Sorry. Sorry. So sorry. I know you must have been waiting around all night long for a good ol' Vida Local post yesterday. But while you were sitting on your ass staring at a computer screen, I'll have you know I was doing that same exact thing for work. My boss figured she would make up for the enjoyment of having the next few days off by having me work long-and-especially-crummy days on Monday and Tuesday. It was just two days of doing the most obvious thing one can do with a Mac, which is hate them. Now, I can use a Mac just fine, but this week the fire got lit under my ass to do all sorts of fancy formatting projects on one, and the whole time that I was scrambling around on that god forsaken contraption I was dreaming of the hour when I would be reunited with my lovable, intuitive, albeit-kind-of-heavy PC (it's okay, I like 'em with a little meat on their bones).
But that's done. Until next week. For now, I am happily lagoon-side at my friend's pad in Carlsbad, eagerly anticipating tomorrow's Thanksgiving festivities. In recent years, Thanksgiving has gone from my least favorite holiday to among my favorites. It all clicked once I realized that Thanksgiving is really just a day set aside for eating shameful amounts of food and feeling you earned some American badge of honor for doing it.
"But it's also a day to remember all that we're grateful for and how much we love--"
No. Shut up. It's about food.
And also the past few years I've fallen into the tradition of Friendsgiving, the noble practice of having Thanksgiving with actual friends instead of a few family members and some awkward assortment of neighbors and family friends you don't really know or have an interest in knowing.
Beyond that, in post-grad life Thanksgiving is my Free Pass for a day or two off to go home, rest, and hang out with friends and family. "But it's Thanksgiving!" is a valid excuse to take time off in the way I wish "But it's Halloween!" or "But it's Thursday!" were. Thanksgiving is like the black poker chip of cultural value, and once a year you get to cash that bad boy in.
Since by this point I've invariably convinced you that I enjoy Thanksgiving for purely selfish, lazy, and generally self-indulgent reasons, I'll provide here a list of some shit I'm grateful for. These are things I don't need to eat a dinner roll to be reminded of, but-- ooh wait, are those Pillsbury crescents? You really went all out this year, Margie.
Some Shit I'm Grateful For
Another item on the blog agenda (blogenda) (not to be confused with blogina, which is something entirely different) is a report on the latest in my LA excursions, which was hiking around Griffith Park.
Griffith Park is the massive stretch of hills, trails, parks, and abandoned zoo cages where most Angelenos go for their "outdoorsy" fix. I've been to Griffith Park before, but it was in the picnic area which was essentially a large field with a few little trails zig-zagging away from it. This past week, however, Macy and I went exploring in the trails. These puppies go on for DAYS. You follow a trail along a pretty little human-made creek, duck under a tiny bridge for cars, putt along for a few minutes and BOOM! You are suddenly in the Hollywood Hills, where you can gawk at any number of things. Or at the very least, these four:
From atop the hills in Griffith Park, I got a real-time screenshot (I think they used to call those "views") of exactly what there is to love about LA: namely, that there is everything here. It's this obtuse blob of land in which every inch is occupied by something and no two square inches contain the same something. Even if you can't actually enjoy that, you have to at least admire it. From where I live, it could take me 30 minutes to get to the beach or the snow depending which direction I head. Any given radial point surrounding my home base will take me somewhere startlingly distinct from all the others. I don't know about you but I think that shit's pretty magical.
AND in the latest attempt to combat my proclivity towards lethargy/overall fatness, Macy and I are starting a new thing where we attempt once-or-twice-a-week pre-work morning hikes in Griffith Park, which means I'll get to enjoy these lovely panoramic vistas of LA's diversity until it is no longer special or remarkable to me. Hooray!
I originally typed 'huzzah' but I've come to realize that people who shout 'huzzah' are obnoxious, even if they are nice people. I'm going with 'hooray' because I'd rather sound like Elmo than Tobias Funke.
But that's done. Until next week. For now, I am happily lagoon-side at my friend's pad in Carlsbad, eagerly anticipating tomorrow's Thanksgiving festivities. In recent years, Thanksgiving has gone from my least favorite holiday to among my favorites. It all clicked once I realized that Thanksgiving is really just a day set aside for eating shameful amounts of food and feeling you earned some American badge of honor for doing it.
"But it's also a day to remember all that we're grateful for and how much we love--"
No. Shut up. It's about food.
And also the past few years I've fallen into the tradition of Friendsgiving, the noble practice of having Thanksgiving with actual friends instead of a few family members and some awkward assortment of neighbors and family friends you don't really know or have an interest in knowing.
 |
| Seriously, who invited the assholes with the collars? |
Since by this point I've invariably convinced you that I enjoy Thanksgiving for purely selfish, lazy, and generally self-indulgent reasons, I'll provide here a list of some shit I'm grateful for. These are things I don't need to eat a dinner roll to be reminded of, but-- ooh wait, are those Pillsbury crescents? You really went all out this year, Margie.
Some Shit I'm Grateful For
- My pet fish Klaus
- Cookie Butter
- My new job
- My old friends
- My shower, which is miraculously never too hot or too cold
- Cheap rent
- My car, even though I inflict clubbing-baby-seals-caliber cruelties upon it
- My family members' patience with me despite my inability to write prompt e-mail responses
- My landlady (seriously, Barb is the shit)
- The parts of Los Angeles that don't suck (that is, have free parking)
- Dan Harmon, Loren Bouchard, Tina Fey, in no particular order
- Yelp
- My boyfriends (both the real AND the imaginary one... they still don't know about each other yet)
- Celtx, the only script-formatting program sympathetic to its broke-ass user base
- Netflix
- My best friend for letting me use her Netflix
- People who make the world funny
- People who in any small way try not to be terrible
- People who make me food
- People who don't hashtag Facebook posts
- And Thesaurus.com
Another item on the blog agenda (blogenda) (not to be confused with blogina, which is something entirely different) is a report on the latest in my LA excursions, which was hiking around Griffith Park.
Griffith Park is the massive stretch of hills, trails, parks, and abandoned zoo cages where most Angelenos go for their "outdoorsy" fix. I've been to Griffith Park before, but it was in the picnic area which was essentially a large field with a few little trails zig-zagging away from it. This past week, however, Macy and I went exploring in the trails. These puppies go on for DAYS. You follow a trail along a pretty little human-made creek, duck under a tiny bridge for cars, putt along for a few minutes and BOOM! You are suddenly in the Hollywood Hills, where you can gawk at any number of things. Or at the very least, these four:
- The snow-topped mountains, to your left
- The ocean, to your right
- The city, in between
- The custom mansions where people unfathomably richer than you house their midget-servants
 |
| Tuna, pickles, honey mustard... but what exactly is the vision here? |
AND in the latest attempt to combat my proclivity towards lethargy/overall fatness, Macy and I are starting a new thing where we attempt once-or-twice-a-week pre-work morning hikes in Griffith Park, which means I'll get to enjoy these lovely panoramic vistas of LA's diversity until it is no longer special or remarkable to me. Hooray!
I originally typed 'huzzah' but I've come to realize that people who shout 'huzzah' are obnoxious, even if they are nice people. I'm going with 'hooray' because I'd rather sound like Elmo than Tobias Funke.
 |
| And Elmo is, of course, in no way obnoxious. |
No comments:
Post a Comment