having house-sat near Dodger Stadium in Highland Park in Summer 2010, Elysian Park was one of those places...



...until this weekend, when I joined the Meetup hiking group excursion led by Lee, one of my new friends from the Mount Lowe Historical Society.



Elysian Park is decidedly urban...



...situated somewhere between Echo Park, Glendale, and Highland Park...



...and housing Dodger Stadium...



...But despite the hum of the nearby freeway traffic on the 5...



...and the graffiti that frequently greets you...



...you can get some good easy climbing in...





...to overlook the suburban sprawl below.





We climbed along a narrow ridge...















...through a tree...



...past the LA River...





...and the Elysian Reservoir...



...to an area well-populated by homeless.





Despite the predominance of fire roads in the park (something I am not much of a fan of), the trails do manage to display a burst of color...



...and plenty of palm trees.



With little elevation change, Elysian Park was a good way to get 6 or 7 miles of walking in on a Saturday morning after sitting at a desk all week.



But since I simply followed the group and didn't have to navigate myself through, would I ever be able to go back and reexperience it for myself?

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Not Hot Enough

"I've been trying to stay away from you," said one of the many otherwise spoken-for guys in my life once. "But it's not for the reason you think..."

"No, I know you love your girlfriend," I jumped in, and then paused to ask, "What reason do I think?"

"That you're not hot enough."

But after losing 50 pounds and moving to LA, it had been a while since I chalked up my perpetual singlehood to not being hot enough. I'm not sure I can get any better-looking than I am now given the genetics I've been given, and I know that I'm better-looking than a lot of girls out there who are not single. (This is of course contrary to the guys in bars who just love to say things like, "You don't know how beautiful you are, do you?" so they can be the ones to make me feel pretty. It may sound obnoxious, but I do know, thanks.)

It must be something else.

"I don't understand," one of my many married LA girlfriends once said. "You're so beautiful..." and proceeded to try to diagnose my issue, investigating some lack of self-confidence or emotional unavailability or underlying self-hatred or general inaccessibility. She then reiterated how beautiful I am.

"Clearly," I sighed, "It's not because I'm not hot enough. That's not the problem."

I then tried to dismiss the conversation by telling her that long ago I'd stopped trying to rationalize or reason why the Universe has left me so alone. I'd stopped trying to explain it because there was nothing to explain. It wasn't my fault, it's just the way it is.

But then in Vegas, when I met a 38-year old single local who seemed interested in me, he of course felt compelled to ask, "Why aren't you married?" Apparently most 36 year-old women he encounters are either recent divorcees or out to cheat on their husbands.

"Because nobody ever wanted to marry me." Perhaps my response was overly simplistic, but it most certainly was true.

"Well, I don't know why," he said. "You seem awesome to me." And I suppose as a reassurance, he told me how cute/sexy/hot/beautiful/pretty/adorable I am.

And four days after my return from Vegas, he disappeared.

As a short-haired, overweight, bespeckled child, all I ever wanted was to be one of the pretty girls. To have long hair and pierced ears. To play the flute. To wear nail polish. I was smart, sassy and funny, but no one loved me for my good grades. If only I could lose weight, get contacts, grow my hair out...

I thought those things were means to an end. I thought if I could improve my exterior shell, I would attract more people who ultimately would have the chance to get to know me, the real me, and love something beyond what they saw.

That never happened.

But somehow, with each new person and each new city, I never cease to have hope.

And then after one nice date with a tall, handsome, talented, age-appropriate, single man, I get a text message that reads, "Ok, so, this might seem abrupt, and I don't mean it that way. I like you, and I'm attracted to you, but I also would like to be just friends at the moment."

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Open Letter to the Wrong Tree

Dear Tree, Oh Wrong Tree, Oh You Very Wrong Tree,

Show yourself. Show yourself now, while I still know better. Show me how wrong you really are, so I can stop barking up you.

At the turn of the year, I vowed to stop barking up the wrong trees. And if you are wrong, I want to be right. I'll stop right now.

But I am persistent and patient. I have faith in you. I see the best in you. I won't automatically know that you're wrong. You have to show me. You have to really show me.

If you leave me, I won't beg you to stay. I won't try to prove myself to you. I'll let you go. I won't hold out hope.

But you have to leave me. Leave me, and I'll accept it. Don't stick around and give me hope, or pull me by a string, by the thread by which I hang.

Tell me to leave and I will go.

But you have to tell me. Otherwise I'll stay.

Because although every tree always turns out to be the wrong one, I always hope that the next one will be the right one. And I'll believe that you are right, until you prove to me that you are oh so very wrong.

Forever resolved,
Sandi

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In My Bubble

Sometimes when I drive home, I pull the car close to the curb on the street outside my building, shift it into park, and just sit there.

I hang the parking permit from the rear view mirror.

I turn off the headlights.

I leave my foot on the brake.

And I just sit there, waiting. I watch the blinking red light on the dashboard, with the steady red glow of my brake lights reflecting off the nose of the car behind me.

Sometimes, the radio is playing, and I'm dipping my hand repeatedly into a bag of snacks. Snacks somehow taste better when eaten in the front seat of my car - traveling on a road trip, or just sitting parked outside my apartment, not wanting to go inside.

Sometimes, I hold my cell phone in my lap, turning its screen into my lap so as not to illuminate my face to passers-by. Because I'm just sitting there, maybe snacking.

I can't snack all night in the car. At some point, I have to stop, and go upstairs. I snack in the car because, unlike snacking in bed, it must stop there. I cannot fall asleep there, amidst the snacks.

I don't want to go inside.

The car is off, but the brake lights are still on. My foot is pressing down, but I don't want to stay.

On occasion, I have parked my car outside of my apartment building, participated in this ritual, and then turned the car back on and headed somewhere else, wiping the flavor dust from the snacks on my car seat or my jeans or my skirt or my bare legs. I leave the snack bag open on the floor of the passenger's side, hoping its contents will become stale so I won't want to eat any more.

But on a night like tonight, with no snacks, no radio, and nowhere to go, I just sit, marveling at the near-silence, the muted tones of few cars drifting by, in one direction or another. The street is dim. The businesses are closed. The dogs are walked. And I am just as alone in that car as I am in my apartment.

So I might as well go where I can sleep.

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Is It Hard?

Over the nearly 15 years of my career as an entertainment marketer, with each position I've worked at smaller and smaller companies, and have somehow taken on more and more responsibility.

Once just an assistant, then a product manager - a job that seemed overwhelming at the time - I eventually made the transition from VP of Marketing at the record label level to GM of a company where I manage an artist, run his record label and music publishing company, and negotiate new business deals including endorsements and sponsorships.

I'm way beyond my comfort zone, and 15 years into my career, I am doing this without the help of an assistant, coordinator, manager, or any of the other support staff I once knew at larger companies with better-defined division of labor. My access to interns is sporadic, with mixed results.

Unfortunately, this means I cannot do everything. It's just not possible. Some issues will be neglected. Some emails will go unanswered. Some calls will go unreturned.

I have always been of the mindset that not everything has to be attended to as it comes in, that most things can wait an hour or a day or a week or a lifetime. Sometimes, when you decide not to decide something, the Universe adapts around you and the answer just...becomes revealed to you. You just have to wait for it to happen.

Other times, you end up neglecting something that actually does deserve attention, though it may seem so minor that it's easily forgotten.

When this happens, often our colleagues and associates will ask, "What's the problem? Is it hard?"

And the answer is, "Well, no, not by itself. It's not difficult to do. I've just chosen to do other things instead of it."

The answer is also, "It requires time and mental bandwidth that I don't have."

The question "Is it hard?" is aways a tough one for me, because I have always approached business like an SAT test - get as much of the easy stuff done as soon as you can, so at least you're getting something done. Put the ball in someone else's court. Free yourself up to tackle what is hard, during the few minutes you've got before someone replies to you or pulls you into an impromptu meeting or conference call.

So when something that's not hard falls by the wayside, it's hard to excuse it.

But none of these tasks can be judged individually, out of context. They pile up, viciously, systematically. Even if you have someone to whom you can delegate, you have to stay on top of them to make sure it happens (sometimes taking more time than if you had just done it yourself).

This is the stuff that causes many executives to check their emails all night long, to reply late at night and question when they have not received a response first thing in the morning. I used to be that type of person, but at my advanced age, in my years of experience, I have decided that I cannot be judged by how quickly I address the minutia of the daily course of business. I can only measure my success - and the success of those who work for and around me - by the general trend upwards, forwards, whatever direction progress goes in. Just as in my own weight loss journey, one day you're at goal, the next day you're three pounds heavier, the next day you're two pounds lighter, without any real obvious rhyme or reason. The weight will go up; the weight will go down. But as long as the number is generally going down over time - not down every day or every week - then you are moving in the right direction. (Financial advisors say the same thing about your 401K investments.)

Sticking with it, and not allowing yourself to be derailed, is the hard part.

Post Script:
The great contradiction is that in life, it seems that it's the easiest things that dog me: washing the forks, flossing my teeth, getting up in the morning. But I can somehow motivate myself to learn to drive stick shift on a Formula 1 racer, climb a mountain, and zipline across a canyon despite a nearly-crippling fear of heights. I can't quite explain that.

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Photo Essay: Climbing the Hidden Hollywoodland Stairs

I've often said that LA is a hidden city, easy to love if you know where to go. But sometimes even when you know what you're looking for in LA, it's hard to find.

The last time I went to Beachwood Canyon in search of an urban hike along its old Hollywoodland public staircases, I couldn't find all of them. Ultimately, I got nearly hopelessly lost, despite the aid of a GPS that sent me walking in circles.

Last weekend, I went back, armed with a better guide, and my camera.

The first one, on Woodshire, was out in the open, easy enough to find...



...but others were a bit more enshrouded...



...and wedged next to private properties.



Some of the staircases were indicated by a post and reflector...



...but mostly I could only recognize them by their distinctive granite pattern.







Some of the staircases go straight up, with little to no breaks...



...and others have plenty of landings...


...though most of the time I was the only person climbing them (save for one runner).





Going up and down those stairways - sometimes up and down the same ones - I found myself still walking in circles in Old Hollywoodland, but this time on a distinctive path, cutting up and down the Hollywood Hills around which roads have been built to circumvent.



All the while, I got to walk through private backyards, under trees and past landscaping as the sun went down.



I love this Hollywood, this Old Hollywood, this Hollywoodland, that tourists never get to see, and residents rarely explore.

When most people think of "Hollywood," the word - today a metonym for the American movie business - conjures images of smarmy producers, busty starlets, red carpets, and maybe hookers, drunken nightclubbers, and costumed street-walkers. But my Hollywood, the Hollywoodland that I continue to discover, is (still) full of rolling hills, coyotes, a vineyard, a lake, castles, and secret stairways that lead you everywhere and nowhere all at once.

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Moving On

I've always said: Sometimes you need a good kick in the pants to reset your life.

This was true when I got laid off from Atlantic and JibJab, fired from CMJ, and treated so horribly at Razor & Tie that I was forced to quit. All good changes. None of those jobs were lifetime commitments. I had to move on.

The same can be said for people as well as jobs. I've had to let some friends go. It took me long enough, but I had to sever ties with my parents.

But I've never been very good at moving on from my past crushes, romances, and full-blown loves. I would've stayed attached to many of them if I hadn't graduated from high school and gone away to college, or graduated from college and moved to New York.

But in New York, I had 14 years to dwell on every one night stand, every third date that never made it to fourth, every makeout, take out, dinner, dance, taudry affair, bartender romance. Even if they got married, had babies, moved away, and moved on from me, I was still there, surrounded by the reminders of whatever we did together, wherever. The glass he drank out of. The bed he slept in. The things he left behind.

And then, a year ago, I got to move away from it all.

And moving away allowed me to move on.

Mostly.

Some feelings still linger, about the one that got away, and the one who wouldn't take the world I tried to give him. But at least I'm not reminded as often as I used to be, living in New York. I've moved on as much as I can.

But when you love someone, do you ever really move on? Can you ever? I don't understand falling out of love as much as I don't really understand falling in love. I still love the same colors, movies, music, foods as I have always loved, even since childhood. In my heart, there is no such thing as used to love. I still do. Despite everything.

But what does "moving on" truly mean? Getting over it? Or just finding someone else to distract you, to spend time with, to get your heart broken over, all over again? In my world, there is no rebound guy because they're all rebound guys from the guy before them. I am still rebounding from January 2011. I am still rebounding from May 2008. I am still rebounding from December 2004.

Unfortunately, when I moved to LA, though I left behind a lot of heartbreak in New York, I moved into a whole new world of heartbreak to get over and move on from. And I'm trying to do that, but he's here, and I'm here, and as hard as I try, since I plan on staying here and not moving again, I haven't been able to find someone else who measures up. I haven't been able to find someone else who wants me as much as he used to.

But I have constant glimmers of hope: with every phone number, dinner bought, lunch date, and kiss goodnight, it seems that there's a chance for me to find happiness with a new person, in this new place.

Wanting to move on is the first step. And if my kiss goodnight from my dinner date Thursday night is any indication of what may lie ahead for me, I hope it happens soon.

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Nevada Test Site: A Matter of National Security

[Last updated 12/13/25 3:07 PM PT—Video player embed of Outdoor Nevada clip from the Nevada Test Site added towards the bottom of this post]

Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office, by Federal Government of the United States [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

When I read that there was a tour you could take in the middle of the Nevada desert, that is so popular it must be booked months in advance, that is so secure it requires a background check and makes cell phones, cameras and GPS units verboten, I knew I must go.

"Why are you going to Vegas?" people asked me.

"To take a tour of the Nevada Test Site." Silence. A pause. "You know, where they used to test atomic bombs."

"Uh, why are you going there?"

"Because I like to take tours of things, and it's kind of a weird thing that seems like nobody else would do. Except it's really popular apparently."

When I arrived, I realized with whom it's popular: retirees. Welcome to my world.

Photo Essay: Pico House Ghost Hunt

Pico House is more or less an abandoned hotel situated in the middle of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument in Downtown Los Angeles...



...situated in Los Angeles Plaza, within earshot of the hustle and bustle of Olivera Street, supposedly the birthplace of the city of Los Angeles (though some might argue that the city was probably founded closer to the LA River).

Its relatively recently restored ground floor lobby is used for a variety of exhibitions and shoots, but its deeper, darker corners - the Masonic Hall, the theater, the basement - are rarely open to the public and only occasionally explored by some brave paranormalists.

And looky-loos like me.

Built in 1870, Pico House was built by former governor Pio Pico, whose ghost may still haunt the structure. It's more likely that the ghosts of some of the men and boys killed in the 1871 Chinese Massacre never left the scene of their demise.

Parts of the Pico House complex are certainly creeptastic (and ripe for photography), but haunted? We can't be sure. Apparently past ghost hunters have heard the Masons' "secret knock" coming from a door in the Masonic Hall, in front of which we heard a screw fell to the floor from...somewhere...in the dark.... We also saw lights apparently turn on and off - upon our command - in the basement. And the headache that began to plague me in the Masonic Hall, which subsided in the theater and the hotel, worsened dramatically in the basement.

When I reported it to one of our guides, she said, "Just take care of yourself."

"What does that mean?" I asked, pain intensifying.

"Go to your faith - your god, your spirituality, whatever it is - and hold onto that."

As everyone else plead with the other side that they just wanted to talk with them, get to know them, understand why they were there, etc., I was simply there to photograph it all. Ghosts or no ghosts.

The Masonic Hall














Merced Theater (the oldest theater in Los Angeles)












Pico House Hotel








Basement






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