I mentioned in a previous post how I rarely notice celebrities, and how if I do, I'm never inclined to say something to them. Well, for the first time this weekend, I was a little starstruck. And by someone most people probably don't even know. Oldest Friend, SH, and I were on a hike in Runyon Canyon this Saturday. It's a nice hike that gives you great views of the city. The hike is really popular, so there are always a lot of people (and dogs) to watch. As we were coming down, I caught sight of a t-shirt with "Panther's Football" written on it. Now, that doesn't mean anything to me except Friday Night Lights, one of the best shows on television. I looked up and stared right into the eyes of Big Tim Riggins #33. I looked down (good Angeleno behavior) but couldn't help myself and looked up only to make eye contact with him again. Holy crap is that guy cute. Holy crap do I love that show (and I don't even like football). I know that no one reads this blog, but since no one else in my life listens to me, I'm sending an appeal out into the ether: Please watch Friday Night Lights. You won't regret it. The writing is some of the best on television. I'm sure it will come out on DVD this summer. WATCH IT. Then tune in because I just can't stand the idea of the show getting canceled. It's just so freakin' good. And I really want to watch more of Taylor Kitsch. Wow. I had no idea I could sound like such an immature dork. Did I mention how hot he is?
PS: Don't start watching FNL this week. It's the season finale and will ruin everything.
PPS: Instructing people that don't exist is a little creepy, like I'm talking to myself. Maybe a little Rainman: "Friday Night Lights, yeah. Friday Night Lights. Tim Riggins is hot, yeah. Number 33, yeah."
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Monday, April 9, 2007
City of Angels
My oldest friend was here to visit for the weekend. She is 20-some weeks pregnant and adorable. We met when we were five, but didn't become fast friends until I enrolled at the same elementary school in the fourth grade. After that it was all about birthday parties, sleepovers, trips with our families to Central Oregon, camping, skiing, notes written in class, talking about who we did and didn’t want to go to dances with, promising that the first one of us to get a boyfriend would give the other flowers, whispering about which of the boys we knew we’d want to marry…Funny thing is, we’re actually still with those boys. And we’re both happy. Oldest Friend is married to her high school sweetheart. I’m marrying the guy that was my pen pal in high school. He and I met at summer camp. I think if you asked either of us whether we expected that, we might say, “no.” But I think secretly we would think, “yes.”
It’s amazing that she and I have grown up together and seen each other through every stage of our lives. How bizarre to know what someone was like at age 10 and then to see them pregnant with their second child. And though we’re at different stages, we’re still struggling with issues of identity and how to create the life that feels the most right to us.
It’s a little hard for me to know she’s on child #2 when I’m on child #0. I had this fantasy of our two families taking vacations together like she and I did growing up. And now that she’s farther along, our children will never be the same age and will probably have little interest in each other. This is sad to me and sometimes I regret waiting so long to move things along in the family department. But I wasn’t ready and she was, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Having her here to visit was wonderful. She’s never seen my life in Los Angeles, so it was nice to introduce her to parts of it. But I always struggle with introducing a new person to LA, a city that I really like. All I can see when I take someone new around are the ugly things and the traffic. I think I see the city through the eyes of someone looking for its faults, rather than what is great about it. I think a lot of Angelenos have self-esteem issues when it comes to our city. So many people trash talk about LA (usually either New Yorkers, San Franciscans (?), or people who have never been here) that it’s easy to become self-conscious.
LA has so many wonderful things about it: the weather, the ocean, the multi-culturalism, the wide open spaces, amazing parks, great food, shopping, and every movie made gets screened here. I love the mixture of architecture, and how the city continues to push the boundries of contemporary design. Though many people might think of Angelenos as being stuck-up, image-obsessed, and shallow, the people I know here are so normal, laid back, smart, and welcoming. As a city made of transplants, people in general are more open to meeting each other and making friends. It’s great.
But this weekend the weather was gloomy and all I could see was the ugly and that makes me sad. I don’t know why I feel like I need my choice to live here validated, but I do. I want someone to tell me that I made the right choice, that they can see why I’m happy here, that it’s okay I haven’t “settled down” yet, that I’m doin’ good and that that’s enough right now.
It’s amazing that she and I have grown up together and seen each other through every stage of our lives. How bizarre to know what someone was like at age 10 and then to see them pregnant with their second child. And though we’re at different stages, we’re still struggling with issues of identity and how to create the life that feels the most right to us.
It’s a little hard for me to know she’s on child #2 when I’m on child #0. I had this fantasy of our two families taking vacations together like she and I did growing up. And now that she’s farther along, our children will never be the same age and will probably have little interest in each other. This is sad to me and sometimes I regret waiting so long to move things along in the family department. But I wasn’t ready and she was, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Having her here to visit was wonderful. She’s never seen my life in Los Angeles, so it was nice to introduce her to parts of it. But I always struggle with introducing a new person to LA, a city that I really like. All I can see when I take someone new around are the ugly things and the traffic. I think I see the city through the eyes of someone looking for its faults, rather than what is great about it. I think a lot of Angelenos have self-esteem issues when it comes to our city. So many people trash talk about LA (usually either New Yorkers, San Franciscans (?), or people who have never been here) that it’s easy to become self-conscious.
LA has so many wonderful things about it: the weather, the ocean, the multi-culturalism, the wide open spaces, amazing parks, great food, shopping, and every movie made gets screened here. I love the mixture of architecture, and how the city continues to push the boundries of contemporary design. Though many people might think of Angelenos as being stuck-up, image-obsessed, and shallow, the people I know here are so normal, laid back, smart, and welcoming. As a city made of transplants, people in general are more open to meeting each other and making friends. It’s great.
But this weekend the weather was gloomy and all I could see was the ugly and that makes me sad. I don’t know why I feel like I need my choice to live here validated, but I do. I want someone to tell me that I made the right choice, that they can see why I’m happy here, that it’s okay I haven’t “settled down” yet, that I’m doin’ good and that that’s enough right now.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Ode to Sunny Weather, or a Response to Lawyerish Part II
The Man (I have no good nickname for him yet) and I started thinking about a move to Los Angeles when things just didn't seem to be improving for us in Seattle. We weren't that happy with our jobs (I had spent three years looking for a different one without any luck), the weather was making me depressed, I was tired of being cold, and things just weren’t progressing. Seattle was in an economic slump after the burst of the dot com bubble and Boeing was shedding employees by the hundreds, creating a pretty sad job market and mood for the city. I just didn’t know how to make things better, so we started talking about moving to a warmer climate.
Both of us wanted more creativity in our lives and the film industry seemed like an option. We took a visit to LA, liked it, and then thought about the move for two years (I don’t make any major decisions without much, much research and contemplation). And then it was just time. Kind of like when you’re in your senior year of college and no matter how much you loved school and being around all your friends, come spring you suddenly start to just feel over it all. You become ready to move on. It was that time for Seattle. And I couldn’t have been happier with the choice that Labor Day weekend in 2002 as we were packing and the heavens opened, spilling rain upon the city, beginning the next nine months of wet.
There was nothing worse for me than those first fall rains, the knowledge that the happiness of summer and sun was over for longer than I felt I could stand. The especially cruel part about it is that there is no place better to be in the summer than the Pacific Northwest. That area of the country is stunningly beautiful. The weather can be hot, but there’s little humidity, few bugs, and the nights are very long. People in the PNW are actually giddy during the summer, drunk on sunshine. And then it’s over and the rain comes back and you have to steel yourself for another nine months. Growing up, we never felt in the clear until after the 4th of July. That’s just not right.
And so we left for LA and though I know I have lots of good and bad to say about the city, I’ll just focus on the weather, since that was the original reason for this post. I love the sunshine. I never get tired of it. It makes me happy every day. I’m always grateful to see a blue sky. I never feel guilty for going to a movie in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon like I would have in Seattle because it’s sunny almost every Saturday afternoon. I look at weather reports for different parts of the country during the winter and I feel like I live on a different planet. I love walking outside and not tensing up, getting in my car every morning without having to scrape windows or shovel snow, not feeling the rage I used to feel when I felt cold and wet, feeling motivated to exercise, eating lunch outside almost year round, seeing flowers all year long, not to mention trees that keep their leaves--I could go on and on. But let me dispel a myth instead: Los Angeles has seasons.
Okay, so it doesn’t usually snow in the city (though it did once this winter, very briefly), but there ARE seasons. It gets so cold in the winter that I often have to wear a winter coat and we use our gas heat for months. Just because it’s sunny doesn’t mean it’s warm all the time. This means winter clothes and down comforters! My wardrobe can appropriately change with the seasons! It also can get rainy in the winter, though for shorter periods of time and without a constant cloud cover. Only 2 1/2 hours away are mountains you can go skiing in. LA is one of the only places I know where you could surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon. The foliage is another clue to the seasons. I love the spring when the Jacaranda trees show off their bright purple blossoms. So yes, Los Angeles has seasons, they just happen to be milder, and that is fine by me. I never get tired of sunshine and I appreciate the energy it gives me to get through my life. That it’s guilt-free is just a bonus.
Both of us wanted more creativity in our lives and the film industry seemed like an option. We took a visit to LA, liked it, and then thought about the move for two years (I don’t make any major decisions without much, much research and contemplation). And then it was just time. Kind of like when you’re in your senior year of college and no matter how much you loved school and being around all your friends, come spring you suddenly start to just feel over it all. You become ready to move on. It was that time for Seattle. And I couldn’t have been happier with the choice that Labor Day weekend in 2002 as we were packing and the heavens opened, spilling rain upon the city, beginning the next nine months of wet.
There was nothing worse for me than those first fall rains, the knowledge that the happiness of summer and sun was over for longer than I felt I could stand. The especially cruel part about it is that there is no place better to be in the summer than the Pacific Northwest. That area of the country is stunningly beautiful. The weather can be hot, but there’s little humidity, few bugs, and the nights are very long. People in the PNW are actually giddy during the summer, drunk on sunshine. And then it’s over and the rain comes back and you have to steel yourself for another nine months. Growing up, we never felt in the clear until after the 4th of July. That’s just not right.
And so we left for LA and though I know I have lots of good and bad to say about the city, I’ll just focus on the weather, since that was the original reason for this post. I love the sunshine. I never get tired of it. It makes me happy every day. I’m always grateful to see a blue sky. I never feel guilty for going to a movie in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon like I would have in Seattle because it’s sunny almost every Saturday afternoon. I look at weather reports for different parts of the country during the winter and I feel like I live on a different planet. I love walking outside and not tensing up, getting in my car every morning without having to scrape windows or shovel snow, not feeling the rage I used to feel when I felt cold and wet, feeling motivated to exercise, eating lunch outside almost year round, seeing flowers all year long, not to mention trees that keep their leaves--I could go on and on. But let me dispel a myth instead: Los Angeles has seasons.
Okay, so it doesn’t usually snow in the city (though it did once this winter, very briefly), but there ARE seasons. It gets so cold in the winter that I often have to wear a winter coat and we use our gas heat for months. Just because it’s sunny doesn’t mean it’s warm all the time. This means winter clothes and down comforters! My wardrobe can appropriately change with the seasons! It also can get rainy in the winter, though for shorter periods of time and without a constant cloud cover. Only 2 1/2 hours away are mountains you can go skiing in. LA is one of the only places I know where you could surf in the morning and ski in the afternoon. The foliage is another clue to the seasons. I love the spring when the Jacaranda trees show off their bright purple blossoms. So yes, Los Angeles has seasons, they just happen to be milder, and that is fine by me. I never get tired of sunshine and I appreciate the energy it gives me to get through my life. That it’s guilt-free is just a bonus.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Ode to Sunny Weather, or a Response to Lawyerish Part 1
I grew up in Oregon, land of rain and gloom. The weather didn't bother me that much when I was younger. I think it was because I didn't know there was an alternative (this line of thinking, by the way, is how I rationalize why people live in the Mid-West: they don't know there are other options). When I decided to go to the East Coast for college (more on how I decided to do that in a future post) I knew that I was in for weather like I'd never had to experience before, and I was right. It got cold and snowy that first winter. There was an actual blizzard! What a shock it was to run out of the dorm with wet hair one morning on my way to class and have it freeze before I got there into little dread-like icicles. THAT was a new experience, one that I avoided having twice. But I loved the snow and the seasons, especially the fall. Fall in New England is magical. One of my favorite memories was stretching on the rugby field after practice (yes I played rugby and I LOVED it), looking out at the forest of colored leaves in their reds, oranges, and yellows, and hearing a rogue bagpiper walking around the nearby lake. It was beautiful. Fall in New England also conjures up memories of apple cider, fresh donuts, and an actual hayride. The weather brought an emotion to the place that felt so fresh and real and alive, while also somehow connecting you to all the history the place possesses. I loved it.
But after graduating I felt the urge to move back to the Pacific Northwest--the place that felt like me, the place where everything was familiar and normal. I missed real mountains, being close to the ocean, the people, the attitude, the history, the food--all the things that made me feel like an insider, rather than an outsider. The fact that I can feel like an outsider in my own country is one of the things I like about the US. I love that it can feel and be so different in so many places. Anyway, I moved to Seattle.
One of the things that I had not missed and slowly grew to loathe was the weather. There's a line in Sleepless in Seattle when someone is protesting the thought of Tom Hanks's character moving to Seattle. They say, "It rains nine months out of the year in Seattle!" It's something a lot of people think was exaggerated, I actually got asked a lot whether the rain was a sort of urban legend, as if it really couldn't be as bad as everyone made it out to be. Well, it's that bad and sometimes worse. There are a lot of people who love it and live no differently because of the rain. I was always baffled by the runners and bikers--they were out there no matter what, as if they didn't even notice it raining. I was never that way. The rain made me want to curl up in a ball on my couch under a blanket. I never wanted to leave my house. Driving terrified me, I was always afraid of hydroplaning into the big rigs on the freeways. I had rain rage. And it made me depressed. I lost all motivation for anything in my life because going out required me to toss off the blanket and go outside into the wet. I needed that blanket, it kept me warm. Oh how I was cold. That was maybe the worst part. There is something about a wet cold that chills you to the bone. It's really hard to get warm. Things were in a sad state for me. So my boyfriend and I discussed options and decided to move to Los Angeles (again, that's a whole other post of its own). Los Angeles is the land of sunshine and it makes me so happy. So, so happy. More on why it makes me happy to come...
But after graduating I felt the urge to move back to the Pacific Northwest--the place that felt like me, the place where everything was familiar and normal. I missed real mountains, being close to the ocean, the people, the attitude, the history, the food--all the things that made me feel like an insider, rather than an outsider. The fact that I can feel like an outsider in my own country is one of the things I like about the US. I love that it can feel and be so different in so many places. Anyway, I moved to Seattle.
One of the things that I had not missed and slowly grew to loathe was the weather. There's a line in Sleepless in Seattle when someone is protesting the thought of Tom Hanks's character moving to Seattle. They say, "It rains nine months out of the year in Seattle!" It's something a lot of people think was exaggerated, I actually got asked a lot whether the rain was a sort of urban legend, as if it really couldn't be as bad as everyone made it out to be. Well, it's that bad and sometimes worse. There are a lot of people who love it and live no differently because of the rain. I was always baffled by the runners and bikers--they were out there no matter what, as if they didn't even notice it raining. I was never that way. The rain made me want to curl up in a ball on my couch under a blanket. I never wanted to leave my house. Driving terrified me, I was always afraid of hydroplaning into the big rigs on the freeways. I had rain rage. And it made me depressed. I lost all motivation for anything in my life because going out required me to toss off the blanket and go outside into the wet. I needed that blanket, it kept me warm. Oh how I was cold. That was maybe the worst part. There is something about a wet cold that chills you to the bone. It's really hard to get warm. Things were in a sad state for me. So my boyfriend and I discussed options and decided to move to Los Angeles (again, that's a whole other post of its own). Los Angeles is the land of sunshine and it makes me so happy. So, so happy. More on why it makes me happy to come...
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