Oops.

See that part of the "About me" where it says I'm not planning on working in the entertainment industry in any way?

Uh...

...

...

you just can't escape it in this city, can you?

Hair.

I'm generally not a girly kind of girl, but I do a lot of things with my hair. And when I say "a lot", I'm really not kidding: it has, at some point or another, literally been every color of the rainbow (or at least parts of it have been) except white and every length between almost 3 feet and just over 3 inches.

So, when I moved to LA, I had what was then a pretty normal, somewhere-between-chin-and-shoulders, some-color-between-red-and-blonde style going on. Then on one bright, sunny, probably near-100-degree day, I decided to go hiking in Griffith Park. If you've been reading this blog, you know that the phrase "Griffith Park" should be prefaced by the word "misadventure", and if you know me very well, you probably also know that I'm not the most coordinated person in the world. I ended up hitting my head on a tree, and of course it was a pine tree with a big bit of sticky sap on it.

I turned to Google: since pine sap apparently cannot be easily removed with shampoo, and since I'm the type of person to choose the quickest, easiest, and most importantly, simplest (see: Murphy's Law) option available to me, I decided that the best course of action would be to cut it out. The only problem was that I didn't have money for a professional hairdresser, but I had scissors, right?

I ended up cutting the sap glob out of my hair, which left an awkward chunk on the side, so I chopped the rest of it off to match. This resulted in my hair being very short, and for a few days after I cut it, looking very much like it had been blindly attacked with scissors. But, as my hair does, it managed to look cute after a couple weeks - in fact, the girl working at the $4000-sparkly-purse-store (right around the corner from the $284,000-handcrafted-from-unicorn-horn-watch-store) was the one who used the word "cute".

Since I can't leave my hair alone for more than a month, I decided to dye it red again. I went down to the drugstore to pick out a shade of red that hopefully wouldn't fade out in two weeks' time. As fate would have it, the L'Oreal Feria "Power reds" was on sale and I had a coupon! I bought it, figuring that it looked like the best candidate for "not fading out".

So I mixed up the dye and put it on. Now, I've never actually tried to dye my hair with blood before, but if I was to ever become a serial killer and decide that would be a fun idea, putting this dye on was exactly what I imagine dying my hair with blood would be like. Not only was it the right shade of dark, opaque red, but there was some sort of exothermic reaction going on that made it warm, and I was wearing some of those blue nitrile gloves that I had swiped from a lab. The only thing that was off was that of all the colors that bloodstains can be, bright pink isn't quite one of them, although salmon, grey, brown, and even a kind of greenish shade are possibilities.

If you've dyed hair before, you probably have read the part where it says to put the dye on unwashed hair. In the excitement, I had entirely forgotten that the reason my hair was unwashed was because when I tried to turn the shower on earlier, there hadn't been any hot water. So, when it was time to wash the dye out and I turned on the shower again, I suddenly realized that what I had just done was probably not a smart idea. As it turned out, there had been a maintenance person desperately trying to fix the problem all day, and with no success, but I figured if he'd been at it all day, he'd have to be close to fixing it, right? An hour later, still no hot water, and it's been in for WAY too long, so I decide to suck it up and rinse it out in the freezing cold shower. Cold water, aside from being painfully unpleasant to shower in, also happens to cause dyes and stains to set into things, whereas hot water usually makes them fade.

So, after leaving the dye in for 3x as long as I should have and rinsing it out in a way that made it brighter, what the box described as "auburn" turned out to be something on the border of "blood red" and "magenta".


(imagine this in the sunlight, so it's more intense and more magenta-ish)

Despite this incident, there was one awesome thing that happened: I was riding a bus, and sitting across me was an adorable, rather flamboyant teenager with blue hair. When the person sitting next to me got off the bus, he got up and sat down next to me. We didn't need to say anything like "nice hair" - we just looked at each other, and smiled, and went back to listening to our respective mp3 players and happily being different than everyone else on the bus.

So guess what I'm going to do over winter break, since I'll have weeks for it to fade back to a work-acceptable color?

I'M GOING TO DO IT AGAIN! Only, with warm water this time...

I have a job!

And it's been in the 90's for pretty much the entire week so far! This makes me really happy! 98 degree weather in November is exactly why I moved to LA. Well, not exactly, it more had to do with the fact that I got accepted here and I could afford it, but it's the kind of weather that I was hoping for when I moved here. So far, it hasn't disappointed, and there's nothing quite like seeing Christmas decorations alongside palm trees. I actually think I prefer it to seeing Christmas decorations that are blanketed in snow.

So, now that I do have a job, I'll be checking into the possibility of getting a kitty as soon as I have enough time during the hours for the rescue! Also, I'll be seeing when I can get down to San Diego for a day or so. Why in the world does our high-speed rail go everywhere in Southern CA except for San Diego?

The only real downside is that this job involves lots of people speaking a language that I don't know at all, and that the dress code doesn't even allow me to have watches, jewelry, or nail polish that's not a "light" or "neutral" color, because we're supposed to look "professional". Seriously, when the person you're interviewing asks about the dress code because her hair is currently every color in between blood red and blond, wouldn't you think that "Oh, and no bright purple nail polish" might be a good thing to mention? Incidentally, the exact words used regarding the hair were "not a problem".

The hours right now are kind of tough, too, cause they go late enough in the day that nothing's open by the time I get out, but they still start early enough (compared to when everything opens at least) that I don't have time to go grocery shopping or whatever before going to work.

It's very frustating that after four years and tens of thousands of dollars and a degree in a hard science, that's STILL not enough to get me more than minimum wage. Ah, well, in 2 or 3 years I'll hopefully have a real career, and my career field will pay very comfortably =)

Things I will buy when I have a job.

I've been very busy lately, mostly applying at 20+ places, which so far have resulted in one interview and zero jobs. But, when I do get a job, here's what I'll buy, in no particular order:



Another warm, fuzzy blanket.

A small couch or love seat, because right now I just have a blanket and an extra pillow on the floor against the laundry hampers. If I were ever to get most of my laundry done at once, it would present a problem.

A TV stand, as mine is currently on the floor

A second set of color-coordinated towels.

Pierogies, even though I might have to buy them at Whole Foods.

At least one outfit that doesn't make me look entirely clueless about fashion.

A membership to the San Diego Zoo.

Bus tickets to San Diego, of course.

Christmas presents for my cousins and parents.

Nicer Christmas presents for my siblings.

Some sort of shelf thing to store my dishes or silverware (which are on an out-of-the-way corner of the floor).

A table for my microwave, which is in the same place as everything else in my apartment (ie, the floor).

Warm socks.

Combat boots.

A coffee table or end table, because who wants to guess where I put my dishes when I eat?

A DVD player.

Books.

CHOCOLATE!

Orville:

[unfortunately, the 3G on my phone appears to be broken, and so I cannot post a photo of him. He is an adorable orange-and-white cat that likes to stand or lie on people's shoulders, even while they're walking around a room.]

Well, I won't be buying him, but I will be paying the pet deposit, buying his food and dishes, his litterbox and litter, his bed or carrier, and his toys.

Exploring LA!

So, last week, I decided to take some time to explore the city. I started out by going to Santa Monica beach. I'd never been to the Pacific ocean before, but I was of the impression that it would generally be like the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, I haven't even been in the Atlantic that much, so 90% of my beach experience up to this point involved me frolicking in the warm, shallow waters of the Gulf Coast. So, when I visited the Pacific, I was surprised by a couple things.

First off, the water temperature was COLD! At the moment, the water off Santa Monica beach is a balmy 59 degrees. In addition, you can't walk out 50 feet and still be waist-deep here, but only a few feet from the water line you're knee-deep, and people were shark-fishing off the end of the pier (I didn't see anyone actually catch a shark, but they were using 10-inch-long fish as bait). Plus, there are lovely mountains along the coast.



Tuesday was the second Tuesday of the month, which means it was free admission day at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art! This is a fantastically large museum, consisting of multiple buildings, and it houses an impressive art collection. They also have a "Children's Gallery", which is really for people of all ages, and a room in the Children's gallery contains supplies for the general public to make their own drawing or painting. It was pretty awesome to see an 80-year-old man at one table painstakingly working on something while at another table a dad helped his toddler girl finger-paint. My favorite parts of any art museum, though, are the ancient art exhibitions. The LACMA was no different, as they had ancient art from all kinds of different cultures. My favorite piece was a calendar wheel - if I had to carve one of those, there's no way I would've made it go even as far as 2012!



Later that week, someone recommended that I look around the Echo Park neighborhood. This is an almost painfully trendy little area, but as I came out of a used-book store, I saw this next to it!



Yes, that does say "Echo Park Time Travel Mart". Yes, if you walk inside, it sells everything from medieval helmets to "dinosaur eggs" to posters encouraging proper robot self-maintenance, or would that be robot hygiene? But, things get even cooler: The "Time Travel Mart" is actually a source of funding for a non-profit tutoring center, which runs out of the spacious back part of the building.

Then, on Saturday, I took the bus up to the observatory. Since I've already been there, I decided to take a hike instead, and right off the parking lot was a sign for the Mount Hollywood trail. I walked along it for a little while, saw warning signs about rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and rattlesnakes again, but fortunately didn't encounter any of those animals. From that high, it was painfully obvious that there was a temperature inversion going on, literally blanketing LA in smog. Here's a photo of Griffith Observatory with the smoggy Los Angeles skyline behind it:



Last but not least, as I was waiting at the observatory for the bus back, I noticed a humminbird. Then, another, and another. It turns out that there were at least six of them hanging around the area. It was hard to get a clear shot of them flying, although my camera's ISO 3200 setting came in really handy here, but I got some beautiful shots of them resting on branches.



That's pretty much it. I have a volunteer position at an animal rescue as of now, so I've got something to do other than wander around town and take photos and post them on this blog. On another note, I wound up getting a tiny bit lost in Beverly Hills today, and wound up walking by City Hall and down Rodeo Drive - the amount of wealth on display was mind-boggling. For a second I thought "Hey, lots of stores in a small area, this would be a good place to job-hunt" but then I figured that I'd need to be wearing fancy clothes and heels just for them to give me a job application.

The Library is Not Disappointing.

As you may have noticed if you read the previous post, I had figured out that all the people who patronize my local library branch read about is teenage vampires, teenagers at prep schools, or teenage vampires at prep schools, and decided to go to the downtown library at the next opportunity.

Well, the opportunity came, because I discovered I had to run some errands that would take me in the general direction of downtown, and I decided to stop at the library last so I didn't have to haul my books around all day. Along the way, I ran into not one, but two film crews - both of them filming outdoors, complete with bundles of wires across the sidewalk, big tents and catering trucks set up in parking lots so everyone was trying to parallel-park on nearby streets (including some guys whom I saw attempting to parallel-park a cargo van), and so on. Sadly, since my phone camera sometimes needs an excessively long exposure time, I couldn't get any non-blurry photos. The first set wasn't bad, since it was easy to avoid, so I was mildly amused. However, the second time I had to avoid all kinds of wires and little plastic ramps over the wires on the sidewalk (wires which didn't go to any visible equipment) while carrying books under one arm and navigating to the nearest metro station with my phone, so I was significantly less amused.

However, let me get to the topic of the library. Oh, the library. I've been in the New York Public Library before, and I was impressed, but this still seemed like heaven to me. As I was walking through, I heard a tour guide - yes, people actually sign up for tours of this place, or something - mention that the library system had almost 2.5 million books. I wondered if that wasn't an exaggeration, but as I kept going to more and more levels, and going further and further in, I noticed signs on the shelves that said only about 50% of their books were actually in the stacks, and I started to believe that number.

Then there's the science fiction section. Although as I mentioned, the sci-fi section in the other library was smaller than the sci-fi section in my bedroom, this was not the case here. The science fiction section, which appeared not to include fantasy, had to be at least the size of the cow-town library that I mentioned in my previous post, and that's not even to mention what's called the "popular library". Apparently, in an attempt not to scare off the public by making them walk through miles and miles of shelving, they've dedicated a section on the first level to recent bestsellers, CD's, and DVD's. It's literally a "normal"-sized library within the more massive library, which is just SO COOL!

Anyways, that's it for this blog post, as I have books to read. Hooray!

The Library is Disappointing.

So, it's been a little more than two weeks in Los Angeles, and ever since I got cable TV and internet, I've settled into a routine of eating, sleeping, showering, and killing time online and watching TV. It was at some point during this that I decided that it is good to read books, and as such I decided I would go to the library.

So, I looked up where the nearest library was, and headed out. I finally got there (after experiencing my ever-present difficulty with maps and things being further than they looked) and walked inside. Although the building was at least as big as the public library near my college apartment, and bigger than the one in my hometown of 1000 people and 34890 cows, it seemed to have very few books. Thinking this was odd, I wandered around until I found the sci-fi section. This consisted of four or five shelves of books, about 3 feet wide. The sci-fi section (large closet) in the used bookstore (back room of the historical society) in my aforementioned hometown was larger than this! In fact, if you were to eliminate all the Star Wars expanded universe novels in the library, I have more sci-fi in my BEDROOM!

I wandered around, in vague hope that wasn't all of it. I was somewhat right, because they had shelved authors such as Tolkien, Bradbury, and more in with the regular fiction. However, even that wasn't encouraging, as half the "fiction" was young adult vampire novels (I counted no fewer than five copies of each of the first three books in the Twilight saga), and much of the rest was Nicholas Sparks romance novels or 4 copies of recent easy-to-read bestsellers.

So, if the books are any reflection of supply and demand at this branch, I can assume that the demographics of my neighborhood consist primarily of dumb people who want to keep up with trends and 12-year-old girls with distorted perceptions of relationships.

To make matters worse, when I did finally find something worth checking out, specifically a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I went to get a library card only to discover that I don't have any identification with my current address on it. Now, I've got to obtain a copy of my lease or utility bill or something, and I'm going to go to the main library downtown to see if it's better.

Also, the libraries are closed on mondays because of budget cuts. REALLY? In a city with 9.75% sales tax, and in a state that's essentially legalized marijuana, HOW are they still so broke?

Switchfoot, Tesla Coils, and Rogue Vampire Hunters.

Let's start out by saying that I've been trying to see Switchfoot in concert for years, but on at least 3 separate occasions I've come within hours of going to a show and not being able to swing it at the last minute. At some point it started being less about me liking their music and wanting to see them live (although that still held true) and more about how I simply needed to prove that I *could* make it to one of their shows. Even if that involved hiking a mile into Griffith Park to get the tickets and nearly getting eaten by a mountain lion after the show (OK, that may be a bit of exaggeration).

So, last night, I caught the shuttle bus to the observatory into the park, and persuaded the driver to stop at the Greek Theatre. If you've never been there, let me describe it to you: It's an open-air theater, with the stage shaped like the front of the Parthenon, in a dip on the east side of a mountain, so that the seats are basically going up the slope of the hills and you're shielded from the sunset. There are trees and stuff coming right up to the edges of the seating area, and it's just gorgeous. Here's a photo:

The show starts out with some band who I have never heard of before (and whose name I had already forgotten). They were OK. Then Switchfoot starts their set, and they put on an amazing show. The lead singer, Jon Foreman, has a wireless mic, and he's jumping down from the stage, walking through the crowd, climbing on seats, climbing on railings, climbing on amps, climbing on and jumping off of anything else he can find, while singing. It was a really high-energy show. Afterwards, I get in line and get my copy of "Nothing is Sound" autographed =)

After Switchfoot, the Goo Goo Dolls are on. I'd seen them before at their July 4th show in Buffalo and I figured nothing they could do would top that, and it was getting kind of late, and I needed to catch the last shuttle bus back from the observatory. The only hitch in this plan was that it's getting pretty dark, so I can't find a sign for the shuttle bus stop near the theater, and I'm not sure there is one at all, so the only logical alternative is to walk up to the observatory and catch it from the stop up there. After staying for a couple songs, I take off up the road.

Just past the parking area, I notice some twigs snapping. Startled, I look over, only to see a tiny little deer with two even tinier fawns. Adorable, but it makes me realize that there were animals in this park. I continue to walk up the side of the road. It's quiet, and relatively empty, with a kind of cliff with brush on top on one side (the right side, which I'm on) and a sharp drop-off on the other. As I'm walking, I think I hear a twig snap on the top of the cliff above me. I look up, and don't see anything. Maybe 20 seconds later, I hear some leaves rustle, and again don't see anything, so I continue walking although some kind of primal "You're being stalked!" instinct is starting to set off alarm bells in my head. Then, another 20 to 30 seconds after that, I notice a few small stones sliding down the side of the cliff. It's at exactly this point that I remember that there are mountain lions in California, and they live in mountains, and I'm walking through mountains in the dark.

I panic, and move to the other side of the road faster than I knew was possible, figuring that a mountain lion probably would only want to jump down for its food, not up an embankment and over a guardrail, or all the way across almost 4 lanes of road - although they're animals, they've at least got a basic understanding of gravity. I don't see anything else following me for the rest of the trip, although since it got a bit hilly on both sides of the road I'm now dodging cars because I'm refusing to walk anywhere except the middle of the road. Fortunately, later went online and didn't unearth any evidence of a mountain lion being seen in the park recently, so it likely was a curious deer or coyote or bobcat.

So, I finally make it up to the observatory without becoming a late-night snack for some carnivore. There's a spectacular view of all of Los Angeles (and probably everything for 30 miles) from there. I managed to get a lovely picture of downtown:


I stop on the lawn and look at Jupiter through a random telescope, but it's quite blurry - being on a hilltop on one side of LA, there's naturally an entirely obscene amount of light pollution there, and I can't even see all of the stars in the Big Dipper (although I can see enough to make out that it's there, and since I'm at a different latitude the angle looks really weird). Not at all like the observatory back home where you have to turn off your headlights at the turn-off from the main road, a couple hundred yards from the parking lot, which is maybe another 100 yards from the observatory itself, and there are thousands of stars and the Milky Way is all glittery. Frustrated with this, I go in an wander around, only to find a guy demonstrating a Tesla coil that's inside a Faraday cage.

If you're reading this and don't know anything about Tesla Coils or Faraday cages, let me explain what you need to know: There was a guy named Nikola Tesla, and he was basically the 1900 version of Da Vinci (ie, probably a time-traveling mad scientist if half of what he claimed was true). Anyways, Tesla invented a coil that was super-awesome and makes LOADS of lightning. A Faraday Cage was invented by Micheal Faraday, and it prevents lightning from getting out and radio waves or anything like that from getting in.

Anyways, the Tesla coil produces lightning, but the guy demonstrating it says he can only press the button for a few seconds a couple times an hour to prevent it from overheating. He also says that the setup is so old Tesla himself had seen it. Which is PURE AWESOMENESS!

Then, as I'm waiting for the shuttle bus back, I notice the "Hollywood" sign on a hill nearby. So, I take a couple long exposure shots - this one I'm super proud of because it was a 5-second exposure with NO tripod!


I catch the shuttle back with no problems, but that's still not the end of the entertainment. As I'm waiting for the train, I notice a guy walking through the station. He's wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, black fingerless gloves, black cargo pants, black combat boots, a black backpack, a black beanie, and in addition to all that he's got a black eyepatch over one eye. The only non-black thing he's wearing is a large, shiny, simple cross necklace. Since I've maybe watched a little too much Angel, all I can think is "Whoa, rogue vampire hunter!" Then, at the next stop, I see another man out the window, also dressed all in black. Only, this guy doesn't have an eyepatch or cross - he's got a scarf or something wrapped around his face so that only his eyes are showing, making him literally look like a ninja.

That was how yesterday went. I'm ending up with endless material for this blog, although in the future I will try to avoid becoming a set of toothpicks for a large carnivore.

Another Crazy Day...

Today when I woke up, I thought I'd go get my student reduced-fare card, hunt for some kind of volunteer work, and maybe go to a library or something. This is one of the things that I saw on my walk to the bus stop:



(In case you can't read it, the truck advertises forensic autopsies, private autopsies, medical photography, paternity testing, and TV and film consulting)

Well, I had to go on this epic quest back and forth across LA to gather all the documentation required for my reduced fare card - a quest that took me the better part of the day. While I was in Metro centers and whatnot, I started picking up brochures for various interesting science-y looking places where I might want to volunteer, or possibly just visit.

By the time I got everything turned in, I had no desire to go to a library or volunteer-work-hunting any more. However, I did notice one brochure that mentioned an observatory in Griffith Park. Since I had been thinking of going to see a show at the Greek Theater, which is also in said park, I decided to go up there and check it out. During this expedition, I discovered three things: 1) there are no buses going into, or even up to the entrance of, Griffith Park, 2) maps don't show hills, so what looks like an easy walk can be quite a hike, and 3) even on flat surfaces, distances appear MUCH smaller on Google maps than they do when you're walking them. Naturally, I ended up really tired, so I just took the first bus I found, which conveniently went straight to a subway station.

Now, I don't listen to country music, so at first I thought the two people with kind of Southern accents on the bus next to me were tourists. However, as I heard their conversation, I realized that they were musicians (or a musician and a writer, or two band-mates?). I have no idea how famous they were, but I heard one of them telling the other about how some people had asked to take his picture, and how he was now rich enough to warrant having a place to live in Nashville AND a place to live in LA, and so on. It was weird, then the bus stopped not at the intersection where it said it stopped, but a bit down the street where there were paprazzi on one block and a TV or film crew setting up on another block around the corner.

Last but not least, annoyances since I've moved in less than a week ago:
Film crews: 1
Paparazzi groups: 2
Lost tourists who think I'm a local: At least 8

I'm here at last!

That's right! A couple days ago, I officially moved into my new apartment in LA. It's a bit smaller than I remembered, but the closet is a bit bigger than I remembered, so I guess it evens out?

The upsides are that I LOVE the weather, I like the neighborhood, I got a full-sized mattress for relatively cheap, and it looks like I'll survive.

One of the downsides is how EXPENSIVE it is to buy everything! It's not just that LA is an expensive city, but also that California has 9.75% sales tax. Now, I thought NYS had high tax, with it going up to about 8.5% in some places, but that's ridiculous. Someone tell me HOW this state is still so broke?!?! Also, getting new furniture-like things, cleaning supplies, food, and random household items that I couldn't pack (or didn't own) can add up pretty fast. The related problem I'm having is that I need a job.

But the craziest part? Beverly Hills. Where do I start on this topic?

I guess I should start with the fact that it's not too hard to get a bus out there (really, for everyone who whines about LA's public transportation system, it's not as bad as they make it out to be. Unless by "bad" they really meant "the buses are full of people with different skin colors than I have!") and someone mentioned to me that there was a farmer's market. Now, when I think "farmers market", I think of a bunch of farmers driving cargo vans or small trucks into a parking lot, setting up a canopy thing, and selling out of the back of the truck. That is possibly the furthest possible thing from what I found.

What I found was something that can only be compared to the interior food buildings at the NY State Fair, only it was all open-air with cloth over the walkways, and the little shops were permanent. Also, there were actual names on the shops (not like "Rolling Hills Farm, Nowhere, NY") and bars and souvenir stores and even a Starbucks. This is next to an outdoor mall, which seems to consist exclusively of designer clothing stores, fancy restaurants, and a movie theater.

This brings me to another point - well, actually another mall, which at first I got mixed up with CBS studios (another amusing story for another time). This mall was ridiculously large, where you had to go up something like five escalators just to get to the stores. Unfortunately, this mall also seemed to consist of nothing but designer clothing/jewelry/fragance/etc stores, with the exception of a food court, a Ferrari store (no kidding), and a completely incongrous Claire's.

The last, but perhaps the most fun thing, in Beverly Hills is the secondhand stores. Want a full-length leather trenchcoat? Five identical TV's? A set of brand-new glass tumblers from Ikea? Stuff with the labels still on it? It's a gold-mine of cheaply priced awesome stuff in excellent condition. I got a fully functional 20" CRT TV from there for $25 with the remote, and that's awesome because you can't even buy cheap CRT TV's from Walmart any more.

Oh, Walmart: That is my last topic for this post. Since Walmarts are as common (and sometimes as unwanted) as weeds in upstate NY, and also really cheap, I figured that would be the place to go. So, I found a super-Walmart, and went to it at 7 AM. Only, what did I find out? That this location opened at 8 AM. SERIOUSLY? I haven't seen nor heard of a Walmart that closed on a regular basis, ie, not only before Black Friday, since I was approximately 10 years old. For almost all of my life, you could just go to a Walmart at any hour of day or night, and the only thing that might be closed would be the 1-hour photo department. And, not only did this Walmart CLOSE, but it didn't open at 6 AM or any other time that would enable people to stop in before work or something like that. Ridiculous.

Quick update.

So it's a matter of days until I move out to LA, and I've been really busy, and there are still messy piles of everything all over my room, and I'm still packing, which is why there haven't been any posts lately. If I'm lucky enough to get into an airport with free wi-fi, I might post on the trip over.

Otherwise, I will be in warm, sunny, Los Angeles the next time you hear from me!

So, Los Angeles is COLD?

As the title implies, I went to LA recently, and was quite surprised at the temperature. Everything I had heard indicated that it would be something like 105 F outside, but it was down to nearly 60 at night, which meant that the heat in my hotel room actually went on to keep it up to 72 all night long!

Getting to LA was not a pleasant experience - the flight was delayed nearly 2 hours because of bad weather, which caused at least half the passengers to realize we'd miss connections. While people were boarding the plane, the flight attendants were giving the people in business class free drinks, and I had to resist complaining that ALL of the (adult) passengers could use some free alcohol at the moment. As it was, I missed my connecting flight, and had to stay the night in Atlanta. I got a hotel online for cheaper than the discount vouchers the airline offered me would've made it, because by then it was 11 PM and I was tired and fed-up and needing a shower and just generally not in a mood to sleep in the airport.

Now, sleeping in the airport wouldn't have been that bad of an idea, since I wouldn't have had to go through security again. If you ever fly out of ATL or LAX, be warned that security takes an obscenely long time, in part because they have no "experienced traveler" or "family" lines - instead of getting in line behind people with flip-flops and no jackets and only one carry-on item, you're also stuck behind the people who are dragging carseats and strollers through to be gate-checked.

So, I got in around noon and took 2 buses and 3 trains to go apartment-hunting. I don't know what everyone's objections to LA's public transportation system are, because the metro was spacious and clean (although it doesn't go to very many places) and the buses were everywhere. OK, maybe the fact that if you don't live near a metro stop you have to take 2 buses just to get to those 3 trains, but that doesn't faze me.

Apartment-hunting was ridiculous. The first place I managed to go claimed to have a studio available for $650/mo, but when I actually got there the lady whined about "forced advertising" and could only offer me an efficiency (bachelor, ie, no kitchen/only a kitchenette) for about $800/mo. Another place had dead, recently exterminated roaches all over the place, and the manager said she was going to exterminate again to make sure there were no survivors and then clean them up, but it was still gross. All in all, I only saw 2 places that were priced as advertised and one of them was a little more expensive and far away from the metro stop for my taste, but when I walked into one unit in another building it was like it almost screamed at me "You're home!" So, naturally, I applied for that one.

Advising wasn't bad, and I finally got to see the campus where I was going to grad school. There wasn't an interview, and I couldn't make it out for a campus visit, but I applied and I was accepted, so I took them up on it, sight unseen. It's not a bad campus, a bit bigger than I'm used to but I think I won't mind the size in the absence of snow.

I made a couple fun discoveries: A friend of mine who works in the entertainment industry took me around Hollywood, and among other things showed me the Amoeba music store, which is absolutely AMAZING! I saw movies and music there that I've never seen in stores before. I was also taking a bus that went along Wilshire Blvd when I noticed a big polluted-looking pond thing with a statue of a dying mammoth in it. Until then, I hadn't made the connection between the La Brea tar pits and the various things named "La Brea" in that section of LA, but I had to get there and check it out. It turned out to be pretty cool, but if you walk in the grass and get water splashed on your legs, you might end up with tiny flecks of tar on your legs, which fortunately weren't too difficult to wash/rub/pull off.

Anyways, fortunately I managed to return from all of this successful at everything I wanted to do, and not really jet-lagged, and without having to deal with flight delays of more than 15 minutes. I think I love this city... only, seriously, 61 degrees is almost intolerably freezing as far as I'm concerned.

My weekend was full of fluffy adorableness!

So, this weekend I went to an American Idol concert, which Jocelyn covered pretty well over in her blog, so I'm going to refrain from writing an entire post about it. I'm just going to add that by the end of the night, we came to the conclusion that Casey James needs to record a cover of "Bad Things" by Jace Everett (better known as the song during the True Blood credits).

So, what else did I do this weekend? I worked, which was rather unexciting but that's a good thing for my job, I got a new phone (which may or may not get its own post later) and I hung out with loads of adorable animals - seriously. Labradoodles, kitties, baby horses, and bunnies. So, here's a photo of one of my favorites, Duke!


I also got to hang out with Jocelyn's special kitty Possum, and a bunch of other cats at a farm. I've never met such affectionate cats - I'm petting one of them and the other two are rubbing against me, purring. So, here's a kitty (whose name I didn't catch):

Last but not least, I'm friends with some Labradoodle breeders, and the other day they had a few of their former puppies over. Although they were all grown up, they still were essentially a pile of enthusiastic cuteness:

Sadly, I got no cute photos of all the bunnies, but that was more or less how my weekend went. Oh, and I turned in my 2 weeks notice at work - it's kind of surprising how fast everything is happening.

Well, here we go...

At the advice of my friend Jocelyn(who has her own blog here), I have taken up blogging, because apparently life in Los Angeles promises to be very exciting.

However, I haven't exactly moved to LA just quite yet. I'm still stuck in the Northeast until sometime around the end of August, and I'm going to make my first trip out to go apartment-hunting in a couple weeks. I'm nervous about that, especially given that my former college roommates and I had a particularly nasty experience with our landlord breaking more than a few laws. Fortunately, however, since it's summer the weather here has been comfortably (for me, at least) in the 90's the entire time.

I'm also stuck at home with my family, but I don't run into my dad much, and my brother and sister have been in and out all summer, although they usually have a friend or two with them when they're home. The one upshot to being home is that a family friend has rescued four horses, two of whom have the most adorable foals EVER!