Right now I'm at a weird loss for creative thought. Im around the most creative people in the city of Angels every single day, and for the life of me, I cant create a damn thing.

Maybe it has something to do with still feeling a little bit lost. After almost 2 years on the Westside, I still can't tell you how I fit in to this messy equation.

I'll probably run into my creativity when i least expect it... maybe at the ATM on Santa Monica Blvd, or waiting in line at Trader Joes, or in a weird dream. I hope it comes back. I miss my better half.

The Young and the Free

I have a new job.

It is so cool.

My new job is cool for many reasons:

1. Color. It's everywhere in this world, but for some reason color stays the F away from most offices. My old office had two colors- green and quasi green-brown. It was like walking into a cardboard box every morning. The bottoms of my 2 year old trail running shoes are more colorful than that office. To compensate for the lack of color stimulation, I cluttered my desk with over-saturated photos of beautiful places I had been and would rather be. I changed my desktop picture often and sometimes sat there and stared for 15 minutes at a picture of a neon pink flower with a bee on it. Emptiness is life without color.

I now walk into an illuminated mashup of color, design, and structure. Street art lines the walls, and the graphic designers have sharpie cartoon-offs on the kitchen closets... right after playing a few totally sick rounds of Pacman on our global arcade video game, bro!


2. Food. I dont know about you but I love free food. Anything that has the preceeding word "free" is automatically a viable option for immediate consumption. I might have learned this from my dad... at costco...

mom: where did dad go?
me: he was here just a minute ago. is he over there by the meat section?
mom: i cant see him
me: oh look. there he is... over there, getting his third pasta salad sample, hurry lets just catch up with him before he hits the frozen section.
mom: oh shit, did you see where he went now?
me: he probably ran back to the sausage tent. just let him go mom. let it go.

My dad loves free food. At costco he hovers over the little forman grills, manned by stout black ladies in stupid white nurse costumes, until they release the **first sample**. He is ready, hands free, determined. I think i might have inherited his love for the Free.


3. Hours. 11am... pretty standard time to coast on into work.... right?

4. Culver City. It's a city that actually sleeps. Yeah, it sleeps. It likes it's sleepy time... because when it wakes up in the morning, it's got it all goin' on. It's the oldest newcomer on the block, and the most surprising city I've ever learned to love.

5. Freedom. Something about the atmosphere here inspires me to work my ass off. I dont know if its the youthful, smiling faces (even when the apocolypse is upon us), or possibly the hustle and bustle of creativity beyond comprehension, or the fact that i've learned more in the last month than i did in 4 whole college years. Here, a sense of personal freedom is a requirement. If you can't let yourself think in places other than right here, right now, you don't have a reason for even showing up. You're required think in terms of local trends, national growth, international beauty, universal awesomeness. Your mind doesn't need to be bloated with useless facts, mundane tasks and petty political drama. It becomes curtains waving in a coastal breeze, a new digital art exhibit at LACMA and the Sunset Strip on a Friday night, rolled into one.

After all this is said, I don't regret anything or anywhere I have been in my short life. I believe I'm here for a reason, and as cliche as it all seems, that someone out there made this happen for me other than myself. I am lucky beyond measure.

I am the Queen of Topanga

This morning I ran the Topanga Turkey Trot 10k, alone. I liked doing it alone. I still knew people there which was nice.
Right now I'm at work, and I'm tired.

Besides that and the char-broiled chafage between my legs (I wore the wrong running shorts), I feel happy.

At one point during the race, I almost threw up. This was in the beginning, during the endless incline up to the highest point in Topanga Canyon, where you could see 350 degrees of dense low-hanging fog to the South and thick, lingering San Fernando Valley smog to the North. I could feel the blood rush from my face, into my stomach, prepping itself for the swift removal of half of a poppyseed muffin and 4 cups of coffee. But right as I reached the peak, and began the pounding, almost earth-shattering downhill slope, I actually felt briefly euphoric.

So euphoric that my dumb ass threw my arms out over my head and almost yelled out loud....... Something potentially embarrassing.........something like "WOOOHOOO YEAH BITCHES!" just because I was so happy. I was still two miles away from the finish, I dont know why the hell I felt like I had just conquered the world.

But whatever, I finished at 10:30am, and I'm happy right now.

Mag vs. Mag

I am sooooooo lazy when it comes to parking. I think I get it from my Dad. I usually turn the engine off while I'm coasting into whatever parking spot my car is aimed at and jump out before it stops rolling. Old habits die hard.

Behind my house there are 6 spots for the tenants in my building. I have one of them, which is rad, but its a bitch to get into and requires twice the physical exhertion than mine does (heavy arm rotation + severe neck craning). The chick that lives below us, Magdaline (Hello Kitty lover/possible hooker/vampire?), has a really convenient parking spot. It's at the perfect angle for backing out, it's roomy, it's coastable. And, to make it more tempting for me, she has no car. I equivalate the whole situation to a popped ice cold beer on the coffee table when you walk in the door after a long, hard day at work. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I am not the only one who does it. Others do it. Its not just me. I could give you plenty of examples where other people do it and nothing is ever said, ever, seriously. And if you dont have a car, why the hell do you care if people park there? You dont even have a bike! or a scooter! or a skateboard! If you had a skateboard and you left it in your parking spot, at least you would be using it and i would respect that! I might have the urge to drive right over it but I don't know that until it happens.

And now is when I admit that I park in her spot all the friggin time.

Apparently, according to my landlord (who trusts third party sources when it comes to parking?) as of yesterday, she will have a visitor with a car, gonna be around for the next month, park in your own spot, something something something (whatever). I continued to park in her space without hesitation.

HELL YEAH I AM RED TRUCK GIRL! THAT'S SO BADASS!

Because of the flattery, and despite the fact that we have been neighbors for 1.45 years and she should know my name because it's better than hers, I will furthermore abide by her wishes, and let her "visitor" park there with his crappy rental car until the end of December, Merry Christmas until the Happy New Year, enjoy, with love, Red Truck Girl.

Willie Nelson, "Bring my Beat Phone Back"

A scenario:

I'm on my morning walk. The air is crisp, and the fallen leaves are gathering in the rain gutters.

I stop, look up at the sky. The clouds are white and puffy, drifting slowly through endless blue, as squirrels chase tails on telephone poles and doves sing to themselves bluesy tunes.

Something pats my foot. I look down and its a 9"x11" piece of paper, kind of dirty, crisp like the autumn air.

I read it and laugh. Jeez man. I didnt think the economy was that bad. If I lost my beat phone, I'd use it as an excuse to upgrade. Dont go back to beat phones. Dont have the beaten phone syndrome. It's not worth it, and therapy ain't cheap without insurance.

I turned it over, noticing that it was not just any piece of paper. And there he was.

If you are looking to get your phone back, whoever you are, smart move with the Willie Nelson photo. Someone like myself would read this and know for sure that you are all right. If Willie Nelson lost his phone, he'd sing a country song about it, and gain the sympathies of fans who also long for their lost and/or beaten phones, who would in turn be more willing to help him find it. Excellent strategy! Which brings me to a question we as Americans might never have an answer to...

Why are most country songs about lost stuff?

Phone Beater: I can help you. I have a semi-beat phone from about a year ago. The "7" key doesnt work, if that suits your definition of "beat" then we can arrange something... I'm asking $12.50 (obo) for the phone... but you'll probably never read this. In fact, I dont know if anyone reads this. And again, I digress...

Look No Further

Thanks to Ben I now know where the best gay Chinese Restaurant in Los Angeles is, hell yeah, I was looking so hard! **Relief**

Workin' in a Coal Mine

I am working on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Devo- Working in a Coal Mine, Live 

Thank you, Devo, for getting me through today. 

You understand my pain. 

You speak the thoughts in my mind into your little stick microphones. 

And you do it all with kick ass headlamps. 

Lesson Learned: Air humping next to your coworker can be good for managing stress.