Day 15

Dining al fresco

Place: Forage, Silver Lake, CA

Day 14

Hershey's Special Dark


Most work days, around 2pm, I eat one of these tiny treats provided by my office. It is one of few perks and makes me happy for at least a few moments in a long day.

Place: My job.

Day 13

Abandoned furniture. 

Place: Mission Road, Boyle Heights, ELA

Day 12

Fresh produce, year round. 

Place: My house. Red cabbage from Atwater Farmer's Market.

Day 11

The ocean

Place: Hermosa Beach, CA

Day 10

Chinatown

Places: Old Chinatown Plaza & Hop Louie bar, 950 Mei Ling Way

Day 9

Puppies and gee-tars.

Place: Silver Lake, CA

Day 8

Spinning
Spinning usually makes me pretty happy, but today was special. Keith played the Pixies and the Hold Steady and there was a lot of sweat. Plus, I noticed I'm getting little muscles in my arms. Couldn't get a clearer picture, but you can sorta see them! Yay!

Place: YAS Silverlake

Day 7

The Hollywood Bowl

One of the highlights of summer in L.A., the Hollywood Bowl is the ultimate outdoor meet-up spot. Last night A.P. and I spent $8 to sit for hours, drinking Chocovine, eating fresh tomatoes and enjoying Gershwin classics sung by BeBe Winans, St. Vincent, Nancy Wilson and Jason Mraz. Not bad for a weeknight.

Day 6

Ray Bradbury. 


He lives here, so L.A. must be a-okay. Also, in honor of his 90th birthday (August 22), the city named this week "Ray Bradbury Week." Amazing. 


Last night, I went to a screening of the 1966 film version of Fahrenheit 451. Before the movie, Bradbury and Hugh Hefner did a little Q& A with L.A. Times writer Geoff Boucher. Here's Bradbury talking about why he's a pomegranate. 

The lighting in the theater wasn't great, but here's a shot of Bradbury leaving, presumably on his way back to Mars. 

And a pic of Hef signing autographs. Naturally, he had some Playboy bunnies with him. I really loved the idea of a bunch of bunnies hanging out to watch a sci-fi French New Wave film about burning books. 

The weirdest part of the night though was when the bill came after our post-movie dinner. For no apparent reason, this was written at the bottom of the bill.

Whoa. Then, Mel opened up his fortune cookie (served at an Italian restaurant?) This is what it read:

If you know the movie, you know why this is strange. Also, the number sequence 451 is in there. Um...


Places: Writers Guild of America Theater, Beverly Hills, CA / Jones, West Hollywood, CA

Day 5

Palm trees and sunsets.  They go really well together. 

Place: Coronado Street, Echo Park neighborhood

Day 4

Figs from the tree in my yard.

Plus girlfriends.

Plus boozy smoothies.

= Sunday funday.

Place: CT's new apartment. Echo Park, CA

Day 3

Breakfast at the beach.

 

Place: Paradise Cove, Malibu, CA

Day 2

Homegrown tomatoes. I love having a garden.

Place: my front yard.

Day 1

Tonight I went to Little Tokyo to see the Dennis Hopper exhibit at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary.

The exhibit was okay, but it wasn't curated very well. It was sort of confusing and lacked a focus. His photography is good and I liked how they had a theater in the back that was showing clips from some of his movies.

But really the highlight of the evening was wandering around Little Tokyo, one of my favorite areas of Los Angeles. This giant bamboo tree with decorations hanging off of it made me happy.

So did my egg sushi (below) and scallop volcano.

Off to a delicious start!

Places: MOCA Geffen Contemporary, ZenCu Restaurant: Little Tokyo

Intro

I live in Los Angeles. I arrived here from the East Coast via a road trip. I didn't intend to stay for more than a few months. Fast forward seven years and I'm still here. Many lovely and amazing things have happened along the way. Yet every August, near the date I first arrived here, I am stricken with a crazy case of wanderlust. I want to be anywhere but Los Angeles.

But Los Angeles is where I am. And where I will likely be for quite some time. My love and my life are here. And so, I am going to take the next 365 days to document an item each day that makes me happy. My hope is that next year at this time, I can look back at this blog and see how incredibly lucky I am - instead of wanting to catch the next plane out of town, regardless of the destination.