My Favorite Spots #1: Culver City Stairs

On January 1st, 2016, while on a "New Year, New Me" kick, I ran up the Culver City Stairs in an attempt to capture the sunset. I missed it by like ten minutes and also had the pleasure of coming to terms with how grossly out of shape I am.

The Culver City Stairs is pretty much the best hike in LA if you're calculating the ratio between the amount of effort and the quality of the view, because it probably takes 10 minutes to get to the top and it's pretty much in the top 5 views in LA.

This is the first picture I took in 2016, when I made it to the top just minutes after sunset. You can see the ocean, the Palisades on the far right, and west LA in the center.

While the record for climbing the 282 steps is 2 minutes and 9 seconds (set by Leony Mendez in 2015), I've done it three times now and I'd say 10 to 15 minutes is fine.

When I went on January 1st, it was my second time. I wore jeans, a sweater, and didn't bring a water bottle. I was naïve. I came back on a cloudy January 10th in the early afternoon to get some more pictures specifically for this blog post.

Okay so I went a little overboard with the "Saturation" feature on Photoshop, but I really wanted to make these look like a warm, sunny day. The Culver City Stairs are actually a nickname for the Baldwin Hill Scenic Overlook, located on the southeast side of Culver City. The stair size and spacing are incredibly irregular, with the largest step being an aggravating 20 inches and the smallest being 3.5 inches.

Here is the view from one of the landings, which are perfect for taking breaks. Everyone parks on Jefferson Blvd when they come here, but be wary if you're trying to find a spot in the 20 minutes leading up to sunset.

The top is a large and flat lookout area, with views to the east, north, and west. This is the north view, where you can see Century City on the far left, and Hollywood on the far right.

I tried to Photoshop downtown LA back into view because it was so overcast that day, but it didn't really work.

What you really want to do is come at sunset, so you get the daytime, sunset, and nighttime views. It's really awesome watching LA light up after it gets dark.

I love this view of Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City.

Here you can see me, a certifiable fool, wearing jeans and a sweater to a hike. I wasn't camera ready at all, since I had been panting like crazy five minutes earlier. But hey, someone offered to take my picture.

Here is a flock of millenials enjoying the natural beauty of an LA sunset on the first day of the new year.

My one word of advice about doing the Culver City Stairs at sunset is not to wait around too long after the sun has gone down to return home, otherwise you'll need a flashlight to safely descend the steps.

But I'm very lucky to live in this neighborhood, since I can be sitting in my apartment one minute, and a 10 minute drive and a 10 minute hike later, I'm looking out over all of LA. 

So, to Runyon Canyon:

2016 New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions are the best. When do we ever get the chance to make dramatic statements about the course of our lives? I revel in the corniness of over-the-top proclamations about the future.

Say Yes More

2015 got a lot of no from me. In January I moved across the country, and once I got settled it seemed to be that I would say no to anything that involved getting on a freeway… for good reason! But screw comfort zones, I’m tired of feeling like this was my last years’ resolution.

Leave LA a Lot

I think there’s a tendency to feel like LA is this giant, soul-sucking hellscape that drags on for hundreds of miles with no boundaries and you’re just stuck here sitting in traffic for the rest of your miserable existence and… where was I going with this? Oh yeah. I want to travel more. Writers need new experiences, and nothing promotes personal growth more than travel. There are a billion places left to for me to see! I’ve never been to Idaho!

Get A Mentor

No one makes it in LA without a mentor guiding them. As the capitalists say, it’s the number one way to get ahead in your career. My goal by the end of the year is to find someone who is doing what I want to be doing and to learn from them. We all know what happens to those who aren't properly mentored.

Learn A Language

I’m giving myself until midnight to decide… but by the end of the day I want to have taken the first lesson of Duolingo for a new language. Italian is calling to me like an ancient mother tongue, but Spanish literally comes up every single day in my life. Plus it's always been a secret dream of mine to learn Hawaiian.

Make a New Best Friend

This is a no-brainer. I feel like I include this on every New Year’s Resolution list I make, because making new friends is good for you! But what I found in moving to the West is that you need friends who are physically with you to make it in this cruel world. I want a support system to really make LA feel like a home and not “the loneliest and most brutal of American cities” (Jack Kerouac). And to all my friends back East… it’s a tier.

Running out of ideas… okay what did we learn from the events of 2015…

Pursue Your Passions

If One Direction can take a break to chase their individual dreams, so can I. And I have hobbies! I can do this. Obviously this involves writing more, and I like photography! And maybe I'll even try to get back into the YouTube stuff. I'm hip...

Volunteer

I tried reading lists of major world events from 2015 and I highly discourage it… that is some depressing stuff. I need to be grateful for what I do have, and give back to those who don’t. And maybe if I don’t have the money, at least I have the time and the energy to help out in some way.

Shut your whole face Zayn we haven't forgiven you yet.

Cook

I am not the worst chef in the world! I love the adult feeling you get when you’re in your apartment in your underwear, holding a glass of Chardonnay while stirring something in a pan… and Partition is playing…

Yoga

Let’s face it, I ain’t going to a gym. That is not new year, new me. But I do like yoga a lot and I think I need it for all the driving I’ve been doing for Lyft. I feel like the Tin Man before they invite him to join their squad.

Find My Fashion

2014 was the year of plaid for me, and 2015 was the year of solid colored dress shirts. My closet went from a young Ennis Del Mar’s dream (minus the denim) to basically the entire X-Small Extra Tight Fitted stock at an Express store.

Read

I know I know I’m hitting all the clichés, but I do need an excuse to read more! And not just every A-list celebrity’s memoir like I did last year… real books about real things! Maybe a classic or two.

That's all. Just some nice things to try to keep plugging along on this journey. Hope everyone enjoyed this post and came up with some of their own!

How to Lose a Job in 10 Days

Now I know the internet is more for putting out a better-than-life version of yourself in the hopes of making everyone else jealous. But I'm saving that for Instagram today.

Hopefully this will be some kind of cathartic experience for me.

Now I do have some disclaimers:
1. I did not lose my job on purpose just to write this article. That would be poppycock.
2. I have never seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. But I am going to tell this story using Kate Hudson gifs.

So starting with Day 1, when I got my first ever job offer as a marketing coordinator at a direct marketing company. This was a few days before Halloween, my bank account was almost empty, and I had interviewed for dozens of jobs since my dogwalking work came to a near halt in August. This was me:

Day 2 was my orientation. I learned what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life! Just kidding, but the work was going to be rigorous and I had to constantly ask myself, "Is this what I really want?" before checking my bank account again.

I'm going to break my own rule for just a second because this line from Broad City was ringing in my head the second I took the job.

I even took myself on a shopping spree to Express because I was SO about that business professional attire. Before my first paycheck! Naïve adult mistake #1.

Days 3-5 consisted of me learning the ropes, shadowing my superiors. Basically, the company acted as third party marketing for big time clients who wanted to promote some of their products. I would be in actual retail stores telling customers about products or special programs they may not know about. That completed my first week, and I was ready to hit the pavement and start getting that commish!

I had so much going through my mind at this time. I had guilt from feeling like I was betraying the reason I came to LA, which was to become a writer. Frustration, that after 9 months in LA I had barely gotten in a few weeks of full time work. And finally desperation, that I wanted to make this work because the earning opportunities were very enticing.

"People" in this case is, of course, capitalism. But my manager did help me work through a lot of that, and I came to understand that I had to silence those doubts in order to take control of my own future.

So Day 6, my first day in the field. I'm excited. Also sick to my stomach nervous. Talking to strangers? That's my worst skill! But I knew that if I was ever going to get over those fears, this was a fast way to do it.

But of course, unsuspecting customers in retail stores have a way of reminding you just how cruel the world can be.

That's me. The whole first day. Every time someone said something rude to me, I would basically break. "Don't solicit me," "Go away," "Not interested," were some of the things I heard within 1 second of conversation. I never realized so many people were dropped on their heads as babies!

Day 7 was much of the same, and I wasn't getting the results my superiors wanted. But I still had my eyes on the prize.

For those who aren't familiar with Nine, this translates to:
1. Dark handsome guys
2. Skinny little ties
3. Shades in the middle of the night

Also just generally the fantasy of having a musical number where I'm surrounded by Italian guys and get to do a badass hair flip.

It all seemed within reach if I just sucked it up and learned to put on a warm smile. My manager kept referencing my background in acting, saying I already have the tools to be good at this. But each day was so exhausting. I would leave for work around 10AM and get home around 9PM. This could be my life for who knows how long!

Days 8 and 9 were kind of tense, as my bosses sort of implied that my results needed to improve... or else. I came in Day 10 and was greeted with essentially an ultimatum. They were very honest, and even quite friendly about it. If my performance didn't meet the basic requirements of an employee at the company, I wasn't worth keeping around. I got it. But boy was I scared of being out of the street again.

It was a Friday, my fifth day of continuous work (something I haven't done since mid-summer). I gave it my all. But I did come up short. It was the end of the line for my corporate career.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I learned a lot, I even improved on some of the skills I was looking to get better at. Within five days I was already getting less anxious at the thought of talking to people. A little.

But I am back to square one. Job websites, the witch is back! Hopefully things are different this time. I mean I do have those kick-ass dress clothes for interviews.

In the words of Jim O'Connor from The Glass Menagerie, "I am disappointed but I am not discouraged." I'm sad about how things turned out, but I'm optimistic about where things can go from here.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more LA adventures.

Catalina and Wine Mixed Together

Flashback Friday! Let me take you back to the end of August, when I visited the nearby island of Catalina, drank lots of wine, and also zip-lined my way across the hills of the resort island with mom.

We arrived after an hour long ferry ride (and two glasses of champagne), and decided it was time for lunch (and wine). We ate outside, facing the water, and realized we still had two hours to kill before our zip-line reservations!

I had never been to Catalina, mainly because the ferry ride is too expensive, but I was surprised to discover how the island balances being a nature reserve as well as a resort town. Santa Catalina Island is 75 square miles and is the largest of the Channel Islands, or so says Wikipedia. Once entirely owned by gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr. from 1919 onward, it was eventually donated to the Catalina Island Conservency in 1975, and now 90% of the island is protected from being developed. The remaining portion of the island is the two towns, Avalon in the south, and Two Harbors in the north.

Anyway, time for zip-lining! This is a view of Avalon from the bus just as we arrived at the first post. The Catalina Zip Line Eco Tour is made up of five zip lines and offers some great views of the island along the way.

In this wonderful panorama you can see the starting point on the far right, with the first and longest zip-line going all the way to that small wooden structure in the center of the picture.

Here I am casually posing in all my gear. The zip-line tour was a great break from all of the hours I had recently clocked in promoting the dog walking company I work for, but also gave me a nice retreat from LA in general. It's just nice not to worry about planning my day around rush hour!

After our zip-line tour, we headed to the nearest bar for happy hour, and then to a gift shop for some souvies. I talked my mom into buying me a cheese plate for my apartment that said Catalina on it, it's the best. I fell asleep on the ferry ride home, because drinking all that wine was exhausting. Here's Adam Scott ending my post with a reference I don't understand.

Welcome to Hollywood

On February 2nd, 2015, I arrived in Los Angeles after a five day cross-country drive. It has been an insane journey and I finally need to do what every good struggling writer does and blog about it.

Thank. God. Gifs. Work. On. This. Website.

Anyway! Quick summary of the past six months. After a few weeks of crashing on couches and finding the cheapest Airbnbs in the entire city, I moved into an apartment the first week of March. In West Hollywood! I had always dreamed of living there. It was a two bedroom, two bathroom with a great view and I was just ecstatic to be settled.

Check out that sunset!

A few days later I joined the dogwalking app, Zingy. It's basically Uber for dogwalking. Getting paid to spend time with dogs? That was the second dream, after living in West Hollywood. It seemed everything was going my way.

And in May I graduated from Johns Hopkins!

My third dream was to have my own place by my 22nd birthday on July 12th. The minute I made enough money with Zingy to afford my own place, I began ANOTHER housing search in LA. Housing searches in LA, if you don't know, are an emotionally exhausting and downright miserable quest. They involve obsessively checking Craigslist, looking out for scammers, and crying because you know someone in your building is paying half what you are just because they moved there ten years ago. But by the end of June I had signed a lease for a one bedroom apartment in Palms. Mission 3 got my very own place!

Maybe... a month after I moved into my dream apartment (minus a dishwasher and a pool), 95% of my Zingy work stopped. I had previously been working 40-50 hours a week doing promotion for them at farmers markets, office complexes, and malls, when suddenly they decided that that marketing technique wasn't working for them.

I'm technically back to square one with the job search, but this time I have a kickass apartment, six months marketing and dogwalking experience, and student loan payments! The possibilities are endless!

So if you enjoyed my haphazard summary of my first six months in LA, you will surely enjoy my random posts where I describe various adventures from my LA life, and anything else I might be inspired to write about!