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Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Tags: Los Angeles, photo
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The Relativity of “Early”

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Getting up, and waking up my parents, at 6am to watch Garfield and Friends was not early at all.  My parents saw it a little different.  But to me, it was a necessary way to start each day.

In high school, having my first class start at 7.20am was painful.  Rushing on the freeway with a bunch of other students and workers who also refused to get out of bed when their alarms first went off was obnoxious.  By senior year I’d discovered a way to hit the snooze button one more time and not earn myself a detention.  Negotiation.  That’s right a high school senior successfully negotiated not having to arrive for class until 7:30am.  The 10 minutes were much appreciated.

These days I beat the sun up, even on the weekends.  Having a 4:42am call is crazy early to have to be at work.  Having a 5:12am call is early.  Not having to stand out in the dark and cold until 5:42am is considered sleeping in.  Having a 6am call is cause for celebration and an extra round the night before.

Early is a relative term.  Some day it’ll mean 10am.  I’ll get up and creak down the stairs for coffee just in time to watch The Price is Right (reruns with Bob Barker, of course) and yell at the television set.

Tags: Blog, Los Angeles, tired, Work
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Dreaming

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Even when I do find time to get some sleep I seldom become rested.  I’m more productive, or at least active, in my dreams than in reality.

This past week a dream started out in a helicopter piloted by Jay Leno with myself and a coworker of mine on board.  We were filming this dude bungee jumping out.  Turns out the bungee jumping dude was a bad guy and this was a setup for ratings.  Go figure.  Apparently in my mind this is the new direction of the Tonight Show.

The dream concluded racing begrudgingly through corridors with some sort of modern day stealth scuba-diving ninja person (yes, they were relevant and made sense earlier in the dream).  We ran up a ramp towards daylight and through a trap door where we’re greeted by 50,000 roaring Romans.  We were standing out of breath and beaten down in the ring of the Coliseum.  While they were all cheering and happy about our conquests, a tiger was released along with a gladiator.  We didn’t want to stick around.

The chanting crowd turned into my foghorn alarm clock.  I woke up.  No blood, no bruises, everything was okay except that I felt exhausted and my day was just beginning.  I smirked and rolled myself towards the shower.

Tags: crazy, dream, Los Angeles, tired
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Los Angeles Kings

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Even after working (volunteering? They fed me…) for the Milwaukee Admirals back in high school I’d still never learned the awesome that is hockey.  That is, besides the universal joy of hockey fights.  It wasn’t until floor managing college games that I learned rules and penalties of the sport.  The game is now just as fun between the fights.

I have watched plenty of good hockey, the Admirals are a feeder team that often dominated the minor leagues and both women and men won national titles while I was at school.   But until this weekend I’d never attended an NHL team.  So the Kings game it was. It is a very purple team, which I never thought I’d have to again embrace after graduation.  Suck is life.  My first time at the Staples Center and I 1). found great parking, and 2). Got to walk on the ice and check out the zamboni West Coast Chopper flair.

Besides the sever lack of cheers, songs, standing, and dancing (what sports are all about) it was a good time.   I think that is more of an issue of having “old people” at the game; it was nice to sit down for a change.

Living in Los Angeles I should probably have at least one west coast team, and the Kings will easily fit the mold.  Rumor has it the Kings don’t suck, making it look like the Kings will be my team.

Go Kings.  I’ll take my t-shirt in black.

Tags: Los Angeles, Sports, Work
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Halloween

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

This year I made up for three years of not participating, by celebrating Halloween three times before Oct 31^st rolled around. Work was having the Second Annual Michael Scott Dunder Mifflin Scranton Office Memorial Cast and Crew Fun Halloween Contest for the Duldrums Cure and I was told I had to dress up.

Fight Club.  No, not Tyler Durden.  Fight Club.  The people in the movie that participated in the underground fight club and then had to show up to work in their normal clothes with the crap beaten out of them.

We showed up dressed as usual.  Lori was awesome enough to come in just to do our makeup.  Then whenever anyone asked what we were we said that we can’t talk about it or that the first rule is that we couldn’t talk about it.

We had three brilliant judges: Vartan (crafty), Brian, and BJ.  They gave us a much undeserved third place in the costume contest!  We were pretty baffled, but took our candy and prize just the same.  Really we should have won the Jim Halpert Award: something witty, but only requiring minimal effort.

Quite a few people thought I crashed out on my bike over the weekend, and one of our security guards offered to beat up whoever did this to me before he figured out it was makeup.

The only thing that could have made it better was if Lori was working that day, because who doesn’t love a pregnant lady in their fight club?

Classy: Drinking Vintage Don Perignon at wrap.  Some of the best Champaign I’ve ever had, with my face as is.  Looked like I was celebrating an abusive husband divorce settlement.

Tags: Blog, Halloween, Holiday, Los Angeles, Work
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The Importance of Being Earnest

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

In an effort to become more cultured, Jesse and I got ourselves tickets to go see The Importance of Being Earnest at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles.  The theatre was close, cheap, and it was a play I read in a college lit class.  We probably even studied the play in that class.  Come to think of it, we probably studied Wilde as a whole, at least half of a lecture worth on this play.  Whatever the case, it’s kind of embarrassing that I had forgotten the end of the storyline and couldn’t think of any other Wilde writings.

After arriving, and loving the intimacy of the theatre I realized that there was no set dec.  In fact there were only six or so microphones across the stage.  What the heck was going on?  Table read?  Early rehearsal? The night was going to be a complete bust; no wonder the tickets were so cheap.  The bust turned out to be the most perfect way to experience such a well-written comedic masterpiece (I use the word loosely since I think you need to have read way more then I have in order to be qualified to label things as such).  Anyways.  Earnest.  The play-ish thing… I loved it.  Every moment.

The microphones were set up because NPR recorded the evening as a part of a series.  A foley artist provided the listeners at home some audio and for those of us lucky enough to be there both audio effects and a whole other artistic element to the evening that was fun to watch.  He seemed to have more going on at his little table then the rest of the performers up front.

The dialogue was the focus, and no one waited for a laugh cue before continuing.  Actors were great, the roles were perfectly filled for this particular evening.  Last minute recasting took away some “star power” but also eliminated any potential distractions from the writer’s words.  An interesting casting choice, whether it intentional or a necessity, was the casting of Lady Bracknell.  An older man, wearing a pretty hat, read her part.  Distracting at first, then it kind of worked, then I just heard him as a woman, then it made me think way too much about the character being a man instead of a woman and how it changes perceptions of the situations since the two male leads are struggling with identity issues to start out with…  That was on its way to being a thesis which means it is time to run in the other direction…

I have read the play, seen the movie, listened to lectures, and written an essay on Wilde’s play all prior to this evening.  But not until seeing it performed in this way did I truly appreciate the writing and comedic gold that Wilde presents.

I thoroughly enjoyed my evening, even on major lack of sleep.  Though there isn’t any video, the “P” in NPR means that you can all go search the interwebs and enjoy it yourselves.

Link to the theatre:  www.skirball.com

Tags: Culture, Jesse, Los Angeles, Play
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Refrigerator Nightmares

Monday, October 12th, 2009

My refrigerator houses more then just beer these days.  Not a whole lot more more, and most of it is in Styrofoam leftover from work, but that is beside the point.  I have stopped moving every five months; this means things stay in my fridge.

Before I was buying ketchup, butter, etc every few months never really worrying about it.  Between me and the numerous roommates we finished things off.  In the chance things weren’t eaten I moved away, left them to deal with it, and rebought my condiments at the next place.  It wasn’t a perfect routine, but it was my routine.

Now I have lived in the same place for almost two years.  This is a record since I turned 18.  I knew growing up that my mom sifted through our fridge every once in a while but I never thought about why.

Turns out, food spoils.  Food like ketchup, mustard, and salad dressing.  Who knew?  Really, never thought about salad dressing and mayonnaise spoiling.  It was gross.   This was never a problem before.  Hoping it’s a lesson that’ll stick in my head, and won’t be a problem again.

I’m moving on from ranch dressing and spicey brown mustard.  They’ve been placed alongside cottage cheese and  chocolate milk on my list of things I can’t stomach to choke down after a bad experience.  And it ruined my dinner.

Tags: Food, Gross, Los Angeles
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Urth Caffe

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

I had the most amazing coffee experience this morning! The anticipation of trying out this place is two-fold.. actually multi-fold.

First, the name. Earth Cafe? No, who needs another one of those (no offense to Electric Earth in Madison which still holds a comfy-chaired spot in my heart)? URTH Caffe. Cheesy? Maybe, but I still took notice of it when first blazing the trail to Beverly Hills.

Second, patio! Enjoying a nice cup of tea or coffee under the sun? What did you say, I can bring a newspaper with me? And there’s no winter here? Every one of my unemployed mornings have suddenly been planned.

Third, healthy? If you’ve got to savor that freshly brewed coffee every morning to feed your caffeine addiction, it might as well be organic. This is as healthy as coffee is going to get folks.

Fourth, timing. I’ve been driving past this place for three months now wishing it were closer to the office for lunch. Wishing it were closer to my apt to justify. But today, because of a misfortune yesterday, I had to be in Beverly Hills bright and early. Being that it’s the day after St Patrick’s Day made a coffee stop before seeing any work related anything all the more important.

I cradled my little unmarked to-go cup with great anticipation. After taking in the creamy caffeinated drink through scent, I slowly sipped my honey vanilla strong soy latte to my lips to experience my first burnt tongue thanks to Urth. But only a small part of my tongue got screwed by impatience, the rest got to enjoy one of the most amazing morning drinks I’ve ever had.

My only complaint is that it was too soon gone. Nothing else.

Anyone who comes to visit will undoubtedly be dragged here.

Anyone who did something stupid and needs to apologize now knows what to bring me.

www.urthcaffe.com

Tags: Apologies, Coffee, Los Angeles
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