mensiversary

As of tomorrow I will have been living in Los Angeles for a month. One month. This is great because it means I only have about a month and a half left of working at the cafe. The job has become more comfortable for me recently. Horrible things, (customers, accidents, managers, etc.) still happen but I expect them to occur more or less. I've accepted my situation for what it is for the time being. It helps that the past week has been filled with excitement. My good friends Jill and Kellie took the greyhound down from Oakland and we spent the weekend riding buses, laying out on the grass, eating at awesome vegan restaurants, going to museums and walking along the beach. I even finally got to see the La Brea tarpits. I can see why so many people seem to be disappointed by them, but if you really take the time to consider the unique nature of the site it becomes pretty interesting. The smell of tar, the giant pulses of methane bubbling to the surface. Its fenced off so that no one falls in, it is free and surprisingly not very crowded. I would consider taking the two buses over there just to sit on one of the benches overlooking the pits to write and make sketches of the mastodon statues. It is also just four blocks away from LACMA. LACMA is free everyday from 5 PM to 8 PM. Right now there is a huge installation from an artist who only works with colors and simple shapes, mostly tubes, of fluorescent lights.I am thinking about a trip to MOCA soon, but it is downtown which is a farther trek for me, still under an hour though.

It's has been an eye opener for me to remember all the opportunities there are so close to me here. I've decided that from now on I will make better use of my time off from work. I am thinking that next weekend I am going to go hiking at Topanga state park, apparently there is a weekend bus that will take you there from Santa Monica. Jill told me about it, there are red-rock formations, a lagoon, mountains, a 13 mile hiking trail and it is also where they filmed m*a*s*h.

Griffith park might be a possibility sometime soon. The huge observatory that has been closed since I was in high school is reopened and even though it was scarred by the worst brushfires in decades just months before I moved here, the park is also reopened. The angeles nat'l forest is also an option but the temperatures there will hover around one hundred degrees until the middle of fall.

I'm also really thinking about seeing if there is a way i can go to Catalina. For those of you who are unfamiliar it's a sizable island off the coast near Long Beach. There is only one town on the island and most of the rest of the land is recreational/wildlife areas. I'm guessing that there will either be an affordable bus or I will take my bike on the ferry. My ultimate goal is getting over to an area I scouted out on the map named Twin Harbors. Twin Harbor is located on the middle of the island where the land narrows considerably. The distance from shore to shore is small, hence the name. Twin harbors has an average August high of 71 degrees because of the extent of the marine influence. The metropolitan area is my oyster.

Having my friends visit me was great. I feel like I made a great decision coming out here, (instead of Kansas). Los Angeles is growing on me despite sunburns and near daily harassment. I feel like some examples are needed. A couple of days ago when I was with my visitors we were walking towards my house down Venice and two men passed the first was older, obviously drunk and started to mumble angrily about spare change the younger one told him to calm down from behind, he was his son. I walked around the younger one by walking on the grass. He took it as a slight against him and yelled something incoherent about how skinny I was and how he was a linebacker and how he could use me as a toothpick, (and here I was concerned about my recent weight gain). I was called a faggot on two separate occasions on the bus last week. I was talking on the phone both times, it's my guess that my voice, particularly when in the midst of an entheusiastic retelling of a ridiculous anecdote is a dead givaway.

Here is a picture of me sitting in the grass in Echo Park, wearing kellie's glasses is also a dead givaway:



Buying a home fitness ballet bar is also a dead givaway. But I don't give a fuck. It came in the mail on Monday. My mom recommended it to me on account of all of my back trouble, It seems to have worked wonders for her. It came with a series of instructional DVDs that I follow along with on my computer because I don't have a tv. So far it is much more difficult than I had anticipated but it is also a lot of fun. Definitely worth the money if any of you have been considering the purchase.